Stung

by William Deverell

  She looks around. “Why are we here?”

  “To case the joint. To contemplate how it all began.”

  Lucy picks up that we just cycled past the Beaver’s Tail. “Seriously, have you gone crackers?”

  “It’s for the memoir I’m writing. For accuracy. I need another hit of this place.”

  “Not. You want to relive your conquest of Howie Griffin. No, worse, you’re hoping he still comes down here every Friday.”

  We lock our bikes. She comes in just to humour me.

  Inside, it’s like August 10 last year, loud and clinking, full of nine-to-five sex-seeking missiles, the same exposed chest hairs and hastily applied makeup.

  The bar stools, where Stage One played out, are filled, it’s standees only, four deep. No empty tables either, but that doesn’t deter Lucy, who spots a pair of junior execs ogling us from the mezzanine. She blows them a kiss on the way up, then goes, “If you cool gentlemen would like to buy us a drink, we’d be happy to keep your chairs.”

  After they scramble away to get us tequila shooters, Lucy snipes at me again. “Why don’t you just call Howie up and say you want to fuck him? Or did you have a premonition he’d be here?”

  “I’m not obsessing over him.” He’s cute, that’s all. That lopsided grin . . . But what attracted him to brainless Becky McLean? That she was so adorably cute? My mother told me never to accept drinks from strangers. Immodestly, I get why he desired Becky physically. But was there enough to fall in love with?

  Always believe . . . that I love you?

  Lucy wants to split from this glitz saloon. I feel we are honour-bound to wait for our shooters. We debate the issue until a server drops off two flutes of champagne. “Table of five over there,” she says. They’re waving. We have been recognized. A minute later, another two glasses of bubbly. “Table near the door.” A smiling young couple, hipsters.

  When the capitalist trainees finally show up with the tequilas, they goggle at all the champagne, then study us more closely as we shoot the shooters.

  “You are . . .”

  “Yes,” says Lucy. We tell them sorry, we have to rush off, please enjoy the champagne. We get hoots as well as applause as we work our way out, bumping fists here and there.

  6

  Saturday, June 1

  It’s after ten as I lock my bike outside Faulk, Quan, Dubois, so I’m a little late for our gathering of conspirators. Nancy called us in to catch us up on what happens after the speeches, after the judge’s instructions, after the jury goes out.

  I don’t go in yet because I’m seduced by the fresh-baked aroma from this building’s ground-floor tenant, Montreal Bagels. Arthur, who has set the weekend aside to work on his jury address, has a weakness for poppyseed bagels.

  So I detour into the store and get in line. I’m number four, and they’re selling fast, right off the baking trays. The decor celebrates Montreal with blow-ups of the mountain and river and the historic inner town. I’m absorbed in these as the customer behind me speaks softly into my ear. “Rivie, just tell me one thing.”

  I almost jump out of my sneakers. I know who it is without turning around. Out of the corner of my lips: “Abbie, I can’t talk to you.”

  “After this is over, will there be any chance of seeing you? That’s all I want to know.”

  “Don’t do this. You’re compromising both of us. I can’t respond to you.” I abandon all thoughts of bagels, turn toward the door, but Abbie is in lockstep.

  She blocks my exit, her eyes intense, pulling, pleading. “I will never vote to convict. Never.”

  Then she lets me pass by. I glance about outside: no security cameras, no one in hearing distance. But ten feet away there’s Helmut Knutsen standing near the law office entrance as a taxi drives off. He looks at me, then at Abbie as she jaywalks this busy street and enters the shop called Spirituality.

  He says nothing until we’re inside. Then, very softly and firmly: “No one must know she spoke to you. Especially our lawyers.”

  “I didn’t invite that. She ambushed me.” We take the stairs, hurrying.

  “No matter. She has a fixation on you. That’s dangerous.”

  “She said—”

  “Stop. I don’t want to hear what was said.”

  That’s it, I’m cut off. I follow him to the boardroom, where our squad mills about, and join Lucy at the coffee pot. She grabs my wrist as I pick up a mug. “Your hand is shaking. Maybe you don’t need a coffee, you need a transfusion, you’re white.” But she pours for me.

