Kill All the Judges

by William Deverell

  “Jacqueline is not little any more, she’s thirty-five, she’s doing her Ph.D.”

  “I knew that.” Brian made it out the door, waving goodbye, walking backward. “Later, right? We’ll talk later.”

  “Let’s hoist a beer at Happy Hour, okay?”

  “Happy Hour, claro, excellent plan.” Brian escaped down the hall, relieved he’d passed the test. Max hadn’t guessed the full extent of the damage.

  He locked his office door, withdrew his A’s, fished out his bindle of blow, then turned to the sound of a soft “Hello?” He’d forgotten about his new secretary, hadn’t noticed this Modigliani masterpiece by the filing cabinet.

  Brian tucked the bindle away, annoyed at himself, annoyed at her for smiling in such a knowing way. Why was this woman a legal secretary? Why wasn’t she on a runway in Milan? Five-foot-eight, mostly leg, flat chest, catlike eyes, and that infuriating smile, as if she reads him, knows his addictions, his sicknesses. Poised, assured, masking her repugnance.

  “I am pleased to meet you, I am April Fan Wu.” The voice was musical, the accent British over a hint of Cantonese. “You are Mr. Pomeroy?”

  “No, I’m the pigeon control officer. Mr. Pomeroy asked me to get rid of them; they’re driving him mad.” Preening on the sill outside, beady-eyed, occasionally taking a shit.

  “It is bad chi to kill a pigeon.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My grandmother.” Still studying him.

  Brian looked about–his office didn’t seem in its usual disarray.

  “You have not opened your mail for two months.” Matter-of-fact, patient, as with a child. “Almost two hundred e-mails, faxes, and telephone messages, some urgent, some not, demand answer. Dr. Epstein, your psychiatrist, is anxious that you call.”

  “Did she describe me as a menace to all of society or just to myself?”

  “I do think you ought to see her. You are obviously unwell.”

  “Where did you get your medical training, Ms. Wu?”

  “Sarcasm is a tool of the unimaginative.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  She nodded. Her unforgiving smile.

  “I’m under a court order not to see my children. I am an emotional mess, I’m having some kind of massive stress disorder. On top of that, I’m being followed. Dr. Epstein is part of it. Illegal drugs bring temporary relief. My preferred form of humour is sarcasm. I’m not sure, but I think I’m also suicidal. You will hate working with me.”

  “I expect it will be interesting.”

  Front desk was paging, Cudworth Brown was on the premises. Brian asked April Fan Wu to arm herself with several sharpened pencils. He wanted Cuddles’s every uttered word, he had to find a solution to Astrid Leich, the surprise eyewitness.

  Before greeting his client, he slipped into the washroom, locked the door, laid out a pair, inhaled, rubbed his nostrils, and quickly felt much better. Maybe he’ll come to the office more often, get to know April Wu better. She’s quick, she gave him tit for tat. Obviously likes him. Finds him charmingly eccentric. Handsome enough with his chiselled, strife-worn features, despite his cigarette-yellowed moustache. She’s intrigued, here was someone different, the famed defender of an international assassin. The Abu Khazzam case, front-page news all through Asia. Ah, my love, did your heart skip a beat when you learned you’d be working for the great Bry Pomeroy?

  He did a couple more rows, then peed, washed his hands, and went out to fetch Cudworth. A muttering of greetings, no apologies, no eye contact. He sat him on a sofa, well away from the Oriental goddess, who was cross-legged on a wooden chair, pencil poised.

  “Okay, Cud, face this way, not at her. From the top.”

  Of the three writers Judge Whynet-Moir invited, the most exotic was Cudworth Brown, a poet of bawdy and muscular verse, and he was the first to arrive–eager to sup at the capitalist trough, to rub elbows with philanthropists and possible patrons.

  As Cudworth’s taxi pulled into the portico, Whynet-Moir came out to greet him. A thin, greying, straight-backed man, a soft city hand that went limp in Cudworth’s gnarly grip. Waving off his ill-meant protests, Whynet-Moir paid the fifty dollars on the meter.

  “Bless you, Judge. That fare would’ve wiped me out.”

  “My pleasure. Where are you staying?”

  “I’ll find a place, I’ll get by.”

