Quid Pro Quo (14 page)

“I was not able to come up with a plausible reason why I should accompany the boys on their hike, so felt I had no choice but to leave them alone in the wilds of Birchy Head. I set off back to town in a state of some agitation. Those boys were up to no good,

I was sure of it. I considered hiding in the woods and ‘tailing' them, as they say on American television, but I could not in good conscience do it. Too many of my clients' lives are made miserable by unfounded suspicion. They are always the first to be blamed simply because they are too poor, too black, too old, or for that matter, too young.

“Then I saw your walkie-talkie, Cyril, lying on the floor of my car and I thought to myself, ‘Aha! That's the ticket.' I was of course just as suspicious as before, but at least now I had a reason to go back: I needed to return your equipment. I ‘hung a you-ey' and flew back to Birchy Head.

“I had no idea where you might have got to by this time, so I parked my car where I had let you off and headed down the Yacht Club drive. It was rather unnerving. I felt afraid, walking alone on a deserted laneway, and I clutched my only weapon: your walkie-talkie. In doing so, I accidentally turned it on. As you can imagine, I was quite surprised—but not alarmed—to hear Mr. Chisling's voice. I had heard he owned the yacht club and thought he was just being the perfect host by taking lunch orders. I beg your pardon, Cyril?…Well, I guess you must have forgotten to turn yours off because I certainly heard you speaking.

“At first, as you can imagine, I was hugely relieved. Against all odds, I'd found you! I ran down to the yacht club, saw Mr. Chisling's lovely green car parked in front and raced in. By the time I heard Andy demanding her
beeping
Coke, it was too late. Mr. Chisling had me by the scarf and was rather brutally frog-marching me into the men's room.”

chapter
forty
Confession II

Consuela (Translated by Byron)

S
eñor Bob said I stole ten thousand dollars, but I didn't steal ten thousand dollars. I didn't steal ten cents.

He said he had proof and that I would get deported or go to jail and never see my children again.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to tell anybody. I was so ashamed and scared. I overheard a Guatemalan man at the Immigration Resource Center. He was talking about his lawyer, Atula. He said she helps all immigrants. On my day off I went to Atula's office. I was going to tell her everything. I hoped she would solve my problem. I waited all day in her office, and it was almost time for her to see me, but then she said something to Andy's son. I heard her say Señor Chisling's name. I was so afraid I ran away immediately and never came back.

“Again, I didn't know what to do. No one could help me. Señor Bob is an important man. All the people here love him. All the immigrants here love him because he looks after them. He does nice things. Nobody here loves me. Nobody would believe me if I said I didn't steal the money. Nobody would believe me if I said this nice man wanted me to burn down a building.

“I was very afraid. I said I would do it. It was just a dirty old building. Nobody would get hurt. Señor Bob left some equipment for making drugs in the Haliburton Building next door. I snuck in at six in the evening, when everybody had gone. At midnight I climbed in the back window of the Masons' Hall, just like Señor Bob told me to do. I set up the equipment against a wall. I put newspapers around it. I poured on gasoline. I lit the match, and I ran, very afraid. I looked back only once. That's when I saw the face of Carlos in the upstairs window. He just looked at me.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I am very, very sorry! I tried to save him. I tried. But I am too small, and the fire is too big.”

chapter
forty-one
Confession III

Byron

K
arl was a buddy of mine from the old days. He wasn't so bad then. The schizophrenia got a lot worse later. But what can you do? You can't force a person to take their pills unless you can prove they're going to hurt somebody. The law won't let you. Most of the time, Karl wouldn't have dreamed of hurting nobody. He was a pretty gentle guy. But when them voices in his head started yelling at him, you didn't know what he was going to do.

“Anyway, that night I checked all his old stomping grounds but couldn't find him anywhere. I was getting some worried. He'd been acting pretty strange lately, and I figured he was off his meds again.

“Just after midnight, I decided to try the Masons' Hall, see if he'd camped out there. I come around the corner on Barrington Street and I got a whiff of smoke, and I thought, oh my jeez, what's Karl gone and done now? I kicked in a window round back and crawled in.

