Blood Count. Jack Batten
“That’s your complete plan?”
“Unless you’ve got a better one.”
I propped my hands behind my head. “Another thing you should remember, toots, I didn’t choose to get in on these other murders you’re talking about. They were more or less thrust on me, and I had to solve them in order to get out from under. So to speak.”
“Solve them?”
“Come on, eventually I did, after maybe a misstep or two along the way,” I said. “Anyway, my point is you’re suggesting I get actively involved before there’s a corpse.”
“My point is there won’t be a corpse if you get actively involved.”
“Let me just ponder that.”
“While you’re pondering,” Annie said, “keep this in mind. It’s Alex we’re protecting, Alex our friend and your tenant and someone who is in a state of something like severe dislocation.”
“Sure, but maybe when he’s located again, gets over his grief and everything, he’ll drop this notion of revenge and the rest of it.”
Annie said nothing for a minute. The sheets rustled again. She had drawn her legs up. I thought she was resting her chin on her knees, but the bedroom was too dark to tell.
“That’s a chance we shouldn’t take,” Annie said finally. “Alex might not come to his senses in time.”
“He’s a very sensible person. Got a good job in Queen’s Park, never late with the rent, no loud parties unless we’re invited.…”
“Crang,” Annie said, “quit stalling.”
“Okay, I agree, we have to do something.”
“That’s my guy.” Annie slid under the covers and sneaked her arm around my waist. “Now,” she said, “we have to find out first where Alex is going to start looking for this man he thinks gave Ian the disease.”
“My reading is Alex isn’t about to cut us in on that piece of information.”
“That’s where you could be wrong,” Annie said. As she spoke, she was stroking my stomach in an absentminded way, probably too caught up in the conversation to realize she was stroking.
“Why could I be wrong about that?” I asked.
“Because Alex could use your expertise. You know how to hunt down people and that sort of quasi-criminal stuff. He’ll be glad of your advice.”
“Alex seemed pretty steely and independent tonight.”
“That might’ve just been bravado,” Annie said. She was stroking my stomach counter-clockwise. “When he gets down to the real business of trying to locate the man he says he’s going to kill, that’s the time he’ll need some trained help.”
“And that’s when I make my move?” I said. “Offer Alex the benefit of my wisdom?”
“Exactly,” Annie said.
The rotations with her hand dropped lower on my stomach.
“Hey,” Annie said, “what’s this we have down here?”
“Tumescence.”
“If we’re going to make love,” Annie said, “there’re two matters to take care of first.”
“Yeah?”
“Number one, finish talking about the plan to keep Alex out of trouble.”
“We’re finished,” I said. “The order of action is, I offer my services to Alex, and in the process, I winkle some hints out of him about where he’s going to search for the alleged guilty party, the guy who infected Ian with AIDS, and I get to this party first and tell him to move out of town pronto.”
“Why are you speaking so quickly?”
“Shows you what a fast study I am.”
“Well, yes, that’s the plan I have in mind,” Annie said. “But there has to be more detail.”
“Let me talk to Alex, and later on we’ll regroup for the detail.”
Annie hesitated. “I guess so,” she said.
“What’s the other matter we have to take care of before we make love?”
“On this one, buster, you’re on your own.”
“I am?”
“Get into the bathroom and gargle some mouthwash.”
Chapter Three
Next morning, Saturday, after Annie left, I volunteered to help Alex walk the dog.
“That’s sweet of you, Crang,” Alex said.
The dog is an Irish Setter and getting long in the tooth. Alex and Ian had named him Genet. He wags his tail a lot and barks only with extreme provocation.
“Through the park and down to Queen,” Alex said. “It’s the usual route.”
“Don’t change on my account.”
“In honour of the occasion, you can be point man.”
Alex handed me Genet’s leash. He carried a pooper scooper and a small brown paper bag. The three of us crossed Beverley Street and walked into the park. It had plenty of trees in orderly rows and a scattering of heavy green picnic tables.
“How’s the pooch bearing up under Ian’s absence?” I asked.
“He whines at eating time. Only natural, I guess. Ian was the one who opened his little tins and things. And he goes around looking rather puzzled.”
“I took that for his permanent expression.”
“Now that you mention it.…”
Genet was a leisurely walker. No yanking on the leash, no sudden leaps and bounds. He halted now and then to sniff trees and discarded Big Mac boxes, and he squatted to do some business on the grass. Alex went to work with the pooper scooper and the brown paper bag.
“I loathe this part,” he said.
“Because Ian handled the walking detail.”
Alex held the pooper scooper and brown bag at arm’s length. “Speaking of which,” he said, “this is the first time I remember you on one of these doggy excursions.”
“How come I hear suspicion in your voice?”
“Annie put you up to it, didn’t she?”
“Up to what?” Playing dumb was all the technique I could muster.
“To talking me out of my intentions.”
“Sort of.”
Near one of the picnic tables, an elderly Asian gent and a middle-aged white lady wearing what might have been jammies were going through a sequence of slowmo tai chi moves. Step up, deflect, parry.
“I don’t want you involved,” Alex said. “Not just you. I don’t want anyone involved apart from myself.”
“Annie thinks I have talent in the field.”
“No doubt you do. But I’m doing splendidly for a novice.”
“You don’t have the guy’s name.”
Alex stopped and looked at me. “Ah, but I know the place.”
“So you were saying last night.”
“And I’ve narrowed the field.”
“Of what? Suspects?”
Alex nodded.
“Since last night you’ve