  “I’m fine. Just out of breath.”

  “Let’s get going, gang,” Nancy calls. “Won’t take long. Arthur sends his regrets.”

  Everyone takes chairs but me — clutching my coffee, staring out at Spadina Avenue. No sign of Abbie. Is she still in the Spirituality store? Shopping for aids to achieve at-oneness? A talisman to bind me to her?

  Nancy says, “I don’t want to spoil your weekend but you may want to bring your jammies to court on Tuesday. Donahue has been known to keep defendants in custody while the jury’s out.”

  No one must know she spoke to you. Especially our lawyers. Even the one Doc’s making out with? Can he be right? Do I dare share with Lucy? No, not even, I need to think this through.

  “The many possible verdicts range from total innocence to nobody walks. It’s possible some could be convicted of conspiracy but not break and enter. Some may walk while others go down.”

  There goes Abbie, carrying on past Fu-King Supplies, then whirling, looking up, across the street, at my window — at me, I think. Or is that the delusion of an overwrought mind?

  “I love you all, but I have a special duty to Amy and Ivor. They’ve got a shot — you all do, but not as clean a shot: with them it’s a simple matter of reasonable doubt. Arthur will take the lead on the necessity defence, and I’ll back him up.”

  My brain continues to boil as Abbie disappears toward Kensington Market. Why doesn’t Doc want me to tell my lawyer? Anything I say to Arthur is privileged, so what’s the problem? Could I be putting him on the spot somehow?

  “For the rest of you, the best hope is Plan B, a mistrial and a do-over — unless Her Ladyship has her own catharsis and decides to save life on Planet Earth. Plan B will require at least one juror to turn rogue. You all know with whom our hopes reside.”

  I sense everyone looking at me. I wish I could tell them a mistrial is guaranteed, that Abbie will hang the jury. I just have to keep my mouth shut. What could go wrong?

  * * *

  Outside, everyone disperses except Lucy, who waits until I finally buy the bagels. I stick them into my pack, and we saddle up, and she says, “Okay, you are very definitely freaking out. Give.”

  I could fib, but she’d see through it. Or I could bluntly say I can’t talk. But she would think I distrust her, she’d be insulted.

  She follows as I bolt into the U of T campus — we’re off to Queen’s Park, yet another climate crisis rally. Suddenly, in front of Convocation Hall, I brake, and once again Lucy almost runs into me.

  The thought that brought me to a halt: What if something does go wrong? If things go kerflooey and Arthur learns I kept the Abbie episode from him . . . too horrible to contemplate.

  We perch on the curb. Lucy squeezes me and goes, “Okay, let’s hear it — you’ve been secretly seeing Howie for the last two months. You missed your period.”

  Her genial expression fades to sour as I tell her everything, right down to Doc’s I don’t want to hear.

  Lucy blames me. She’d seen this coming. She’d warned me about Abbie’s infatuation. I was somehow at fault for not assuming she’d stalk me outside Nancy’s building.

  “I was dry-gulched, and thanks for your support and sympathy, but what matters right now is Doc’s warning to button it.”

  Lucy’s view is don’t listen to Doc, his m
essianic complex skews his thinking. “And where does he get off giving legal advice? Talk to your fucking lawyer.”

  I am definitely going to do that. I feel a ton lighter.

  * * *

  The Queen’s Park rally became a march down University Avenue, several thousand, banners high, traffic backing up, cops trying to keep us to the sidewalks. When it began to rain we dispersed — near the courthouse, justly — and Lucy and I subwayed our bikes to the Summerhill Station for a birthday party near there, food and drinks supplied, otherwise byod.

  And when I get home it’s past eleven, and there are lights on, and Arthur is loudly orating to the moose and the Naugahyde chair. “The burden of proof, my friends, is on the Crown. And that burden is a weighty one, because the Crown must convince you beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that these accused are inexcusably guilty.”

