“Hello…Gabby?…I love you too, Gabby…I don’t know, honey, whenever Mommy lets me come back.”
To Arthur’s utter discomfort, Brian begins to cry. He hopes that Brian, in this sensitive state, will not be too wounded by his critique of the Faloon defence strategy.
There is much nervous shuffling in the house as his guests crane to watch Arthur pull a loaf from the oven. He can hear Brian on his phone in the next room. “Caroline? Pick up, Caroline, it’s me. I’m coming to see the kids tomorrow.”
“Cat, will you take the vegetables and the dip outside-since the day is mild, I think we ought to sit on the deck. I can offer coffee, tea, or a very good local apple juice. You will forgive the bread its concave shape.”
“We are obliged that you would put yourself out in such a big manner, Mr. Beauchamp.” Freddy Jacoby, the appointed spokesperson. “I want to say on behalf of everyone it is an honour to have us at your home.”
“You’re most kind. Cat McAllister, you are looking lovelier than ever. It must be twelve years since I last had the pleasure.”
“They took me out of circulation for a while, Mr. Beauchamp, over a tiny swindle thing.” As Arthur leads her to the deck, she catches a high heel on a loose board.
“And Willy Houston-have I heard right that you’ve retired?”
“Yes, sir, I’m not much into the game any more. I have a little set aside, and can throw in something for the defence.” One could mistake him for a retired banker, polite, well spoken, though he’s Cockney born and bred.
“You must try my wife’s goat cheese. Very low in fat.”
They shuffle into chairs around his warped cedar table. Brian says, “You start, Freddy.”
Jacoby shakes his head woefully. “For me, I got to admit I don’t think he’s as meshuga as he’s putting out, Mr. Beauchamp. As to the robberies, I couldn’t put it past him, but I honestly don’t believe Nick shoved off that lady psychiatrist.” He takes a breath, then delivers his prepared text: “We know you and him go back a long time, and he always talks with great admiration, like you’re his mentor and he owes his career to you. We know you were disappointed in the last outcome, and on the basis of that we hope Nick deserves one last chance to clear hisself.”
“Also, he’s in a bad way,” says Brian, cueing him-he has obviously rehearsed this show.
“Right,” says Jacoby. “Nick, he’s-I’ll be honest, Mr. Beauchamp, he’s suicidal. Sitting out there in the spook house with all sorts of dangerous psychos, it’s doing something to his head. You wanna add to that, Willy?”
“He got on the phone to me from VI,” says Willy the Hook. “There are some very depressive blokes in that joint. They’re getting to him. He’s afraid he’ll never graduate from there, and he’s thinking of finding an easier way out.”
Cat chimes in. “He was framed already once, Mr. Beauchamp. A rape he couldn’t of done. Now someone’s trying to set him up again.”
“My best estimate,” says Jacoby, “is the bulls faked the DNA test, figuring he owes for past offences. The ones you beat for him, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“They got somebody in the science lab to sign off on it,” says Willy.
“Or maybe the killer doped up the corpse with his semen,” says Cat. “To frame him.”
Arthur feels a tingle. Nick Faloon, framed for murder…They have found his tender spot, written a clever script, however awkward and forced in delivery.
“We took up a little collection here.” Freddy Jacoby produces a wad of bills. “Just to get you started. And we chipped in and got you this for your wife.” A velvet padded box opens to reveal a Piaget watch. “On my honour, it is legitimate and can’t be traced nowhere. Also, we all commend your wife for what she is doing. We are for saving the trees.”
Arthur is thinking about false incrimination. He cannot imagine that police scientists could be corrupted-but might others have motives? Adeline Angella, who sold her story to Real Women Magazine…
“I worked with Nick for a dozen years, Mr. Beauchamp,” says Cat. “He never once made a pass. Okay, once, but I tickled him and he stopped. Nick don’t attack women. Nick don’t kill. He’s been jobbed.”
Everyone turns to Brian, who is rubbing his forehead, trying to knead a headache away. He speaks wearily, “Fact is, Arthur, we couldn’t help notice your interest in this case. You called my office to get him help. You showed up in court. Don’t pretend you don’t give a shit. Because I give a shit, and I’ve got three kids and a marriage counsellor to support and I’m turning down good money. There’s a hundred and ten thousand dollars in that bundle.”
“To get you going, Mr. Beauchamp,” says Jacoby. “Business ventures are pending that will scrape up more.”
“The question of fees doesn’t weigh on me right now,” Arthur says.
“Because something else does,” Brian says, remorseless. “That rape conviction still galls, doesn’t it? What was it-thirty straight wins?”
“To be precise, thirty-three.”
“I sat in on some of that trial. I saw Angella’s touching performance on the stand. Now she’s written another article about her lasting trauma as a victim. She’s making a living out of it, she’s on the lecture circuit. What I propose is this: I’ll undertake to repair that blotch on your record…Arthur, can we go outside for a smoke?”
“We are outside.”
Brian looks around, as if needing to make sure. “Okay, can we go farther outside?”
“Have your talk,” says Jacoby, “while we partake of this refreshment. The dip is undeniable, Mr. Beauchamp.”
Brian continues to pitch Arthur as they walk toward the barn. “I have access to Angella-who, by the way, has a record for making spurious complaints about stalkers, bus-stop butt squeezers. She was hanging around court a couple of days ago watching me finish a sex assault, and now she wants to interview me. She has an assignment from Real Women to obsess over rape again. She wants to get the defence lawyer’s point of view. ‘Balance,’ she calls it.”
“I would suggest staying clear of her, or next you’ll be asking me to act for you.”
“While I take on Angella, you take on Nick Faloon.” Brian leans on a fencepost, drags hungrily on his cigarette. “Where can I lie down? Any freshly dug hole will do.”
Arthur leads him to a sunny patch of spring grass by the barn. Brian briefly inspects it for livestock droppings, then subsides onto his back. “Nice spread, Arthur, but I heard people get taken off these islands in straitjackets. The boredom finally causes them to snap.” He is about to light another cigarette, then realizes he has one going. “Apart from the odd forest blockade, does anything really happen here?”
“You have no idea what happens here.”
As if to illustrate, the proprietor of Island Landscraping is coming up Arthur’s driveway on a backhoe, Dog following in Arthur’s still-mufflerless Fargo. “Excuse me while I tend to some business.”
Stoney parks his machine out of sight of the road, behind the flared skirts of a cedar windbreak. Dismounting, he pats a fender. “A beauty, eh? I drove a hard bargain with Honk Gilmore, got it cheap considering it’s just been overhauled with all new parts. Sorry, didn’t know you had company-I came by basically to ask for some legal advice. How do I plead not guilty to a mechanic’s lien? They want half of what I bought it for.”
The nature of this visit comes clear. Stoney got the machine cheap because Honk Gilmore never paid for the overhaul and the new parts; now Island Landscraping seeks to hide it from creditors. “Stoney, I’m not about to conceal a wanted backhoe in my front yard.”
“That’s not the way I work, Arthur, you know me, I wouldn’t dream of it. I came here to do a test dig-free, no obligation, a loss leader-and if I hit clay as I suspect, then we know the pool will hold. I’d start now, but I don’t want to disturb your guests. I heard they’re in the movie business-if they need any help building sets, you know who to call.” Garibaldi’s town crier has been busy spreading the word. “Okay, Dog’s gonna drive us back so I can get to work on that muffler. We’ll return when you’re not so busy.”