From the Chrysalis (46 page)

“It’s Dace,” Liza confessed. “I’m so afraid for him.”

Sitting back down on her messy bed, Janice lit a Rothmans and examined her penny loafers. They were a little retro, but she liked classic clothes. ”Liza,” she said, between staccato puffs, “I hate to say this, but maybe he belongs in jail. Two men died, and somebody has to pay.”

“Those men … you know what they were.”

“You’re thinking just like him and the rest of the men on trial. Somebody killed …”

“Please don’t believe what you read in the newspaper. About Dace, I mean.”

“But if he gets out again, he’ll still be on probation, won’t he? And what will you do? You’ll run off with him, won’t you? Across the border, straight into the waiting arms of the police. How are you going to finish school in an American jail? My God, Liza, you could end up dead! What if there’s some kind of shootout?” Janice stood up and started pacing around the little room.
 

“Oh, for crying out loud. Sit down. Dace doesn’t even have a gun. And dammit, of course we’ll leave. That’s what we should have done last time. It’s our only chance.”

“Just listen to yourself! Okay. Supposing you get across the border. Where will you go? What’ll you do? Oh, c’mon, you can tell me. I’ve seen you studying that book:
How to Be Anybody: Change Your Identity and Live the Good Life!
” She shook her head, incredulous. “I can’t believe the books they have in the public library.
”

A brief smile crossed Liza’s face. “Me either. I was thinking about Mexico. The monarchs …”

“Monarchs? What’s Mexico got to do with monarchs? No, don’t tell me. I haven’t got time for a botany lesson. So it’s Mexico then. Love in the Mayan ruins. Very romantic. Hey, maybe you could just hop a plane to Brazil and live in the jungle. I’ve heard the Cayman Islands are nice, too. No taxes. Or is that the Bahamas?” She inhaled her cigarette deeply and blew the smoke straight out in front of her, long and slow. “But how would you support yourselves? Have you thought about that?”

“Well, not with crime, if that’s what you’re thinking. As long as he stays away from the Wolfhounds, he’ll be all right.”

“God, Liza, I still can’t believe he was with them. He doesn’t look like a biker. He just doesn’t. Not in the
Spectator
, not in that suit.”

“A lot of them don’t. They’re just regular guys.”

“Hmm. That’s not what you said when I came back to rez in the fall. Anyway, if you leave Canada, you won’t have any papers, no health insurance, nothing!”

“We’ll go to California then. And do whatever the great underbelly of the States does, all those illegal immigrants. We can work under the table, in a store or a restaurant. I’ll clean house. Dace can work too, and Uncle Norm will help. I know he will.”

“Are you sure about all this?”

“Yes,” Liza answered, her nausea abating slightly now that she was on firmer ground. She needed a plan, that was all. “The Devereux can’t take any more chances. I can tell from Uncle Norm’s face that he’d rather lose Dace than bring him back here where all his trouble began.”

Janice groaned elaborately. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe you’re right. His old friends would draw him in and the rival motorcycle gangs would target him. He needs a fresh start and I don’t see that happening here. I have a bad feeling—oh, don’t look at me like that—you do too! You never sleep. If I weren’t such a sound sleeper, I’d probably hear you screaming half the night. Listen, I’m going home tonight for the holidays so my mother can give me the third degree. But promise me this: whatever happens, you’ll take care of yourself. You’ve been trying to take care of Dace for far too long. He’s the only one who can help himself. You know that, don’t you?”

Chapter 32

Secret Deals

“You have a visitor,” the joint man said, fiddling with the belt buckle on his pants.

“A visitor? In the Hole?” Dace joked, totally expecting a guard-assassin to bust through the steel door. “I’m not dressed.” He was, though, in a grey jumpsuit.

“It’s me, D’Arcy. I called in a favour,” Hubert Gold said, coming from behind the joint man’s back and bravely, from the look on his face, allowing himself to be locked in. For several weeks, the lawyers had tried to get all thirteen clients out of Segregation. They really had tried, but they had lost.

“Sorry the place is such a mess,” Dace said, shifting slightly closer to the sink to make space in his eleven by seven concrete vault. He stroked his chin. “If I’d known you were coming, I probably would have shaved. Maybe even had this leaky pipe repaired. Or ordered some coffee or tea with some ladyfingers on the side.” He shut up then, looked more closely at Gold. “What the hell are you doing here? You talked my ear off at the courthouse on Friday night.” He shook his head slowly. “Tell me that they didn’t take the fucking plea bargains.”

“Take it easy, buddy. It’s all right.”

Dace’s body went rigid. “All right? All this shit for nothing?”

Gold held his ground. “Well, I don’t know about shit,” he said, “but it’s a
fait accompli
now. Or will be as soon as we have your co-operation. You’re the single hold out. I just got back from lunch with Judge Silverton and some other people you don’t know, but who have your best interests at heart.”

“That son of a bitch!” Dace knew if his mouth weren’t so dry he’d be frothing at the mouth. “A month and he’s ready to give in. You’d think he was the one who’d spent the last four weeks going to court in shackles. How long did he think it would take to try so many men?”

Gold pursed his lips, looking as if he were so tired of having to explain everything. “He’s tired, D’Arcy. Everybody’s tired. The Judge, the jurors, the families. Your father’s aged twenty years. Would you like to talk to him? I
might be able to arrange it. And Liza’s so pale. Is that her natural colour? I’m sure she just wants it to stop.”

