Snow Job (30 page)

“Much better. You wanted something on Arthur Beauchamp.”

“All you got.”

“I hope this isn’t too rich for your blood.” A rare, puckish smile. “He’s having an affair with a convicted felon.”

Thiessen almost slipped off his chair as he sat upright. “Are you putting me on?”

“Savannah Buckett, his farmhand. One presumes she’s progressed from raids on timber booms to a more intimate form of radical action.”

“You got proof? Photos? Tapes?”

“Nothing quite so graphic, but you can take it to the bank. God knows why our man on Garibaldi was so slow in forthcoming — Agent DiPalma is a bit reserved about such matters, a goody two-shoes — but it’s all over that island.”

Thiessen didn’t know exactly where Garibaldi was. He tried to picture it, barren, windswept, the mail packet pulling in twice a week, tobacco-chewing fishermen in their Wellingtons, slatternly housewives at their clotheslines gossiping with neighbours.

“Ms. Buckett is known to be publicly quarrelling with her partner, who is rarely seen on the island any more. But here’s the clincher: there’s an eyewitness to one of Beauchamp’s coital diversions with this young woman. One Robert Stonewell, a local businessman, caught them in bed.” An impish grin.

Thiessen couldn’t suppress a whoop of triumph. Revenge was his, sweet, sweet revenge. That sneering bugger had been caught with his pants down — and not just with some run-of-the-mill tramp, but an eco-terrorist. The old wolf didn’t exactly look like a hotshot with the ladies. Maybe he used his smooth tongue to slick his way into her panties. A task eased by her being on his payroll — that added a scurrilous element.

“Does his wife know?”

“I’m given to understand there are no secrets on Garibaldi Island.”

The possibilities were rich, an explosive scandal, a messy divorce in the middle of an election campaign. “How do we nail this down? Tell me about this Stonewell.”

“An exemplar, an esteemed community leader. Owns multiple businesses, building trades, taxi service, full-service garage, car lot. A tourist venture too, a hot-air balloon concession, so he obviously has a commercial pilot’s licence. Agent DiPalma says he’s quite a go-getter, highly regarded by his peers.”

“My kind of guy. Would he sign an affidavit?”

“Can’t say. DiPalma isn’t sure how close he is to Beauchamp.
But he believes Stonewell may be open to, shall we say, magnanimous gestures. Not out-and-out bribery, of course, that’s out of the picture.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Politics?”

“Well, he hardly sounds like a wild-eyed radical, does he?”

Thiessen turned to the window, another demonstration out there, against animal testing. Someone in a monkey costume, another a dog, a big furry head with a jovial smile. It brought back Beauchamp grinning at Thiessen, asking for someone to bring a straw. Maybe a little human animal testing was in order.

“Anthony, let’s say we were to bring Mr. Stonewell here on some pretext, a good citizenship award, something like that, show him a good time, get one of your guys to loosen him up over a few tots …”

“With a hidden microphone, just in case.”

“Brilliant. And we invite his wife too, or his lover or companion, whatever he has, fly them first class, put them up in the Château. I could meet him myself, buy him lunch or dinner, impress the hell out of him.”

Crumwell smiled his squinty smile. “You don’t think that would be pushing it?”

“Naw, I’ve got a knack dealing with small-town, average-Joe businessmen.” He rehearsed, a jocular voice. “Robert, I guess you must know Arthur Beauchamp. Lovable old sod, but I hear he’s quite a scamp.”

Crumwell nodded with approval. “There are rumours, Charley, that you may take a fling at the leadership.”

Thiessen tried to look pained. “Yeah, there’s pressure, they’re coming at me from all sides. I’m resisting. We can’t look divided, we have to throw all our weight behind Clara.”

“Of course.” Looking at him with his cold, pebbly pupils, seeing right through him.

“Not that Clara has to know about Operation Stonewell.”

“You understand, Charley, that this is, let’s say, a titch beyond our mandate.”

“I’ll cover you.” Thiessen grabbed his jacket, he had to run. “This conversation never happened, okay?”

“I’ll see what we can do. As a favour, Charley.”

Thiessen got to the cabinet room a little late. Clara was reading out a shopping list from the Green leader that was being met with frowns and groans.

He found a seat beside Jack Bodnarchuk, whose arms were folded in tight defiance. He grumbled to Thiessen: “This goes through, Alberta’s out of the confederation.”

The resources minister was a key player in delegate-rich Alberta. “This goes through over my dead body,” Thiessen said. In truth, though, he worried that his party could be on the wrong track on energy issues. He’d been helping his oldest son, fifteen, on a climate change project — the schools pump kids full of that stuff these days. He’d had to sit through that depressing Al Gore documentary, had been forced to read a lot of alarming stuff from scientists. His daughter Joy was even worse, had practically joined the green camp. He’d told her to find balance, seek out opposing views. “From who?” she’d scornfully demanded. “Oil company apologists?”

