Street Legal

by William Deverell

  Mitchell moaned in dismay. “Christ. Where will that leave us?”

  “The wiretap is inadmissible. I will have to argue that doesn’t taint the surveillance evidence. You will testify you saw Schlizik and Cristal exit from the same vehicle outside the bowling alley. And then you will pray for a conviction, because if we don’t get one your career as a police officer is over. I’d say your chances are substantially less than even.”

  There was silence as McAnthony buttoned his shirt and straightened his tie. Finally, he turned from the mirror and looked at Mitchell for a response.

  Mitchell was leaning against the wall, studying the ceiling. He emitted a deep sigh. “Okay, you’re right, I’ve been an asshole. I’ve been playing it too cagey. So what if we cut a deal with Carrington Barr? We drop against Cristal if he rolls over for us.”

  McAnthony had already considered this possibility. “Yes, I suppose it’s a way to save your hide, though I somewhat doubt Carrington would go along with it. She may want to take her chances on a trial — she has all the chips.”

  Mitchell came closer, lowered his voice. “You can tell her we have someone inside Billy’s organization who can finger Cristal.”

  McAnthony reacted with surprise. “You have a spy?”

  Mitchell took a while, as if working on his phrasing. “You can tell her those are your instructions.”

  “Do I hear you correctly, Inspector? You want me to divulge this fact?”

  “Actually, yeah.”

  “Word will get to Billy Sweet.”

  Mitchell shrugged. “Maybe it will smoke the prick out.”

  “This sounds like a very dangerous game.”

  “It’s a sting, Oliver. Stings aren’t played by Queensberry rules.”

  McAnthony understood then, from the nuances, that Mitchell was playing another of his games. There was no spy, of course; Mitchell was simply giving him the means to twist Carrington Barr’s arm. He was filled anew with distrust for Mitchell. But there was not much point in trying to second-guess this hard-nosed cop with his single-minded devotion to ending the career of Billy Sweet. It was a cause McAnthony shared.

  “I’ll talk to Carrington,” he said.

  ***

  Leon looked up from his desk as Carrie loomed in his doorway, fixing him with those big, maddening, green eyes.

  “Come on, Leon,” said Carrie, “we’re going to that reception.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Don’t be a poop. It’s five o’clock, we’ll be late.”

  Leon stayed glued to his chair. “I can’t handle the hypocrisy, not to mention the pomposity.” He struggled with what he was about to say. “I have a better idea.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why don’t we have dinner instead?”

  “You and me?”

  Did she find that preposterous? Friends have dinner together. It happens all the time.

  “I can stay here and do some work, and . . . you know, meet you after the reception?” How like a schoolboy he felt, stammering, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “Oh, Leon, I’d love to. Not tonight, I’m really bushed. Can we do a rain check on it? Maybe this weekend?”

  Leon forced a smile. “Well, um, Mom was interested in having you over for dinner.”

  “Maybe she’s going to try to line us up, Leon.” Then she smiled, as if assuming Leon shared the humour, the manifest absurdity of it all.

  Yes, it could be a disaster; his militant mother would embarrass him with a non-stop harangue. She’d left a message on his machine: she’d heard he was acting for some kind of Nazi.

  “Listen, I’m going to beg off from that. How about just the two of us? You could come over Saturday — I’ll do something special.”

  “I love your cooking, Leon. Sure, that’d be great.”

  ***

  The Bar Association had rented a salon in the Four Seasons to pay homage to Mr. Justice Clearihue — a cocktail-hour reception — and Carrie showed up late. The firewater had been flowing freely — the two hundred or so barristers here were becoming quite loud, a roar of loosened lawyers’ tongues.

  She saw Chuck gulping a drink at one end of the cash bar. Then she spotted Ted. Oh, God — she hadn’t even guessed he’d come to this thing. There he was with a couple of divorce-court comrades. Not doing much talking, though, just listening, sort of sad-looking. Why was he not with Melissa, emboldening her for another hard day in court? How had the divorce gone today?

