Street Legal

by William Deverell

  He looked down to where the droplet fell, onto a rose. He plucked it, smelled it, held the scent in. There, lodged between the petals, a glint of metal in the moonlight: a golden ring. Edwin Moodie removed it from the flower. He put it to his lips.

  10

  “Mom put me through law school washing floors for rich people. Be a lawyer, she said, it’s all I ask.”

  Chuck was making a sympathy pitch to Lisa this morning, he figured nothing else was going to work. He’d spent another uncomfortable night on the sofa, endured another electric silence during the breakfast he’d prepared with his own hands. Now, over their second coffee, she listened like a stone-faced juror to his speech.

  “A thousand bucks a day, Lisa, we’re talking a million-dollar fee here. I could pay off Mom’s mortgage just like that. You didn’t come from an immigrant hard-times background. You can’t understand how it feels when it’s suddenly there, held in front of you like a lollipop. We could afford a bigger house, Lisa, maybe in Rosedale. Swimming pool. Cottage up in the lakes. Is there something wrong with these goals? Am I some kind of sicko for wanting us to have a few nice things out of life?”

  He was talking to the wall.

  Chuck wearily made his way to the office. There, he summoned his secretary, Gloria Walker, into the library. Paperback books were everywhere, on the floor, the table, on shelves, more than nine hundred of them.

  “I’ll never be able to read all this crap. Gloria, I want you to go through these and find literary merit.”

  She riffled through the pages of a few of the books. After a few minutes her eyes seemed to glaze over.

  “This is out-and-out muck.” She snapped a book closed, disgusted. Hollywood Whores was the title — the woman on the cover was stepping out of black lace panties.

  “Do they do harm? Do they make you want to rape and kill or make love to goats? They’re stroke books, Gloria, they actually provide a service.”

  “Well, maybe that should be your defence. No sane judge will acquit.”

  “Gloria, sweetheart, criminal law is not about the law. It is about business efficiency. It has to do with the time and cost of trials. We’ve got nine hundred and fourteen titles here, and let’s say we elect a jury. About sixteen persons, including the judge and the prosecutor, have to read all this crap, almost a thousand books, on average a hundred and fifty pages . . . This is a trial that will never end, Gloria — they’re going to buckle, eventually they’ll find an excuse to enter a stay.” He patted her on the head like his favourite poodle. “And I earn a bundle.”

  “How’s everything at home these days, boss?”

  “I’m enjoying the silence.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  They saw Carrington Barr pass quickly by the open doorway. Carrie looked a mess, her hair unkempt, her eyes wild.

  “Oh-oh,” said Gloria.

  A few seconds later Carrie returned the way she had come, this time carrying a weapon, a pair of sharp shears.

  Chuck turned swiftly to his secretary. “Where’s Ted?” His first thought: Carrie was going to kill him.

  They heard a banging.

  “Jesus.” Chuck ran from the office.

  Thankfully the waiting room was empty. Pauline Chong was standing, white, her hand covering her mouth. Another bang, coming from the corridor.

  There, Carrie was working in a fury with the shears, chipping off some of the raised brass letters. Chuck didn’t try to interfere, just watched until she finished. The sign now read only ROBINOVITCH, BARR, TCHOBANIAN. The first BARR appeared as a shadow.

  Carrie turned to Chuck, her eyes large and raw and wild. It looked as if she hadn’t slept all night. He noticed that her fair complexion was spotted with pinpricks of red.

  “You’re a low, lying, slimy snake, Tchobanian.” She pointed her dagger toward his heart.

  There was no hole nearby Chuck could crawl into. “Moi?”

  “Don’t, Chuck, I warn you.”

  Carrie marched back into the office.

  Chuck looked at the damage to the wall: Barnsworth would have a cow. He returned to the office, found Carrie, her back to him, standing by her desk, gripping it by the edge as if to keep herself upright.

  He closed the door.

  “Okay, Carrie, let’s just simmer down a little. What happened?”