  I glimpse him as I creep upstairs — he’s in pyjamas and slippers, a forefinger stabbing out his points of emphasis. “Excusable. By that I mean lawfully excusable. And that brings us to the great, historic defence called necessity.”

  This won’t be a good time to mention Abbie Lee-Yeung.

  Chapter 24: Arthur

  1

  Saturday, June 1

  “And that, ladies and gentlemen, finally brings us to the great, historic task . . . no, a historic opportunity that has been granted to you, as this entire, anxious planet watches and listens . . . and hopes . . .”

  Maybe something stronger than hopes. Prays? Beseeches? Enough. It’s almost midnight. Arthur has to get back to sleep. He got about an hour in, then woke from a bad dream: he was tongue-tied, babbling incoherently to an impatient jury.

  That drove him out of bed. In an effort to prove he wasn’t befuddled and incoherent, he sounded out some lines. They seemed to make sense, so he relaxed and rehearsed his jury address for half an hour. He doesn’t want to be over-prepared, though — he’s at his best when he wings it.

  He checks that all doors are locked, all lights out. The hanging lamp over the stairs is on, so one less thing to worry about: Rivie is safely back from wherever she was. Unhappily, it may be her last free Saturday night for many years. Arthur has allowed himself to become too fond of this impetuous young client — that has magnified the stress.

  Once back under the covers he remains uneasy, the dream bothering him again, like a harbinger of misfortune. He forgot to pull the curtains, and senses a flicker of light through his street-facing bay window. He is used to car lights passing by but this was coming from a static position across the street.

  Again, he abandons his bed, and takes in a street view from that window — it’s raining lightly, and much is hidden by trees; there’s a distant glow from a lamppost, a few yard lights on, but otherwise blackness reigns.

  Again comes a spark of light: from across the street, the house of the Willis Whites, the unsociable neighbours who refused Rivie sanctuary when a racist thug pursued her to their gate.

  The source of this intermittent light might be matches or a lighter being struck, but it’s most likely a small flashlight — yes, a thin beam glints off metal flashing, and is quickly doused.

  He fumbles in the dark for the phone, connects quickly with a 911 operator, reports a break and enter in progress, answers questions, listens to instructions. In the front vestibule he paws behind a fire extinguisher, locates an emergency flashlight — heavy enough for use as a weapon. Though the 911 operator warned him to remain inside, he throws on a rain jacket and eases his way out the door.

  As best he can make out, a human form is crouched in front of the Whites’ door, working noiselessly at some task or other. It doesn’t seem he or she is picking a lock. A car rolls by, and in the arc of its lights Arthur makes out what looks like a bear huddled by the threshold. Words have been freshly painted on the door.

  The scene suddenly makes sense — in its own bizarre way. It’s the long-anticipated return of Donald Stumpit, soldier of the Final Reich. He’d tracked Rivie there on the recent long weekend, and assumed that was her home.

  Suddenly another pair of headlights approaches, fast, the wrong way on one-way Beaconsfield. A police cruiser: it must have been patrolling mere blocks away. It screeches to a halt.

  Arthur has his light on Stumpit now, as he bolts across flower beds to the sidewalk. He hurls a can of spray paint wildly at the cruiser. A black spume scars its hood and windshield.

  Out jumps Constable Louella Baker from the passenger side, her partner from behind the wheel. Mr. and Mrs. Willis White peek from their half-opened door.

  “Game over, you sick shit!” Louella shouts as she gains on him, her partner following.

  Stumpit crashes over a low picket fence in a last-ditch effort to evade them, and falls on his face. Arthur hears thumps and yells and the rattle of cuffs, sounds drowned under the barking and bawling of dogs and the scream of approaching sirens. By now, the entire neighbourhood has awakened, some residents outside in rain gear, working their phones.

  Arthur can’t deny his curiosity, and slips across the street. The Whites have retreated inside, behind their big front window, looking confused, apparently unaware of the unfinished, semi-literate message on their front door: “commonist jew hoor lives he—” Followed by a panicky belch of black paint and a squiggly line.