  She wanted to turn on her heels, to flee, but something momentarily held her.

  Suddenly it seemed as if everyone’s eyes were on her as she stood hesitantly near the entrance. Gossip races like wildfire through the legal community, and no doubt they all knew about her and Ted. To add fuel, they had seen him come in alone, and now her, and she couldn’t retreat with dignity intact.

  Chuck spotted her and waved her over. She’d have one quick drink and go. Maybe she should have taken Leon up on his dinner invitation for tonight — she felt bad about her refusal, he’d seemed lonely, in need of company.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Ted looking at her now, too. She put on a face that said, hey, I’m tough, independent, cheating husbands don’t faze me, and she moved to the bar to join the lineup for drinks. There she was intercepted by Oliver McAnthony, who was looking very serious.

  “Carrington, I have something to discuss if you can afford me a moment.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Let me batter my way through this defensive line and buy you a drink.”

  “White wine, that’s very kind, Oliver.”

  A spoon clinked against a glass, and the room hushed a little, and behind a backdrop of sodden, murmuring voices came the words of the president of the Toronto Bar Association, a ladder-climber whose name Carrie couldn’t recall.

  “The honour has fallen to me, ladies and gentlemen, to speak of greatness. To speak of honour and honesty. To speak of humour and humility. To speak of Thomas Gerard Clearihue.”

  Carrie joined Chuck, who was in an unhappy mood.

  “Guess you heard about Harry Squire getting off. The milch cow has dried up. The tightwad offered me peanuts. I threw it back in his face. We’re going to be on our uppers again if you don’t bring in that three hundred grand.”

  “To no other practising lawyer could I say with such confidence, Thomas Clearihue, you’ve paid your dues.”

  “Now we’ve got to start paying ours,” Chuck said, a little too audibly.

  “Past treasurer of the Law Society and of the Canadian Bar Associa-tion —”

  “Two-faced power-hungry opportunist. This guy’s never been outside a boardroom in his life. He’s a hammer in court, you should’ve seen him in action today.”

  “Will you all raise your glasses in honour of a new and vigorous presence in the highest court of this province: Mr. Justice Thomas Clearihue.”

  Chuck pantomimed being sick all over his shoes. His voice went lower: “Ted’s here.”

  “I know. I’m going to hang around for a few minutes and smile a lot and then make a run for it.”

  “He’s acting very odd. I watched him in court, he’s blowing it.”

  “He, what . . . he’s handling it himself? His girlfriend’s divorce?”

  “I’m kind of worried about him.”

  “Yes, we must weep tears for Ted.”

  This was interrupted as McAnthony finally escaped from the bar with her wine and his Scotch. He motioned her to follow him to a quiet corner.

  “I’m afraid you’ve been done a small wrong, Carrie.”

  “I’m getting used to it.” She smiled. “Not from you.”

  McAnthony didn’t respond to that. She assumed he either didn’t know about her breakup with Ted or was too courteous to acknowledge it.

  “Perhaps we
might want to sit down.” But there wasn’t a chair nearby.

  “What is it?” she said. “I can take it.”

  “I haven’t given you full disclosure. Facts have been withheld from me. You may assume that someone was playing childish games with us.”

  Ring around the rosy, she thought. With Harold the Bullet Mitchell, no doubt. She had been right to be suspicious of him. How bad was this going to be?

  McAnthony told her about the listening device in the prop loft and the surveillance unit outside. He told her that Hollis Lamont, the supposedly off-duty bowler, was actually working that night. “And Cristal was seen arriving in the car with Schlizik.”

  Oddly, what bothered her most about this sudden deluge of bad news was that André Cristal had lied to her — he had been partnered with Billy Sweet’s number-one gunman on the night of these murders. Her faith in his innocence, half-hearted at best, was now shattered, and she was both saddened and angry at Cristal — and at herself for having been too easily misled.