  Carrie placed her palms flat on the desk, steadying herself. “He had the gall to register her as his wife. When I walked in, she was . . . I won’t even describe it.”

  Head, Chuck assumed. The blow job that swallowed the firm.

  She whirled about. “And you . . . you, Mr. Tchobanian, have played me almost as damn false.”

  “Now, Carrie . . .”

  “Tennis, anyone? Little fishing weekend? You lying son of a bitch!” A shout, the whole office could hear. Chuck flinched. “What did you do, chauffeur him right to her bed? I feel like calling you as a witness at our divorce.”

  “Carrie, I . . . Let’s calm down here.”

  “Oh, yes, be rational, be calm, Carrie, be nice. He . . . he . . . paranoid, he called me.”

  That bastard, thought Chuck. He had promised. He was going to lay off Melissa.

  Carrie lowered her voice. “You can pick Ted or me, you can’t have us both. I won’t have him in the same house and I won’t have him in the same office.”

  “Let’s not do anything rash. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk, you and me and Leon.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Come on, Carrie.”

  “About this one, Melissa Cartwright. I don’t suppose I care about the others. But this is too blatant. A client! He should be disbarred! He’s not only treacherous, he’s stupid!” Someone turned on a radio loudly in the coffee room; Chuck figured some clients had arrived.

  He suddenly felt his own anger release. “Goddamn Ted, I told him to lay off her, Carrie, I warned him, I begged. I’m with you, I agree, she’s a mercenary, vamps a rich surgeon and dumps him after five years, but not before she gets her name on half of everything.” He took a breath. “Ted’s been making out with her for months, Carrie. I told him you’re worth a million Melissa Cartwrights. But I guess she’s worth a couple of million dollars.”

  Carrie studied him, a look of confusion. “He’s . . . leaving me for her money?” She sounded weary now, the last of her energy expended.

  “I don’t know what the Christ is in his mind.” Chuck came around behind the desk, and he put his arms around her, but she remained stiff in them, unyielding. “You go home, get some sleep. I’ll track Leon down, we’ll come over, we’ll cancel everything today.”

  “Okay, we’ll . . . yes, I have to sleep. If Ted calls, just tell him to keep out of my way. Please. Tell him I threw his best oxfords into the trash at the airport. Tell him that was the highlight of my night.”

  After Carrie left for home, Chuck stared at his wall for a long time, wondering if this was truly the end of the firm.

  He tried to persuade himself Carrie would cool out; she was the queen of sober second thought.

  No, he realized, there was not a chance. This wound was too deep: he had seen something in her face besides tiredness and despair. Something very determined. She would pull the walls down on Ted, herself, everyone, the whole firm. So this was it, the breakup of R., B., B., and T. Well, maybe there isn’t enough criminal work in the firm for two lawyers, and if worse comes to worst it would only be logical: she goes with Leon; he goes with Ted.

  The thought of the firm splitting up filled him with dismay.

  Leon had to be tracked down immediately. Off somewhere in the Provincial Court with that nutty fat fascist.

  He first tried to phone Ted in Montreal, but he’d checked out.

  He found Gloria still in the library, struggling through the porn books.

  “We’re closing the office
. Cancel all the clients. I don’t care what you tell them, explain we’re in mourning. If Ted comes in, tell him he better check in at the Y. I don’t have to tell you what’s going on.”

  Gloria nodded. She knew. Legal secretaries know everything.

  ***

  Herbert Orff’s case had been assigned to the court of Judge Avery Singh, an excellent draw, a scholar who enjoyed tangled arguments.

  Leon led Orff into the court and placed him on a seat directly behind the counsel bench. Leon could hear the crinkling of cellophane behind him.

  “How come there’s no jury?” Orff mumbled from behind his ear. Leon turned slightly, saw Orff’s mouth was full of Cheesies.

  “We’re not going to have a jury. Put those away, shut up, and sit still.”

  Orff sat back and obeyed orders like a good soldier.

  “Mr. Robinovitch,” said the judge, “what can we do for you?”

