by Andrew Pyper
“No you’re goddamn not. You’re off this file as of now.”
“You can’t do that, Bert. This is my case. You gave it to me to handle on my own and this is the way it’s going to go.”
“You’re wrong there, pally boy. Because you’re fucking done. You hear me? You do this and we’ll be lucky if this guy doesn’t sue us out of business! Have you forgotten how this works? You’re supposed to be on his side, and instead you want to go and tie the bloody noose around his bloody neck, for God’s sake! Now why the fuck would you do something like that? Why are you screwing the Crown up the ass for free? Eh? Could you tell me that, please?”
“This was my decision, Bert.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s never been your decision, you little prick. It’s this firm’s decision. It’s our names on the line. You’re just an employee, remember? You’re nobody. So whatever you do, whatever stupid decisions you make, make us look stupid. See how that works?”
“You don’t know the full—”
“You don’t know what your goddamn job is.”
“May I interject for a moment, gentlemen?”
Graham has recovered, his voice now a controlled, theatrical baritone.
“Now listen, Bartholomew. We’ve been aware of the stress you’ve been under on this file. But after our conversation following your unfortunate press conference some time ago I thought we’d sorted everything out. And now, without any consultation with us, you wrongly advise your client on the main issue of trial. These are very severe errors, Bartholomew. Very severe. You of all people! He’s going away for life now, you know that. And a life sentence that follows a plea of guilty is just as long as one that follows a conviction by jury. Given this, I can only conclude that you’ve utterly lost your capacity for good judgment.”
“Actually, Graham, I feel like I’m just finding it.”
“And how’s that, Bartholomew? Hmm? Could you explain that to us?”
“No. I don’t think I can.”
“Ohh!” Graham moans. “To say the least, to say the absolute least, you’ve put this firm in a very difficult position.”
“And I regret that. But there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“Do tell.”
“I resign.”
“What?”
“I’m out. After this, I’m done. I’m going to do something else.”
“What something else?” Graham spits. “Bartholomew, you were made for this stuff! I know that Bert agrees with me on this, even though he’s distinctly disenchanted with you at this particular moment. We’ve put a lot of time into grooming your talents into something that Lyle, Gederov can grow upon in the future, Bartholomew. Don’t turn one mistake into two.”
“It’s not a mistake. And as for young lawyers to build the firm’s future, there are plenty more where I came from and you know it. Go and pluck one of them out and turn them into whatever you need. I’m gone.”
Surprisingly, Graham gives up. More surprising, Bert takes a stab at it himself.
“What are you going to do? Eh? You think you can just walk away from your life? You don’t think we all haven’t thought about ways to get out? Everybody wants to escape, Barth.”
“I’m not escaping. I’m quitting.”
“Fine. Then quit. And while you’re at it, go to hell.”
Then they wait. They’ve made the appeals they felt obliged to make, been denied as they hoped they’d be denied, and are already calculating the reputational and monetary losses that face them, recalling the names of other hot young lawyers who could be brought in to take Bartholomew Crane’s place. They are practical men above everything else. Men who’d lived their professional lives knowing that their time was literally money, that in this business people frequently fall away and that the only choice is to work out the best deal you can and carry on with the dirty job at hand.
“We respect your capacity to decide your own professional future, Bartholomew,” Graham begins cautiously. “But with regard to this Tripp business, we must insist that you discontinue representation of your client immediately. Do you understand?”
“It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not. According to my watch you still have time to go in there, withdraw from the case and walk away. We’ll clean up everything else.”
“I know. That’s why I’m doing this.”
“I promise you right now that you won’t ever—”
“FUCKING UNGRATEFUL PUNK COCK-SUCKER—”
Click off the cellular and their voices are sucked away, leaving nothing but the meltwater chattering down to the sewer drains in the street. Look out beyond the huddled rooftops of town at the snow falling slow and straight. Watch it gather over the whole mid-north.
The courtroom is nearly asleep already. The clerk’s head hangs from its neck, the hacks from the Toronto dailies buttress greasy skulls on arms sliding off the back of the gallery’s bench. Even McConnell sits folded in upon himself, which is a change from his usual spinning turn to cast a damning look my way. It seems that with the first evidence of winter every vent that might have afforded the faintest lick of circulation has been closed and the heat cranked up to a level consistent with our sister courtrooms in equatorial nations. The result is a haze of vaporized perspiration, carbon dioxide and flatulence that hangs over the room in an occasionally visible smog.
Although Goodwin and I arrive late, Justice Goldfarb is even later. Glance at my watch but immediately forget the position of its hands so that I have to glance again. Where’s Tripp?
Here he comes, shuffling with bird-like jerks as though still shackled at the ankles but he’s not. It takes him what feels like the length of a foreign-language film to reach the chair next to mine, and when he lowers himself into it his head lolls onto his shoulder in my direction as though to receive a welcoming kiss. Instead I lean over his way and whisper, “You ready?” into a wax-clogged ear.
“Today’s the day.”
“Yes, Thom. Are you O.K.?”
