I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (33 page)

Significantly, in the final stages of that critical last cross, Beauchamp took a cautious approach. Instead of attacking Lorenzo as a shameless perjurer, he sought to blur the words of Swift's alleged confession, thus seeming to accept that Swift had made some sort of inculpatory statement.

I asked Beauchamp if that meant he'd decided to open up a manslaughter defence, based on an unintended homicide, as the safest route to save his client's life.

“I don't know what was in my mind,” he said. “I guess I was looking for any port in the storm.”

Whatever the reason, that decision made manifest his loss of confidence – in his client, in himself. As Ophelia Moore confided, he was so “obsessively depressing” it was a chore to be around him.

O
phelia and I supped that evening in a popular but culturally confusing all-you-can-eatery called the Marco Polo Chinese Smorgasbord. Over my tong shui and shrimp I continued to be bugged by a question a reporter had asked as we fled 312: “What's your theory about the pink panties, sir?” First of all, it bugged me that he was no longer calling me “Arthur” but “sir” – more proof the press was distancing itself from me, seeing as more inept than brave my defence of an underdog.

It also bugged me that this newsman followed Ophelia and me halfway to Chinatown without once daring me to repeat my insinuations that Knepp and Lorenzo lied under oath. If politely asked, I would have done so, bluntly, and dared them to sue for slander.

Also vexing me, as I admitted to Ophelia, was the pink panties puzzle. “Maybe something
was
going on between them.”

“Dermot and Gabriel?” Ophelia spooned up some egg drop soup, sat back. “Get realistic. Dermot was fucking faculty wives and grad students at a pace right out of Ripley's ‘Believe It or Not.' And Gabriel … well, if it's not obvious to you, it sure is to me. He's pure, unadulterated hetero. He gives me all the looks, the signals.”

“He does?”

“Under normal circumstances I'd be climbing all over him.” Said as if she meant it.

“Well, maybe his unadulterated hetero hormones triggered some kind of wild outburst. What if it wasn't suicide? What if –”

“Bullshit. Mulligan was about to be exposed by a cuckolded colleague. That threatened his totally utilitarian relationship with Irene, a woman invaluable if not loved – his cook, secretary, washerwoman, fuck-who-you-want freedom-giver, full-time serf, and, presumably, donor of the pink unmentionables. More importantly, an illustrious reputation was about to be reshaped as a source of side-splitting humour. Abject with despair but always
neat, never wasteful, he lays out his clothes, conjures up Rita Schumacher as a masturbatory last wish, then kicks off his sticky bloomers and jumps.”

I applauded her by clicking chopsticks.

Still ill-tempered after Gabriel's eleventh-hour disclosures, I'd been unable to face him after court, so Ophelia had attended to him while I brooded on the courthouse lawn. He too was massively depressed, she said, blaming himself for not being on the level about so many things. He assured her there were no more secrets.

But I'd heard that song from other clients. I felt I could no longer trust anything, even my instincts. “What if Lorenzo was actually telling the truth?”

“How unlikely.” She had finally located a retired nun, Sister Beatrice, who'd been at Pius Eleven Residential School in 1942. Affecting a cloying voice: “Principal Mulligan was such a
kind
young man, so
spiritual
. We all just
loved
him.”

“Well, what would you expect Sister Beatrice to say? Stay with me on this. What if Lorenzo isn't lying? What if it's our guy who's lying? About everything.”

“Yeah? About being punched and kicked by Knepp and Jettles? Do you think your pal Borachuk was lying?”

On taking the stand, Gabriel would offer his own version about that, and the many other facets of the case that, he'd bluntly say, the police lied about. The defence was to open on Friday, after argument on motions Thursday. Gabriel would be the sole witness and, I feared, would miscarry in that role, despite all our coaching. It would be clear to the jury that he'd never graduated from charm school. He would decline not only to kiss the Bible but to swear on it. He wouldn't be recanting any revolutionary views – of that I was painfully certain. Smitty would snipe at him artfully, create confusion, contradictions, expose his irritable side, his disdain for bourgeois justice. The Hammer would rattle him, infuriate him. Gabriel had been a sleeping volcano, and an eruption was due.

Ophelia fumbled for her smokes, tried to switch topics. “The bylaw inspector shut down Isy's. Did you hear about that? ‘Lewd
and immoral performance.' This is such a hick town. Lenny Bruce called it the last outpost of puritanical hypocrisy. We're going to be on an entertainers' blacklist; we'll be down to Liberace, the Happy Gang, and Paul Anka.”

I wasn't to be distracted. “No, I've got it. This is what happened: Gabriel did confess to that clown, but he lied. Gabby, the locals call him. Gabby lied. He didn't really kill Mulligan but he wanted Lorenzo and Knepp to believe he did.”

“You're losing it, Arthur.”

I batted away her smoke. “Don't you get it? This is a carefully crafted plot by Gabriel to get himself falsely charged with a murder so he can be hanged, feeding a martyr complex inspired by Louis Riel and somehow advancing Native rights through an upswelling of our notorious national guilt.”

“Yeah, and he beat off into some pink panties to titillate the press and get even more publicity for his cause. Hey, maybe Hammersmith's part of the plot, and the entire trial is a fake.”

“There's something we're missing.”

“You're
missing something.”

