Street Legal

by William Deverell

  She walked him to her door, and there he put his hand lightly on her arm. She saw that Leon was standing just outside his office door, watching them. Cristal wheeled and walked away briskly.

  “That’s André Cristal?” Leon said. He came into her office.

  “Yep.”

  “Not what I imagined. Clean-cut.”

  “He’s . . . different. Guess you heard I slugged Ted last night.”

  “He’s a wreck. Chuck has gone off to see him”

  “The heart bleeds.”

  “Carrie, the dinner at my place Saturday, if you really feel you’re going to be crowded . . .”

  “No, that’s on, definitely, I need to get away from all this craziness. What are you working on?”

  “I have this nasty legal-aid case tomorrow, a rape, some schlemiel who attacked a girl in his truck.”

  “Poor Leon.”

  ***

  Speeder Cacciati pulled up to Billy Sweet’s guardhouse, flicked the gatekeeper a wave, then drove into the yard. He could smell Big Leonard Woznick beside him, the little jerk was reeking with fuckin’ fear, he deserved to. Speeder was just glad he was not in his shoes. Billy was waiting. Wednesday brunch with Billy.

  Last night Big Leonard was supposed to have hit Cristal, but the hit never happened, and Big Leonard had prepared a goulash of a story that Billy wasn’t going to like. Bring him in, Billy had said on the phone this morning.

  “You sure he ain’t mad at me?” said Leonard.

  “Billy? Naw, he’s a real understanding guy. He’ll have a chuckle over how the Frenchman shmooched the heater offa you.” He rammed a big slab of Dubble Bubble into his mouth, and braked in front of Billy’s brick fortress. Humphries and Deeley were across the lawn, just lounging there, watching. So were Elvis and Izzie, the two boys who did such a good job on Normie the Nose with rat poison.

  Anonymous tip came in on that one, on the pager service, about where to find Normie. Speeder had kind of put out word on the street they were looking, and he guessed some good Samaritan called in, maybe some guy who had a beef with the Nose.

  One of the manservants opened the door and ushered them into the presence of Billy, in his big front parlour with all the books he never read. Speeder saw he was smiling, but he didn’t think it went very deep.

  “Big Leonard,” Billy said in a big, welcoming voice.

  “Hey, Billy, you’re lookin’ great.”

  “The sun room, gentlemen,” Billy said, waving them to the door. “How do you like your eggs? I’ll tell the cook.”

  The sun room was a kind of greenhouse with tinted glass. Billy had fixed it up to look like something out of Hawaii: palm trees in pots and a fountain with a volcano and lava and a waterfall and a little beach scene.

  A white garden-type table had place mats and cutlery on it for three, and after Billy put their orders in he motioned Big Leonard to a chair, and sat across from him. Speeder didn’t sit, he felt a little jumpy, what with the pills he’d been doing and all, and he was worried that he was going to have to do something here for Billy, something not nice. Billy, who don’t like to talk on the phone, didn’t make his plans none too clear this morning.

  He picked at his elbow — psoriasis, the doctor said, the skin was coming off like corn flakes. He made gum bubbles and listened to the friendly conversation that was going on, Big Leonard answering Billy’s inquiries as to his health and everything.

  The eggs came, and after the servant left, Billy asked Big Leonard how it went with the Frenchman last night.

  “First of all, he don’t want to squeal on no one,” Woznick said.

  Billy, with his big smile, said: “That’s nice. That’s nice that you tell us that. But it’s not the news we wish to hear, Big Leonard.” He stuck a fork into his fried egg, and mixed the orange goop up with the white.

  “I coulda greased him, no problem, but I decided, you know, to squeeze some information from him, and it’s lucky I did, Billy. Real lucky.”

  “Lucky for whom? Are you feeling lucky, Big Leonard?”

  Woznick flinched a little. “He told me he knows something. I figgered it was worth saving his life. He’s on your side, Billy, 900 per cent. Loyal like a brother. He helped knock off those guys for you, Billy, Perez and Hiltz, he told me about it, how Schlizik got hit and he had to finish the job alone. Yeah, he made some threatening noises, but only ’cause he had to get out on bail. He’s got some information he wants to tell you.”

