SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

When the phone rings at breakfast time, it’s usually an offer to consolidate loans or get in on the ground floor of something, but this time the seller has a folksy approach: “Good morning, Mr. Beauchamp, this is old Jake from down here at Jiffy Electronics, and today we’re offering a special on answering machines.”

“Have a nice day, Jake …”

Pomeroy shouts: “Don’t hang up! I’m down to my last loonie and my cell is out of juice.”

“Where are you?”

“The bus is taking a shit stop in Campbell River. Unless omnipotent God has devised yet another way to fuck me, I’ll make the seven o’clock ferry. I hope Garibaldi is rocking on a Saturday night. I’m going to need to unwind my ass after this noxious ride. I’m wedged beside an inept mother from whose womb has emerged, as if in Aliens, an incessantly screaming monster.”

“As a matter of fact, there’s a dance at the hall. Celebrating an international baseball championship by our Nine Easy Pieces.”

“Ask them to save a piece for me.”

“Sadly, you’ll miss the afternoon parade. I’ll meet you at eight-forty. I’ve had Mop’n’Chop over to spruce things up and make a bed for you.”

“Hope it’s no trouble.”

“Don’t worry.”

Arthur reflects on how odd it is to hear his own voice saying that. Pomeroy’s ebullient manner has encouraged him to believe the news about Skyler will not be too devastating. More likely a joke. His jauntiness, though, might only mean he’s high. Arthur hopes it’s not cocaine again.

§

Arthur wishes he’d brought an umbrella. He and a substantial contingent of fellow islanders are still waiting for the parade to show up, and it has started to shower. The four-float cavalcade was supposed to have marshalled at the back end of Evergreen Estates half an hour ago, and the folks waiting along the parade route, Garibaldi’s one-block downtown, are growing impatient.

He finds shelter under the canopy of Wholeness and Wellness Health Foods and Vitamins, whose proprietors, a middle-aged lesbian couple, are inside, dealing out nut bars to parents with wheedling children. The storekeepers also sell, and usually wear, T-shirts respectively labelled “Wholeness” and “Wellness,” and they don’t mind being addressed as such.

He is pretending not to be aware that Doc Dooley is standing nearby, outside the adjoining storefront, his clinic. Arthur is still embarrassed by Thursday’s imbroglio — the indecent assault, the handcuffs — and fears having to explain to Dooley what he was doing up Gwendolyn Valley Road on Potlatch day. Arthur was just coming off that road when Dooley pedalled past, returning from the General Store, saddle packs filled with groceries.

A sound of bagpipes in the distance. The dreaded but never avoidable Garibaldi Highland Pipers, who rise to every island occasion. But at least the parade is under way. Those without rain gear or umbrellas have fled to their cars to wait out the Pacific squall.

There is no escaping Dooley, who is making his way toward him. Arthur expresses delight at seeing him on this august occasion.

“Couldn’t figure what you were doing the other day, Arthur, coming off Gwendolyn Road in that gas guzzler.”

“Hurray, I believe the rain has stopped. Just in time. This parade had better be worth the wait.”

“Heard you had some doings with the tactical police squad they brought over, at that bogus Potlatch up by the quarry.”

Word is out. Is that why locals have been suppressing smiles as they stare at him? Maybe Ernst Pound blabbed or, more probably, Zoller, boasting that he did what a whole drug squad couldn’t: make an arrest on Pot-Snatch Day. I wasn’t there to exactly see it, but a certain local lawyer got worked over pretty good in the you-know-where …

Dooley has spotted Stoney. “That fellow Stonewell — can you imagine, he actually invited me to that damn fool event.”

Stoney is at the lumberyard across the road, climbing a stack of two-by-fours to get a view. Arthur walks briskly over to join him, just as the Garibaldi fire truck, all lights flashing, comes around the bend with a bleat of siren. A listless cheer goes up.

“Man, I been looking all over for you, counsellor.”

“For how long?”

“At least since I woke. I been mostly laid up for two days. I’m ashamed to admit, but the Potlatch was a down scene on account of Dog getting busted, plus I got into some real morbid reefer.” Stoney slides off the pile of lumber and digs into a pack of roll-your-own tobacco.

“I rather had the impression Dog was being used as a decoy, to lure them to the wrong spot.”

The shock seems almost genuine; Stoney spills some tobacco. “Put Dog in danger? No way, man. Dog and me are like one, we’re attached in deep supernatural ways. Somehow, he must’ve got sucked in by our own propaganda. I told him, Honk’s barn. I told him three weeks ago, I even wrote it down for him.”

