Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  "Wha' was that?" Tarr slurred, third dram down his gullet.

  "About having the guts to kill yourself at the Red Serge Ball," said Evil Eye.

  The second meeting of the Suicide Club was now underway.

  Vancouver International Airport

  Gill waved to Nick as suitcase in hand he cleared Canada Customs with other tanned passengers from Maui. "Welcome home. Car's outside. We'll stop at the nearest motel," she whispered, leaning over the rail to hug him in Arrivals, "so I can demonstrate sexually how much I missed you. Dinner at The Teahouse to see the New Year in, then you can demonstrate sexually how much you missed me."

  "Still no word on the DNA test?"

  He asked the question as arm in arm they neared the exit doors, where Kidd, Tipple, and two burly Mounties entered to intercept them.

  "The stains on your Red Serge match your mother's blood." The burly pair seized Nick as Rachel Kidd said, "Corporal, I'm arresting you for the murder of Dora Craven."

  MEMENTO MORI

  Rorke's Drift, Africa Thursday, January 23, 1879

  When the bloodball of the African sun came up the following morning, the only Zulus around were heaped in piles of dead and dying about the barricaded storehouse yard. The first cold gray light of dawn gave way to red shafts of glory that dazzled off 20,000 spent cartridge casings scattered about the entrenchment. A heavy pall of smoke filled with the acrid stench of roasted flesh hung over the British post like a wreath. The defenders were ringed by a Hell on Earth of utter devastation. At their boots were slit shields, snapped spears, battered helmets, broken rifles, and empty ammunition boxes on a carpet of tramped grain spilling from torn mealie bags. Hordes of flies were mired in the sticky blood splashed on the fortifications. Six hundred dead Zulus hemmed in the whites, piled up in places where the attack was the fiercest almost to the top of the barricade. Limbs were tightly entwined with each other in grotesque thrashing from violent death. One warrior seven feet tall in life lay sprawled back with his heels on top of the parapet and his head nearly touching the ground, the middle of his body supported by dead comrades packing the base of the wall. Of the four hundred-plus Zulus wounded, those not evacuated by their cohorts were flopping and groaning in agony.

  "Color-Sergeant Bourne."

  "Sir," said the young man, responding to Chard.

  "Call the roll. Report losses. And see the men get a tot of rum."

  "Sir," said Bourne, and off he went.

  The battle had been a grueling ordeal for the Zulu attackers. Most were middle-aged men who without proper food for days had run twenty miles across coun-

  try from Isandlwana to ford the Mzinyathi River and charge right into six hours of sustained hand-to-hand combat in the teeth of devastating fire with little to show for their efforts. A military rule of thumb is ten percent losses will destroy an army's morale, and they'd lost twenty-five. They had no water, no medical attention, and soon every assault was over the bodies of their friends. The final charge had been at ten p.m. last night, and after midnight the shooting had waned. Two hours before dawn, they'd drifted away.

  The question was would they return 20,000 strong?

  Chard took precautions.

  Details were ordered to rebuild and strengthen the rampart walls, and to remove thatch from the storehouse roof, and to pull down the still smoldering hospital by means of ropes through the loopholed walls, and to chop down bushes and trees in front of the yard, and to post lookouts with warning flags up on the stripped rafters. While thatch was being dumped in the stone kraal, the Redcoats were surprised by a lone Zulu feigning death who jumped up and fired his rifle at them, then ran for the river. He missed, and so did those who shot at him, causing Chard to remark he was glad "the plucky fellow got off."

  Others were not so lucky.

  The Redcoats were down to a case and a half of ammunition. Patrols were sent out to collect weapons from the Zulu dead. Private Hook—who'd kept the attackers at bay while Craven hammered through the hospital walls—marveled at the horrific carnage around the yard. One soldier kneeled up against the wall, but didn't respond when Hook said, "Hello, what are you still doing here?" Tilting back his helmet revealed the blue mark where he was shot in the head. Where the Zulus had killed whites and been able to reach them, the bodies were mutilated in the usual fashion, stomachs ripped and disemboweled. Most of the African dead wore the married man's isicoco headring, "ring-kop" black wax woven into their hair. A macabre impi still besieged the post. Strangely, many slain blacks had dropped to their elbows and knees, and now remained hunched up like that with knees drawn into their chins. While heading for the river, gathering spears along the way, Hook passed a

  "dead" Zulu still bleeding from his leg. The Zulu made a grab for the butt of Hook's rifle. Hook dropped all the spears but one, then assegaied the man. Another patrol discovered a number of wounded blacks abandoned during the retreat huddled in the orchard and garden in front of the hospital. Having put the bayonet through most of them, they saved the last two to lynch from a transport scaffold.

