Needles

by William Deverell

  “Not so fast,” Cobb said. The jury were losing this. Plizit was barrelling along too fast in his thick accent.

  “. . . Jimmy Fat is paralyze with needle, can’t move, and Dr. Au, he ask Charlie Ming to take him downstairs to butchering shop, and they tie up Jim Fat. I seen all this, but don’t do nothing, don’t touch. Just stood, not helped. Dr. Au, he makes Charlie Ming takes all Jimmy’s clothes off first, let’s see, that is in butcher office. Then ties his hands and feet to butcher block. And he cut two, three times, and I see Dr. Au cut Jim Fat’s throat with some knife, and that’s all.”

  “A little too fast, Mr. Plizit . . .” Somehow, Cobb was going to have to retrace the ground. Some jurors looked puzzled.

  “I done nothing but help, and too scared to call police.”

  “Let’s go back a bit,” said Cobb. “Who was driving the car when you left Jim Fat’s home?”

  “Me . . . Charlie . . . I can’t remember.”

  “What conversation was there in the car?”

  “I don’t know,” said Plizit. “All in Chinese, do you see? There was nothing I understand, just that we go to office to talk about business.”

  “What business are you referring to?” said Cobb.

  “What business I don’t know. Just business.”

  “What business did you do with him?”

  “I quit now.”

  “Mr. Plizit, what business?”

  “Um, I have serve as personal secretary, property management, charge of collections.”

  “And did Jim Fat work for him too?” said Cobb. “What was his job?”

  “He was also personal secretary, handled some accounts.”

  “And Charlie Ming?”

  “He also has handle property-management stuff, adviser for mortgages.”

  “The National Benevolent Society — what kind of business is that?” said Cobb.

  “I think Dr. Au has charity for refugees from China. He is sending money to Hong Kong for refugee stuff.”

  “How did you get into the building?”

  “Dr. Au have key,” said Plizit. “Charlie have key too, I think.”

  “Describe those offices.”

  “Two rooms, nothing. Tables, chair. Usual stuff, you see.”

  “Tell us what happened in those offices.”

  “Dr. Au is talking to Jimmy in Chinese, and after a while he goes, gets a needle and, like, jabs Jimmy in the back, you see, and Jimmy falls down, can’t move. Then Dr. Au says something to Charlie, and Charlie picks up Jimmy. We got downstairs to H-K Meat Store . . .”

  Smythe-Baldwin climbed wearily to his feet. Cobb knew this would happen. “He has already given this account, my lord,” the defence lawyer said. “Perhaps my friend could move off onto a less travelled road.”

  Cobb would have to make a stand. Plizit’s evidence was too important, and Smythe-Baldwin, he knew, would dig deeply into his bag for means to cut the detail down. The problem would be with the judge, who was squinting narrowly at Plizit from behind his spectacles. Cobb could see that Horowitz was making an effort to disguise his distaste.

  “My lord,” said Cobb, “I am trying to elicit some detail.”

  Smythe-Baldwin huffed: “He is attempting to bolster his witness’s credibility — if one can grace his testimony with such an unsatisfactory word — by having it repeated. My friend no doubt works upon the assumption that lies that are repeated often enough gain credence, and that there may be somebody in this courtroom so gullible as to believe some of them.” The lawyer was shaking his finger to emphasize his points.

  “My friend might save his arm-waving histrionics for his final address,” said Cobb.

  Smythe-Baldwin went at it full throttle. “Now, I have had quite enough. I have sat here patiently through my friend’s case, watching amazed while his noble Roman soldiers parade through this court and do their vicious worst to crucify my client. I can no longer remain silent. It becomes a mockery of our great judicial system that the representatives of Her Majesty may in their avaricious hunger for conviction flaunt murderers and scoundrels before a jury of twelve honest men and women.” The courtroom was reverberating. “My friend has discovered he cannot make a case out of speculative evidence, and now glibly tries to rebuild it with a witness whose lips drip with deceit, who has falsely answered every question since he falsely swore an oath, a witness —”

  “I wish my friend,” Cobb began, trying to halt the deluge, “would resume his seat.”

  The old lawyer talked right through Cobb’s words: “No, I will not remain silent and submit to this.”

  “Please, gentlemen,” the judge said.

  Even this did not stem the flow: “Never in my career have I encountered such . . . In all my forty years of practice at the bars of six provinces of this dominion, I have never before encountered such brazen attempts to found a conviction on the words of society’s worst riff-raff, the worst . . . the worst, the worst, a witness who . . .” Smythe-Baldwin seemed to clutch at the edge of the table, as if overcome. “I am sorry, my lord, I have let my concern carry me away. It must be the strain. I must apologize, I have gone too far. I tender my sincerest apologies.”

  Horowitz looked down with an expression of concern. “Would you like a short break, Mr. Smythe-Baldwin?” he said.

  “No, no . . . please let us proceed. There is much work to be done in this court. I will carry on.” He delivered himself of a long, weary sigh and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “Quite an actor,” Cobb said sotto voce.