“Can he read?”

“Jeez, I never asked him.”

The fire truck is followed by Ernst Pound in the RCMP van. He looks even more desolate than usual, staring straight ahead, earning only a reluctant smattering of applause. From somewhere comes a catcall, a boo. Everyone on the island knows about the fiasco that was Operation Pot-Snatch.

“Honk Gilmore’s barn, you say.”

A one-handed roll, a lick of the tongue, and the cigarette is lit. “Yeah, they need a warrant to come on private property. Best advice you ever gave me.”

The Highlanders’ skirling discourages conversation for a while. The band is wet but game, playing “Scotland the Brave.” Three pipers, two drummers, and, bizarrely, an accordionist: none other than Kurt Zoller, who looks as ill fit out in a kilt as in his police uniform. Zoller glances quickly at Arthur and Stoney, then away.

Arthur hears the words “Nazi Dognapper,” but the rest of Stoney’s shouted expletive is drowned in the triumphant squeals of the pipe band. Stoney is still carrying on about Zoller when that abates. “I’m gonna get his wormy ass, man.”

Arthur has his own agenda. “The Fargo.”

“What?”

“The Fargo. Should I assume not a lot of work has gone into it?”

Stoney expels a billow of smoke. “Well, with one thing and another, I ain’t been able to get to the city for them brake linings.”

“You said it was leaking brake fluid.”

“That too.”

The Business Owners Association’s float is dominated by a giant papier-mâché baseball bat that has drooped in the rain and now resembles a penis struggling to sustain an erection. There are poster-sized photos of the Easy Pieces and a banner: “If you believe, they will come.” The display gets a cheer.

“I don’t want that truck used to move marijuana.”

“I am pained to hear you infer such a thing, sire.”

The next float features the Fensom Family Singers, and their overly spirited rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Then comes a truck-pulled trailer with the Easy Pieces in team uniforms, throwing candy kisses to the several dozen people lining the route.

“Anyway, I seen you been enjoying that luxury craft over there.” The Cadillac, parked by the thrift store. “Suits you, counsellor. Nobody wants to see Dog’s attorney driving to court in a junk pile. What kind of alibi do you figure we can come up with for him?” He smokes, waiting for a response. “I mean, man, he’s been in the lockup on Saltspring for two days, eh?”

Arthur has done what he can for Dog; he has urged the Legal Aid Society to retain experienced counsel. Arthur doesn’t do drug cases. He is retired. He has more immediate things on his mind. Like Brian Pomeroy, due at eight-forty on a milk run.

Here comes Tildy Sears, seated in the back of an open convertible, waving like an imperial monarch to her loving subjects. Garibaldi has been thirsting for a hero and is pulling out the stops for her. Her business, Garibaldi Home Security, is booming.

Stoney keeps pressing. “He’s spending the weekend in a cell, probably full of perverts, man. He ain’t going before a judge until Monday. Dog don’t know how to ask for bail. He’s naive, he could plead guilty because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.”

“Be assured, Stoney, that I shall not be undertaking the defence of your sidekick. He’ll likely be released on his own recognizance on Monday. In the meantime, he has the rest of the weekend to dry out from a drug-and-alcohol spree.” Arthur raises his hand to check the expected protest. “As a witness to his arrest, I cannot act for him.”

Stoney looks at him bug-eyed, unbelieving. “That ain’t the Arthur Beauchamp we all know, relying on a technicality. I thought you’d leap at the chance. This island’s gonna be in a uproar; Dog is loved by all. He helps the old folks, chops their wood, mows their lawns, fixes things. This is an uplifting human drama, the generous, hard-working little midget up against the hulking monsters of the state, and only one superhero can save him.” A pause to catch his breath. “You’re our vehicle of revenge against Kurt Zoller, man. He’s spreading rumours a lady cop felt you up during a search. It’s time to topple him, like they did to them Arab dictators.”

“Well, I must get back. I have an important review to write. Then an old friend is coming by for a stay.” The parade over, people are dispersing, cars pulling out. Arthur strolls across the road to courtesy Caddie.

§

Saturday evening loads are generally light, so the Queen of Prince George is only a few minutes late, sliding into the dock with a jarring bump. It is growing dark and is drizzling again, so Arthur waits in his car while the ramp is lowered and the foot passengers disembark.