  Some found later would be buried alive.

  Back at the post, there was a narrow miss. During the struggle for the hospital, wounded Private Waters hid in Reverend Witt's wardrobe closet. Tension got the better of him, so he wrapped himself with a black cloak and dashed out back, where he crawled through the grass toward the cookhouse to work his way over to the safety of the storehouse yard. Finding the cookhouse manned by Zulus firing at the defenders, Waters took a handful of soot and smeared it over the white skin of his face and hands. Through the night he lay "dead" out back as Zulu rushers tramped on him, and now, forgetting he'd put on blackface, ran toward the post. Redcoat marksmen almost cut him down.

  Waters accounted for, Bourne altered his casualty report. The final list would be fifteen defenders dead, two mortally wounded, and sixteen others suffering less severe injuries.

  Left outside the stone kraal during the fight, the Royal Engineers wagon had been wrecked. The looters had spared one bottle of beer, which Chard now shared with Bromhead in a hearty toast to having come safely out of so much danger.

  Lance-Sergeant Craven was hunting for trophies.

  Memento mori.

  Blackened by powder and splattered with blood, his red tunic tattered and his helmet gone, Craven gripped the lunger he'd used in the final stages of the defense in his good hand. The stench of charred flesh from the hospital was nauseating. Vultures were feeding outside no-man's-land as he walked across. Trooper Hunter, the dazed patient, lay crumpled on the ground with six stab wounds in his chest. The Zulu who speared him was piled on top. Beyond them was the Induna Craven spiked during the escape.

  The battlefield commander.

  Memento mori.

  The Zulu's "kilt" of twisted civet and monkey fur was soaked with blood. Bloodstains mottled his cow tail festoons. Near him lay the full-size isihlangu shield and carved hardwood club. Stabbing his lunger into the dirt. Craven picked up the knobkerrie, hefting it in his hand. Satisfied, he stuck the weapon into his belt near his useless arm. The sun at his back, he stood over the Zulu covered by his shadow until he spied the snakeskin pouch around the man's neck. Crouching, Craven tore the pouch from the witch doctor's throat and used his teeth to tug open the drawstring. Ten eyes inside stared back at him.

  The Redcoat pocketed the pouch, pulled the lunger from the ground, and walked away.

  His shadow came off the Zulu like a black ghost.

  Following him.

  WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

  Take up the White Man's burden—

  Send forth the best ye breed— Go, bind your sons to exile

  To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness

  On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

  Half-devil and half-child.

  — Kipling

  j

  GLADIATORS

  Vancouver

  Monday, January 10, 1994

  The Chief
Justice of British Columbia was not a man to be taken lightly. For thirty-three years Calvin Cutter had clung to his Seat of the Scornful, going to the bench an already conservative maritime lawyer, then veering right as criminal cases hardened what little elasticity there was in his brain. A brain the defense bar dubbed the "Black Hole of Cal Cutter"—so dense the good arguments that went in never came out in his judgments.

  The CJ had so many pet names it was hard to keep track of them all. A roly-poly man with sphincterlike lips, some called him "Moon Face" because his features resembled a human behind. Others called him "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" because his chambers painted blue had galleon prints on the walls, boats in bottles, a ship's steering wheel, and a brass telescope aimed down at the yachts on False Creek. "The Smiling Viper," "Mr. Catch-22," "The Iron Fist in the Iron Glove," the list was never-ending. The CJ's latest dub was "Three Monkeys." See All Evil. Hear All Evil. And Speak All Evil ... his judgments.