  Big Leonard was talking too quick, getting it out too disorganized. Speeder wasn’t interested in breakfast right now. He was just watching Billy, waiting for the reaction.

  “What does he know that could possibly be worth saving his life?” Billy asked, still nice as apple pie.

  Woznick gulped down some scrambled eggs, chewed and swallowed and cleared his throat. “He says there’s a narc inside. He knows who it is.”

  Speeder saw Billy blink a couple of times, that was all. Then his face started going a couple of shades lighter and his upper lip started quivering.

  “It’s a lie,” he said in a tight voice, “and you bought it.”

  “Yeah, Big Leonard,” said Speeder, “you bought it.”

  Woznick whirled in his chair to face him, but Speeder just grinned back. He had a piece in his pants pocket, loaded, he was ready whenever Billy said.

  “Billy, I swear, I think it’s the right goods —”

  Billy cut him off, yelling: “Shut up! You’re a stupid idiot! He scammed you!”

  Woznick began talking, if possible, even more rapidly, sort of like he was pleading for his life. “Billy, we could end up kicking ourselves, you don’t ask André no questions. What’s the harm? He wants to meet you, he doesn’t want to tell no one else, the stoolie is high up, Billy, I think he’s someone who got tight with you.”

  “There is no stoolie!”

  “Turns out he’s lying, Billy, I’ll take him out, I promise. But if he’s telling the truth, we’re all going down the tube we don’t do nothin’.”

  The servant put this conversation into stall by coming in and picking up some empty dishes and pouring more coffee. By the time he left Billy had calmed himself, had got some of his colour back.

  “How does Mr. Cristal claim to know this information?”

  “He found out through his lawyer.”

  Speeder saw that Billy was now a little hooked on this idea. He still remained behind Woznick, waiting for the word.

  “How would she know?”

  “Lawyers, they’re in the loop, Billy, they hear this stuff. She’s tight with the prosecutor. André, he kinda like promised her not to tell no one.”

  “Did he say he was a cop, Big Leonard? Or just an ordinary garden-variety rat?”

  “I got the impression a cop . . . Maybe I’m wrong.”

  “How high up?”

  “So high up André only wants to talk to you about it, Billy.” Big Leonard took a big gulp of coffee. He was bolder now, more confident, he had Billy mulling things over. “After he skips bail, he’s gonna be on the run, and I told him you’d wanna look after him, Billy, maybe a few shekels to tide him over. He says leave a message with Carrington Barr, he’ll meet anywhere, we’ll make sure he’s clean, no artillery on him or nothin’.”

  Billy looked up at Speeder. “Speed?”

  Speeder slipped his hand into his pocket, around the gun butt. Woznick, turning again quickly, looked at the hand there, gripping something hard, and Big Leonard started stammering. “Speeder . . . listen, please, Billy —”

  “Speed, are you still hawking those tickets to your Italian street carnival?”

  Speeder was puzzled. “Yeah, well, for the charity night there at St. Francis of Assisi hall. Why?”

  “I want you to drop one off to this Frenchman’s lawyer with a note for him.”

  Sp
eeder eased his fingers from his pocket, and used them to scratch his elbow. He had to hand it to Big Leonard, he got to Billy real good, just in time.

  “Yeah, that’s the idea,” said Woznick, “fix up a meet, talk to André in a crowd, it’s the best cover. Hey, Billy, he’s okay. He’s solid. Right in there. Jeez, well, I should get going.” He eased his chair back. “I’ll just call a taxi, have it meet me by the gate.”

  He didn’t seem to know whether to shake Billy’s hand or not, just had it sort of hanging out there. Speeder watched Billy slowly wipe a napkin over his lips, then rise. He finally extended his hand. “Have a nice day, Big Leonard.”

  After Woznick left there was silence. Speeder dabbed at his breakfast: the thrusters he’d been taking had ruined his appetite. He was waiting for Billy to start reacting, a little morning stroll down Paranoid Lane.