“That's when I see Consuela. She's screaming in Spanish that there's a man upstairs. Her arm's all burnt to bejazus and she's crying and trying to get up the stairs, but the smoke's so thick by this time you can hardly see your hand in front of you. I called up to Karl, and I'm not sure if he answered or not because right about then the ceiling started falling in. I pretty much had to drag Consuela, but I got her out about two seconds before the whole thing come down.

“Her arm was a mess, and mine wasn't too good either, but neither of us wanted to go to the hospital. My shirt was pretty clean, so I took out my Swiss Army knife and tore it up into bandages and fixed us up as good as I could. I guess I must have left the knife on the ground when I heard the sirens starting up. I figured that's where they got my fingerprints. Anyways, I dragged Consuela out through the back alleys to Spring Garden Road.

“She was hysterical. She kept screaming about her babies and Karl and some Señor she knew. I didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but I figured that someone had forced her into this. I promised I'd help her. I got her phone number and told her to run like hell.

“I hid out for a few days. I didn't know what to do. People knew I was going to look for Karl at the Masons' Hall that night. I figured they were my friends, but you never know. One of them might have fingered me for burning the place down. I couldn't take the chance of getting seen again. I wasn't ready to go back to Dorchester Pen. I done my time.

“Part of me just wanted to take off, but I'd promised Consuela I'd help her. How? I didn't know. All I knew was she needed legal help, and I hated lawyers. Scum of the earth, far as I was concerned. My opinion had been pretty much confirmed a couple a weeks before all this crap happened when I realized that lady lawyer at the Poverty Coalition rally was Squeaky. At the time, I was glad she hadn't seen me. Like I say, lawyers is scum of the earth in general, and Squeaky was one in particular I didn't care to encounter.

“But then the fire happened. What could I do? I looked Squeaky up. Time I called in some favors, I figured.

“That's not what Andy figured, though. She didn't want me around. She didn't want to hear about Consuela. And she really didn't want me saying nothing inflammatory about Bob Chisling, her new idol.

“He was so, Andy. That's exactly how you thought of him… Did too! … You did. Admit it!

“Okay, sorry, you're right, Cyril. No use arguing about that now—'specially since I'm right. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

“Anyway, for WHATEVER reason, your mother was not open to helping me, so I had to play hardball. It took me about a month, but I finally got her to talk to Consuela. Our little meeting went okay—Andy was at least willing to look into things—so I figured I'd done my part. I took Consuela to lunch, she went to pick up the Chisling kids after school, and I headed out to Seaview Park for a hike. It felt some good. First bit of freedom I had in a month. At about 5, 5:30, I went back to the apartment and was just packing my bags to go when there was a knock at the door and my lights went out. Still don't know what the big ape hit me with.”

chapter
forty-two
Confession IV

Andy

S
ee, Cyril? This is why I'm always after you to watch what you're doing. You screw up once as a kid, and you'll spend the rest of your life paying for it …

No, I don't mean I screwed up by having you, and you know it! I mean I screwed up when I … ah… had that little … you know … incident in the, ah, church. Anyway! Enough about that. You wanted to know how I got to the yacht club …

“Byron tracked me down, like he said, and, yeah, okay, I admit it. I wasn't immediately convinced that Chisling had done anything wrong. It didn't take me long to come around, though …

“It didn't! …

“Excuse me … Excuse me… Would you SHUT … UP PLEASE?… “

I'm starting to get annoyed here …

“Okay. If you want to hear my side of the story, Byron's got to shut.

“His.

“
Beeping
.

“Yap.

“I mean it. I don't know what he thinks is so funny. I came around! I'm here, aren't I? … Oh, for
beep
sake, SHUT UP!

“Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cuvelier. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The part where you threaten me. You guys know about that? … Saint Byron the Blackmailer here threatened to ruin my life. Yup. It's true. Guess what, people? He's not perfect!

“Anyway, he threatened me, so I rather sensibly agreed to meet Consuela in the park. I listened to her story and she sounded sincere, but—apparently because I'm not the incredible judge of character Byron is—I still had my doubts. I mean, Consuela could have been sincere but crazy. (Don't bother translating that, okay, Byron?) At that point, I couldn't believe Chisling would ever willfully hurt an immigrant. He spent so much time trying to help them! In fact, I was so sure Chisling couldn't be guilty, I decided to check things out at the Registry of Deeds, just to prove it.

