I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (54 page)

I'm glad he expects so little of me. I don't care if I disappoint the
mobile vulgus
, though I fear I will. Nor have I impressed Schupp, who keeps buzzing around me like a mosquito, alighting for the occasional stab. But I wrote her off before we began. My main worry has to do with Ram Singh, the supposed wild card. A lot of light-hearted interjections from him but little substance. He's treating the appeal as a merry
divertissement
among more vital matters such as contested estates and corporate takeovers. His family has major timber holdings, so he's not likely to share the worldview of an anti-capitalist rebel. My best chance will be to appeal to his sense of self-importance.

I reach the rim of Stanley Park, the tennis courts, and watch a vigorous doubles match between skilled couples. But now I must head back to those other courts, to my own strenuous game.

Resuming the bench, Martha Schupp looks refreshed, ready to play another few sets. “Before you continue, Mr. Beauchamp, my brothers and I were having a little colloquy about the options we're looking at. What exactly are you seeking here?”

“I'm asking that the conviction be quashed and an acquittal entered.”

“But alternatively you are asking for a new trial. And if there's any merit in the fresh evidence you are urging on us, that may be all you'd be entitled to.”

Ram Singh: “I see that as a real problem. How does the Crown resurrect its case? There can't be many witnesses still alive. Exhibits have disappeared. According to the material filed by Mr. Wotherspoon, the key witness, Corporal Lorenzo, was murdered nearly two decades ago in a mysterious drive-by shooting.”

That is what is bugging Singh – the 1983 slaying of Walt Lorenzo, an act few dared call random. The undercover specialist had built up a backlog of embittered enemies – corporate crooks, mobsters, drug cartel bosses – but none more prominent than Gabriel Swift. So it was widely speculated, though without an iota of proof, that Gabriel acted through agents, soldiers, for instance, of the American Indian Movement.

“It's troubling, isn't it?” says Schupp, appropriating the issue. “An unsolved murder. A brave and dedicated officer.”

“Brave, no doubt,” I say, “and dedicated to his job maybe. But not necessarily to the truth, as I will argue.”

“You may argue that,” says Singh. “But he faces insuperable difficulty in arguing back. Which returns me to my point. How can this court realistically order a new trial?”

“Milord, if Dr. Swift is to be denied a right to a new trial, there can be no alternative but simply to enter an acquittal.”

Schupp, sharply: “Well, I'm far from persuaded he has a right to a new trial.”

Bill Webb again tries to ride to my rescue. “Mr. Beauchamp, what I hear you saying is that if we find there's been a miscarriage of justice, our only reasonable and proper alternative will be to order him acquitted.”

“Exactly.”

By late afternoon hunger is punishing me for having skipped lunch. My complacent adversary, Hollis Wotherspoon, watches with pretend agony as I take my shots, occasionally exchanging knowing nods with the press. I continue trying slices, lobs, and
drop shots against the aggressive doubles team of Schupp and Singh. They consider the fingerprints on the wallet to be telling, absent any testimony explaining them. They're unwilling to challenge Lorenzo's credibility. (Singh: “Even if, as Inspector Borachuk avers, two officers lied under oath, it doesn't prove Lorenzo also lied, does it, Mr. Beauchamp?”) They are not swayed by his closeness to Knepp – the Reno and Disneyland trips, the cookouts.

They express themselves deeply troubled by the startling recollections of Ethel Brière about her teenaged tête-à-tête with Caroline Snow in 1942, but appear inclined to hold them inadmissible. Old Riley's brainstorm about evoking the doctrine of recent complaint finds no buyers – even Webb is against me. Maybe they're fearful of utterly trashing Mulligan's already tarnished name.

Nor do I get traction with the misidentified foot. Their attitude is
So what?
Singh, predictably, makes jokes: “Counsel seems not able to get his foot in the door.” And (a loud titter runs through the courtroom), “This ground of appeal has one foot in the grave.”

It is half past four, quitting time, and we are all getting a little silly with fatigue. I exit with a line about my getting off on the wrong foot and being ground underfoot by their lordships, then neatly segue into a mention of my adorable cats, Underfoot and Shiftless. Instead of warming to me, Martha Schupp wrinkles her nose as she recesses for the day. She probably names her cats properly, like Fluffy or Precious.

Wotherspoon, who'll be called upon tomorrow to answer me, commiserates as I pack my book bag: “Never say die.” But I am desolate. All the thought and work and passion that I expended on this case may be for naught. A further appeal to Ottawa's ever-more-authoritarian Supreme Court seems futile.

As I turn to leave, I espy, rising from the back row and pocketing a notepad, a tall, wiry, bespectacled wonk in Lycra cycling shorts, clutching a bike helmet: Wentworth Chance. A strained smile says he's apprehensive about our imminent coming together.

A casual exchange of greetings, constrained on my part though not icy, wasn't enough for Wentworth, and he has tagged along from the courthouse to Robson Square and points north, walking his bicycle. I'd bumped into him only a couple of times since
A Thirst
came out, always in company, so there was no opportunity to have (in diplomatic language) a frank exchange of views.