  Before Hatchett stepped down (actually a step up) to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as head of the trial division, she sat beside Cutter on the Appeal bench in what defense lawyers now called The Dark Ages. Appeals are heard by three judges, and Cutter as CJ set the coram for each appeal, so he and Hatchett ended up on all the big cases, forget the third wheel for he or she was but a dissenter from the deadly Cutter-Hatchett One-Two Punch.

  Hatchett saw Craven's case as the perfect means to strike a blow at "American rowdies," so from the moment he was charged, she assigned the trial to herself.

  When bail was requested, she ordered Nick detained, leaving his lawyer no option but to apply to Cutter for permission to appeal under Section 680 of the Criminal Code. In effect, the application was the Cutter-Hatchett One-Two Punch reunited.

  Section 680 was a gate. With Cutter on guard, the room to squeak through was narrow indeed. Usually, such a request was made by written submission, but as the CJ had recently turned down the Somalis who'd survived the ERT assault, he thought it wise for an oral hearing to show how balanced he was.

  Gill Macbeth arrived late.

  Back when the North Shore was little more than bush, the Guinness Family—fine Irish beer and Book of Records —bought the mountainside for "The British Properties." They built Lions Gate Bridge across the First Narrows to Stanley Park so buyers could reach the downtown core. The three-lane span is now Vancouver's worst bottleneck, which can't be widened because that would usurp more of the park, so a serious accident can hold traffic up forever and—like this morning—make every commuter late.

  The Law Courts in Vancouver resembled a piece of cheese. Thirty-five courts on five tiers were stacked up the right angle of the glass wedge. Greenery spilled from each level like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. On sunny days the Great Hall under the sloped roof sizzled lawyers alive. On winter days like today the Great Hall was a freezer, and lawyers milled about sniffling from colds. Gill rushed in the Smithe Street door by the statue of Themis, blindfolded Goddess of Justice with scales in her hand, and zigzagged up the stairs to the fifth level, turning left along the balcony to the Heritage Court. Through stained-glass doors marked court of appeal, she slipped in as Nick's lawyer finished his submission.

  ". . . may it please your lordship, this applicant is a Mounted Policeman with a sterling record. There is, I submit—with the greatest of respect for Chief Justice Hatchett—no 'substantial likelihood the accused will, if released from custody, interfere with the administration of justice,' as her ladyship ruled. I therefore ask that you refer her decision to the Court of Appeal for review."

  Nick's lawyer, John Peabody QC, sat down.

  Lyndon Wilde QC rose to his feet.

  The Old Courthouse along the street was a columned edifice with two stone lions guarding the front steps. When the new Law Courts opened in 1978, the government saved money by finishing the courtrooms in concrete and felt. So outraged was Cutter at this legal travesty that he demanded a Heritage Court like those in New Westminster and the one he'd left. Eight Greek pillars carved from red oak soared behind the CJ, canopy above broad bench and five chairs flanked by crimson curtains forming his royal box, with carpet the color of blood on the floor, befitting an arena where Cutter was Nero lording over lawyers in The Pit, itching to give his gladiators the thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

  "My Lord Chief Justice," Wilde said, "the evidence will show the applicant typed a letter threatening his mother. He was the last person seen at her house before her body was found. The house was locked, no tampering, and her blood was found on the sleeve of his Red Serge. Found on the sleeve of his striking arm, and his mother was clubbed."

  Cutter glared around his court as if searching for Nick, but those with counsel don't appear in the Court of Appeal.

  "The applicant was involved in a younger man/older woman sexual tryst," said Wilde.

  The CJ, a bachelor, squinched his nose as if able to smell rutting in the air.

  "Here the charge is matricide, so May-December sex takes on Freudian tones. The applicant's mother-substitute is a pathologist in Vancouver. What compelled her ladyship to order detention is he surreptitiously sent this woman to New Westminster to perform the autopsy on his mother. A clear case of interfering in the administration of justice, I submit. Your lordship may also be influenced by the fact the Crown will proceed by direct indictment," said Wilde. "The applicant can stand trial within two months."

  Imperial profile to the gallery where Macbeth sat, Cutter studied the wooden clock on the wall as Peabody replied.