  Whynet-Moir saw that Cudworth had brought a backpack presumably stuffed with overnight gear, and he grappled with the implications for a moment. “Nonsense, you’ll stay the night here. Plenty of empty beds. Self-contained suite above the garage if you prefer, the maid’s room.” Above-the-garage was what Whynet-Moir would prefer: this vulgarian had a suspect reputation.

  He ushered Cudworth in, showed him where to hang his poncho. The brute had had a recent shave and haircut, at least, and the grace to use a deodorizer. Floppy boots, baggy black pants held up by red braces, the top buttons of a denim shirt opened to reveal a peace medallion nestled among chest curls. Poor Flo, she will be aghast. He wished she would quickly finish her makeup and rescue him. He would definitely check the seating assignments, to make sure he was at the other end of the table from this hulk-shouldered rural.

  To kill time before the other guests arrived (the political essayist, Professor Chandra, would be His Lordship’s preferred seatmate), he toured Cudworth through the main wing of the house. A catering chef and his assistant were in the kitchen, an atrium of stainless steel; servers were setting a long table in a dining salon whose sliding glass doors gave access to the wraparound cedar deck and views of rock faces towering over a narrow, frothy inlet.

  A living room dominated by a two-sided fireplace. A glassed overlook to the heated pool, steaming and bubbling. Jade conveniences in each washroom. Elevator to the wine cellar. Just off the dining parlour, a well-stocked bar.

  Whynet-Moir didn’t know how to respond to Cudworth’s mantra, “Nice set-up,” “Real nice set-up.” With neither able to bridge the cultural gap, conversation was sparse, but Cudworth couldn’t say no a martini, and he lingered so longingly at the countertop humidor that Whynet-Moir gave him a Romeo y Julieta. “I’m afraid we prefer to smoke outdoors,” he said, ushering Cudworth outside. With relief, the judge ran off to attend to new arrivals.

  Cudworth twirled his cigar, playing with it, wanting to save it for the right mellow moment, with some of that Hennessy VSOP to go with it. He lit a cigarette, watched Whynet-Moir greet a couple in a high-end Porsche. Here coming up the driveway was a voluptuous car, a topless Lamborghini. Ever since he lost his virginity in a Jaguar, Cudworth had a thing about fine cars.

  “Want to fire me up?”

  He turned to see what looked like a frame from an early flick, Lauren Bacall in mid-career, maybe, or Greta Garbo, in what they call a little black thing, high black boots, a long set of pearls, an unlit cigarette proffered. There was something vaguely Oriental about her, in her eyes and colour, but he figured half the world had Genghis Khan’s genes, sometimes they showed up more obviously.

  He didn’t skip a beat, had a match under her fag in an instant, his hand cupped to shelter the flame, her hand there too, touching, winered lips puckering, inhaling, smoke creeping from flared nostrils.

  “You changed my life,” she said.

  Brian opened a window to let some of the heat escape. He hadn’t been with a woman for months, was horny for Florenza LeGrand, what right had Cud to pucker with the transoceanic shipping line princess? She really say that, Cud? You changed her life? Sounds a little wheezy, falsely dramatic.

  An image of Florenza and her little black thing and her winered lips came again, but his erection failed to last, submitting limply to an infernal chorus from a shop speaker about the coming of Santa Claus.

  He should have had that beer with Max, should have gone with him to the Club d’Jazz at attitude adjustment hour. He shouldn’t have sneaked out the back way, by the stairs of cowardice. He should have listened to Max diagnose him. I’ll be blu
nt, Bry. I don’t think you’re sick, you’re just being an asshole. He could have refuted that. Easy. But he wants them to think he’s being an asshole. That’s his cover.

  At the same time he hadn’t wanted a harangue from the scrawny long-distance runner, a drug abuse lecture. Brian took pride in his drug abuse, he was a gourmand of drug abuse, Max wouldn’t understand that. Brian had hit on the perfect combination: a tequila on the hour, a line on the half-hour, and non-stop nicotine, a sustained creative high. Presumably most crime writers, from Dashiell Hammett on, composed while drunk or stoned, so Brian was maintaining a fine tradition. As Widgeon said, I find a wee nip at the bottom of the day stirs the embers to one last spurt before the weary writer retires to the comfort of easy chair and telly.

