“Very. It means one more time reliving my…my experience…” The sentence dies, incomplete, as she watches Arthur leaf through a glossy magazine.
“Let us rewind the clock. Ten years ago, the version you just gave was accepted by a jury.”
“Yes, I told the truth.”
“It led to my client’s conviction and a ten-year prison sentence.”
“Yes, it did.”
“Six months after he was convicted, Real Women published your explicit account of the events you’ve described.” He holds up the magazine. “Your experience, as you put it.”
“Yes. Well, I’m a writer.”
Arthur asks about the cross-country lecture tours mentioned in her Web site, the many times she relived her experience before breakfast clubs, service clubs, women’s groups.
“I want women to understand the trauma, what a victim has to go through, being bullied by lawyers.”
Kroop interrupts. “Bullied, madam?” Presumably he finds the proposition ludicrous. “We will adjourn to two o’clock. Witness, you may not discuss your evidence with anyone while you are under cross-examination.”
As court adjourns, Arthur passes to his client a few bound transcripts, the testimony from last week. “Some light reading for you, Nick.”
“I will be glued to the pages. Also, I want to say I admire the way you got the judge in your pocket.”
Arthur isn’t quite as dazzled by that accomplishment. He must find a way to turn Kroop against him. He joins glum Buddy and his sanctimonious helpmates, who advised against calling similar-fact evidence from Angella. He lays Munni Sidhoo’s report before them.
“What’s this?” Buddy flips through the pages, the charts, the DNA ladders.
“Profile Three is Adeline Angella. Enjoy your lunch, gentlemen.”
On his way to the El Beau Room he again fiddles with his phone, almost loses courage but dials Blunder Bay. No answer. Margaret is likely at Gwendolyn Beach, preparing for another celebration. The papers are done, the financing in place, and Selwyn Loo is to meet Todd Clearihue on site to sign the deal. This will be Selwyn’s first trip to Stump-Town-on-the-Beach-he’s been too depressed to go near it. There are to be champagne and handshakes at this media event, and Kurt Zoller will be rendering some popular ditties on the accordion.
He connects with Lotis, on location at the Wanderlust. “The lunch crowd doesn’t know Adeline, so I’ll hang here a while. Manager showed me a past events calendar, an amateur barbershop quartet was gigging here March 31, regulars, they may know her. What’s the score in 67?”
“It has the makings of a rout.” But why does he hear the whispering hobgoblins of pessimism?
Someone at Gwendolyn Beach will have a cellphone. He dials Selwyn, who has been boated there. “Garlic’s threatening to reneg, Arthur. That Tucson cowboy just offered them a huge whack of dough.” A morose, end-of-the-earth tone.
Arthur tells him to relax. It’s merely a ruse to sweeten the pot. Don’t offer a cent more. Arthur shook hands with Clearihue, a deal is a deal.
The blind crepehanger is far less sanguine. “I have intimations of disaster.” Have the gods endowed him, like Cassandra, another depressive, with the cruel gift of prophecy?
Selwyn is standing on a high bank overlooking the twenty-acre clear-cut. “I can smell it,” he says. The smell of death and rot. It doesn’t seem the right time to ask if Margaret is within hailing distance.
Brian meets him at the El Beau Room. Cranky, raw eyes, uneven shave. “Caroline has twice had affairs. Twice in the last five years! She shared this in front of ten strangers, eleven if you count the guru. She could have shared privately.” A groan. “How I’ve come to despise that word.”
“And how many such instances did you divulge during this ugly truth-telling?” Arthur has always assumed secrecy is part of the definition of an affair. Confessed openly, it loses its romantic lustre, it’s merely adultery.
“I stopped at seven. The guru was goading Caroline with subversive shit like: ‘Share with us your thoughts about Brian right now.’ ‘What do you want to say to him?’ She started screaming at me. ‘You’re a self-centred asshole!’ I told her I’m prepared to deal with that. She got more profane, mistaking my sincerity for sarcasm. She became lyrical. I was a sick, suppurating, secretary-humping whore. Everyone else looked relieved-their own fucked-up relationships paled in comparison. I’m seeing Lila this afternoon, I’m going to tie into her. Sending us off to do heavy encounter, it’s like she wants the marriage to fail.”
Arthur has little patience left for Brian’s self-inflicted marital wounds. He has his own marriage to worry about. He has Gwendolyn to worry about. Would Clearihue dare to reneg?
Sandwiches arrive. Brian takes a deep breath. “Where’s your spooky junior?”
“At the Wanderlust. The Whalley Wanderers are entertaining there tonight.”
“Entertaining? I caught their act, bald heads, pot bellies, white shirts, and bow ties. The tenor has a squeak in the high range. So Angella’s back in the running?”
“She leaped to the front.” Arthur brings him up to date.
“Who came up with the brilliant idea to do this second analysis?”
“The spooky junior.”
Brian shivers. “Omnipotent people freak me out.”
“She’s a nymph, a dryad. She was sent by Zeus to avenge Doctor Eve’s death. Since nymphs are famous for their jests, I may end up being the April Fool.”
The Fourth Brandenburg. “Hey, Frank, como esta?…No, Mommy and I had another little spat, that’s all. No way, pal, we’re defi-notly getting divorced.”
This maudlin scene concludes with Brian wiping an eye. “Isn’t that a great word? Little Frank discovered it. I asked him once, ‘Who made that mess?’ ‘Definotly me.’ I’ll definotly be in court to watch your grudge match, I’m seeing Ms. Chow-Martin. Ask Adeline if she’s got another contract with Real Women. Do you think it’s possible, maestro, that she engineered this whole thing-murder, suspicion, accusation, confrontation-so she’d have something to write about?”
“She just walked in.” Standing at the door, staring in. She followed them, Arthur assumes.
“Too late to get under the table?”
“Yes.”
Brian turns, waves at her, smiles his ravaged, helpless smile. She looks coldly at her betrayer and his handler, returns outside.
In court, Buddy is in intense dialogue with his DNA expert, who’s frowning over Sidhoo’s report. Ears stands by with his trademark ill-suited smile. Flynn is grim, muscles bunched in tension as he finger-combs his noble moustache. Faloon is sitting in the dock reading transcripts.
Arthur is no sooner seated than Buddy is upon him. “I don’t get it. Goddamnit, what’s the point?” He raises his voice. “What are you trying to prove?”
“That you’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”
Buddy blows. “Okay, Artie, no more mister nice guy! I’m going to have my guys review Dr. Sidhoo’s results, and I want her on the stand, and she better freaking be able to back this up!”
Not only does the entire gallery hear this, but the jury too-they are taking their seats. Buddy shuts up when he sees them, scurries to his seat as Kroop shuffles in. Angella mounts the stand, head high, chest out, like a robin about to serenade the spring. “May I say something?” she asks the judge.
“Madam, this is a solemn inquiry with ancient and respected rules. One of which forbids witnesses from making speeches. Otherwise trials might extend into the gloom of eternity. Please just answer counsel’s questions.”
Arthur doesn’t want it thought he’s afraid of what she’ll say. “Ms. Angella, tell us what’s on your mind.”
“I want to correct any insinuation that I profited from my misfortune by writing articles and making speeches. The fact is, for the last ten years I’ve barely made enough to pay the rent. I am in debt. I am clinging to the poverty line.”