Clearihue contemplates, then sighs. “We’ll go twelve and a half, and eat our costs.”
“Twelve all in, Todd.”
Slappy has emerged from among the broken boughs. He sniffs Clearihue’s boots, accepts a pat from Arthur, pisses against the stump.
“Ah, what the hell. Twelve all in, but the society will have to sign an interim by Monday with at least a dozen guarantors.”
“You’re speaking for your board?”
“Of course. No problem.”
Arthur tells him to draw up the agreement. He holds out his hand. Clearihue hesitates, then engages with him, a firm double pump.
Lotis, as is her habit, has snuck up on Todd, is standing above him on the jagged end of the weeping fir. “You want to stop taking those designer steroids, Todd, there’s hair coming out of your face.”
Without turning, he barks, “Get a job, Rudnicki. I hear there are some openings for suicide bombers.”
“Yuppie scum.”
Arthur interrupts sharply. “We have no time for this. Lotis, please pass along word that we have a deal for twelve million. We’ll meet tomorrow to ratify it, and go to the bank on Monday.”
He foresees few problems-the Bank of Montreal is a major client of Tragger Inglis, and Bully serves on its board. Now he must return home to make some calls. “How do we get out of here, Slappy?”
The old spaniel leads the way, around a slash pile. Clearihue calls, “Hey, good luck with your trial. I mean it.”
Arthur casts off none too soon, avoiding Zoller’s launch as it whips toward the beach and swerves hard to port, creating a surge that nearly swamps the departing pipe band. Riding the second swell, Zoller neatly brings his bow onto the sand.
Cutting a natty figure in his neon-orange life jacket, he’s putting on a show, impressing his fares with his maritime skills. They have the look of generous tippers, several large men, one with a Stetson and a string tie. Maybe Clearihue wasn’t joking about the Arizona developer. Arthur must move quickly to firm up the deal.
He’s relieved to find Bully by his phone in his home office. He’s in an agreeable mood-Tragger Inglis is having a good month-and proposes no obstacles to Arthur’s plan. But there’s a catch.
“A sizable retainer is available on the Wilson murder, Arthur. Set to go mid-October. He doesn’t want Cleaver, he doesn’t want anyone but you. Strong defence, he wasn’t aiming at his wife.”
Arthur hedges, promises to consider it. He’s as keen to take this case as ride a rocket to the moon.
Arthur must next contend with Brian Pomeroy’s strident call-of-the-day. “You wouldn’t believe all the New Age shit going on here. The guru, sorry, relationship facilitator, is so droll and cool and self-effacing I want to ralph. Caroline shares my cynicism. We’re bonded in distaste for the banality of it all.”
Like most of Brian’s harangues, this seems to serve little purpose other than letting off steam.
“We’re into confessing our naughty habits and moral shortcomings. Not sure if I like the way the facilitator is pressing me to open up my past. If he’s New Age, I’m Old Age, I prefer the medieval system where you confess to God and priest. But I forgot the reason I called. Oh, yeah, I just heard on the news-Faloon’s on his way back.”
29
On the Owl’s left, window seat, is a sour immigration official from Tahiti who never opens his mouth. On his right, aisle seat, is Corporal Johnson from Commercial Crime, Vancouver, who has handled Faloon for years, which is why they sent him.
They’ve been sharing memories, like the time Johnson strip-searched him, not even glancing at the Piaget on his wrist. “I was pretty green then,” Johnson snorts. He’s in his fifties now, a paunch, balding like Faloon.
The French guy is scandalized by this jesting with a prisoner. He and his henchmen caused a scene in front of everybody at Faloon’s hotel yesterday afternoon. Coming at him with guns, as if he were John Dillinger. Faloon took it as a personal insult. It should be like tag football, you just touch a guy.
“Remember that stakeout on Broadway?” Faloon says. “You’re at the peephole, and I’m tapping you on the shoulder, going, ‘Looking for me, corporal?’”
Maybe Corporal Johnson doesn’t like being the butt of these memories, because he stops laughing. But you’ve got to have a sense of humour about life’s ups and downs. It doesn’t pay to beat yourself up over what’s not your fault. In this latest situation, Faloon got betrayed, is all. Despite all his backslapping, Popov the Russian resented being bumped from number five in the world. Popov had been in line for a piece of the buried treasure, but now he isn’t going to get a dime.
Faloon isn’t fond of the alternative theory that he made himself an object of suspicion by spending too large. It’s the last thing a lucky thief should do, flipping a waiter a century here, half a yard there, like he did on Bora-Bora. His only excuse is he was exhausted from lying low, he had to come up for air.
“I’m real disappointed in you, Nick,” is Corporal Johnson’s attitude, asking how he could ever pull such an amateur stunt, going through fifty K in two weeks. The bulls found three hundred more in the Owl’s suitcase plus the forty in the lining of his suit, which he made the mistake of asking if he could wear so he wouldn’t look like some cheap hood in court.
Faloon acted hurt they wouldn’t believe he had an amazing streak at Monte Carlo. The gendarmes tried to smoke him out about the jobs in Cannes, but Faloon saw no profit in helping them. With Lansana not talking, they didn’t want the hassle of grinding him through the French courts, easier to let Canada have him.
Facing a murder beef is bad enough, facing Claudette will take nerves of steel. He swore he’d never lie to her again, and now this. He hopes the official reports don’t mention Hula-Hula or any of the other girls. He was going to get word to Claudie, honest. He was marooned on a tropical island.
Corporal Johnson gets on him again. “You got to be ashamed, Nick, you were doing good, burned your parole papers. Now you got a bad streak going, you’re wanted all over the joint. Canada, France, Africa.”
“I’m a little guy, a shoplifter, why am I getting other peoples’ heat? Corporal Johnson, be honest, you don’t think I murdered that Winters lady.”
But Johnson won’t talk about the April Fool’s murder, not a word, he’s got strict orders. Faloon grows small as he pictures Mr. Beauchamp glowering at him, pissed because everything went off the rails after he’d set two weeks aside for the trial. A horrible thought: the great man refuses to act for him, turns him over to his off-the-wall female assistant.
He has to cling to hope. La situation est plus encourageante. But if things don’t turn out so rosy, it’s the big one, life in the attitude-adjustment centre. Goodbye, Claudette, forget me, have a happy future. Goodbye the good life on his newfound wealth. (Buried somewhere in that sea of gravestones in Cimitiere Saint Pierre, guarded by the late Sebastien Plouffe. Bet he weighed three hundred pounds. Died of gluttony, traffic jam in the arteries. Voted Front Populaire. Made Arab jokes.)
Arthur hears mutterings of discontent as he walks from St. Mary’s to seek breeze and shade. This pocket-sized church holds only fifty souls and was sweltering within, and the faces of Reverend Al’s grumpy flock are shiny with sweat.
“I was staring at my watch the whole way,” says Ernie Sproule. “He went on for forty-seven minutes, nineteen seconds.”
Reverend Al and Zoe are nearby, shaking hands with parishioners, chatty and gay. “Hope I didn’t go on too long,” Al says. “I had the spirit in me today.”
Prompted by the settlement reached with Garlinc. No major celebrations yet-agreements must be drafted and signed, the funding campaign must push ahead. Arthur feels unburdened: he’s able to concentrate on refurbishing a marriage and defending a thief newly arrived from Polynesia.