“I’m O.K.,” he says, looking around him and behind him, moving from face to face in the gallery.
“Good. Listen, I’m going to be right here behind you when the time comes, alright? Just hang in there.”
“Uh-huh.”
But with the arrival of Tripp’s newfound consciousness has come an aching lethargy for Bartholomew Crane. And as the clerk stands to call “All rise!” as Justice Goldfarb cuts through the jellied air in her black, funereal robes, it’s all I can do to half lift myself out of my chair before the call of “You may be seated” from above permits a falling back into place.
But I’m the only one who stays up. Fingertips splayed out for balance on the table before me, my voice a sound made from outside myself.
“Your Honor, I’d like to request a change in the scheduled procedure this morning, if I could, so that my client may—”
“I’m afraid I can’t permit that, Mr. Crane.”
Goldfarb shaking her head, palms raised to stop me from going any further.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ll have to sit down now. If you don’t mind.”
I look over at Goodwin for a clue but his eyes are lowered to his lap where he concentrates on pinching at the crease in his pants. Tripp turns to me though, the taut lines of his face falling away.
“I don’t understand, Your Honor.”
“Your principals from Lyle, Gederov contacted me from Toronto a few moments ago. It is their view that there is sufficient reason to question your competence in continuing this trial.”
“But my client and I have duly elected—”
“And I felt that, given the extent of the Crown’s evidence and what I expect you are about to propose, they may well be right.”
Her lower lip pushed up into a wrinkled fist.
“No. Don’t do this. Please, Your Honor, you can’t let—”
“Sit down, Mr. Crane.”
“—can’t let him go—”
I tumble back into my chair and almost miss the mark, bouncing off the armrest with a metallic squawk.
“Until alternative counsel is made available for the accused, this court is adjourned,” Goldfarb is saying to the jury now, and they look back at her with a variety of seasick expressions. “So it’s the old routine again, people. Don’t discuss any of this with anyone until we can get this show back on the road.”
Blink up to see the bailiff coming over to haul Tripp away but taking his time about it, gut sucked in, a thumb hooked over the butt of his pistol. Can’t hear Goodwin offering an understanding word somewhere off to the side, can’t move my head back from where it hangs over the smudge of papers on the desk. Nothing at all but a weight on my shoulder that is my client’s hand resting next to my cheek in silent comfort.
FORTY-EIGHT
It’s hard to see Graham Lyle sitting on the window ledge of the honeymoon suite, hands gripped to his knees, eyes touring the walls of photocopied newspaper while trying to remain calm. But there he is, real as anything else. Arrived the morning after he pulled me out of court and was knocking at my door before I’d gotten out of bed myself although it’s difficult to say who looks worse between the two of us. Apparently he wasn’t kidding about being allergic to the country air. Pulling a nasal spray out of his breast pocket every couple of minutes to give each nostril a swift blast followed by an automatic Pardon me under his breath.
“Would you like some Kleenex?” I offer him from my place at the end of the bed. Graham’s gaze held somewhere to my left, on the photo of The Lady possibly, although she would be too small to make out from where he sits.
“No, thank you. I think I’ll just stick with the prescription drugs.”
“Now there’s wisdom.”
“I don’t anticipate being here long anyway. As a matter of fact, I’d very much like to be on the road the day after tomorrow.”
“Are you going to play tag team with Bert for the rest of the trial, then?”
“It requires only one laywer to deliver a motion to dismiss.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Crown is finished with its case and there’s not enough to nail our friend. You know this yourself, or would have known it before your wits abandoned you. So I’m going to ask Goldfarb to finish this silly business right now so we can all go home.”
Graham throws his head back to glance out the window and finds something on the street that catches his interest, or at least it appears he does, for he remains turned away from me for a long while.
“I hope you understand why I did what I did,” I say finally.
“Well, then you hope in vain, my boy, because I don’t have a clue. Although I could guess it has something to do with what you might mistakenly see as some kind of moral reckoning or other. But understand? That I don’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Seems you’ve inherited your client’s taste in interior decoration,” he says, pretending not to hear and swinging his head back to show an upper lip glistening beneath his still-streaming nose.
“They’re not decoration.”
“Beg your pardon. What would you call all this then?” He circles his arm around the room while rhythmically blinking eyelids pink as hamburger. For a moment I actually search for an answer, though I know there isn’t one.
“Why don’t I pack all this stuff up so you can get to work?” I say instead, and for the first time Graham turns his eyes to the still largely untouched disclosure materials stacked on my desk.
“Yes, why don’t you do that.” Gives his nose another injection. “I’ll be in Room 24 at the end of the hall.”
Clips over to the door and places a hand on the tower of bedsheets that come up to his chin.
“You were the best student I ever had, you know,” he says on his way out, as much to himself as to me. But by the time I think of something to say in return he’s already gone.
The next morning I manage to find a seat in the gallery without meeting anyone’s eyes. Focus on nothing but Graham’s back as Goldfarb comes in to take her chair. Watch only his hands as they begin to dance in the air at his sides, framing his points in clean boxes and ovals. A motion to dismiss. Insufficient evidence to meet the charge. A waste of the court’s resources to continue with the trial. Your Honor, the law on the matter is plain.