“Leave Liza out of this. She wants what I want. She always does.”

“And what’s that?”

“Justice and truth.”

“Very dramatic,” Gold said smoothly, tapping Dace’s forearm with his knuckles. “You know, lots of the men I spoke to in here say you’re a real stand up guy. That you’d do anything for your friends. Now all you have to do is sacrifice a little—”

“—of the truth,” Dace said coldly, jerking his arm back. “Nobody even heard the rest of the cases! Don’t some of my buddies deserve a chance?”

“They’re taking their lawyers’ advice, D’Arcy, and pleading guilty to manslaughter. They’ll get an additional ten to fifteen each.”

“Ten to fifteen! Oh, that’s rich. Fucking, fucking, fucking rich! Get this. I’m not, I repeat, I am
not
pleading guilty to something I didn’t do. I made one mistake, not two. And I already paid for that mistake, I think.”

“Assault, D’Arcy. A simple assault. It’s a good deal.”

“Assault? On who?”

“Belissimo.”

“Are you
nuts
? That asshole tried to attack the hostages.”

“I know, I know,” Gold soothed.

“Jesus, people will think I got away with murder if I do this. I don’t give a fuck about the time, it’s that—”

“Look, it’s all or nothing. You guys are a package deal. It’s always been that way. If you don’t agree to your charges, your friends might end up doing twenty-five for second degree murder. Alf will die in prison. He’s forty-six now.”

* * *

Later she regretted missing court on Monday morning, although there was nothing she could have done. Everything was over before the lawyers and their defendants got to court. So much took place behind closed doors. That was the only time she missed.
 

The next day she got up so late she almost fell over her copy of the
Maitland Spectator
, delivered to the door of her room earlier that morning. She had run into the delivery boy a couple of times during one of her nocturnal trips to the bathroom. An underpaid and underfed high school dropout, he took malicious delight in whacking newspapers into the doors of the privileged co-eds as hard as he could. He also liked to sing during his early morning deliveries, usually a rousing rendition of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The thwack of the paper had probably awoken her, but she was also hypersensitive to the slightest disturbance in her environment, the result of growing up in a house with paper thin walls and a mercurial man.
 

It was December 8 and Janice had left early for Christmas, leaving most of her assignments undone. Reluctant as she had been to abandon Liza in her present state, she had also left an unmade bed and an unwholesome clutter of lined Hilroy paper, wizened apple cores and cigarette butts on her desk.
 

Liza’s throat tightened just looking at the mess. She grabbed a slice of whole wheat bread from a bag on her desk and started cramming it, piece by piece, into her mouth. Although it defied reason, she felt better when her stomach was full.

Her Smith Corona was buried under papers somewhere so if she wanted to finish typing her English essay she would have to tidy up, whether she felt like it or not. The maids weren’t due until Friday and they wouldn’t touch Janice’s clutter anyway. She had to do something about the overflowing ashtray, too. Just the sight of it was enough to make her retch, which was a loud noise in the sepulchral atmosphere of the student residence, eerily quiet this late in the year.
 

“I’ll get a doctor’s note,” Janice had said blithely, tossing her belongings into some Mr. Glad garbage bags, although Liza knew she wasn’t nearly as sanguine as she sounded. “And maybe you should too. That trial has just about killed you, although why you went every day—”

“Well, I didn’t go yesterday, but nothing happened.”

“You should have loosened up a little and partied with me. Christ, Liza, what do you weigh? I can see the bones in your back even when you’re dressing in the closet like that.” Janice said, struggling to pull a thin, stretched sweater over her head.
 

Janice had spent most of her allocated student loan on beer and cigarettes and was in no position to ask her struggling parents for more. They still occupied the family homestead in Luther Township where the Sparrows had lived for generations, ever since arriving from Uley, Gloucestershire in the 1840s. Liza had met Janice’s parents, who worked the family farm. She had also met the brilliant older brother, Wesley, whom they couldn’t afford to send to Medical School.

Janice probably would have had no choice except to succeed under such circumstances, but all she wanted was to fit in at Maitland University. She would have loved to join a sorority in their first year. She had even dragged Liza to ritualistic rushes in candlelit sorority houses, although neither girl could have afforded the initiation fees, let alone the European vacations the sisterhood enjoyed. Instead Janice had held illicit parties in their room during Liza’s extended absences and was now facing several residence imposed fines she couldn’t pay.
 

Liza sighed. If she had been here more, instead of making herself sick at the courthouse or stewing in Mel’s car, Janice mightn’t have gotten so lonely. She was still a virgin though, her parents would no doubt be happy to know. That was all that mattered in some families if you were a girl. Her virginity was due more to the fact that she was a late bloomer rather than to her self-control, but Janice had also mentioned on numerous occasions that she had no intention of being like
her
mother, a trained nurse whose pregnancy had forced her out of her job back in the fifties.

Fear of failure.
It was so easy to diagnose other people’s problems, Liza thought. She stepped out of the communal bathroom and took a breath of non-chlorinated air as she unfurled the newspaper. She was procrastinating, she knew, sitting on the edge of her bed and shaking the paper out. She had to get back to court today, but it was a thin paper and would be even thinner if she ignored the ads for Christmas shopping, so it shouldn’t take long.