  “Mitchell . . . he had court authorization for this wiretap?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he should be bloody charged.” Stay calm, she told herself. She was trying to weigh all this, wondering how much the Crown’s case had hardened.

  “There’s more, Carrie. There was a witness.”

  Of course, thought Carrie, the undercover unit would have spotted Normie. “Did you say ‘was’?”

  “He now exists in the past tense. One Norman Shandler, an addict.”

  She felt numb as he told her of Normie’s death today. As she had waited for him in the Sunrise Bar and Grill, he had been lying dead in an alleyway behind it. Billy Sweet had had done it — how had he found out he was there?

  Then she thought: she had pointed out that restaurant to André Cristal, had told him Normie would be meeting her there. Now Carrie was feeling woozy.

  “Your card was found in his pocket.”

  “He was trying to sell evidence, Oliver. He’d have been a terrible witness for either side.”

  “All that having been said, Carrington, I want to offer a proposition. Do you think your client will turn Crown’s evidence?”

  “For a dismissal?” She hadn’t even contemplated that possibility.

  “New name, new town, new job — I suspect I can give him money. But he has to give us Billy Sweet in return.”

  Cristal couldn’t, she knew that. And she was sure he would not inform on Leonard Woznick. Or would he? Maybe he was capable of that, of anything. Surely he hadn’t murdered Normie. No. Impossible.

  “I’ll have to seek instructions, Oliver. I’m not sure if he’ll do that.”

  “I’m authorized to tell you another witness may be available who can point a more definite finger at your client, Carrie.”

  “Who, for instance?”

  “Someone they have inside. I leave this information to your utter discretion.”

  Carrie tried to compose herself. She wanted to continue this intriguing discussion, but McAnthony raised his glass in a salute to her and discreetly turned to go. He’d seen Ted Barr bearing down on them.

  There was no escape, and Carrie just sipped her wine and waited for him. He looked wan, distant, as if only a part of him was here. André Cristal and Normie’s murder and deals with the Crown were suddenly shunted to the back of the brain. Her heart began to race. What causes this? The man is a jerk.

  “I’m not interrupting?”

  “No. How are you, Ted?”

  “Do you care?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “I don’t blame you. I know how much I hurt you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Well, since you asked, I feel awful. I must have lost my touch in court today. It didn’t go well.”

  “Oh, dear, you won’t get all that money.” She was sounding too caustic, she couldn’t help it.

  “Money?” He looked directly at her, pain radiating from him. “Who gives a shit about money?”

  “What do you give a shit about, Ted?”

  “I give a shit about . . .” And he stopped. “They’re having dinner together. Melissa and her husband. The judge practically ordered them to, she . . . What a royal bitch the judge is. Anyway, I told Melissa to go through the motions, hear the poor slob out, she knows it’s over, absolutely nothing between them . . .”

  He may have realized he was muttering almost incoherently, and his voice trailed off.

  “What in heaven’s name is wrong with you, Ted?”

  “Don’t you see?”

  “No, I don’t see.”

  “That’s funny. I thought it was obvious.”

  Then, before Ted spoke his next words, she saw. And she felt a stirring of nausea within her, had to fight it. Her fingers trembled as she tilted the rest of the wine down her throat.

  “Melissa and I are on some kind of . . . cosmic wavelength. I don’t know what it is — we laugh at the same jokes, we just kill ourselves sometimes, the same kind of books, the same kind of movies, whatever, tennis, the outdoors. The sex, it’s incredible. It’s like the gods matched us.”

  In a fury, Carrie slapped his face.

  17

  As Carrie walked quickly up Bloor Street, the ugly scene in the Four Seasons Hotel salon returned in waves and echoes, the stares, the gasps, the shame, the terrible expression on Ted’s face. Unbelieving, beyond shock.

  Had she slapped him awake, or merely addled his brains all the more?