  It had never occurred to Cudworth his verses might change a life; it was a wondrous concept to which he quickly warmed.

  “I was living a lie,” she said.

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you sometime.”

  She pulled two thin volumes from her bag. Liquor Balls and Karmageddon. “Write something scintillating.” Then she had second thoughts, because she put them back. “Later, when you’ve got to know me better. Would you like to stay the night?”

  “Thanks, I’ve already been asked. I’ll be in the maid’s room.” Cud pointed to the room above the garage, in case she needed directions. She butted her smoke and went off to greet her guests.

  You’re asking me to buy this, Cud, this seduction scenario? I’ll play along with it, but what’s her version? There’s the rub–she’s made no statements and, on the advice of counsel, hasn’t talked to the Crown. Brian had learned this from a letter from Abigail Hitchins he’d eventually found enclosed in a box with the particulars of evidence.

  So Brian didn’t know what Ms. LeGrand was going to say at the trial, he hadn’t a clue. He’d read about her, seen photos of her, a favourite of the gossip columns, wild, eccentric, unclassifiable. Rumours abounded of dissolute early years, before her marriage two years ago to the handsome, allegedly suave, and utterly eligible bachelor judge.

  Brian is going to dig up the dirt on her. If she’s lying he’ll cut her to pieces. Yes, Cud, your tireless advocate is going to get right on top of the case, you’re in safer hands than Allstate. Bry is a late starter, slow off the blocks, but watch him skim over those hurdles.

  He rose to the window, looked across Main Street. The thin man was still there–he’d traded in the London Fog for a windbreaker, but it was the same guy, the same scrawny build. Standing under the shouting sign, “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Talking to the doorman at the Palace. Pointing across the street. That’s his hotel, he’s in 305, I want you to break his fingers so he can’t use a keyboard–we have to stop him.

  The doorman nodded. He was a hulking fellow, a former Lions player, a tight end–Lance could only guess what that role involved; he’d never understood North American football, or why it was called football. Right now, the tight end was taking a pass from the thin man, several bills from his wallet. The thin man walked away.

  Lance shrugged and turned from the window. He would rather look at his clever new secretary, who was doing the day’s final filing. She smiled. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Thank you, Ms. Wu. You’ve done splendidly for your first day.”

  “Good starts raise false hopes.”

  “Ah, the maxim of the day. You must write down your grandmother’s sayings. Wisdom unrecorded is wisdom lost.”

  Finally a smile from her, a glint of interest. “Tomorrow I will remember the rose.”

  “The prettiest one the florist has. But you’ll still put it to shame.”

  She smiled, but in a tired way, with a hint of scorn–she’d heard it all before. “Thank you. Now I must leave.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not a good idea.”

  She paused while getting her coat. “Why?”

  Lance pointed out the window. “See that bloke? The leviathan?”

  She joined him, observed the tight end walking across the street toward their building.

  “He means to do me harm.”

  Frightened, she went to the phone. “I’ll call 911.”

  “Jolly good idea. Make sure they send an ambulance. He’ll need one.”

  Widgeon: The writer must endeavour to end each chapter with a gut-churning, page-turning moment of high suspense. Nudge your fickle reader into the next chapter before he escapes from your literary clutches, turns off the bedside lamp, rolls over, and enfolds himself in the arms of Morpheus.

  Despite the master’s overblown prose, his advice, when stripped, is always on the mark. Yes, O Windy Sage, let’s leave the reader hanging there for the moment, before kicking his butt right into Chapter Eight.

  THE CONQUEST OF NORBERT

  A dream held for a few seconds, then shredded, leaving hazy recall of a courtroom, a pitcher of gin, Arthur on trial for being drunk and disorderly–a typical alcoholic’s dream that recurs in many guises. He blinked with relief: he wasn’t hungover.

  The dream signalled he was depressed and anxious, but in the fog of waking he didn’t know why. Now last evening came back, a terrible evening, two long-distance calls featuring, first, the apologetic falseness of Nicholas Braid in Vancouver, followed by a detonation from Melbourne. Nick Junior had been abed when the calls came. How was Arthur to handle this, how to tell Nick that his father can’t make it for Christmas at Blunder Bay?

