Howard Engel - A City Called July (A Benny Cooperman Mystery)

PENGUIN CANADA

A CITY CALLED JULY

HOWARD ENGEL is the creator of the enduring and beloved detective Benny Cooperman, who, through his appearance in twelve best-selling novels, has become an internationally recognized fictional sleuth. Two of Engels novels have been adapted for TV movies, and his books have been translated into several languages. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the 2005 Writers Trust of Canada Matt Cohen Award, the 1990 Harbourfront Festival Prize for Canadian Literature and an Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction. Howard Engel lives in Toronto.

Also in the Benny Cooperman series

The Suicide Murders

Murder on Location

Murder Sees the Light

The Ransom Game

A Victim Must Be Found

Dead and Buried

There Was An Old Woman

Getting Away with Murder

The Cooperman Variations

Memory Book

East of Suez

Also by Howard Engel

Murder in Montparnasse

Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell

HOWARD ENGEL

A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY

PENGUIN CANADA

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Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1986, 1987

Published in this edition, 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Howard Engel, 1986

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-316749-5

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For Janet again and always

Twas in the month of Liverpool

In a city called July,

The snow was raining heavily,

The streets were very dry.

The flowers were sweetly singing,

The birds were in full bloom,

As I went down the cellar

To sweep an upstairs room,

English skipping rhyme

A City Called July

ONE

I sat in my office cleaning out the fuzzy rubble that collects at the bottom of the jam jar I keep pens and pencils in. Also in the litter I found an old watch strap, paper-clips, slightly used Stimudents, clip-on sunglasses and a book of paper matches from Hatchs Surf Lounge in Niagara Falls, New York, three-quarters used. The ashtrays on my desk were empty except for the one with my current Players nodding off in it. Id cleaned them all the afternoon before to keep me from falling asleep. It was one of those summer mornings when the telephone didnt ring and I was edgy because it kept looking like it was going to. Id written a couple of cheques and paid the back rent on the office and my room at the City House. I should have had that warm feeling that comes with my monthly attempt at putting my life in order, but I felt that if I didnt have the pens, pencils and other junk to occupy my mind completely, Id break out in a sweat.

Outside the window, the traffic along St. Andrew Street moved inexorably eastward. Working on the second floor overlooking the one-way main street of this town sometimes gives me the feeling that there is a secret evacuation going on and Ill be the last to hear about it. I tried to settle my mind with the fact that both Church and King went one way in the opposite direction. There must be some law of physics we covered in high school that accounted for that, some Newtonian principle making traffic east balance traffic west. I played with that notion for a few minutes while blowing lint and fuzz off otherwise perfectly good paper-clips.

There was a rap at my door, and before I could answer it or even shout Come in! two heads poked through the doorway. I recognized both of them.

Rabbi Meltzer! Mr. Tepperman! Come in! Come in! I tried to turn the surprise I felt into a friendly greeting, but I dont think I succeeded in projecting it across the room to the door. I glanced for a moment to the trio of bald mannequins in the corner, nude except for a wrapper of unbleached factory cotton. I saw knees and shoulders but nothing to scandalize my visitors. Id managed to get rid of most of the other left-overs from my fathers ladies ready-to-wear business, except for my three bedraggled Graces. The rabbi and Mr. Tepperman, the president of Bnai Shalom Congregation, were both blinking in the bright light of the office after the steep climb up the unlighted stairs from the street They took their hats off and stood with their backs to the girls.

Good morning, Mr. Cooperman. How are you? said Mr. Tepperman. Good, I thought, lets get over the secular things first. At the back of my mind was the plot in the cemetery I was sure they were after me to buy. I had no reason for thinking this, but a visit from the rabbi and the president wasnt a daily occurrence. I felt my immortal soul was in hazard. They werent selling raffle tickets on a car for the Haddassah Bazaar. Of that much I was sure.

Im fine, Mr. Tepperman. Come in. Have a chair. Here, Rabbi, why dont you take this chair?

Thank you, Mr. Cooperman, said Rabbi Meltzer, tucking his lightweight raincoat under him as he settled into the aged foam rubber of a tubular chair that used to stand near the door of my fathers store. It gave my place an art deco look. All I needed were marcelled blonde wigs for the mannequins. The rabbi watched Tepperman settle into the other chair. It matched my oak veneer desk. We, ah, we are not disturbing you? continued the rabbi, the thought nearly lifting him out of his seat again.