Anyway, the P.M. definitely wasn’t touting any deal with the Greens. She was going on about how she gave it her best shot, how Margaret Blake had blown her chance, how it would rebound against her party. Calls would now go out for a star candidate to bring home Cowichan and the Islands. Applause.

Thiessen drifted away, half listening to the debate, which was one-sided anyway. A star candidate. Maybe that’s the pitch to give Mr. Stonewell.
Robert, there’s another reason we’ve brought you and your good lady here. Our party is looking for a respected, business-oriented candidate
…

Margaret was hunched over her desk with Pierètte, in near fury as she read the PMO’s noon press release: the government had flatly rejected the Green Party’s costly, recession-deepening ultimatums. Its leader had spurned the government’s own generous bundle of initiatives for a healthier environment.

“That fraudulent hypocrite!” Mocking Gracey’s sugary tone: “‘Can we keep this among friends?’”

“Cool down,” Pierètte said. “The corrections we’re sending out are angry enough.”

“Goddamnit, she
begged
me to sit down with her.”

“Exactly what we’re telling the media. What did you do, critique her hairdo?”

“I did
not
let my temper carry me away.”

“Temper? You have a temper? Hey, you did great, you didn’t buy her girlie guff so she showed her claws. I’m proud of you.” She zipped up her jacket.

“Where are you going?”

“To McRory. I’m going to tell him you’re still straddling the fence and may grab Gracey’s offer as something that’s better than nothing. He’s hungry, he can taste it. Let’s see if he can swallow the fifty-buck carbon tax.”

Alone, Margaret tried some yoga breathing. Still your anger, find peace …

A staffer crept in, nervously dropped off a draft of Pierètte’s press release. Margaret scanned it. “Fine. Fax it around.”

She turned up her TV — there it was, top of the news, her recession-aggravating, gun-to-the-head ultimatum. Just the tail end of that, then A.J. Quilter from Calgary, proposing to sue Ottawa for his lost profits from Bhashyistan. A mere two billion dollars.

The third son, a clip from his latest infuriating YouTube dispatch. “From where Canada gets this dead leaf as symbol?” Displaying a ragged Canadian flag. “Turns red, falls from tree, decomposes. What else they have — loon, goose, old sailboat. We have snow leopard, Siberian tiger.” A shot of him standing under snarling
head trophies. “Still some live in zoo. This is Mukhamet Khan Ivanovich, your unvarnished source of fast-breaking news. Tune in very soon for Operation Storming Ram.”

Still no mention of those poor women from Saskatchewan. Margaret listened awhile to a pundits’ guessing game about Storming Ram, then clicked the set off. Question Period coming up. She might miss most of it while in the foyer with the press. She will control her temper. She will.

Think love and peace.

For the first time since his rise to stardom in this House, Gerard Lafayette found himself on the far back bench to the right of the Speaker. And for the first time in his life, he’d allowed pride — ignoble pride, his one damnable weakness — to provoke him into an act of measureless stupidity.

Stunned by his demotion to the bowels of the Conservative cabinet, he’d reacted unthinkingly, in the heat of the moment, and was now in the throes of regret. He was being tainted as resentful and impetuous. The most savage swipe, from the NDP leader: he had deserted the sinking ship “not like a rat but a spoiled brat.”

A major setback to his ambitions. A miscalculation. He’d expected at least a dozen core supporters to join him, but had commandeered only two, and with an election looming, he had no time to build a base. He could lose his own riding of Montréal Nord.

He sat back, masking his pain, his self-inflicted wounds, as members lauded today’s lot of heroes: three Restigouche campgirls who saved a drowning friend, the winner of an oyster-eating contest, an armless Afghanistan veteran. Lafayette rose wearily to join in the applause.

Claude McRory hurried in late, half shaved, his furred eyebrows screaming for manicure scissors, a bull-faced expression. He beckoned his shadow cabinet to huddle. Lafayette had a sense of what
this was about — the parliamentary aide to the Green leader had been observed courting audience with McRory, presumably to barter Margaret Blake’s vote in exchange for an extortionate carbon tax.

He could see heads nodding. The message was clear: Blake’s blackmail had succeeded, she had bound the Liberals to a recession-worsening tax as the price of bringing the government down. The huddle quickly dispersed as Gracey came waltzing in for Question Period.

McRory scrambled to his chair ready to fire one of his wild salvos, but Gracey got the Speaker’s nod.

“Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of informing this House that I have just met with the governor general, who has proclaimed that this Parliament is to be dissolved forthwith and a general election to be held on Monday, January twenty-fourth. On that date, the people of Canada will decide whether they want their nation to be run by those who seek to represent them truly and honourably or by the tax-and-spenders who in their thirst for power would leave our economy in ruins. Season’s greetings to all. Enjoy the holiday.”

McRory began spouting, but couldn’t be heard over the brave shouts and loud shuffling of government members as their benches emptied. Lafayette saw Margaret Blake enter, looking confused, unaware this Parliament was at an end — probably her political career too, now that she’d failed to enforce her dictates.
Le Parti Vert est en ruine
.