  "My Lord, the age difference is a mere five years. Dr. Macbeth leads her field. The applicant asked her to

  perform the postmortem so no forensic clues were overlooked."

  As Peabody sat down, Cutter read his ruling from a page of prejudged reasons.

  "In exercising my discretion under Section 680 of the Code, the test I put to myself is might this Court reverse Chief Justice Hatchett's order to detain? The applicant has shown a penchant to undermine the rule of law. If released, he may try again. My answer's 'No' to the test, so the applicant will remain in custody until his trial."

  Cutter got up and wheezed out.

  A railing separated The Pit from the gallery. Gill blocked the swing gate as Lyndon Wilde, smirking with triumph, left the arena.

  "How dare you!" Gill snarled. "What was that May/ December crap about?"

  "It's called Knowing Your Judge, Lady Macbeth. Any hint of 'perversion,' and the CJ closes what passes for his mind."

  "This may be a game to you, but it's Nick Craven's freedom and my reputation. My professional integrity is paramount to—"

  "What's paramount to you is some stud between your legs. I've seen your type before," Wilde said with hard contempt. "The professional whore. The woman who can't keep her cunt out of the job. The female lawyer smitten by a rogue of a client, who smuggles in a gun and busts him out to get boned. How'd you bed Craven? On the job? Shove your 'professional integrity.' I see through you like glass."

  "Is this how you relate to all women?" Gill asked.

  "Just professional bimbos who put on the act. Grow up, Doctor. If Sir Walter Raleigh is dead, expect wet feet."

  "You slandered me in your submission, and now you slander me here. You better hope I'm not recording what you say."

  "Take a look around. You're standing in a court. A tape recorder here will run your ass out of town. Which is what I'll do if you mess with my case. A game it is, Doctor, and I'm the best. Play with me, and I'll chew you up and spit you out."

  Main and Cordova is the guts of skid road, home to the drunk, junkie, loser, and the lost. Three-twelve Main is the Public Safety Building, headquarters of the Vancouver Police. Two twenty-two Main is the Provincial Court, where anyone charged with crime in this city enters the judicial system. Behind the courts at 275 East Cordova, across from the old Coroner's Court, now the Police Museum, is the Vancouver Pretrial Center, Nick's new abode. Breath pluming from the cold and blood still aboil from Lyndon Wilde QC, Gill walke
d in the door.

  Technically she was here for personal reasons, but when the visits reception officer logged her in as professional, Gill didn't balk. She signed the book, then stored her possessions in one of the metal lockers. Buzzed through the door to the Holding Area, she passed electric frisk by an Outokumpu Metor 114 metal detector to move on to the Mantrap. The Mantrap steel door fired like a shotgun, opening into a cramped cubicle like an elevator, one-way glass to Gill's left, the door ahead securing the Secure Area. Red on white, the sign on the door read excessive physical contact will result in immediate termination of visit. One door of the Mantrap was always locked.

  Bang! fired the door.

  The space beyond the Mantrap confined open visits. Inmates and outsiders sat face to face on futon chairs across low tables, six pairs at a time. To the left was a door marked gv-18, for "door 18, ground visits." Only professionals entered here, and "popped" through with a pneumatic bang!, Gill faced a muscled woman from Visits Control, who ushered her past nooks for "glass visits" by telephone to door gv-19.

  With a key, she locked Gill in.

  What would henceforth be known as Nick's "office" was a 10- x 6-foot room entirely viewable from the 18-x 18-inch judas window in the door. A hard bench ran the length of the far wall. Centered against the left wall was a cream-colored table with two brown chairs. A pair of bare fluorescent tubes provided light. The floor was rust tile. Beside the table, the only window looked out on the exercise yard.

  Bang! . . . Slam! . . . Bang! . . . Slam! . . . heavy

  doors fired pneumatically slammed shut, then gv-19 was unlocked and in came Nick, sporting a white T-shirt stamped vpsc, a green work shirt and matching pants without a belt, and white runners secured by Velcro straps.

  "I heard," he said. "Peabody phoned. Cutter on the bench, jail was preordained."

  Mindful of the physical contact warning, Gill gave Nick a professional kiss on the cheek. "You okay?" she asked.