The client who came to my office for the two o’clock Tuesday appointment was nervous. That’s rare in my practice. In my practice, the clients are criminals, I’m a criminal lawyer, everybody knows his or her role, and nobody gets nervous.
“Try to relax, Mr. Shumacher,” I said. “Don’t talk so fast, and it’ll go smooth for both of us.”
“Please,” the man said, “call me Cleve.”
“Let it flow, Cleve.”
Cleve Shumacher was a fastidious-looking guy. His black hair was beautifully trimmed and blow-dried. He had on a spiffy light brown suit, a dark brown shirt, and a deep green tie cinched with a gold tiepin. He had a rubbery face, thick nose, and fleshy lips. I would have placed him in his mid-forties. He’d phoned for an appointment that morning. Urgent, he’d said.
“Can we get some chronology going, Cleve?” I said. “You’re charged with what?”
“Fraud. The police say it’s fraud.”
“You came to the right place.” In twenty-two years of practice, I’d developed a modest specialty in fraud cases. “How much money?”
“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars supposedly, but Mrs. Mortimer, the client, approved everything I did with the money, that is, Mrs. Helen Mortimer.”
“What business was she in?”
“Is. She is still my client as far as I’m concerned. The market. I’m a stockbroker.”
“I’ve acted for many of your brethren over the years, Cleve.”
“I’m sure you have, Mr. Crang, but as it happens I’m quite innocent of fraud or anything remotely like it.”
“Okay, Cleve, from the top, slowly and not necessarily with feeling.”
At first, as Shumacher talked, I looked at him. I got sick of that in a hurry. He was fidgety as well as fastidious, and his tics and mannerisms were distracting. I shifted to a view out the window — north side of Queen Street from the second floor, east of Spadina Avenue. I’d rented the office since the years before my strip of Queen became home to restaurants where a hundred bucks might get you a reasonable dinner for two and clothing stores where another hundred might get you a knockoff Yves Saint Laurent shirt.
“I’m very, very creative on behalf of my widow clients, Mr. Crang,” Cleve Shumacher was saying. “That’s because they allow me room to evolve and use space. My businessmen clients, God, they badger me to buy them something on the Vancouver exchange they heard about the night before from someone they sat next to on the plane from Montreal. Dollars to doughnuts, it’s a dog and I have to tap dance for half an hour to keep them from absolutely destroying their portfolios.… Are you listening, Mr. Crang?”
“The creativity of the market, so on, so forth.”
“It’s just that we weren’t making eye contact.”
“Nothing personal, Cleve.” I looked at Shumacher. His eyelids were twitching. It’d be easier to make eye contact with a June bug. “From your preamble,” I said, “I take it Helen Mortimer is the widow Mortimer.”
“I was coming to that.”
“Sooner is better than later.”
Shumacher took a deep breath and resumed. “It’s her son, a despicable person named Arthur Mortimer, trust me on this, despicable, he’s the one who says it’s fraud.”
“Cleve, what did you do with Mrs. Mortimer’s two hundred and forty thousand dollars?”
“This is brilliant, utterly. I put her money, get this, in the Bahamas.”
“Uh-huh. Where the banks know how to keep a secret.”
“But getting it to the Bahamas was particularly ingenious, if I say so myself.”
Shumacher’s hands were dancing. I ignored them and tried to concentrate on the tale of the offshore quarter of a million.
“Mrs. Mortimer had her account in the Toronto Dominion, the branch at the TD Centre,” Shumacher said, eager. “Her account, but the two of us had signing privileges, Mrs. M. and myself.… Stop me if this gets too baroque, Mr. Crang.… Well, I went to the TD, and I took out a draft in the amount of two hundred and forty thousand. I walked it across King Street to the Bank of Montreal, cashed the draft and bought another for the same amount minus charges. Walked that draft down King to the Royal Bank, did the same thing again. Cashed the draft, bought another, less charges, et cetera, et cetera. Cute, n’est-ce pas?”
“Covering the money’s tracks.”