  “This Cristal,” Billy said, “does he think he’s playing with children? A narc on the inside. What a joke.” He rose, smiling, shaking his head, and left the sun room. Speeder could see him heading for the stairs to the games room.

  Speeder grabbed his coffee and followed him. He didn’t like the way Billy had become over the years this bundle of nerves. He had started off as a gutsy guy when Speeder first knew him. A gunner, he started off as, he had blasted the old Fischetti crowd right out of town and then went right to the top of the pyramid. But what is it with success? It changes you, and Billy wasn’t his old self, like he was suffering some kind of creeping disease.

  Speeder found him at the poker game, seven-card stud, betting a thousand, showing a high pair.

  “Whom do you think it is, Speed?” he said. Lights blinked, cards appeared on the screen. One of the enemy players was showing four clubs.

  “I think it’s bullshit.”

  “You don’t work for the horsemen, do you, Speed?” A small, unnatural laugh.

  “Yeah, I’m head of narcotics.”

  “I worry about Artie, he does the books. I think there’s something funny about him. That new guy, Robertson, the driver, you sure about him?”

  “Yeah, Billy.”

  “Do you trust Big Leonard?”

  “As far as I can throw him. It’s a con, Billy. Shekels, he says. He and André think they got a play happening.”

  The flush didn’t take, and Billy’s three queens beat the table.

  “Make the meet with André Cristal. Take him somewhere. Squeeze some truth out of him. Cut him if you have to. I want to know. What about the lawyer — can we find out what she knows?”

  “She’s a smart-ass broad, she ain’t gonna tell us nothin’.”

  “Go down to the studios, see Nagler, he’ll fix you up with a long-distance hearing aid. Stick it under her desk or someplace. Tell Nagler I want a relay from her office to the van.”

  19

  Mr. Blaine Johnson was facing a jury trial tomorrow, Thursday, August 7, in the North York courthouse. A charge of rape for which Johnson could get put away for a dozen years or more. But Leon couldn’t track him down.

  He wasn’t at the North York lockup. He wasn’t at the Don. He wasn’t in any of the regional jails. And he definitely wasn’t out on bail.

  The Crown had sent a courier over with some particulars about the case, along with Johnson’s record. Two previous sexual assaults and half a dozen common ones. Leon Robinovitch would be defending some violent misanthrope tomorrow.

  Johnson, a truck driver, had apparently picked up a young hitch-hiker and raped her in his rig, at his company’s parking lot. In her complaint to police she said Johnson threatened to kill her if she told anyone. His statement was — predictably — different. He claimed she was all over him, and afterwards she wanted money or she’d go to the cops, and that’s when he hit her. The material sent over by the prosecutor included a photograph: a girl of fifteen with a fat lip and swollen eye.

  Ah, how noble Leon would feel going into the fray for this princely fellow.

  But not tomorrow. Though the prosecutor, Ms. Genevieve Flagg, would be showing up with her loins girded for battle, her witnesses prepped and ready, surely the judge would agree to traverse the case to the next sittings. Leon had not been able to reach the judge, who happened to be old Elliot Packer, the ancient, ulcer-ridden terror of the Ontario High Court. He was at home writing judgments all day, his clerk advised, and she was not prepared to interrupt him with anything short of a threatened terrorist attack on his house.

  Well, Leon would show up in court tomorrow and simply demand an adjournment.

  His phone rang. “That awful person is here again,” said Pauline Chong on the intercom.

  Leon put away the rape file. Yes, today he also had to deal with another of his favourite clients, the many-faceted Herbert Orff, and Dr. Kiehlmann was due any moment.

  Orff ballooned in through the doorway and sat, squeezing between the arms of a chair. He’d brought his lunch, a bag of pork rinds.

  “How goes everything, Herbert?”

  “I have a headache.”

  “Well, Dr. Kiehlmann is on his way and we’ll see what he can do for that.”

  “I know what he’s coming for, and there’s nothing wrong with me. He’s a psychiatrist, and you think I’m crazy just because I believe in different things than you.”