And though there's opportunity now, I hold back. There's something about Wentworth that stops me – an inner frailty, a softness, a sense that a single sharp word from the icon will cause total disintegration. He is content to maintain this unspoken entente, not once mentioning the book. Or repeating any of the views expressed therein, such as that I'd choked during my first murder case and sold out Gabriel Swift.

But he does talk about the appeal, insisting I fill him in on the issues debated before he arrived, soliciting my views of the court's inclinations, sharing his, bringing me down further with his unalloyed pessimism. His tone is urgent, proprietary: “We've got to come up with something.” What I'm hearing, though he doesn't say it, is:
You can't do this to me; it wasn't supposed to end this way
. I am to blame for the likely demise of this appeal. I've failed Gabriel again, and Wentworth too, a final betrayal not only of them but of my alleged prowess as a barrister.

He is a thief, Wentworth Chance, stealing from me my sorrow at this turn of events, my right to grieve. He stays with me up Howe Street, the financial district, confiding in a filial, self-absorbed way about his career as a lawyer. “I'll never get the great cases. Max and Brovak covet anything that makes headlines. I do the office scraps – the cranks and crackheads and loonies. By my age you'd already done d'Anglio and Smutts; you were already the heir presumptive to Smythe-Baldwin. I'm third rank; maybe I'll make it to second, maybe not. Maybe I'll just get out of it. Write books.”

I can't think of anything to say that will not encourage him to carry on in this vein, but finally I find myself telling him, idiotically, to follow his heart. Rather than showing insult at this high-school nostrum, he becomes more ardent. Yes, that's just what he
wanted to hear. There is something more satisfying than a big win (a fleeting event, after all); a book is permanent, its production has its own thrills. “Creation – using the right side of the brain, seeing it all in print, between covers – you can't beat that.”

I'm tempted to remind him of Lord Byron's famous words:
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in't
. But we don't talk about the book the right side of his brain produced. He fills all available audible time until we reach the Confederation Club building, jabbering at an accelerating pace, as if on drugs, maybe speed. But I assume he's simply nervous, in fear of what I might say about
A Thirst
if allowed a moment of silence.

“As you probably guessed, I am working on another writing project. I'm taking a leave from the firm for this one, so I'll have to earn my daily bread some other way. Teaching. I'll be doing some People's Law School stuff, how to get by in Small Claims Court, and, ah, doing some readings around the country – you can sell lots of books at those things. I got one coming up in the Squamish Library, as a matter of fact … And, ah … well, this is kind of ironical – I've applied and got a writer-in-residence gig at Mulligan House. Comes with a subsistence grant, so that'll get me through the winter. Dermot Mulligan's old house, where the Squamish River flows. Weird, eh?”

Weird.

The Confederation Club does not accept guests in spandex, so we must part. I worry about Wentworth as I sign in; the kid seems in trouble. Staying in Mulligan's shrine as writer-in-residence – that suggests he may be as obsessed with this case as I, though in a way less healthy.

I hoped for privacy in the dining room, a time to mourn the day and recharge for tomorrow, but the haunting continues. This time it's Hubbell Meyerson, who must have been lying in wait for me;
he rarely drops by the club. He signals me to his table, where he's working on a tall vodka tonic and a bowl of nuts.

I expect subtle accusations of spurning his oldest, dearest friend. But over our dinners – I could eat half a steer but settle for a share of its loin – he is convivial, supportive, encouraging me to fight on. He is more interested in my personal dramas, though, than the stale and dusty epic that engrosses me. Rather than chiding me for my cowardly flight from Annabelle's party, he sees it as a great joke.

“Ah, yes, we saw you spying outside the Orpheum, Annabelle and I. Having a little laugh at her expense, were you? Setting her up with that pompous, posturing fool Stan Caliginis, with his nonstop winey soundtrack.”

This scenario – having a little laugh – I can live with, the sin of cruelty being preferred to cowardice. I have escaped major damage from the incident. I expected far worse than I got from Margaret when I phoned to tell her about my near incursion into Annabelle's welcoming party and to confess I'd hooked her up with Stan Caliginis. “How oddly you're behaving” was all she said.

Hubbell is still going on about Caliginis. “Big-time hustler in marginal stocks, junks, derivatives. I had him checked out, just to make sure he doesn't try to sell Annabelle a gilt-edged lead brick.”

“Stan read
A Thirst
and was staggered by Annabelle's adventurous spirit and earthiness. She is steely, crisp, and juicy and has a very good length.”

“I suspect he has a very good length himself, because the next day she asked me to pass on to you her most ardent thanks.”

“She slept with him?”

“One assumes. He's also a major mover and shaker in the Liberal Party, so he'll be coming to Bullingham's ninety-third on Saturday. Annabelle has been invited, of course. Bully has always found her fascinating.”