Andre Brevizin entered the offices of Coolis, Maguire, Brevizin & Chin at exactly ten-thirty Friday morning, as was his wont. He exchanged the usual greetings with Angela Brother, the firm’s excellent receptionist, strolled down the hall to his own office, paused to look out at the usual morning bustle at the corners of George and Margaret Streets one flight below, sat at his vast desk, reached for the stack of newspapers placed there as usual by Angela, and the phone rang.
He blinked. He didn’t much like such suddenness. A lawyer in a highly respectable corporate firm with offices in one of the most prestigious and attractive locations in Brisbane, Andre Brevizin preferred a certain stateliness in his life, a certain moderation and order.
He lowered a severe brow at the telephone — an internal call it was, not external — permitted it to ring a second time, and only then did he pick it up: “Angela?”
“Jimmy Coggins on the line for you.”
Ah. Jimmy Coggins was an important corporate client, a construction company man and developer partly responsible for the ever-widening suburban sprawl around the center of the city. As such, he was both to be deplored and catered to. And of course, he was calling at this exact moment because he was well aware of the comfortably precise routines of Brevizin’s days.
“I’ll take it,” he decided, and pressed the button on the phone, and said, “Well, Jimmy, you know all my habits.”
“Only the least disgusting ones,” Jimmy assured him. “I take it you haven’t read the papers yet.”
“I was just reaching for them.”
“Take a look at the business section of the Herald,” Jimmy suggested. “Page forty-two.”
The Sydney Morning Herald lay beneath the Brisbane paper on Brevizin’s desk; the usual order. He brought it out, opened it flat on his desk to the appropriate page, and said, “What am I looking for? I don’t see your name here.”
“No, thank God. We’ll save those revelations for another day. The Richard Curtis piece.”
“Where— Oh, down here.”
It was a brief piece, tawdry, under the slightly misleading headline AMERICAN SOUGHT IN BRISBANE IN SPY CHARGE. Industrial spying, it was, the usual disgruntled ex-employee. All of them Americans, though it had happened right here in town. Or been reported here. “And?”
“Manville says he didn’t do it.”
“Jimmy, they all say they didn’t do it. When your turn comes, you’ll say you didn’t do it.”
“Somebody has to be innocent, Andre.”
“You think so?”
“Manville’s a friend of a very good friend of mine,” Jimmy said. “Also an American. My friend vouches for Manville, and that’s good enough for me.”
“But not good enough for a judge, I shouldn’t think. Jimmy, are you sending me this fellow?”
“I’d like to. On the QT.”
“On the dole, as well?”
“Oh, I think he could probably pay a modest fee. He doesn’t have Richard Curtis’s money, however.”
Brevizin had heard of Richard Curtis, here and there, but had never had direct dealings with the man. He had a vague impression of ruthlessness. He said, “Jimmy, I’m not a criminal lawyer, I couldn’t very well go to court with this fellow.”
“He needs advice, Andre, he needs to know what his options are. Apparently, there’s quite a bit more to the story.”
“There always is.” Brevizin sighed. “All right, have him give me a call.”
“He will,” Jimmy said. “At eleven-thirty, after your tea.”
Brevizin laughed. “You already told him to call, and when? Jimmy, you do know me too well.”
“And later,” Jimmy said, “you’ll tell me all about it.”
Brevizin’s first impression of George Manville, when the man arrived for his two-thirty appointment that afternoon, was not encouraging. He had a scuffed and ragged look about him, the hangdog manner of the already defeated. Well; adversity can take it out of a man.
Later, he would wonder if that first impression had simply been his expectation of what the man in today’s newspaper would be, or if in fact Manville had been that close to despair. Impossible to tell.
So here he was, recommended by the far-off friend of a business acquaintance. The things we get into, Brevizin thought, and came smiling around the vast desk as Angela let the fellow in. “Mr. Manville, how are you? Did Angela offer you coffee, whatever?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Manville said, and turned to smile a bit wanly at Angela. “Thanks.”
“It was easy,” she assured him, and backed out, smiling, and shut the door.
So Angela’s taken with him, Brevizin thought. Her instincts were usually good. “Come sit over here, it’s more casual,” he said, gesturing to the conversation area, an L of soft gray sofas and a large distressed-wood coffee table.
They sat catty-corner, and Brevizin leaned forward to touch the long pencil resting on the yellow legal pad he had waiting there. “All I know about you, Mr. Manville,” he said, “is what I read in the Sydney Morning Herald.”
“I’ve made the Wall Street Journal, too,” Manville said.
“Not in the way you’d have preferred.”
“No.”
“Jimmy Coggins says you deny the charge.”
“I don’t know Mr. Coggins,” Manville said, and met Brevizin’s eye. “Talked with him once on the phone, that’s all. I appreciate what he’s done, I’m grateful. But I don’t really mean anything to Mr. Coggins, so if you decide, at some point, you don’t want any more to do with all this, it’s okay.”
Brevizin found himself surprised and somewhat interested. Normally, a fellow in George Manville’s situation would cling to whatever help or encouragement he could find. To begin the conversation by assuring Brevizin that Jimmy Coggins wouldn’t go to the wall for him was unexpected. He said, “Thank you. But let’s not part company just yet. I really should hear your story.”
“I’d appreciate it. The first thing,” Manville said, “is that the published story is one hundred percent false. Curtis made it up. I’ve never met this man Bendix, never heard of him before last night. The documents Curtis is talking about are pretty vague, I couldn’t tell from the newspaper exactly what they were, but they don’t sound like things I ever had access to.”
“You’re saying Richard Curtis has gone out of his way to tell whole-cloth lies about you.”
“Yes.”
“And that he swore false statements in having that warrant made out.”
“Yes.”
“Not a thing we’d expect from a man in his position,” Brevizin pointed out.
Manville’s smile was bleak. “Part of the problem,” he said, “is that Curtis’s position is not what everybody thinks it is. I know the truth, and I know more than that. I suppose he thought I might talk, go to the police myself, so he did this... what do they call it? Pre-emptive strike.”
“What is the truth, Mr. Manville?”
“Curtis is broke,” Manville said, “or worse than broke. Conning his business partners, going deeper into debt every minute. He over-extended when he was trying to protect his Hong Kong businesses from the Chinese, and he hasn’t been able to get back.”
Brevizin dropped the pencil onto the pad and leaned back. He would have a story for Jimmy Coggins after all. Smiling at Manville, he said, “The reason I’m beginning to believe you, Mr. Manville, I myself have heard some very vague rumors that Richard Curtis might be in some sort of financial trouble. This firm’s corporate clients include a number of builders, some private bankers, venture capital investors, people who have had or might have dealings with Curtis’s companies. People are beginning to tell one another to be careful of doing business with Richard Curtis, though nobody knows exactly what the problem is.”