  “Fix date, your honour.” He led Orff forward. “Appearing for the accused Herbert Orff. It’s a hate-law case. What I would like is a quick pre-trial hearing on the validity of the section.”

  “A free-speech argument,” said the judge. His eyes lit up.

  “Might make some history here.” By way of a courageous decision to declare the hate-literature law unconstitutional.

  “Will the accused please stand,” said the clerk.

  “I am standing,” said Orff.

  He was five foot four, and this was the old standard short-guy gag being played out. It was as if Orff had a sense of the burlesque, but Leon knew this humour was unconscious. There was laughter in the courtroom, however, which Leon, who didn’t believe in joking at others’ expense, failed to join.

  The judge explained to Orff he could elect to be tried by him, or by a judge of a higher court, or by a judge and jury. He asked how he elected.

  “We elect this court,” Leon said.

  “I want a jury of my peers,” said Orff.

  Leon felt like throwing a net over him. “We elect summary trial in this court.”

  “Mr. Robinovitch,” Orff whispered urgently, “the judge is . . . you know, coloured.”

  “You want to get together on this?” said Singh.

  “Your honour, I’m thinking seriously about withdrawing from this case.”

  Orff agreed he wanted to be tried by Judge Singh.

  The case was set over for one week to fix a date for the Bill of Rights hearing, and Leon left court quickly, with Orff scampering hard at his heels. As Leon reached the front door, he could have sworn he heard someone mutter behind him, in a kind of Teutonic accent, something about an “asshole lawyer.”

  When he turned around the only person there was Orff and his bag of Cheezies. “Did you say something?”

  Orff looked at him and blinked. “I . . . don’t think so.” Then he frowned. “I have a headache.”

  Maybe Leon had been hearing things. “Okay, you go to work. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  As Leon walked from the courthouse into the slap of another hot day, he saw Chuck Tchobanian running down the street toward him, waving his arms, calling.

  ***

  While her bath filled, Carrie wearily wandered through her silent, empty house. During the small hours of the previous night, waiting in the stillness of the Montreal airport, waiting for the first flight of the morning, her head clanging, she had ultimately decided it was a matter of lust — Ted couldn’t have liked that woman for her brain, her personality, her warmth.

  Her money, though? This was a possibility she hadn’t considered. It had never struck her that Ted would abandon her for money.

  Carrie tried to work the concept through her mind: was Ted just a sociopathic mercenary? She decided this was the theory she preferred. Ted abandoning her out of love for another would have been an act of greater enormity, harder to bear. But greed was a brand of bitter medicine that was easier on the stomach.

  She tried to swallow her anger, to be totally-in-control Carrington, but it wasn’t working today. She wept.

  Outside, a rumble of thunder. The storm front from the southwest had arrived.

  After her bath, she went not to the second-floor bedroom she shared with Ted, but the spare room downstairs, then realized she didn’t have pyjamas, so she lay naked under a sheet. Outside, the skies darkened, more thunder, and the rain came, and lightning, and after a cruel time of continuing awareness she slept.

  ***

  When she awoke it was dark, still raining, and she was disoriented. She was on a bed and a bearded man she thought she recognized was sitting on a chair nearby. She was in great pain — that’s all she knew at first.

  “Leon?”

  “I didn’t want to turn too many lights on.”

  She sat up, forgetting she was unclothed. Leon turned his eyes away as she pulled the sheet up around her.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since about three o’clock. We thought by then you’d be awake.”

  “We?”

  “Chuck and I. He left a while ago.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Half past nine.”

  “What have you been doing all this time?”

  “Watching you.”

  Her face went slack. “What am I going to do, Leon?”

  “You’re going to eat. I bought some shrimp. I’m going to stir-fry them.”

  “You don’t eat shrimp.”

  “I’ll make an exception.”

  After a pause, she said, “I wonder if he ever loved me. I thought he did. Guess I’m not very good at reading people.”

  Leon looked away from her. He seemed awkward, embarrassed.