“Bill Swift claims he's alive. That Mulligan faked his own death, disappeared.”

“And he's manning the gas pumps at a
BA
station in Upper Spodunk.”

Afterwards she herded me into a taxi. “The sun will rise in the morning, Arthur. It's not over. Get a good night's sleep.”

As I slipped into my suite, I hummed,
I'll see you in my dreams
. The phone began nagging me. It had to be another of Lawonda's former suitors; I'd given the number to nobody but Ophelia and Gertrude.

I tucked away the mickey I'd bought, laid out my writing tools, centred my typewriter. I had to organize a pitch to The Hammer, what we call a no-evidence motion: a motion to direct the jury
to acquit. I pictured him smirking.
You can talk till the cows come home, counsel
. He'd enjoyed watching me drown in a sea of damning evidence. I had been a bad boy with my aggravating outbursts.

Manfully I ignored the whining demon on my shoulder (Why
bring home a mickey of rye if you're not going to partake, Arthur?)
. I submitted to the phone instead.

“I know you've been intending to call, Arthur, but the thought struck me that you'd forgotten our number.”

“How did you get
my
number?”

“I went up to your office and dragged it out of that stubborn young thing who runs interference for you. I had to hint that your father was ill, though I regret to tell you he's quite hale and hearty. I assured her you would never dream of breaking contact with your devoted parents.”

“Excuse me, I have something on the stove.” I reached up, uncapped the rye, took a big, quick slug, gathered strength. “As doubtless you're aware, Mother, I'm at the tail end of a rather complex murder matter. It has been with me day and night for the past several weeks. I apologize for not having been the dutiful son.”

“Dutiful? Is that how you see our relationship? As one of duty?”

“When this is over, let's the three of us go out for dinner.”

“Not if you look the way you did on
CTV –
like a tramp, in that wrinkled suit. Please do something with your hair.”

“I am really up against it right now, Mother. Overwhelmed.”

“Goodbye, then.
Vale, jurisconsulte.”

The call ended on that abrupt note, and I punctuated it with another shot of rye, grimacing from its sharp bite, then rolled a sheet into my Smith-Corona.

Again the phone. “I need to speak to Lawonda.” A new one, a gruff voice.

“She doesn't live here anymore.”

“You better not be covering for her, pal, or I'll take it out of your skin.”

“Take what out?”

“She owes me five grand.” He disconnected. I used to wonder how Lawonda could afford her fine clothes and furnishings. Not from tips at the Beanery, it seemed.

I worked for an hour on my motion. Its basis: there was no evidence of an essential ingredient of the charge of murder, i.e., an actual death. My fingers kept getting stuck between the keys, their hammers jamming on the page. I was tired, that was the problem. Then I saw with surprise that the mickey was almost empty. I ripped my speech from the typewriter. It was stiff, over-prepared. I'd be better off winging it after a sound sleep.

T
he phone was ringing. It must have been for Lawonda, because there she was, a swirl of colour as she disrobed. Bubble-gum-pink panties slipped down her ebony legs. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. Her hand grasped my cock …

But it was my own hand holding that stiff instrument as I stumbled to the phone. It was barely seven o'clock. Lawonda's cast-asides never called that early, so it had to be important. I croaked a hello, my throat clogged by night phlegm.

“Tell her I am standink here with Luger pointed at ze right temple.”

“Lawonda isn't here.”

“You bring her to phone or I having tventy seconds to live.” Obscure accent, maybe Slavic.

“Lawonda moved out two months ago! Who is this?”

“Time is wasting. Soon you having my blood on your hands.”

A spurned lover's empty threat? I dared not take that chance. “Give me your phone number. I have some contacts. I'll get right back to you.” After I called police emergency.

“Ten seconds, you Bolshevik scum.”

“Craznik? Is that you?”

“Three, two, one – I die!”

The bang that came wasn't quite the sound of a gun firing, more like a serving spoon hitting a pot.

“Ira?”

“How's it hanging, Stretch?”

“It wasn't, until you woke me up.”

“Aw, man, the time difference – I keep forgetting. You had a boner on?”

“Lawonda was here a while ago.”

“In your dreams, Studley. She's in Loosiana. I'd give you her number but then you'd just be one of the loonies bugging her with
calls. Guess one night with that hot hammer didn't satisfy. She's more addicting than shmeck, man – you're gonna have to sweat her out of your system. How you holding out otherwise? Trial-wise?”

Fine, I told him, adding that I expected to die later that morning under the judge's withering fusillades. Otherwise I didn't need to bring Ira up to speed – the case had been fully reported in Toronto.

“You're going to have to turn your Marilyn Monroe calendar to the wall. It wouldn't be right to use it as a wanging-off aid given she's got a new boyfriend who just happens to be the President of the US of A. I have the inside dope, schnookie – she's just had an abortion, and Kennedy provided the spawn. Expect the CIA to shove her off to keep it covered up. After that, they'll be going after JFK himself. I'm setting up some dates for Ronnie and the Hawks. I'll call you if we do the Coast. Give your hard-on a hug for me.”

“The charge is wholly misconceived, milord.” That was me walking to the office, slightly hungover. “It has proceeded on the assumption that Professor Mulligan is not alive, yet he hasn't been formally pronounced dead. If he is dead, where are his remains?”