Crang Plays the Ace by Jack Batten Page A

dollars.
    I arrived fifteen minutes early. The hostess perked up when I dropped Alice Brackley’s name and showed me to a table in a private corner beside the windows that overlook Yorkville Avenue and a posh antiques store. The hostess had auburn hair and carried herself like a runway model. I ordered one of the five-dollar vodka martinis. It came cold and very dry. The hostess put it down on a square paper coaster done in white and gold. She brought a dish of mixed nuts. I picked out the almonds.
    Alice Brackley came fifteen minutes late. She was wearing an avocado-green jacket and skirt and a lot of gold. She had a gold chain made of thick links around her neck, gold earrings shaped like tiny seashells, a clunky gold bracelet on her right wrist, and a small gold Rolex on her left wrist. She had no rings on her fingers, gold or otherwise. She knew where to draw the line.
    The hostess pulled out Alice Brackley’s chair and Ms. Brackley thanked her. She called the hostess Miriam. Miriam went away without inquiring after Ms. Brackley’s preference in beverage.
    â€œYou come here often?” I said. It was my customary snappy opener with strange women in bars.
    â€œI live near by, Mr. Crang,” Ms. Brackley said. Her voice had the tremor.
    Miriam returned with a drink that looked like a Rob Roy. It came with a cherry. Miriam replaced the dish of mixed nuts with a fresh supply. Terrific, more almonds.
    Alice Brackley was about forty. She had long dark hair and a face that received plenty of pampering. Her lips were thin, and there were the beginnings of fine lines on her cheeks. I felt a faint breeze of tension coming from her side of the table.
    â€œWhat is this about, Mr. Crang?” she asked.
    â€œDon’t you want to wait for the greetings and preliminary remarks from the chair?”
    â€œWhat I’d prefer is that you not be oblique.”
    â€œRight to the point,” I said. “I have reason to deduce that things at Ace Disposal are not entirely aboveboard.”
    Alice Brackley opened her handbag. It was white leather. She took out a package of Vantages and tapped a cigarette from the package. I picked up the book of Four Seasons matches from the ashtray and suavely snapped one into flame on my first try, but I wasn’t fast enough. Alice Brackley had already lit the cigarette from her lighter. It was a Hermès and gold.
    â€œNonsense,” she said.
    â€œGranted,” I said, “but somebody’s probably making a dishonest buck from the nonsense.”
    â€œAre you being deliberately offensive, Mr. Crang?” Alice Brackley said. She blew cigarette smoke through her nostrils and did her best to look stern. “If that’s the case, you’re succeeding admirably. I’m developing a severe antagonism to you.”
    â€œI’m not the enemy, Ms. Brackley.”
    â€œI wasn’t aware there was a war.”
    â€œCould be I’m expressing myself badly.”
    â€œClearly you are.”
    I fingered around in the dish of nuts until I came up with an almond.
    â€œLet me build my case,” I said. “Sol Nash and his chum in the straw hat are not what I’d call businessmen with MBAs from the University of Western Ontario.”
    â€œTheir duties hardly require that sort of background,” Ms. Brackley said. “Sol and Tony are very effective at their assignments.”
    â€œNo doubt,” I said, “as long as we’re agreed that the assignments include shaking down the weigh-masters at the Metro dumps.”
    â€œWe’re agreed on no such thing,” Ms. Brackley said. Her eyes had narrowed. I couldn’t tell whether it was the cigarette smoke or part of the stern look.
    I said, “Mighty peculiar how that little old pink Cadillac makes its rounds to the dumps.”
    Ms. Brackley stubbed out her Vantage. It was only half smoked. Miriam the hostess arrived to replace the ashtray.
    â€œAnd what about your