Arthur knows that he must compose himself, focus on the case of his truant client. Nick Faloon may have disappeared, but the case won’t go away. Upset that a high-profile prosecution is sifting through his fingers, Buddy Svabo proposes to bypass a preliminary and go to trial next month by direct indictment. With or without the accused.
Arthur was given notice a week ago of Svabo’s motion, which collides with the enshrined rule that a defendant must be present at his trial. His first reaction was to scoff. So might the presiding judge, Larry Mewhort, a former defence counsel, though not the brightest star in the firmament.
Arthur’s second reaction was an inspired flip-flop. A quick trial could be to Nick’s benefit. Especially were he to return suddenly-a surprise witness at his own trial. Buddy would be caught off guard, ill prepared to cross-examine.
The condom-in-the-trash defence may lack substance, but if combined with a clear motive and a vigorous confrontation with the siren of the Rhine…Arthur has earned reasonable doubts with less. Faloon may attract only a minimal sentence for his escape if the defence can show he was wrongly accused, wrongly jailed. There is nothing but suspicion to tie him to the thefts at the Breakers Inn. But is Arthur thinking coolly, or is his mind too aflame over the logging at Gwendolyn Bay?
And how to locate this species at risk, this threatened Owl? Surely he hasn’t flown the coop merely to hide in a dank hole somewhere nearby. A migration to more distant climes seems likely. To more profitable climes.
The Beaver descends low over the Fraser Delta and its swirl-patterned tidewaters to the river’s south arm, brown and swollen with spring runoff. It’s raining hard as they pull into the Fraser River seaplane dock.
Umbrella unfurled, he slogs up the road to a waterfront pub. She’s sitting in a corner nook, eyes half-hidden by dark bangs. A wig, or she dyed her hair. Perrier in front of her, a packed suitcase beside her. She offers no sign of recognition as he approaches.
“Cat?”
She rises, gives him a perfumed, overfriendly embrace. “We kind of figured you’d call, Mr. Beauchamp. And just in time.” She beckons to an older gentleman finely dressed, who joins them from the bar, bringing his pint and a flight bag. Willy the Hook.
“And where are you two off to?”
“Le tour de France,” says Cat, patting his cheek and returning his wallet.
The Owl is playing poolside behind a Herald-Tribune and a coffee that costs a sawsky with tip while he waits for Willy and Cat, who are flying in first class thanks to Harold W. Stein over there, the lawyer from Boston, who is out here sweating away the kilos. Faloon weeded out a gold Visa from this gentleman’s wallet a few days ago, the pants hanging on a peg while Stein was getting a rubdown. You’ve got to respect this fine Cannes hotel, the Belvedere, its pool, steam room, changing room, big bath towels that hide a busy hand.
This has always been the Owl’s forte, the play for the blooper, the plastic. In his system, you never lift cash, you don’t touch the six other credit cards-Harold W. Stein might not notice one is missing or he might wonder if he left it in Boston, or maybe it’ll be a few weeks before he gets around to calling the friendly folks at Visa. Or maybe he’ll only notice when he gets his statement and suddenly loses his newly tanned complexion.
Faloon did a tester on the Visa two days ago, Wednesday, it held up, a $3,000 diamond from a bijouterie, a bauble. Then yesterday he went back and scored a sapphire-inlay ladies watch he said was for Mrs. Stein. Thirty-five K.
Sitting across the pool from him is a lemon-haired looker by the name of Gina de Carlo-the “starlet,” people around here call her, but no one can put a finger on what film. She’s leafing through a glossy called Shape, which she has in spades, a beautiful tall young creature, in a way she reminds him of Dr. Eve Winters, or what she would’ve looked like at nineteen or twenty. (Images keep returning of her dead body, and they bother him, like something is coming back that he doesn’t want to remember. Something he doesn’t want to think about at all.)
Ms. de Carlo has no visible means of support except from Sierra Leone’s ambassador to France, who stops here, according to Popov the Russian, every other weekend, diplomatic pouch in hand, to visit her at the Belvedere. The pouch-a briefcase-will be full of the kind of ice that doesn’t melt.
Popov is among the top five in the world, just ahead of the Owl. He was in his regular cafe in Marseilles, and planned to do the Belvedere himself until he got recognized by the desk. “I turn you onto nice wrinkle,” he said. Thus inspired, Faloon checked into the Belvedere five days ago, and he plans to skip out in the traditional way tomorrow. In the lexicon of the trade, no insult intended to the great man, this is called taking it on the Arthur.
Meanwhile, Stein, who bears an unnatural resemblance to Faloon, short and bald on top though pudgier, sits happy with one of his clients at poolside, not missing his Visa, billing everything to his room. He’s pretending not to be looking at Gina de Carlo’s tits as she dives topless into the water.
Maybe it’s the image of breasts, it doesn’t take much, and zap, Faloon is feeling pangs about Claudette. The tour Cote d’Azure is in honour of her, the Owl has vowed to get her a stake, in case he has to rot for the rest of his life in the crossbar hotel. It’s the Love Tour, maybe the Last Tour, the Terminal Tour. The Reckless Tour.
Nick the Goods, the town booster-he’s back in business, coming out of retirement after a miraculous flight to freedom. Faloon never escaped before, never skipped, he was an honest thief who always paid his bills, but he had no recourse, because this time they were going to nail him.
He doesn’t remember much about his journey on a gurney from ambulance to hospital to side exit to waiting van, except the throwing up. He got the basic details on re-entry, while the guys took a hacksaw to his irons as he was throwing up in a motel room toilet. Three co-workers of Greg McDeadly from the d’Anglio family, whooping it up, ecstatic, everything went as planned, with their doctors’ smocks and caps and surgical masks, and their calm, “Okay, fellas, we’ll take over.”
Still peering over his Herald-Tribune at Gina de Carlo, he jerks when a hand tickles his thigh, and it’s Cat McAllister, who has stolen up and sat down. When he folds his paper closed, Willy the Hook Houston is across from him.
He’s happy to see them, but he has to restrain enthusiasm, which he restricts to a continental kiss for Cat and a handshake with Willy, followed by a sharing of how everyone looks great, and a funny anecdote from Cat about how she almost forgot the name on her passport at customs. But the three of them keeping it low-key, not drawing attention away from topless Gina.
He lets them know that the beer belly who’s about to walrus into the pool after her is Harold Stein, whose generosity is helping fund this tour. He explains about how Gina is concubine to an ambassador of a land where diamonds flow like milk, who will be entertaining a dubious broker from Antwerp tomorrow at 3 p.m., when millions of euros could change hands, money that should be diverted to a nobler cause.
But Faloon starts getting obstacles to this brilliant plan. The Hook has a problem with blood diamonds, part ethical, part fear. “In such countries, they amputate arms and feet, old boy. And…and there’s other concerns, right, Cat?”
Faloon realizes they have shown up with their own agenda when Cat opts for a massive change of subject. “Honey, we been asked by Mr. Beauchamp to persuade you to drop in for your trial.”
Willy hands him a note signed by the great man. La situation est plus encourageante. “It means you got a real good hope.” As if the Owl can’t read French. “He says your presence in court would be very helpful, so you can tell the jury your side. Maybe you want to talk to Mr. Beauchamp, who is waiting by his phone.”