It doesn’t take long.
Then a moment when several things happen at once:
The jury turning to each other to determine whether any of them knows what the hell just happened while Goldfarb mumbles thanks for their responsible conduct throughout the proceedings. An explosion of violent sobbing from someone in the rows behind me, followed immediately by a howl of troubled digestion and a sigh of such strangled anguish—Oh Christ!—it sounds like the speaker’s last living breath. Tripp throwing his head around to look my way. And what he sees is a man who appears pained, though only by some minor physical irritant. A full bladder perhaps, heartburn, a pinched nerve between the shoulder blades.
Soon everyone is working out ways to leave the room, attempting to control equal urges to remain where they sit for the rest of their days or make a dash for the door. A full minute required for each of us to pull on our coats without touching whoever stands next to us.
Tripp the last one to move. And in the end it’s the bailiff who has to grip him by the arm and lead him over to the side door once again. But they don’t quite make it. The bailiff turning to hear something. Spinning on his heel as a matter of fact so he can put a face to the voice now booming out from the back of the courtroom. Squeezes his mouth tight at the disappointment of seeing that it’s only Lloyd McConnell. And who else would it be? Shouting not in grief but a strange, giddy triumph. You’re going to burn in hell! You hear me you filthy bastard? Goddamn you to burn in damnation forever!
Then, without turning to look, Tripp releases his arm from the bailiff’s grip, pulls the door wide and is free.
I end up hanging around town for a couple of days. With Graham gone it’s just me alone in the hotel again, a situation I’m starting to get miserably used to. There is, after all, nothing for me to return to in the city now except another empty room. And by that standard this one is as good as any.
But I’m staying for a reason. There’s always a reason, isn’t there, even when it comes to the most addled courses of action. I need to talk to my client. My former client. The trouble is he’s nowhere to be found.
I’ve tried calling but his phone is out of service and he doesn’t answer the buzzer at his apartment although I’m convinced he’s up there. There haven’t been any sightings of him since his last day in court and God knows the whole town’s had its eyes wide open. Everybody wants to see what a man who’s gotten away with it looks like.
He’s up there because I can feel him up there. Then have these feelings confirmed when I go through the garbage bins in the lane behind his building and discover the teen girl magazines that I’d seen strewn across his bed. Loose clippings that sit there as a bundle of colored ribbon atop egg shells, burnt toast and coffee grounds.
The next night I stand across the street from his apartment and wait. The front windows are dark, but once or twice there’s a murky brush of movement inside, a body whose shifted weight causes the glass to warp the streetlight reflected against it. Then sometime halfway to morning it comes to stand and look down at me. A charcoal outline within the window’s frame.
I wave up to him. Stepping out into the street, one arm arcing above my head in what could be seen as either greeting or warning to someone far away. Don’t call out his name because I’m frightened of how my voice would sound on its own in the hardened air. So I just keep waving up at him, a man caught passing through an unlit living room like a thief.
But before he pulls the blinds down for good he takes a half step forward so that there’s a second when he’s almost visible. The floating circle of his fa
ce. Fixed by a look of shallow horror, eyes held open to something he doesn’t want to see but knew was there all along.
I’m walking out into the frigid lake with my shoes on. One minute I’m looking up at the vaultless night sky from where I stand on one of the big rocks near shore, the stars precise and screwed to their places, and in the next I’m stepping off into the shallows, the water so still my feet make a dull thunk as they push through. The kind of cold where the body can’t decide between pain and numbness so it flashes between them. My legs could be sawed off at the hip. They could be on fire.
There is no breeze, yet the air carries a dusty half rain that meets my face in dry pricks. It may even be snow of the not-quite-there-yet sort but it’s too dark to make the distinction. Look down to watch the water creeping higher up my chest but it’s me moving, not the water. Wading out with elbows lifted up in line with my ears like a beach tourist who’s determined to go all the way in this time but delays the inevitable with a goofy, off-balance jig.
So cold it’s clear I won’t get far if I go out much deeper. More than five minutes spent up to your neck in this and it’s all over.
I’ve got some time.
An attempt at a breaststroke at first but my arms won’t go out that wide so I make my way with a kind of tadpole wriggle instead, throwing my shoulders forward and kicking legs joined at the knees. Making enough noise that I can’t hear whether I’m holding my breath or not, and I’m glad for this because I know such a faltering sound would only panic me more than I already am. But greater than fear there is an idea of purpose, a grim duty that must be tended to.
The cramps start no more than twenty feet out. Glance back toward shore and I can still make out the detailed shape of the trees, the cracked trunks and nubbed crookedness of the branches. Nose kept an inch above the water. Wriggle out some more.
Then a sound I didn’t notice before, an echo of the same disturbance of the water that I’m making myself. Someone swimming beside and slightly behind me. The rippling waves of our bodies meeting with tiny slaps in the space between us.