“No way the money’s traceable.”
“Next step, you flew the draft to the Bahamas.”
“You do know your stuff, Mr. Crang.”
“Not hard, Cleve. Nassau?”
Shumacher bobbed his head. “I have a contact who’s persona very much grata in banking circles down there. Clever, too. Niles Kilmer. He’s close to Adnan Khashoggi, that crowd.”
“If we get to court, Cleve, keep Adnan and his crowd to yourself.”
“It’s not really germane, anyhow.”
“Load off my mind.”
“The drill in Nassau,” Shumacher said, “this is how Niles laid it out, I paid one percent of the two hundred and forty thousand less charges to a Bahamian charity and the rest went into a bank where it sits just piling up interest, sixteen percent American, and no taxes to nobody no how. You like?”
“Not particularly.”
“Oh.”
I said, “Cleve, you don’t need me to tell you you’re facilitating the evasion of Canadian taxes. That’s what hiding the money in Nassau is all about. And the one percent charitable donation, it no doubt went to the Niles Kilmer Home for Sybaritic Living. But what I don’t read in all the finagling is fraud.”
“Mrs. Mortimer had a stroke,” Shumacher said in a low voice.
“Too bad.”
“She’s a total vegetable mentally.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly. The despicable son I mentioned, Arthur Mortimer, it’s he who is the problem. He wants his mother’s two hundred and forty thousand back tout de suite.”
“You can’t comply?”
“Part of the arrangement with Nassau is the money stays on deposit for four years minimum, which is still two and a half years away.”
“Now you’re going to tell me the only guy who can sign the money out is good old Niles.”
I could barely hear Shumacher’s reply, but his lips shaped a yes.
I said, “So the son, Arthur, he’s vexed at you and laid the fraud charge?”
“Yes,” Shumacher whispered.
“How late-breaking are these developments? When did Arthur swear out the charge?”
Shumacher’s voice was the size of a titmouse’s. “Last October.”
“Cleve.” I drummed my fingers on the desk. “You haven’t kicked around a serious charge like that for six months, the fraud squad building a case, a bail hearing for sure has come and gone, probably had a couple court appearances to set a date for the preliminary, all of that, without a lawyer till this afternoon?”
Shumacher cleared his throat. “Mr. Sidney Stern has been representing me.”
I leaned back in my chair and spoke very slowly. “Eddie Greenspan, Clay Ruby, then probably Sid Stern. Or change the order around any way you want. Those are the three big hitters in criminal law in this city, this province, could be this country. My question, Cleve, how come you’re sitting in my office?”
“I want you to take my case, Mr. Crang.”
“You didn’t stiff Sid Stern on his retainer?”
“I have plenty of money.”
“Sid didn’t, for some reason or other, maybe you being a difficult client, toss you out on the street?”
“I chose you over Mr. Stern, Mr. Crang.”
“That’s very flattering, Cleve.” I didn’t add it also sounded fishy. “A five-thousand dollar cheque before you leave here, that might be the persuader.”
“Anything you want, Mr. Crang, honestly.”
“Right.” I straightened up in my chair and slid an unlined yellow pad in position for writing. “Background stuff, Cleve.” I printed Cleve Shumacher’s name in caps at the top of the first page on the yellow pad. “How long’ve you been in the brokerage game?”
“Three years.”
“That all?”
“But I’ve followed the market from when I was in college, investing in my own stocks and for my mother very successfully.”
“Before stockbroking, what kind of business.”
“Real estate.” Shumacher still seemed jumpy, but if I followed his emotional shifts accurately, he’d added an attitude of expectancy to the mix.
“Selling, you mean?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“With a firm in the city?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s pick things up, Cleve. What firm?”
“Good Homes Unlimited.” Shumacher had the manner of a man watching to see if the penny dropped.
The penny dropped. “Ian Argyll worked out of the same firm,” I said.
“Ian and I were very close.”
I put down the pencil I’d been writing with. “How close?”
