‘I can’t tell you,’ Adams snapped back.
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Tom needled him.
‘Can’t. Won’t. Mustn’t. There are strict laws here, criminal cases can’t be, ah, bruited about — especially when the charges involve the traditional peoples. You’ll be grateful for such a, ah, close-mouthed approach when it comes to your own preliminary hearing. It means that the judges can’t be influenced by knowledge of what the defendant has been accused of, right up until he steps into the dock.’
Tom swam up through the watery music towards the light. ‘Swai-Phillips said Squolly would give a child abuser bail if he could come up with the right cash. Is that true? Is that what Prentice has done, screwed a native kid? He certainly looks the type.’
Tom would have gone on if a Handrey woman hadn’t come in carrying a tray with coffee things and a small dish of truffles on it. When the coffee had been poured and she had withdrawn, Adams slowly inclined his teaspoon so that some large granules of the Turkish sugar tumbled into his tiny cup. Then he sighed. ‘Look, let’s not fence, Brodzinski; we both know it’s not Prentice who’s bothering you, it’s Swai-Phillips.’
Tom regretted having taken a truffle. His thumb and forefinger now had pads of melted chocolate on them as shiny as paint. He sucked these in what he hoped was a sage and meditative fashion, before replying: ‘Martha — my wife. I saw her up at Swai-Phillips’s place. She’s still here. I think — I think. .’ A pause, then the words came in a rush: ‘I think she’s mixed up with him in something. I’ve tried calling her again and again — she’s sure as hell not back in Milford.’
Tom stopped. Adams had stood up abruptly and now loomed over him, a queer half-smile on his diffident lips. ‘First off,’ he said firmly, calming a fractious child, ‘I know who you mean — at Swai-Phillips’s place, that is — his cousin Gloria Swai-Phillips. Remarkable lady, runs several orphanages in the Tontine Townships. And yes, there is a striking resemblance between her and your wife.’ He paused, sighed. ‘If you want the truth, the reason why you and your family were, ah, noticed in the first place, was because of that resemblance.’
‘Noticed?’ Tom said wonderingly.
‘Well,’ Adams laughed shortly, ‘we get a lot of Anglo tourists through here in the season, and one bunch looks pretty much the same as the next. Your wife made your family stand out — Gloria Swai-Phillips is a very popular, very influential person.’
Adams crossed to his drinks cabinet. ‘I believe a Seven and Seven is your poison,’ he said, holding up the whisky bottle. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any 7 Up; will you take a little branch water with your Seagram’s?’
Adams saved his clincher until the drinks were poured and he’d sat down once more. ‘The thing is, Brodzinski, your wife can’t possibly still be here in Vance.’
‘Oh, really?’ Tom sipped the drink; it didn’t taste right without the sugary gloss of the soda. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I’ve spoken to her myself. She called me — and I called her back in, ah, Milford.’
‘She called you? Why? Was she worried about me?’ The rains stilled, a fissure opened up in the lowering sky, and through it shone the reinvigorated sun of Martha’s regard.
Adams put a stop to it: ‘Look, I appreciate that this must be painful for you, Brodzinski; that I, a comparative stranger, should be, ah, privy to your wife’s estrangement; but facts are, ah. .’ He pulled on a long bony finger. ‘. . facts. She wishes to reassure you of her, ah, concern — but not to speak to you. She called on another matter, in some, ah, distress because of something — or, rather, somebody — she had seen in your local mall.’
‘In the mall? Who?’ Tom had definitely had too much to drink. His words lurched from his mouth and found themselves suddenly on the glossy floor.
‘It would’, Adams said, shifting to academic mode, ‘have been almost exactly at the time the makkata was doing the astande ceremony at Swai-Phillips’s place — perhaps twenty minutes later. Your wife saw — or thought she saw — a Tayswengo man in L. L. Bean.’
‘In L. L. Bean?’
‘In L. L. Bean, trying on a pair of, ah, pants. Which was just as well!’ Perversely, Adams seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Because, apart from his breechclout, he was completely naked.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ Tom staggered on, following the Consul’s crazy logic. ‘You’re saying my wife called you because she saw. . the makkata in Milford Mall, in L. L. Bean?’
Despite the ludicrousness of this, Tom realized that he too had no difficulty in picturing the wizard right there: beside an aluminium rail, hung with jeans and slacks, while on the other side of the plate glass zitty teenagers in their lumpy puffa jackets watched the guy riding the resurfacing machine describe bold figures on the ice rink.
‘Magic’, Adams said, ‘is a much misunderstood, ah, concept. Besides, Brodzinski, I’m not even necessarily saying that’s what this was. But no one can live here for long without becoming aware of the traditional people’s ability to, ah, shall we say, influence certain coincidences.’
Tom didn’t know how to reply to this — so he said nothing. This, in terms of Adam’s recondite etiquette, must have been the right thing to do. Because, after looking at Tom from under his wire-wool eyebrows for a while, the Consul said: ‘Good, I’m glad you understand. Now, to more mundane business. Jethro dropped off some of the prosecution’s depositions earlier on.’
Adams rose, went back to the shelving, picked up a plastic wallet and lobbed it into Tom’s lap. ‘They’re ballistics reports, witness statements — that kind of thing. Jethro’s over there’ — a thumb jerk over one shoulder — ‘right now. He’ll be back in time for the prelim’ hearing, which is now set for this Friday. In the meantime, he asked me if I’d go through these with you.’
Adams hooked a bamboo stool between them with his foot, then began dealing forms and diagrams out of the wallet.
‘See here,’ he began. ‘This is a computer-generated diagram of the, ah, butt’s parabola; these figures are the force estimated to have been exerted on it by your fingers, and these the velocity the butt reached before impacting with Mr Lincoln’s head. Should the DA decide to push an evidential-intentional line, it will be necessary for the defence to take issue with them.’
Tom took a judicious sip of his whisky, then said: ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Adams echoed him witheringly. ‘Why? Because, Brodzinski, if these, ah, calculations are allowed to stand unopposed, they would suggest that you employed more force in, ah, flipping the butt than a negligent act would imply. The prosecution then has you lining up the butt like a — like a grenade launcher, or any other offensive weapon.’
Tom allowed this absurdity to wash over him for a while, together with the New Age tinkling, the Handrey women’s chanting and the drumming of the rain. It was up to him, he grasped, to think outside of the box. Adams wasn’t capable of it — he’d gone native. Swai-Phillips wasn’t either — he was a goddamn native. There was a crucial piece missing from this crazy jigsaw.
Tom hunched forward and, taking the diagram from the stool, flapped it in Adam’s horsy face. ‘What’, Tom demanded, ‘could possibly be my motive for attacking Mr Lincoln?’
‘Motive? Motive?’ Strange wheezing sounds issued from Adams, his eyelids flickered, his pale-blue eyes watered. He was laughing. ‘There’s motivation in abundance, Brodzinski,’ he managed to choke out at last. ‘Jealousy, for one. Atalaya has already told Commander Squoddolop-polollou that you were looking at her, ah, breasts, before you flipped the butt—’
‘Oh, ferchrissakes!’ Tom cried.
But Adams continued: ‘Or, should the police choose to paint you up, ah, blacker still, they could say this was a race-hate crime.’