  Arthur is startled when Rivie takes his hand. “Let’s scram before the TV vans show up.” She has a jacket over a men’s tall T-shirt but is bare-legged and barefooted. Neither is ready for the media — he’s in pyjamas and wet slippers.

  Rivie holds back for a second to study the Whites. “What are those two hiding in that house? The mummified bodies of dead babies? Whips and shackles in the bondage room?”

  They return to their house. “I’ll speak to Louella,” she says. “You get your sleep. We can talk in the morning. I need . . . I don’t know . . . advice. No problem — it will wait.”

  Arthur isn’t fond of the phrase “No problem.” It often masks a problem.

  2

  Louella Baker pockets her notebook and thanks Arthur for putting time aside on a Sunday morning. “He’s looking at a fistful,” she says. “Maybe both hands. Stalking, threatening, malicious damage, resisting arrest.”

  Rivie, still in shorts and sweaty tunic after her run, joins them in the living room, bringing a pot of coffee, toasted bagels, cream cheese, and jam. She had got up before dawn, when only one sentry guarded the crime scene. A crowd had soon collected and on her return she had to sneak in by the back.

  “Both hands?” Rivie asks as she pours coffees.

  “Ten years.”

  “Oh, good, so I’ll be getting out around the same time. Hey, maybe he’ll get off by claiming he’s a victim of a hate crime against a member of the Aryan race.”

  “Yeah, like I’m the racist,” Louella says.

  Arthur foresees complications. Stumpit is in custody with a broken nose and he has a lawyer.

  “I had to give my boots to forensics to prove his blood ain’t on them. My partner saw Stumpit fall face first on the rock. That also accounts for his broken teeth.”

  Arthur also saw Stumpit fall. He’s not sure what happened after, though. There was a fair bit of noise.

  He looks outside at the herd of people with nothing to do on a lazy Sunday, most of them massed across the street. Beaconsfield is blocked to all traffic but police vehicles and media vans. A TV crew is interviewing and filming. The mood is sombre. Lots of people with phones, snapping pictures, mailing or posting them.

  One of the local attractions is the paint-sloshed cruiser, still in place, Ident officers taking measurements from it. The Whites’ flower-trampled yard is cordoned with police tape, and tradespeople with sanders and paintbrushes are waiting to refinish the door. The privacy-obsessed Whites, trapped in their own private hell, occasionally peer from a window, then dart away.
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  * * *

  After Louella leaves, Arthur asks Rivie what was troubling her last night.

  “Oh, God. Abbie Lee-Yeung.”

  That comes out rapidly, in one breath. Arthur feels a twinge of anxiety that becomes something close to anguish as Rivie blurts out how Ms. Lee-Yeung approached her in Montreal Bagels. “Laid in wait and jumped me. Blocked my exit.”

  As she pours forth the details, Arthur feels his knees go wobbly, and he slides onto a sofa, enduring a feeling somewhat like being punched in the gut. After this is over, will there be any chance of seeing you? That’s calamitous. I will never vote to convict. That’s worse. So much for Plan B.

  On painful occasions like this he is often tempted by the need for strong drink; now it assails him. He breathes slowly to let his heart decelerate.

  “Arthur, are you all right?”

  “I was taken aback, sorry. I’m fine.” A deep breath. “Rivie, I don’t want to sound pious or pretentiously noble. But let me admit to a view that you may find naive and old-fashioned. It’s about the respect I hold for the rule of law. I believe in our jury system — strongly, Rivie, with as much fervour as religious zealots believe in salvation. Trial by one’s peers is a bulwark against tyranny. It guarantees that our justice system is, at bottom, democratic, despite its faults.”

  Arthur pauses, uncomfortable as he hears himself: stuffy and pontifical, rattled by Rivie’s growing look of dismay, by the awful plight they face.

  “If we allow a jury to be compromised by bias, we then allow rot to set in; if we turn a blind eye to a breach of a juror’s oath, we encourage that rot to grow and fester. If our system of fair trials founders we become like Russia or China and all the other autocratic nations with their transparent pretences of allegiance to the independence of the courts.” Another deep breath. “Very well, that’s my little lecture. Now we need to consider what flows from that.”