“We had an affair.” Shumacher’s face had drained of all its colour. “I’m gay.”
I spent a bit of time aligning the yellow pad with the edge of the desk and the pencil with the pad.
“Cleve,” I said, “I hope you’re going to tell me what I’d like to hear. I don’t like hearing about this affair one teensy jot, but I’d like to hear how the affair happened three years ago when you and Ian were sales fellows at Good Homes.”
Shumacher shook his head. “Last summer. Ian and I kept in touch, and the beginning of last summer, just for a little while, the affair … unfolded.”
“Oh, my.”
“I know. Ian’s AIDS.”
Shumacher was staring at me with larger, rounder eyes. The atmosphere in the room had turned tense. As Shumacher stared at me and I stared at him, mostly because I couldn’t think of where else to look, his larger, rounder eyes filled with tears. He sniffled.
I said, “I don’t believe this.”
Shumacher dropped his head. “I’m very embarrassed, Mr. Crang, honestly,” he said. His voice quavered, and a tear ran off his chin onto his nice brown shirt.
“Are you weeping?” I said.
“It’s just Ian dying, the AIDS, everything. I’ve been keeping it bottled up.”
“Cleve, you want Kleenex? I don’t carry a handkerchief.”
“I have one.” He pulled a snowy-white piece of cloth out of his inside jacket pocket.
“And pats on the shoulder probably don’t work,” I said.
Most of Shumacher’s face was covered in handkerchief. He was blubbering into it.
I stood up. “Hold tight, Cleve.” I moved to the door. “Relief is on the way.”
I went down the stairs and west to the Lasso Lounge.
“Murph,” I called to the bartender. “Yo, Murph.”
“What’s happening, man?” Murph was leaning on the bar at the far end, the Sun sports page open in front of him, the TV set behind him, sound down, showing a tractor pull.
“Two to go, Murph,” I said. “Takeout.”
Murph left his newspaper. “I can dig it, man.” Murph’s hair reached to his shoulders, and he wore a jacket with a lot of dangling fringe. He was fifty years old, the last of the cooled-out hippies. “You want the cognac?” he asked.
“Doubles.”
“Who’s it for this time, man?” Murph reached for the bottle of Martell. “Another chick client’s got the vapours?”
“Half right, Murph.”
Murph poured generously into two plastic glasses. “A chick on a social occasion?”
“Wrong half.”
“A cat with the vapours?”
“You got it”
Murph handed me the two plastic glasses. “Like, wow, man, people at your place are far fucking out.”
“You’re on the exotic side yourself, Murph.”
“Me? Man, I haven’t changed in twenty-five years.”
“I rest my case.”
I hurried the cognacs to the office. In my absence, Shumacher had got much of his act in order. But the handkerchief was still at his face. He blew noisily into it.
“Take a shot of this, Cleve.” I handed him one plastic glass and sat in the chair behind the desk with the other.
Shumacher’s sip was cautious. He swallowed, paused, and raised his head. He wore a winsome little smile.
“It isn’t Rémy Martin, is it?” he said.
“The drink’s for medicinal purposes, Cleve, not the high life.”
Both of us took longer tastes.
“You seen a doctor?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Seems like an idea whose time has come.”
“I feel fine.”
“And you look dandy. But, Cleve, you come on like a guy who’s getting chewed up inside.”
Shumacher had more cognac. “How is Alex taking Ian’s passing?” he asked.
“You’re pals with Alex, too?”
“I went to a dinner party at their house once.”
“My house.”
“Sorry, I knew that.”
“Their apartment.”
“Of course.”
“Alex’s bitter,” I said. “That’s how he’s taking Ian’s death.”
“Who can blame him?”
“Nobody’s blaming him for anything. But chances are he could blame you for something.”
“For what?” Shumacher developed an alarmed expression. “For giving Ian the AIDS? No way, Mr. Crang.”
“The timing of your affair raises the possibility.”
“But I don’t have AIDS.”
“Why not let a doctor check you out?”
