A screech of guitar as he answered the intercom line. “I’m going to have a breakdown, do something, for Christ’s sake!” The receptionist was near the stairwell, got the brunt of the noise. He should serve a writ for noise nuisance, an injunction, but how would he find time? “Mr. Beauchamp’s on the line.”
“Afternoon, Wentworth. I’m at the store and ready for your fax…Could you turn down your radio?”
“It’s a heavy metal band downstairs.” He had to shout. “How’s the, ah, crisis?”
“Can’t talk about it on the phone. Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll call you this evening to give you my arrival time.”
Wentworth wrote down the number, the general store on Garibaldi, then banged out a cover letter, scanned LeGrand’s one-page affidavit, faxed both pages. The receptionist buzzed him to tell him she’s had it, she’s out of here. Also, Mr. Brown had arrived.
Wentworth looked numbly up as Cud entered, pulling off his poncho, impatient and sour. “You think you got some time for me, counsellor?”
Wentworth rose wearily, led him to a chair. Cud’s sour beer breath threatened to induce another bout of nausea.
Another howl from below. “Shit, I’m gonna pop a drum,” Cud said. Now a yowling, amplified voice over squawking guitars. Cud propelled himself up. “What kind of ape-fest is going on down there?”
He strode out before Wentworth could warn him that those guys were apes. He dialed Jobson, might as well get it done.
The lawyer sounded cheery. “Got my note? What do you say we wrap it up and put this sucker to bed?”
Wentworth was tempted to let it go at that, forget the $30,000 insult Arthur wanted him to push for. But this guy seemed anxious. He took a deep breath, tried to sound on top of things, assertive: Vogel had shelled out heavily for his first lawyer, Vogel’s case was unassailable, victory was assured should they go to court, with taxable costs and punitive and aggravated damages. Throw in $40,000, save half a million.
In background, he could hear shouts from downstairs. Drums and electric guitars were stilled.
“No can do. I’m rather disappointed, Mr. Chance, we’ve been overly generous.”
A curse-enhanced tirade from Cud. Somehow this emboldened Wentworth. “I look forward to going to trial then, Mr. Jobson.”
No immediate response. From below, scuffling, more shouts.
Finally, curtly: “I’ll get back to my people. But I doubt…Maybe we can sweeten it a little, ten or twelve.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Jobson, but my principal very strongly advised me not to take less.”
“Your principal?”
“Arthur Beauchamp has taken an interest in the case.”
Another long silence, punctuated by a crash in the Gastown Riot, more scuffling, a twang of strings. “I might be able to recommend, say, fifteen, twenty.”
“Can’t see our client accepting that, after all he’s been through…but, what the hell, maybe we can split it down the middle. Thirty.”
“I’ll get back to you, Mr. Chance.” Sullen, but Wentworth knew he had it in the bag. The hell with Haley, he’ll surround himself with grateful granddaughters. Joy and Penny and Lucy.
A wild clanging of cymbals and a fierce ripping sound, possibly a boot going through a bass drum. Then golden silence.
Cud strolled back in, sweating heavily, brushing himself off. A wide red welt on his cheekbone, the collar torn on his grey flannel shirt, and an obviously skewed back. He sat, working his shoulder muscles. “Okay, Woolworth, where were we?”
27
Arthur whipped Wentworth’s fax from the machine before Abraham Makepeace had a chance to study it and was punished with a sour, offended look. He covered the two pages with his arm as the postmaster passed him a box. “Here’s some books you must’ve ordered, and this here’s an open letter from the Liberal candidate, most of the rest is bills and flyers and stuff. Be careful of this one, says you’re eligible to win a million dollars, could be one of those lottery scams.”
As Makepeace grudgingly doled out the mail, Arthur found himself squeezed against the counter by Nelson Forbish, peering over his shoulder. “Nelson, you’re squashing me.”
“Well, I can’t see, you’ve got your elbow right on the last paragraph.” His heft caused Arthur to give way, and before he could retrieve the fax, Nelson’s camera flashed on it. “Is this for real? Whew. It’s the smoking gun, you got them on the run. Four million, is that what he paid the judge? Who’s this from?”
The cover page had fluttered to the floor, and Nelson went down on his knees to photograph it too.
“Blast it, Nelson, give me that camera, this is not for public consumption.” He swiped at the camera, but Nelson clutched it to his chest.
“Maybe you heard of freedom of the press, Mr. Beauchamp? It’s right there in our Charter of Rights, at the top of the page.” This was as close as Nelson ever got to sarcasm. He was still on his knees, struggling to rise.
Arthur stooped to pick up the page. “I’m warning you, Nelson, this is a very delicate matter.”
“I got my story.” He gripped the counter, pulled himself up with a groan. “Now you made me hurt my back.” Before Arthur could protest further, he squeezed through the doorway, out to his ATV.
A minor calamity, because his next edition wasn’t due for a week. At any rate, the LeGrand camp obviously expected the matter to go public, though in a carefully engineered way, not on the front page of the Garibaldi Island Bleat.
A crisis of far greater moment was brewing, a possible electoral disaster, and that is what had whisked Arthur to Garibaldi on this baleful Thursday. A tip from the cops, more particularly from Ernst Pound, by way of the constable’s best friend, the fire marshal, as confided to the marshal’s best friend, Reverend Al Noggins, who’d called his best friend, Arthur, just before noon.
The tip: RCMP investigators would be arriving on today’s late ferry to interview a certain party thought responsible for the anti-chicken farmer spam that had invaded computers province-wide. That unnamed party resided on Potters Road, near its dead end-which was Blunder Bay.
Nick is helping with Margaret’s campaign, handling the computer traffic or something. Nicholas Senior had spoken proudly, with no idea how his son was helping. The family computer wiz, brighter than anyone knew, off on a wild, illicit tangent. Arthur had felt a trembling, like a coming earthquake about to pull down the Beauchamp household and the entire Blake campaign.
In near-panic, he’d phoned Nicholas: he and his son were to lay low, speak to no one, Arthur was chartering a flight. He’d met them at his dock an hour later, Nicholas pale with worry, Nick distraught, fighting tears. They went fishing, or at least made a pretense of it, an hour of quiet, intense confession and confabulation.
Arthur had been dropped off at Hopeless Bay, he planned to walk home, to work out how to deal with the investigators. Was spamming illegal? Surely not. But maybe they found some criminal charge. Mischief. They’d want to examine Nick’s laptop, maybe the phone records.
An alluring scent wafted from the lounge, addictive, fearsome. The house special, cafe a la rhum. A drink, a drink, my kingdom for a drink…
Arthur paid for some groceries, threw them in the pack with his mail. He knew he wouldn’t be able to escape without passing a few moments with the locals, hungry to hear about the trial, the inside story, an exclusive. They wanted to believe in Cud, wanted assurances he’d been railroaded to protect powerful interests.
All in the lounge were wearing “Free Cud” buttons except for Stuffy Stankiewiczs, a contrarian heavy-equipment operator with a long-simmering grudge against the hero poet. Truculent when he had a few glasses, and he’d had more than a few.
“I ain’t got nothing against you, Arthur,” he said. “I know you got no use for Cud after what went on between him and your wife.” He rose dramatically, paused at the doorway. “Jumping people’s old ladies, that’s his modus opera-andy, it’s obvious the judge caught him boffing his wife, and Cud croaked him.” He threw open the door, nearly tripped over his feet on his way down to his truck.