Kill All the Judges (22 page)

He joined Margaret at the front door. A tall, skinny young man was bending over a mountain bike, unhitching a pack and saddlebags. “I'm sorry if I've interrupted dinner or anything.” A squeaky tenor, a bobbing Adam's apple. “I ate on the ferry, so don't worry about me. I'm not going to barge in; I brought a tent. If that's okay.”

That was met with silence, which caused him to talk rapidly. “I brought Mr. Pomeroy's file, which is pretty thin, and some Internet printouts about the main witnesses. I thought you'd want to discuss strategy before I go further.” He seemed to strangle on his words, had to clear his throat.

“Who are you?” Margaret asked.

He removed his goggles and gloves, put on wire-rimmed spectacles. A stringy fellow, late twenties. “I'm blowing it. I'm Wentworth Chance. I hope Max said I was coming; he was supposed to. Excuse me, but I'm a little nervous meeting you, Mr. Beauchamp. You wouldn't believe it, but I've got a whole drawer of clippings about you.” He couldn't seem to look at Arthur directly, as if he were blinded by the sun.

“For God's sake, Arthur, just do it,” Margaret said.

“Come inside,” he said, still bruised by her insinuation he was a jealous and incapable lover. Well, the courtroom was one venue where he wasn't impotent. He'll show her.

He retrieved the phone. “Abigail?”

“Still here.”

“I shall want your undertakings in writing.”

 

HOTEL PARANOIA

W
here was his damn manuscript? Obviously stolen, this rehab asylum was full of thieves. Brian will outsmart them yet, he has backup disks secreted back in 305 of the Ritz. This morning he'd demanded a Mac laptop and got a used PC. Who knew what diseases it had? He threw it at a nurse, who ducked, and it crashed and died against the wall.

They pumped clozapine into him, the house drug, and the headmaster–the Facilitator, they call him, his stage name–asked him to apologize to the nurse. Brian explained he wasn't aiming at her, that the computer was infected with deadly viruses.

Now he had nothing but a pen, a device he was unused to, and his hand was so shaky he couldn't read what he'd written. A scrawl. Something like, “Help me escape.”

Hollyburn Hall, this infirmary was called. Hotel Paranoia. A rich benefactor must be paying for it. Overstuffed furnishings, balconies overlooking mountains and rushing creek, five-star food, staff always in your face. Downstairs, a big stone fireplace around which his fellow inmates gathered to confess to the Facilitator. Brian refused to partake. They're not getting any information from him.

He'd taken a leap of faith with Dr. Epstein, that's why he was here. She thought Brian had talent, his manuscript was eccentric but entertaining. To please her, he agreed to go to Hollyburn. He's
not crazy, but she doesn't know that. He's one step ahead of her.

He didn't tell her about the ring, the opal scintillating with the colours of flame and desire. He keeps it in a zippered pocket of his wallet. Occasionally he will take it out and hold it to the light to divine its secrets, its arcane messages. One day it will reveal them, one day it will tell all.

He gave a phony address when signing in, he didn't tell them about his safe house at Main and Keefer. He can make a run there anytime, slip out at night, flag a cab, fetch the zip-lock bag from his room and be back in two hours. Nearly an ounce, enough to get through a week of facilitation.

Florenza LeGrand, that's where he'd left off. He scribbled, “Raffy was prowling outside the maid's room as we were making love. Then he just…just disappeared.” Bursting into tears on the witness stand, is that how it will be written? He hasn't told anyone about Lance Valentine's visit to Flo at her château. That's their secret. He's not going to say anything about Carlos, he promised.

Groggy with anti-psychotics, he was having difficulty decoding his writing, its hidden meanings. He rose, slid open the glass door to his balcony, stepped out into the drizzle, looked over the railing, two storeys down. If he aimed for those rocks he could smash his head open.

He decided not to do that yet. One of the custodians had just opened the door, lugging in a suitcase, a garment bag, and a large cardboard box. Custodians just come in, there are no locks. “Miss Wu is here to see you. Do you mind if I look at this stuff, Mr. Pomeroy?” Ms. Wu came in, grim, unsmiling.

As the custodian went through the bags, she drew Brian to a corner of the room. “The manager of the Ritz phoned to say you'd abused his clerk and he wanted you gone. I brought your clothes, toiletries, books, computer, printer, a box of manuscript, and five backup disks I found hidden in crevices.” She looked severely at him, then added, “Plus there was something else.”

Brian drew close to her ear. “Did you bring it?”

“I flushed it.” She continued to glare at him until the attendant left, then said, “Covering up for your sins is not part of my job, Mr. Pomeroy, and I don't intend to be deported because of them.”

“You don't understand. They think I'm insane.”

“Insanity is a state of mind.”

Brian fell back on his bed. The cowboy paintings he'd grown to love had been replaced by impressionist landscapes. Soothing decorous slush.

“Mr. Beauchamp has taken on the trial.”

That's something Brian hadn't written. He felt empty, as if something had been stolen, plagiarized.

“He wants to know where the ring is.”

