A Victim Must Be Found Read Free Page B

birds at the corner of St. Andrew and James, like he always was every Saturday when he was sober. The next was a group of houses in Toronto. They were heavily outlined and simplified so that what you saw was more pattern than a lot of details. The name in the lower right read “L. Harris.” It didn’t mean anything to me, but it lit up Wally’s face. “L. Harris” was, I gathered, somebody every civilized person should know about. The other drawing was a sketch of a Venetian street scene judging from the gondola and the flooded streets. The signature down at the bottom read “Perdix.” This didn’t excite Wally, so I guessed that he wasn’t a household word in as many households as “L. Harris.”
    And that was it: three pencil drawings in a kid’s portfolio. The Van Gogh sunflowers by the bathroom door were looking better and better every minute. As Pambos brought his little brass Turkish coffee-maker to a boil three times, no doubt to shake off the evil eye, he explained that Harris was a member of the Group of Seven, not one of whom I’d ever run into before, and Perdix was a fellow at Cranmer College, who was, according to Pambos, gong somewhere. The sketch of Joe Higgins was by a local artist who may or may not have heard of the other two. Anyway, it wasn’t my idea of a picture collection. After we sipped the thick, sweet coffee, Pambos had got going on his hobby-horse about supporting Canadian arts, which made me feel like it was twelve-thirty instead of only a quarter after nine. Wally and I got out as soon as we could after that. I was glad Pambos had a hobby, I wished I had one.
    So now Pambos was comfortable, not a millionaire, but with a tidy piece of Grantham history in the form of an interest in the Stephenson House tucked into his pocket. I guess he could afford to part with whatever it took to locate the missing list.
    “Pambos,” I asked, “tell me more about this list. A list that has the kind of value you’re putting on it isn’t your average laundry list. What kind of list are we talking about? Why is it so valuable? Tell me why somebody’d want to take it from you.”
    “I’ll get to that, Benny. Give me a chance to organize my thoughts, eh?” I didn’t know he was feeling pressured. I was only trying to help, after all. Pambos took a deep breath and appeared to notice his rolled sleeves for the first time. As he spoke, he unrolled them and refastened his cuffs. “You see, Benny, I can be sure it wasn’t anybody working for me that took it. Sten and Andy have been with me for five years. If they wanted to steal from me, which they do, they would take directly from the bar receipts or from the restaurant cash. The list I’m talking about wouldn’t mean anything to them.”
    “So, who does that leave?”
    “If you ask me, somebody on the list swiped it.”
    “Pambos, have you taken up blackmailing or some other kind of extortion?”
    “Me? Hell, Benny, this is Pambos Kiriakis you’re talking to! I never pinched so much as an apple off a fruit stand in my entire life! I’m clean, Benny, and so is this list.”
    “Pambos, you’re driving me insane!” He looked at me like the shoe was on the other foot.
    “What’ve I done? I’m bringing you some business. I’ve helped you unpack. What more can I do?”
    “You can give me a lead that isn’t missing for a start. From what you say, all we have to do to find our suspect is to find the damned list. What kind of trick is that?”
    Pambos nodded. But he didn’t look too worried. I was not getting a handle on this investigation. I was asking the wrong questions. Here I was at the very beginning of what might become a case, and already I was as mixed up as if it had been dragging in and out of courtrooms for three years. I knew that everything depended on getting a grip on the nature of Kitiakis’s list, in order to find out why it was so valuable, but Pambos was not prepared to tell me until he was good and ready. I felt