  “No, Herbert, I want to prove you are absolutely sane.”

  “You do?”

  “You see, there’s a danger the prosecution will raise the issue of your competence to stand trial. We have to be ready for that. We’ll need a psychiatrist to testify that you’re just a normal human being.”

  Orff looked sceptical. “Is this usually done?”

  “In your type of case, yes.”

  Leon answered the intercom, and then got up. “You sit tight, and I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He found Dr. Hal Kiehlmann waiting by Pauline’s desk. He was a long-time friend of Leon’s, about fifty, with short-cropped grey hair — he’d worked in a military hospital before going into forensic practice.

  “I can hardly wait to see this interesting subject.”

  “Three different voices. The three faces of Eve, so to speak. What is that, it’s not schizophrenic — schizoid?”

  “Dissociative personality, possibly. The divided self.”

  Leon led him back to his office. “How does he manage? He has this long-time work record. A mainstay of the Waste Management Branch in Scarborough. One has to assume it’s not taxing work.”

  In the office, they found Orff trying to squeeze out of his chair, lifting it as he rose. He’d polished off his pork rinds.

  “Sit down, Herbert,” Leon said.

  “Up yours, shyster, you give us Jews a bad name,” he snarled, sitting back down, glaring at them.

  “Us Jews?” said Leon.

  “I don’t want no goddamn head doctor poking into my brain, okay? Kiehlmann, that’s a German name, ain’t it? No way.”

  Orff the Jewish other. Leon had heard this voice in front of the elevator, cocky, profane. He looked at Kiehlmann, who nodded, then took a chair near Orff.

  “I’m Hal Kiehlmann.” He offered his hand.

  Orff — or whoever he was right now — hesitated, then took it. “No offence. I just don’t like krauts. After what we went through . . . You guys’ll never understand.”

  “And what is your name?”

  “Hymie.”

  “You’re proud to be a Jew?”

  “Damn right.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  “I help Orff. He’s a fucking anti-Semite but I’m kind of stuck with him.”

  “I hope you don’t mind talking about it.”

  Hymie pondered. “Yeah, well, I’m sort of puzzled by it all, so, yeah, shoot.”

  Leon was curious but he didn’t want to get in the way, so he left the two of them alone.
/>
  ***

  When Dr. Kiehlmann finally led Orff back to the waiting room, Leon saw the psychiatrist was holding a copy of the book Orff had been peddling, A Thousand Lies Exposed. He also observed that his client was back to his old self, as it were, but looking more confused than ever.

  “I don’t want to do any tests, doctor.”

  “Tomorrow, please, just come to the clinic.”

  “Are you sure this is going to help my headaches?”

  “Maybe. If you co-operate. Please sit down for a minute, Herbert.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They returned to Leon’s office.

  “What we have here is a barely functioning, grossly neurotic, fucked-up individual,” Kiehlmann said.

  “Can you expand?”

  “Multiple-personality disorder — infrequent but well-recorded. Form of psychoneurosis. Grande hystérie is the rather elegant name for it. In his case, it’s complicated by an extreme paranoia about everything that talks, walks, or breathes.”

  “Well, how many people are walking around inside his skin?”

  “Three, at least.”

  Okay, Leon had a plan. He would convince the Crown that Orff was unfit to stand trial, and persuade them to drop the charge.

  “It’s a rarity in the trade,” Kiehlmann said. “I’ve always wanted one of them. I’d really like it if you picked him up tomorrow. Just bring him to my office on the campus. I don’t trust him to come on his own.”

  ***

  After Kiehlmann left, Leon went downstairs to see the banker. It was nearly time for Robert Barnsworth to meet the new tenants.

  At his desk, Barnsworth looked up suspiciously.

  “Good news, we have the August rent. We’ll still be a little behind on the loan, but that’s coming.” Leon handed him a cheque.

  Barnsworth casually looked at it, and gave Leon a legal document.

  “Notice of eviction.”

  “Too late. We found some subtenants.”

  “Subtenants? Dare I ask what kind of tenants?”

  “Very solid people. They’re dropping by, I’d like you to meet them.”