Snow Job (14 page)

Gertrude Isbister gave him a businesslike hug and handed him a file with multicoloured tabs, precedents for a twelve-page brief of habeas corpus law. “He whipped this up on the weekend.”

Old Riley, she meant, the geriatric mole from the fortieth floor, many times Arthur’s saviour. He almost lived in the library, had rarely been seen outside it.

“I sent him the usual.” Chocolate truffles. “I had to come in Sunday myself, but no big deal.”

A blatant hint. Flowers to her doorstep.

“Beware of Mr. Bullingham. He wants you to do a murder.”

Too late. Alerted to Arthur’s arrival, here he came, last of the founding partners, ninety-one and still on his horse. Another ancient who couldn’t stop working. People should read more poetry.

“Ah, Beauchamp, a rare honour. Visiting the troops, are we? Looking for an entertaining diversion, perhaps?” He drew Arthur toward his anteroom.

“I shall be quickly in and out, Bully.” A nickname that only the upper-tier partners dared use. “A vital issue of civil liberties this morning, a couple of days repose at my island sanctuary, then I must scurry back to our lovely capital.”

“And miss a treat? If I know Arthur Beauchamp, he will not be able to resist it. The Cameron murder. Gravelstein is handling it, but he’d be more than eager to serve you as junior.”

“The Cameron murder? I forget.”

“The highways minister, surely you remember. Found dead in an Abbotsford bordello twelve years ago?”

It came back. Headlines about orgies, love drugs, hot-tubbing hostesses. Cameron in a closet, impaled through the heart by a spear. DeCameron, they called it.

“His widow was arrested last week. A sting, or whatever you call it — they had a woman officer pose as a psychotherapist, and she inveigled Mrs. Cameron into some incriminating statements. Some issues there to slack the old thirst for justice, eh?” Ribbing him about the biography, a friendly punch on the arm.

“Far too pedestrian. I do only cases of international import now.”

Bully, taken aback, turned sardonic. “Let me guess. You’ve been retained by Alta International to represent their five ignoramuses. Off to Igorgrad, are we, to raise constitutional issues in the people’s democratic court?”

“For your ears only, Bully, I’m looking into the possibility of representing the family of Abzal Erzhan.” A case to truly slake the thirst for justice, the defence of the disappeared, the inexplicably disappeared. “An informed source tells me Erzhan may have been shanghaied, perhaps murdered. It would be interesting to learn if agents of the federal government were involved.”

“Do say.” Bully seemed intrigued, if only because Arthur might turn up more dirt against the reviled Conservative government. If Erzhan had been kidnapped, mysteries abounded as to who did it. DiPalma had insisted Erzhan’s wife and landlord could shed light on the matter — maybe enough light to affirm the alcoholic spook’s good intentions. Margaret was working through friendly channels to set up a meeting with them, and Arthur must remain ready to jump on a plane.

“There may be expenses. I don’t imagine the Erzhan family has vast resources.”

Bully frowned. He was famously stingy, but Arthur’s high-profile cases brought in substantial business. “Spend prudently.”

“Bully, I also want to enlist the help of our Ottawa branch plant. I’d like to make some quiet inquiries about a CSIS agent named Ray DiPalma.”

“Antoine Salzarro is your man, recently joined us from the government side, was number three in Public Security. I’ll get on to him about this DiPalma fellow. He’s your informed source? Never mind — I’ve always held to the tenet that if you can’t keep a secret, don’t expect anyone else to keep it for you.”

Arthur didn’t have time to visit Zachary in the cells, so he wheedled the sheriffs into bringing him into court before the sitting. On entering, Zack raised two defiant handcuffed fists in salute to his many supporters, young environmentalists who stood up to honour their martyr.

Brittle-tempered Zack was less angry than Arthur had expected, his attitude one of cynical bemusement, as if his arrest were the sort of thing one should expect from the guardians of a dying order.

“They came by twice this weekend, high-level bulls. Because I freed some captive timber from a log boom, I’m a prime suspect for blowing up nine Bhashyistanis, right? Problem is, I was in custody on this bogus charge when it happened. So these
fascisti
implied I was the instigator, Mr. Big pulling strings from Cellblock A of the Burnaby Correctional Centre. Alternatively, I’m accused of stirring up hatred, spurring the rabble to acts of murder. They finally gave up on that line and went to Plan C, promising to do right by me if I rolled over on my Eastern contacts. A financial reward, plus witness protection. The government’s in a stinking
pile of shit over this, man, they’re looking to bust
anyone
, your aunt Albertina and her three-legged cocker spaniel.”

Zack had declined to talk on the phone from jail, thus this outpouring, and it didn’t cease as the clerk called the court to order. He clutched Arthur’s sleeve, whispered: “Give my love to Savannah if I don’t get out. Give it if I do, because I’m going to need a couple of days to warn friends about the heat. Can’t do it by telephone, obviously. And you got to believe they’re reading all our emails.”

Paranoia. Another growing aspect of the Canadian condition. “Keep out of trouble,” Arthur said. Zack had earned a fearsome reputation as a hothead.

“Mr. Beauchamp, are we ready?”

Arthur looked up: Mr. Justice Gundar Singelar, whom Arthur remembered as a young, aggressive prosecutor. Suddenly he was a judge. Arthur had worked against him a few times. These ex-Crowns often tended to nurse long-term wounds from their losses.

“Ready, milord.” Arthur retreated to counsel table, Zack to the prisoners’ box. Arthur prayed the young man would not again show the bad taste of urging a judge to go to hell. Mind you, Arthur had been known to say similar himself, in more eloquent ways.