“And besides, Mr. Crang, I wasn’t the only person Ian had affairs with.”
“Well, possibly one other guy.”
“One? That is a laugh.”
“Cleve, I’m not even smiling.” For the first time I drank some cognac out of need and not to keep Shumacher company. “Ian was, ah, promiscuous?” I asked. “That your implication?”
“Not promiscuous, no,” Shumacher said. He crossed his legs and held the plastic glass primly on his knee. “Ian was just one of those very lovely men. Very generous. Very kind.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“It was far more than sex with him.”
“But he slept around? Or whatever the equivalent gay expression is?”
“He was giving.”
“Any idea who else he gave to? Guys named Daryl, Bart, or David?”
Shumacher frowned. “Ian mentioned those names, I think he did, but not necessarily as lovers.”
“Possibly though?”
Shumacher nodded his head slowly. “Possibly.”
“Cleve, all this news, you’re not making my day.”
“I didn’t come here to disturb you, Mr. Crang.” Shumacher uncrossed his legs and sat very erect. “I came here because I wanted contact with someone who knew Ian at the end. When he was in the hospital and at Casey House, I couldn’t bring myself to visit. You must understand, Alex would have been there and it might’ve been embarrassing and I wouldn’t have done anything in the world to cause Ian distress. But I thought about him constantly, just wondering and wondering.… Was it awful for him at the end, Mr. Crang?”
“He weighed ninety-two pounds, lived on some kind of machine and didn’t have a single joke left in him. Anything else you need to know, Cleve?”
Shumacher turned pale again. “You don’t sound happy with me, Mr. Crang.”
“Ask your questions about Ian, fair enough. But, Cleve, old buddy, you didn’t have to hand me the line about the fraud case. A polite inquiry would have sufficed.”
“Oh, but it’s all true.” Shumacher seemed to bounce in his chair. “I am charged and I do want you to defend me.”
“You’re pulling the case from Sid Stern?”
“I already have.” Shumacher’s voice rose a few notes on the scale. “It’s only proper. After all, I’m asking you for something, so I brought you something else to trade. My case.”
“The retainer would clinch the bargain, Cleve.”
Shumacher’s hand went to the inside pocket where he kept the handkerchief and came out with a leather billfold. He opened it and unfolded a chequebook. “Five thousand?” he said. I nodded. He filled in date, amount, and signature, and reached the cheque across the desk. He had beautifully manicured fingernails.
I took a moment to admire the string of zeros on the cheque. “My preliminary thought on our case, Cleve,” I said, “is I go into a major-league stall, say about two and a half years, adjournments, motions, appeals. See what I’m getting at? By then, two and a half years, the money’ll be sprung from the Bahamas, and we do a deal with Arthur Mortimer, two hundred and forty thousand plus the interest in return for him dropping the fraud charge.”
“That’s wonderful, Mr. Crang, truly.” Shumacher had shaken both his nervousness and his tears. “But, first, do you think you could take just a few minutes and tell me more about Ian?”
“Let’s make that second, Cleve. First, why don’t you tell me more about Ian?”
“If I can.”
“One of the guys in the trio Ian may or may not have been kind and generous and loving with, David, you know a last name that goes after the David?”
Shumacher’s forehead wrinkled. “No, I don’t think Ian ever mentioned anyone’s last name. Just people he met and liked. Maybe he was protecting them, you know. Lots of people, even in this supposedly enlightened day and age, some don’t want it known that they’re gay. Ian was a great respecter of people’s privacy.”
“If you haven’t any surnames, how about other first names, Christian names, nicknames?”
“Other?”
“Other guys Ian was giving with.”
“Oh.” Shumacher did some more deep-think frowning. “Just one, a fellow I think Ian was quite fond of. Hubert.”
“Hubert.”
“Old-fashioned name, isn’t it?”
“So far I’ve got a Daryl, a Bart, a David, and a Hubert.”
“I guess you do, Mr. Crang.”
I didn’t mention to Cleve that I was also filing away a fifth name.
Cleve Shumacher.