  ***

  Speeder Cacciati always liked hanging around in Billy Sweet’s games room, the decor was really tasteful. Billy was a collector; he’d got ahold of a lot of those old neon signs you used to see in stores, and old beer advertisements and displays.

  Billy’s big stone house, more of a fort, really, was near the Toronto Golf Course in Mississauga, on an acre lot with a wall around it and a guard at the gate. Billy did most of his business from his home because he didn’t like to go out much, even to his downtown office. So most of his running was done by Speeder Cacciati, who was proud he was about the only guy Billy trusted.

  Speeder couldn’t figure out why Billy had changed so much, he used to let it hang out, used to be a free-wheeler. Maybe it was just age creeping in — Billy was forty-five now, about a decade older than Speeder, kind of thin and haughty with this perpetual frown and lines of worry that made him seem even older. He was a neat dresser, wearing a suit vest now: the air-conditioning was on full blast.

  Speeder Cacciati wore a more casual shirt, tropical colours. At his belt was a pager. He was chewing gum, cracking his knuckles, fiddling with his hair, playing with his pool cue, sighting it, twirling it, moving ceaselessly.

  “Stand still, for God’s sake.”

  Sweet was aiming for the far corner pocket. He missed by a hair.

  “I still don’t get it,” he said. “You send Schlizik and this Frenchman up there to whack those two rip-off artists, and only the Frenchman walks out — what’s his name?”

  “André Cristal.”

  “Cristal. So how does Schlizik get gunned down in the process?”

  “A firefight, man. The fuckin’ Frenchman saves the day, right? Billy, I figure we at least owe him something.”

  “So how come he gets charged with three murders?”

  “He gets the book throwed, that’s the way them bulls operate.”

  “I am not venturing three hundred thousand dollars upon a blackmailer.”

  “Who says he’s a blackmailer?”

  “That’s what it sounds, according to what his lawyer said to Mr. Woznick. A possible singer.”

 
Cacciati saw some openings and went into action, but after running two balls in he flubbed his next shot.

  “Whom does this Mr. Cristal know?” said Sweet.

  Whom. Cacciati always found his manner of speech grating, each word chewed off slowly, perfect diction, as if he was trying to be cultured.

  “Whom does he know? He don’t know you, Billy.”

  “That’s good. That’s the way I want it to stay.”

  Sweet watched Cacciati blow up a bubble, and waited until he popped it before going back to the table, cleaning off all his balls, mechanical, perfect.

  “I was lucky. Another?”

  “Naw.” Cacciati didn’t mind letting Sweet win, if it suited a purpose, but he couldn’t beat him anyway. Nobody could. At anything.

  Speeder popped a couple of truck drivers, little red capsules, hits of energy, as Sweet strolled to where he had furnished the room with those new video games that were the rage these days, and switched on Battleship.

  “I am asking, whom can he finger?”

  “He can sure finger Big Leonard.”

  “That is unfortunate for Big Leonard.”

  Cacciati put back his cue, pulled out his comb, began running it through his hair. “Yeah, but if he fingers Big Leonard, who does Big Leonard finger?”

  “He fingers you. You finger me. Everyone protects theirselves in the end, isn’t that it, Speed?” He sunk an enemy destroyer, it went flying in all directions. “Everyone protects their assets in the end.”

  “Come on, man, I once did a deuce in the joint for you.”

  “What have you done for me lately, Speeder? Find out who’s stealing the stock-in-trade. There are rats in the grain bin, Speed. Catch them. Do what friends do to put theirselves above suspicion.”

  Cacciati watched him destroy the enemy ships. No one touched him.

  “Ten pounds of lost product. This operation was supposed to be clean. Mr. Schlizik and this Frenchman were supposed to walk in there and take it. Sure, eliminate whom you have to. But you don’t leave the goods behind.”

  “Things obviously got fucked up. Real cowboy job.” The speed was hitting him now, he was feeling good.

  “Where did this André Cristal come from originally, anyway?” Sweet said.