  “What did you say, Mr. Cobb?” The judge looked at him threateningly.

  “The strain is quite a factor, my lord,” Cobb said brightly. “These trials can be very difficult. Perhaps we should take a short break.”

  “No, the trial must carry on,” Smythe-Baldwin said, breathing heavily, as if recovering from a stroke. “I should not have interrupted. I was concerned about repetition of evidence. Please pour me a glass of water, Wellington.” One of his juniors hurried over to the water pitcher.

  Cobb, knowing much damage had been done, knowing the jury was now concerned more with Smythe-Baldwin’s health than with Plizit’s evidence, took one more crack at his witness.

  “All right, Mr. Plizit, now, look this way. I want you to describe everything that happened in the meat store as you observed it.”

  But Plizit, too, had been distracted. “I . . . would you repeat the question?”

  “What happened in the meat store?”

  “They have just talk in Chinese, you see. Jimmy is yelling, and Dr. Au just cutted out his tongue, and Jimmy is yelling, you see, yet, and spitting, and Dr. Au he takes knife and go between Jim Fat’s legs, and cuts, like so, and cuts open throat after some time —”

  “Please,” interrupted Smythe-Baldwin. “It is offensive. Must we be steeped in it?”

  He had won Horowitz. The judge spoke sternly to Cobb: “I think you have adequately pursued this line. Get on to something else.”

  Cobb knew the going would now get sluggish.

  “I show you a scalpel.” He had the instrument in his hand. “Did you see anything like this?”

  Smythe-Baldwin would press home his edge. “There is no evidence of a scalpel.”

  “Yes, Mr. Cobb,” Horowitz said, “it would not be fair to show it to the witness.”

  “Very well,” said Cobb. “Mr. Plizit, did you see the accused look out the window at any time?”

  “Leading question, my lord,” said Smythe-Baldwin.

  “Please don’t lead the witness counsel,” the judge said sharply.

  “Well, did you see Dr. Au do anything in the area of the window?”

  Smythe-Baldwin: “Same objection.”

  “That is right,” the judge said. “Just ask him what he did or what he saw.”

  “What did you see
the accused do?” Cobb said wearily.

  “What else?” said Plizit, now confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Describe Dr. Au’s movements about the room.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Cobb turned to the bench. “My lord, I should be able to point the witness in certain directions.”

  “No,” said Horowitz, “not with this particular witness.”

  Cobb tried once more: “What can you say about the accused in relation to the window?”

  “Don’t understand.”

  Cobb swore under his breath. “This is impossible, my lord. I am hamstrung. I say that with deference, of course.” He underlined his last words heavily with sarcasm.

  “Counsel,” Horowitz said, his expression icy, “I want to hear nothing that even remotely hints to the witness the answers that are expected from him. And I think you know why.”

  Jesus, thought Cobb, the judge might just as well have told the jury the witness was paid by the crown to lie.

  “Please go on to something else, Mr. Cobb,” the judge said.

  Cobb turned back to his witness. “When did you leave the H-K Meats building?”

  “I don’t know the time.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I have walk out and gone home. I tried to forget.”

  “What did the accused do after you left?”

  “He has gone too, I guess.”

  “What did Charlie Ming do?”

  “He has stayed, I think.”

  “Did Ming do anything while you were there?”

  “He cleaned up.” Plizit’s answers had all become clipped and sharp, without body.

  “What did he clean?”

  “The blood. Jimmy Fat also throwed up.”

  “Where was the blood?”

  “On the floor.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did he clean it up with?”

  “Mop.”

  “Okay, now, Mr. Plizit, are you currently under any charge?”

  “Murder.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “A drunk Indian has attack me, and a policeman shoot at me by mistake, and I have shoot back in self-defence.”

  “Had you taken any drugs?”

  “Uppers.”

  “Methedrine?” asked Cobb.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know what you were doing”

  “Ah . . . no.”

  “Did you sign a statement for the police giving an account of what you know about the murder of Jim Fat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And why did you do that?”

  “Because you promise not to charge me with murder since I have been overcome by effects of drug.”

  “That is all.”

  It was time for the noon break.

  Cobb wrestled out of his gown, bolted down the courthouse steps, and caught a cab to the Main Street court, hoping to get to the remand courtroom before it broke for lunch. The federal prosecutor nodded to him as he entered, and called the case of Regina versus Benjamin Bowness.

  A sheriff brought Bennie Bones from the cells, and when Cobb looked at his friend his stomach tightened into a ball of hard muscle. Bones had always looked wasted and anemic, and today he was a white and shivering skeleton.

  Bones looked up at Cobb, shook his head sadly, then dropped his eyes. A wash of pain went up Cobb’s back and down again as he listened to the prosecutor read the police report. Apparently the RCMP drug squad had had a tail on Bones for the last few weeks, and finally one of their street undercover men made contact with him, befriended him, and prevailed upon him to sell him a bundle for seven hundred dollars. The facts made Bones look like a middleman, when in fact he was only a street dealer, selling single caps to stay alive and keep his habit fed. Bones’s record was put before the judge — three heroin-possession convictions, two for trafficking, and the service-station robbery of twenty years ago. Cobb pleaded with the judge to set low bail, hoping to spring his friend for at least a few months before his trial.