  Who gives a shit about money?

  So it wasn’t Melissa’s millions, it was the knife of love, a horrid obsession that had blinded him, had cauterized all his senses. We laugh at the same jokes, we just kill ourselves sometimes.

  In turmoil, she’d decided to walk to the Park Plaza — she needed the fresh air, needed to clear her head. She liked to walk, André Cristal said he had seen it in her legs. Yes, she must sit down with him, discuss this offer of clemency, do the things that lawyers do. Ask him about Normie Shandler, ask him bluntly if he killed him.

  She rang his room from a lobby phone and was about to give up when he finally answered.

  “Allô?”

  “It’s Carrie. I’m downstairs.”

  “I am t’rough in the shower. Come up.”

  Carrie waited for a discreet few minutes to let him dress. When he answered her knock, he had slacks on but was bare-chested. His shoulders and chest seemed made of rock.

  “How was your day?”

  “I run maybe fifteen miles. Then some shopping for clothes. Then I run again, maybe twelve miles this time.” He put on a loose-fitting shirt, silk, expensive.

  “Are you going out?” she asked.

  “Maybe. For dinner.”

  With whom? That young want-to-be law student from Montreal, Ms. Woznick?

  “I won’t keep you then,” she said.

  “Be comfortable, please. I ’ave wine, a fine estate Lafitte — can I offer you?”

  “No, but thank you.” She wanted a drink, though, something to help drown the memory of Ted’s last ugly speech. Business, she told herself. Concentrate on business.

  She sat in an armchair and watched him carefully, curious — would he lie about being in that car with Schlizik?

  “The police were outside the bowling alley that night. They saw you and Schlizik pull up in a car.”

  “That is what they say?”

  Just a smile. He didn’t bat an eye.

  “They are anxious to convict me. I am sure you will prove in court that they lie about this, Carrington.”

  His casual self-assurance suddenly had her in doubt again — she wouldn’t put it past the Bullet to create evidence. And that other little piece of intelligence that McAnthony had passed on — the mole inside Billy Sweet’s network — could that also be a smoke screen? Indeed, wa
s André Cristal, as he had intimated, being set up for a fall?

  “They also say there is a spy in Billy’s organization, and that he can tie you into these murders. I’m not sure if that’s true, though.”

  “Why do you t’ink they suddenly tell you all this business?”

  “I think . . .” Well, yes, it was becoming apparent. “I think they want to put pressure on you to make a deal.” I leave this information to your utter discretion. That’s what McAnthony had said, the fox. He and Mitchell had conspired.

  When she described the terms McAnthony had offered, he did react, a surprised face, a low whistle.

  “That is a very good deal.”

  “They want Billy Sweet, though.”

  Cristal sat on the bed, pulled out his makings and began to roll a cigarette, looking up only when Carrie told him about the death of Normie the Nose.

  “Behind the Sunrise Bar and Grill, André, you remember I pointed it out to you.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “I don’t think anyone else knew he would be showing up there.”

  He continued making his cigarette. “Carrington, you disappoint me.” Now he turned away angry. “Merde! I am on bail for one murder, do you t’ink I would do another? I am innocent! Innocent of everyt’ing!”

  “I know you say that, but —”

  “Why don’t you ask the cops? Everywhere I go they follow me. I run all along the Don River, there is a car behind me. Les boeufs. Ask your Inspector Mitchell where I was today.”

  “Okay. I have your point.”

  “This Normie, he was on Billy Sweet’s list. Maybe I am, too. Maybe that is why he ’as put up bail, so he could kill me. A new identity is a good way to keep my ’ealth.”

  “It could mean implicating Leonard Woznick.”

  “I would never t’ink of doing that. But . . . maybe I can get something on Billy so they can drop my charge.” He seemed to be concentrating hard. Then he blew out a stream of smoke, and looked at her with a strange glint in his eye. “If that is the police offer, I wonder how much Billy will bid?”