“Around a rosie.”

“Cudworth says you have it. Florenza LeGrand's opal ring.”

“You're not my type, you're gay. Don't expect me to give you a ring.” He shuffled through the cardboard box. “Where are my reference materials? My Widgeon manuals?”

“I'll have them sent. You've received a number of personal messages from friends. Your former wife called to ask about your condition. What shall I tell her?”

“I'm burning up as I descend from outer space.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love her.”

“I shall be working for Mr. Beauchamp while you are treated for your illness. If that is what it is.” Maybe she suspected he was faking it. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. Keep them guessing.

He escorted her downstairs, past the fireplace, everyone watching, nudging, suspecting. At the door, he asked her to report back.

“About what?”

“About their plans. The people spying on me.”

“Who's spying on you?”

“I think you know who. I think you know very well who your paymasters are.” He had her dead to rights, he could tell by her startled reaction. “Is Caroline coming to see me?”

“She didn't indicate that.” She turned and walked quickly to a waiting taxi.

He began to cry. They were staring at him again as he ran upstairs. Tears smudged the manuscript as he removed it from the box. The pages slipped and scattered across the floor. There was no point in finishing this book. He'd lost control over his story. Arthur Beauchamp had control over it now…

 

 

THE THIRD FIDDLE THEORY

A
rthur sat glumly on a porch chair on this miserable Saturday afternoon, his bags packed, waiting for the rental car. Wentworth Chance was prancing about the apple orchard like a nervous colt–the gangly fellow was ever in motion, stretching, fidgeting, twitching, as if afflicted by a strange muscle disorder.

Margaret had already said her goodbyes, was off to a rally in East Shipwreck, then the all-candidates debate in Duncan. Her slight of two evenings ago still rankled. He muttered, “As if I've an obsession with”–seeking the right phrase– “performance issues.” Too many courtroom battles, he'd wasted all his juices, saving nothing for the bedroom.

Nick came running down from the milking shed, shrine of the teasing Estonian goddess. “Good luck, Grandpa, all the woofers are rooting for you too.”

Arthur ruffled his hair. “You're in charge now. Show your dad a good time.” Nicholas Senior was coming, sans Pamela, and would be staying for the week. He'd been on the phone to his son a few times, apologetic, making amends.

“I better get back to my chores.” A hug–Nick actually hugged him!–and he hastened back to the shed.

Arthur resented having to forsake Blunder Bay to do the chores of court. He wasn't looking forward to a week in crowded, jarring Vancouver, already in a flag-waving fervour for the Winter
Olympics two years hence. It had become foreign territory, this town where he'd been born, raised, enrolled in private schools, where he'd studied law, married, divorced, fought cases for forty hard years. Where he'd been an impotent, raging alcoholic.

His main libation was tea, and many pots of it had fuelled him over the last day and a half as he muscled through particulars and witness statements, as he planned courtroom strategy with his fussbudget junior. Three days was an obscenely short time to prepare for a murder trial, but in compensation Hitchins had promised him virtual rule of the courtroom. That will help keep Kroop on the sidelines–though doubtless the old boy will find excuses to nag and nettle him. His free reign, not Kroop's hollow threat to proceed without counsel (and definitely not Margaret's critique of his bedroom expertise), persuaded Arthur it was now or never,
carpe diem
. After a long delay, witnesses tend to reconstruct memories. Such changes cement. Eyesight improves.

Wentworth won marks by picking up on Arthur's antipathy toward the client and offering to be his handler. He even took an anxious call from Cud, arranging to spend time with him tomorrow. He was a willing mule for any task, sharp enough, but would occasionally fall into some manner of spell, daydreaming perhaps, or overcome by the radiance of the god he served. An annoying tendency to hiccups whenever Arthur lit his pipe.

They hadn't had much time to talk about Pomeroy's bizarre behaviour, though Arthur learned, gratifyingly, that Wentworth had experience in a murder case–he'd assisted Pomeroy in the defence of Gilbert Gilbert, Kroop's would-be assassin. “Ask me anything about legal insanity, Mr. Beauchamp.” Sadly, that was not on the list of useful defences.

By peculiar coincidence, Wentworth's small stable of clients included Minette Lefleur, a sex worker known well to Justice Darrel Naught, who'd planned to enjoy her comforts before he drowned on a warm summer night six months ago. Several years earlier, as an articling student, he'd fought her case of keeping a
common bawdy house. “I won on a technicality,” he confided with pride. “The judge ruled a houseboat isn't a house.”

Stoney honked a greeting as he came around the bend in his cherry 1970 Chrysler New Yorker–the gas-gulper. Arthur will feel guilty driving it. But aside from minor dents it was in decent shape. Stoney disembarked with a smile, seeming sober though it was already half past one. He saw Wentworth gawking at the car and gave him a card.

“This here is Loco Motion's finest model, a beauty, eh? Our stock also includes a splendid example of a Merc Cougar V8, from back in the days when they made cars instead of battery toys, and we expect to bring on line a superb '69 Fargo…”