  Nicholas Braid’s voice had been tight despite the few drinks he must have taken to brace himself. Something had come up. A group of VIJPs was in town for the holidays. Very Important Japanese People. The plan was to entertain them lavishly on Whistler Mountain, buy them choice seats for the World Figure Skating Trials.

  “There’s no way I can crawl out of this one, Arthur. But I’m going to make it up to Nick big-time. Tell him I’ve booked New Year’s in Maui. Four days, five-star resort, first-class tickets.”

  He must not have felt able to tell Nick himself, that’s why he called so late. Arthur could see no rational reason for his ex-son-in-law’s unpardonable behaviour and promptly informed on him to Deborah’s answering service.

  Her return call woke Arthur at 3:00 a.m. She was spitting mad. Her lawyer was going to hire a detective to get evidence on Nicholas and the floozy he was obviously shacking up with. Then she was going to seek full custody. Nicholas wasn’t allowed on Garibaldi Island. He wasn’t allowed anywhere near his son. Nick was to stay on the island until she could fetch him home.

  Arthur, at a loss as to how he might enforce these dicta, hadn’t uttered a syllable before she said abruptly, “Never mind, I’m going to tell him myself. Maui? Maui? Forget it. That piece of shit.”

  What was Arthur to say to Nick?

  Ten after seven. Through the window he could make out pasture and sea covered in low, thick mist, strands of it spiralling around the trunks of conifers. Apollo’s chariot had yet to wheel over the horizon, but there was a glow of his coming.

  Margaret was in the kitchen, he could hear the blender, a clattering of pans, her basic-training voice, Nick’s responses. Cool. Whatever. He’d been conscripted as sous-chef for a spread planned for Christmas Day. A dozen carefully chosen guests–major donors for the Greens–plus the woofers.

  He rose from bed, showered, dressed, worrying and fussing about Nick, about surviving tomorrow’s dinner. Hosting a houseful of ideologues was not Arthur’s idea of a merry Christmas. A humourless crowd, these Greens, with their dispiriting news about the planet.

  His walking shoes today–a hike to the general store, and when the mists dissolved he might carry on up Mount Norbert, the island’s highest peak, more than a thousand feet. Enjoy the view, find some peace.

  In the kitchen, he poured a coffee, watched Margaret demonstrate how to mash potatoes. “Got it?”

  “Yeah, I think.”

  “Good. Run out to the root cellar and grab a few turnips.”

  “What do
they look like?”

  She explained. He slouched out. With flour-coated hands, Margaret gingerly reciprocated Arthur’s hug. “Baking powder, silver wrap, and eight lemons, could you, please, Arthur? When you go to the store? Baking powder, not soda.” A deep breath. “You’re going to have to tell him his father’s not coming.”

  “Yes, I must do that.”

  “Nicholas wouldn’t have fitted in anyway. He’s too straight-laced. He talks only about golf. Will you do the bar tomorrow, Arthur, can you handle that?”

  “With steely determination.”

  “Otherwise, I want you to stay out of the kitchen. This is my affair. All I ask is that you attend. Be your usual courteous self. Don’t scare people with obscure literary references. And, please, please, don’t start arguing. You don’t know anything about politics, dear. That’s why you’re a Conservative.”

  To Arthur, women were unfathomable, but after one failed marriage and seven loving but hectic years with this master of the indirect dig, he was learning. These guests were important to her and she didn’t want him spouting off, damaging her chances at the nomination.

  “I shall not make any speeches about corrupt, asinine politicians.” He will stay out of the kitchen. Stay away from the heat.

  “I don’t want this to be a burden to you. I’ve heard your speech about politics a dozen times.” A pause. “I won’t ask you to support me in this.”

  He sought a satisfactory way to respond to that sledgehammer line. Apologize? Repeat the speech? Fire back?

  The phone rang, coitus interruptus to this prickly conversation. Before picking up, she said, “Have your talk with Nick. Look in on the woofers. It’s milking time.”

  He went out into the mist feeling disloyal, misunderstood. Somehow he must get up the gumption to tell her he’s afraid for her. The heartbreak, the humiliation and depression she will suffer. The Greens got trounced in this riding in the last election, ran a dismal fourth, just beat out the Marijuana Party.