“I’ve read your brief, Mr. Beauchamp, and that of the justice minister.” Represented here by a Ms. Kwon, a new face, pink-cheeked with inexperience. “Excellent both. I have a busy list here today, so I wonder if either of you wish to emphasize any points.”

Shorthand for: keep it brief, I’m on overload. Arthur spoke for only five minutes, ex tempore, a rumbling salvo about the freedoms of speech and assembly, about how the right to make vigorous, peaceful protest was the hallmark of democracy and the bane of totalitarian regimes.

Singelar frowned at the rippling of applause from the gallery, pursed his lips with the air of someone in doubt. Arthur decided that was play-acting because the judge immediately lit into Kwon. “Mr. Flett was arrested at a demonstration that you concede was lawful.”

“That’s right, milord. But my position is that the parole board, not the court, has the duty of determining whether the petitioner broke a condition —”

“But Mr. Beauchamp is saying that condition is unconstitutional, it flies in the face of the Charter. If so, what’s left for the parole board to determine?”

“Well, ah, they have an overriding discretion in parole matters, and given that Mr. Flett has shown no indication of repentance —”

“Just a minute — they have an
overriding
discretion? You mean they override me?”

It went on like that for a few minutes. Singelar had obviously made up his mind early, but he had a good house to play to, and as a former prosecutor he probably saw a chance to establish credentials for being even handed. Arthur tended to get such breaks these days, after kicking around the courts for several decades. Respect came more with age than talent.

An ancient and lovely remedy, the habeas corpus, and it freed the corpus of Zachary Flett, who walked proudly from the room and gave Arthur a hug. “If I’m away three or four days, Savannah will understand. We have much work to do.”

Arthur took that as the royal we. He watched as Zack was hoisted briefly by his disciples and borne to the escalator. He disappeared amid the throng waiting for him at the courthouse door.

The ferry to Garibaldi would not leave for several hours, so Arthur enjoyed a stroll to the old Gastown area, nexus between tidy, shiny uptown and the tourist no-go zone, the pocket of skid road known as the Downtown Eastside. In the eighties, he’d defected from his firm for several dismal years to run a practice for the poor here, defending losers and lushes while a loser and a lush himself. A time remembered patchily, scenes dimly returning of rowdy commotions in bars and restaurants, even courtrooms, the rest hidden
behind an impenetrable fog of gin fumes and day-long hangovers.

Ah, but soon to be celebrated, those years of despair and cuckoldom, in
A Thirst for Justice
. He recoiled from thoughts of being stripped bare by his biographer with his probing, unanswerable questions. “But I want to hear about
you
, your feelings.” Unlovely images of his nakedness had been erupting in his dreams.

Gastown had been pimped up for the tourists several decades ago and hurriedly gentrified for the Winter Olympics, but retained a flavour of the past: cobbled streets and lanes, Blood Alley, Gaolers Mews, and that favourite of the pigeons, Gassy Jack’s statue, honouring the patron saint of West Coast drunks. Overlooking that statue was Arthur’s destination: a nineteenth-century brick building whose ground floor had till recently housed the Leap of Faith Prayer Centre, closed since its charismatic evangelist was arrested for bilking parishioners.

“Opening Soon,” said a sign posted on the door: “The War Room.” A martial arts training centre, a list of options ranging from karate and kick-boxing to “Commando Techniques” and “Disabling your Opponent.” Several husky men and women were inside studying floor plans. Mats piled against walls, materials for a ring, ropes, corner posts.

An anti-Bhashyistan poster was stuck to the window: “Bring ’Em On!” Arthur couldn’t tell if it was serious or a lampoon. Probably serious.

Entrance to the foyer and elevator was by a separate door bearing a shiny bronze plaque: “Macarthur, Brovak, Sage and Chance.” The feisty little criminal law firm had apparently disappeared its ex-senior partner, Brian Pomeroy, and added the biographer Wentworth Chance. Arthur was anxious to locate the former and avoid the latter.

In this preserved low-density neighbourhood, the firm’s third-floor offices claimed views of Maple Tree Square and Vancouver’s hustling deep-water port on Burrard Inlet. Beyond, the North Shore Mountains were already coned with snow.

The receptionist gave him a cheery welcome — Arthur was known here, had privileges; its lawyers had all worked with him. Max Macarthur III was in court, John Brovak with clients, Chance in the library, but Augustina Sage was in the coffee lounge staring morosely out the window. Still attractive in her forties, a cloudburst of curly black hair.

“Why so blue?”

She looked up, smiled. “You don’t have time to hear it, Arthur.”

Another love affair must have bottomed out. She went through men like a mower through weeds, a failed lifetime search for the sensitive male.

She bussed him. “All men are assholes. All but you.”

“You might benefit from a few rounds in the War Room, my dear.”

“That joint gives me goosebumps. A gym where psychopaths learn ways to kill. Just what we need in the neighbourhood.”

Some requisite chit-chat followed about the Bhashyistan crisis, the conspiracy theories, the government’s stunned, slow reaction.

“And that,” Arthur said, “brings me to Brian Pomeroy, hero of the Bhashyistani Democratic Revolutionary Front. Has he been ousted from the firm?”

“He ousted himself. That’s another depressing subject. Just up and quit the practice. He went bonkers last year, you know. Became a cocainiac when his marriage went kaput.”

Arthur knew all about it. Knew too much. He’d helped pick up the pieces, had to salvage a murder trial when Pomeroy fell apart in court and signed himself into a drug treatment centre.

“God only knows where he is. A cabin somewhere in the tundra of the Northwest Territories. He’s gone Indian. That’s not racist.” Not from her. She was Cree on her mother’s side. “He has a mail drop somewhere up there. I’ll try to find it.”