Prudhomme explains politely how each of these helpful hints, in turn, are prohibitively dear.
“What about this business with all the air traffic around the nest, they say you’re trying to scare the eagles.” He abruptly focuses on Arthur. “What’s your position, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“I would be delighted to state my position were I counsel, milord. However-happily for the defendants-I’m not.” But he cannot resist: “The rule, as your Lordship is abundantly aware, is that the applicant must come to court with clean hands.”
“Are you asking me to assume they’re trying to forcibly evict a bird?”
“A pair of them. I can attest to having seen them, in fact. As my affidavit indicates, they were showing the typical indicia of being in love.”
“Didn’t know you were such an expert, Arthur.”
“In birds or love?”
Poorly smothered laughter from Lotis Rudnicki. Maybe she thinks it’s absurd that this old gaffer might be an expert on love. Proving she’s capable of the sin of compromise, at least in a courtroom, there’s no lip ring, no gel in the hair.
Santorini is chuckling too. “Well, the real question is whether those eagles are nesting there or not. I’m going to adjourn this for a couple of days. I want a sighting-not just an eagle, a nesting eagle, eggs-and I’d like photographs.”
After adjournment, Santorini’s clerk corrals the lawyers. “The judge wants to see counsel. Especially you, Mr. Beauchamp.” She leans to his ear. “Even in those shoes.”
Arthur reluctantly parades behind the others, finds Ed Santorini at his desk in shirtsleeves, his feet up, a benign smile that hides an intention to talk hard business.
“You’re looking in great shape, Arthur. Ten years younger than when I last saw you, if you want the truth. Must be the country air. Goddamn, come here, you old son of a bitch.” He stands, and Arthur moves toward him with hand extended, but is met by the full Italian embrace. “Best fucking lawyer on these Pacific shores. Bruised me up a few times.”
“You’re looking remarkably ageless yourself, Ed.”
“I don’t want any jokes about bald eagles.”
“Nonsense, you look good without your feathers.”
Santorini laughs again. “You reprobate. Hey, as we were carrying on in there, I started wondering, How do those birds mate on the wing? Must be something to see.” Selwyn Loo smiles pleasantly as a heavy silence sets in.
Santorini resumes his seat, procoeeds briskly. “Okay, I’m not going to detain anyone, I just want this thing settled as painlessly as possible. Arthur, you’ve got your wife up that tree. Good-looking woman, from the pictures I’ve seen, and I’ll bet she’s a hell of a great gal. I don’t want her arrested-I don’t want anyone arrested here-and I don’t want anyone thrown in jail or fined. I just want those people off that tree, eagles or not, and I’m going to insist there be no logging until we straighten that out.”
“What about the air surveillance, sir?” says Selwyn.
“Okay, I want to be fair, let’s hold off on that for a while. Any problems with that, Paul?”
Prudhomme agrees to advise his clients to comply.
“And in that spirit, let’s see if the defendants can bend a little too, climb down from their perch. Will you talk to them, Arthur?”
“What do you suggest I say?” He wants to tell Santorini that Margaret Blake doesn’t climb down from anything easily.
“Christ, Arthur, use your famous velvet tongue, explain to your good wife I’m letting her off the hook-the other guy as well. I’ll protect their interests as long as they cooperate with me.”
To Arthur, that sounds of disguised bullying. “Communications are not simple. One shouts.”
“Heard you do it many times.”
Twenty years ago, for instance, in open court-Arthur can’t remember all the words he used in describing Santorini. Only the expression horse’s ass lingers.
“Eddie, I do not intend to counsel persons, whether they be clients, friends, or wives, by shouting into half the nation’s microphones.”
“Then go up the tree on that…what have they got, a rope ladder?” Santorini’s bonhomie has faded under Arthur’s gently scornful gaze, and he is flustered now, aware he is making demands that are patently unreasonable.
“Perhaps I could swing like Tarzan through the boughs.”
Lotis Rudnicki snorts with laughter. Santorini forces a stiff smile, studies her for a moment. “You’re sure we haven’t met, Miss Rudnicki?”
“Not in the flesh, milord.”
The comment demands elaboration, but Santorini opts not to seek it. “Arthur, I take it you’re not involved in this…this escapade. The plaintiff alleges a conspiracy, I’d hate to see you named in a writ. Along with whoever built that platform.”
He stands. “Okay, we’ll use the weekend as a cooling-off time and meet again on Monday. No, I have a judges’seminar. Tuesday. I want a response to my offer of clemency. I don’t care how you lay down the law to your wife, Arthur, but I don’t want to see her with a criminal record.”
Arthur plays with the concept of laying down the law to Margaret Blake as Santorini walks him out, an arm around his shoulder. “You old fox, it’s great to see you back in a courtroom. I remember when you referred to me as the backside of a horse.” He guffaws. “Hell, I know you didn’t mean that.”
“Of course not, Eddie.”
Arthur gets one last friendly poke in the ribs before he returns to the courtroom. Santorini is famously unpredictable, maybe he can be worked on.
He proposes lunch to Selwyn and Lotis — these two thin lawyers might enjoy a treat at Nouveau Chez Forget, where his old friend Pierre Forget serves his matelot de sole a la campagnarde occasionally spiced with a tantrum. His offer is accepted, and they will meet there at one o’clock.
As Arthur follows them from the courtroom, he marvels at how keen Selwyn’s sense of direction is — a flick and a tap with his cane on a bench, then he walks assuredly up the aisle, and easily finds the door.
Arthur feels impelled to drop in on Nick Faloon’s fitness hearing, but hopes it will have ended, that he won’t have to witness the charade of an insanity defence.
The Provincial Courts are located on the ground floor, and there he comes upon a radio reporter working to deadline, reciting into his cellphone. “A contrary opinion was given by Dr. Endicott Sloan…” A forensic specialist who believes what he’s paid to believe, and regurgitates it credibly in court. Is the defence so desperate that Brian Pomeroy must ally himself with a charlatan?
This time, Arthur makes no loud entrance, and waits at the back. Brian is standing, arms folded, a rangy man with that wrecked, slightly dissolute look that many women seem to find attractive. Nick Faloon is in the dock, passive and depressed, showing his age, thick of waist, thin of hair.
Dr. Sloan is still in the witness stand, a nasal voice, a litany of learned phrases. “In most cases of dissociative identity disorder, the primary identity is passive, dependent, and depressed. I found Mr. Faloon to fit those qualifications.”
The judge, a young woman-Iris Takahashi, according to the list-breaks in: “Against that, I have the written opinion of your colleague, Dr. Dare.” He is here too, Timothy Dare, sitting at the front, arms crossed, staring icily at Sloan.
She reads aloud from Dare’s report: “‘Mr. Faloon presented himself in a fraudulent manner, and I have no doubt he is capable of conducting his defence. The only illness he’s suffering is a severe case of malingering.’” Takahashi looks down at Dr. Sloan. “You seem to be poles apart.”
“I can’t speak for Dr. Dare, I can only give my best professional opinion.”
“Summarize it for me.”
“Simply, Mr. Faloon from time to time retreats to the safety of a world that may seem fantastical, but for him is credible and real. His disorder reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of his identity, memory, and consciousness. In short, Mr. Faloon takes on the personas of the various women who inhabit his body, and thus evidences the classical personality features of the dissociative personality. It is what we may call an escape mechanism.”