  The judge looked down at Bones, who looked nauseated.

  “No, Mr. Cobb,” he said, “I think we should let the man dry out. He has roots here, of course, but I am of the view that his continued detention is necessary for the protection and safety of the public, as well as himself. You and I both know that fellows like this, if they’re let back on the street, will only continue to push their wares. Menace to our young people. Strong case alleged. There’ll be a detention order.”

  Bones leaned over to Cobb and whispered: “It’s okay, Fos. It’s the end, anyway.”

  “No, it’s not okay,” Cobb whispered back. “I’ll appeal that.”

  But Cobb knew a bail review could not be brought on until the following week, and in the meantime, Cobb would suffer with his friend — because Cobb had only five caps left in his stash, and there were no other dealers he knew well enough to trust. By tomorrow he would be without. He was already beginning to feel nervous and shaky.

  Back at the crown counsel office in the courthouse, he fell heavily into a chair and smiled wanly at Jennifer Tann.

  “You look like a homeless puppy,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Tired. You listen to the one-o’clock news?”

  “No mention of Charlie Ming’s death. It still hasn’t broken.”

  “Plizit was awful,” he said.

  “Kind of, I guess. But he got most of it out.”

  “He was an asshole up there,” Cobb said. “Smitty will cut him into tiny little rancid bits of meat. Anyway, we got enough in there now to force them to call a defence. I guess we’ll hear from Mr. Cudlipp tomorrow, maybe Au on Monday. Addresses Tuesday, and we’ll probably go to the jury by Wednesday.”

  “You got a cold?” Tann asked. Cobb had started to sniff and blow his nose.

  “Spring cold.”

  Tann searched his face. There was something odd; Cobb was shivering, but the room was really very warm. There was something very odd, indeed, about Mr. Cobb.

  Court resumed and Smythe-Baldwin lumbered to his feet with a show of great effort.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Forty-three,” replied Plizit.

  “And when did you come to this country?”

  “Nineteen-fifty-seven.”

  “And you came here as our guest?”

  “What?”

  “Your way was paid over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No doubt since your arrival here you have been a good taxpaying citizen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when did you last file an income tax return?”

  “Well, not yet.”

  The lawyer smiled benignly. “How long have you worked for Dr. Au?”

  “One year.”

  “And did you receive a salary?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were destitute, without a job, and you came to Dr. Au and he found you a job because he felt sorry for you, isn’t that so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And that is the only honest job you have ever held down since you came to this country, is it not true?”

  “Honest job? I have lots honest jobs.”

  “Let’s hear about them,” said the lawyer. “When was the first?”

  “Well, I have work dishwasher in restaurant in Toronto.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Nineteen-sixty, sixty-one, around there.”

  “And for how long did you work in that restaurant?”

  “Maybe two months.”

  “My!” said Smythe-Baldwin. “Two months. What was your next job?”

  “I work carnival, Tilt-a-Whirl.”<
br />
  “When was that?’

  “Maybe 1967.”

  “For how long?”

  “Maybe two months, maybe six weeks.”

  “And what were you doing between 1961 and 1967?”

  “Doing time, I guess.”

  “You mean you were in prison?”

  “Most of time.”

  “I see,” said the lawyer, pausing to let the answer sink home. “When did you work next?”

  “Maybe 1973.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “Loan business.”

  “What — you were lending money?”

  “No, I collect.”

  “And what great Canadian financial institution was your emplo-yer?”

  “No insti . . . no big business, just a guy.”

  “He was a loan shark, yes?”

  “What you mean? I don’t know.”

  “Loans to gamblers at ten per cent a month,” said Smythe-Baldwin. “Something like that. You carried a gun to collect the loans, isn’t that so?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, come, now, witness,” the voice boomed. “You beat people up and threatened to shoot them if they didn’t make payments. That was your business. The police knew that. Everybody knows that. Don’t play games with us here.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Plizit. His voice in comparison to Smythe- Baldwin’s was squeaky, rat-like. “I collect loans. Was dangerous.”

  “I’m sure,” the lawyer said. “What was your next regular job?”

  “Dr. Au.”

  “You had other jobs perhaps, and you are a little bashful about describing them?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Let’s be frank here. You were a gun runner, bringing guns up from the States. Hand guns.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Perhaps we can refresh your memory,” said Smythe-Baldwin, pulling out several sheets of paper.

  “You were convicted in New Westminster, British Columbia, in January 1959, of seventeen counts of possession of unregistered firearms, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment concurrently in a federal penitentiary on each of those counts?”

  “Yeah,” said Plizit.

  “You were transporting illegal firearms, is that so?”

  “They were not registered, is all.”