“When I saw that estoppel on the Masons' Hall, though, I knew right away that Consuela was telling the truth. You wouldn't believe how pissed off I was! I'd finally met a rich guy with a social conscience, and he turned out to be a worse
beep-
beep
than any of the
beeping
dorks I went to law school with! I wanted to kill the guy right then and there. Strangle him with one of his own two-hundred-dollar ties. Which, come to think of it, isn't such a bad idea …

“Relax! I'm only joking.

“Sort of …

“Anyway, I was supposed to get together with Chisling that day for our regular Immigration Resource Center meeting. I wasn't going to say anything to him about the fire. I was going to get my case all ready and let the cops explain it all to him later, preferably while they were handcuffing him. In the meantime, I was going to go to the meeting and pretend that everything was the same as usual.

“I went home first and put the file in the freezer. Call me paranoid, but I didn't trust Chisling at all by this time. I wouldn't have put it past him to go rifling through my apartment just to check me out. I figured he was too stupid to look in the freezer.

“I took a couple of deep breaths, told myself to stay calm and headed off to our meeting. Chisling picked me up outside this little coffee place on Argyle Street. He was his usual charming self. ‘Andy, I love your perfume. You're like a breath of fresh air.' ‘Hey, great coat!' You know, the usual disgusting crap. I just smiled and let him do all the talking while we drove to the Immigration Resource Center.

“Everything was fine until he asked me to grab the plans for the new family health room we're talking about putting in. I leaned over to get them out of the back seat of the car, and that's when I saw it. There was another blueprint there too. For a parking lot! A parking lot where the Masons' Hall used to be.

“Okay, I know it. I'm an idiot. But I couldn't help it! I just lost it. Chisling was acting like he was a big do-gooder, so concerned about the plight of the lowly immigrant. Meanwhile he's basically paving over Karl's grave for a parking lot. What a hypocrite!

“I said, ‘How can you
beeping
live with yourself? You think I don't know what you did? There are witnesses!'

“I know. I know, Cyril! I was a jerk. I should have just shut up like I planned to. But I didn't. Chisling was going, ‘What do you mean?' and ‘I have no idea what you're talking about,' and sounding sooo innocent.

“Too innocent. That's when I got kind of freaked out. Worried that I'd never see my little Cy-cy again. I started trying to take back what I said. Pretending I didn't mean it. I started saying that I was sorry, that I must have misunderstood. I said it was probably just a rumor and I was so overworked lately I obviously wasn't thinking clearly.

“Chisling smiled and patted me on the leg and said he understood. He was really overworked too! Suddenly, he had this great idea. Why didn't we forget about the Immigration Center just for today and take a drive? He said he owned a property in the country somewhere and it's really beautiful out there. He claimed it would do me a world of good.

“Ha!

“I didn't want to upset him, so I played along. I said sure, but did he mind if I used his car phone? I wanted to let my son know I might be back a little late. I thought Chisling would be easy on me if he knew I had a kid. Maybe he would have been, if he believed me. But apparently I'm too young to have a thirteen-year- old. That's what he told me yesterday. He thought I was just making it up so he'd be easy on me. Great minds think alike, eh?

“So, anyway, I called you on his phone and left that drippy message. I figured the whole honey-sweetie-mama stuff would make you suspect something, but Chisling wouldn't. I was just about to tell you that you could reach me at his number when I realized the phone had cut out. I must have looked pretty freaked, but Chisling just went, ‘Oh, dear me, that darn phone. I've got to get it fixed.'

“Yeah, right.

“He pushed some button before I could tell you how to get me. That's what he did. There was no way he wanted anyone finding out who I was with. I tried to stay calm. I figured you'd get the message, realize something was wrong and call Atula when I didn't show up. She'd know what to do with that file. She'd understand Chisling was implicated. I mean, I never expected you to try and solve this yourself, ya dumb cluck! … “I am so allowed to kiss you.