Brian Pomeroy has lost weight since Arthur last saw him — about three years ago — but looks wiry and strong, unbowed by his weighty rucksack. He’s greying handsomely, still has his Mark Twain moustache but now wears glasses, wire rims. Long coat and bush hat, unlit cigarette in his hand.

He scans the vehicles in the picking-up line, zeroes in on the Cadillac DeVille, sets his pack in the back seat, and joins Arthur in the front. A gaunt, haunted look, one that has appealed to the nurturing needs of his many seducees. Intense eyes and clear, rapid-fire speech.

“I am here to save you, brother.”

“From Randy Skyler? I’m dying to find out why.” Arthur merges the Cadillac into the line of home-going traffic, glances at Brian, his sardonic smile. Arthur’s hands are tight on the wheel as the traffic line crawls up Ferryboat Knoll.

“I’m not going to talk about it in a car that conjures images of Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. I need the right rustic ambience — a roaring fire with a hot toddy for me, a soothing cuppa for you. I calculate you’ve been sober twenty-five years. Let’s hear it for 1987. I gave odds in the barristers’ room you wouldn’t last a month. I actually got action from a couple of your undying fans who believed faith trumps logic and reason. They took fifteen hundred skins off me.”

A tale Brian has told before. His memory may not be sharp, but so far, Arthur has picked up no hint of the feared psychosis. Brian is just being as logorrheic as ever, a city version of the long-winded Fargo-napper. And likely just as high.

“I tried AA, but there were too many drunks,” Brian says. “Confession does not come easily for me — I never know where to start. So for penance I am doing shit work for poor people, making barely enough jack to pay for a shack and a kayak, just sliding along in Haida Gwaii. It’s depressingly beautiful up there. The rain is so constant it’s irrelevant. Mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead. And what are you seeking up there?”

“Peace. Oneness.”

“You won’t find it on Garibaldi Island.”

§

While Pomeroy unpacks in the back bedroom, Arthur builds a pyramid of kindling in the living room fireplace. The day’s rain has left a chill in the air. On his return, Pomeroy pours himself a Scotch from the guest bar, then stares out the window at Niko and Yoki sitting around a fire, roasting wieners. “I don’t imagine they’d be much use in a crisis,” he says. “How’s Margaret?”

“Excellent, but feeling embattled.”

“Swimming with sharks does that to you. Brave woman. Saw her in a dot-com journal, she was looking hot. Some cocktail do. She was with your buddy Meyerson.”

Hubbell’s swearing-in as High Commissioner to Barbados. Arthur feels his stomach tighten. He fetches his tea from the kitchen and returns to find Brian flipping through the collection of CDs. He chooses something dense, the massive Mahler Seventh, then squats across from Arthur, who is having trouble getting the kindling going.

“Okay, I am about to repeat to you the words of a former client, said under the umbrella of solicitor-client privilege, about yet another former client who allegedly — if I may paraphrase the great A.R. Beauchamp, QC — sought orgiastic joy in the grisly murder of an innocent street clown.” He suddenly gets up. “Oh, the book. Before I forget.”

As Arthur waits for Pomeroy to return, he turns down a table lamp so he can better spy any furtive figures lurking outside. Just Niko and Yoki.

Pomeroy returns with a copy of A Thirst for Justice. “Wentworth gave me a moment in the spotlight in chapter eighteen, but I’m eclipsed by your gargantuan shadow.” He hands Arthur a pen. “Just your signature, in case I have to sell it to keep from starving. Wentworth didn’t pull any punches, did he? Good thing he didn’t know about you and Mandy.”

“Know what?”

He just smiles.

Mandy Pearl is also mentioned in chapter eighteen — “Death of a Stranger” is its title — as well as elsewhere in the book, as counsel against him on a couple of trials. Arthur hopes Brian isn’t spreading base rumours about her — she’s a distinguished barrister, en route to the bench.

Arthur scrawls his name on the title page, almost furiously. Brian is spinning out matters in the most annoying fashion, obviously relishing the drama, the slow drip, drip, drip of hints. It’s as if he’s acting out his own screenplay, deliberately ratcheting up the suspense.

“Mind if I smoke?” Brian perches by the fire, which is blazing at last, and lights up. “This isn’t easy for me, Arthur, sharing a privileged communication. Rather unethical, don’t you know?” He takes a sip of Scotch neat, makes a face. “Yeah, you’re thinking: Pomeroy has the ethics of a pickpocket at a charity auction. Okay, but only outside working hours. In professional matters, I take some pride in my ethics. Also, if the Law Society gets wind of one more breach, I’ll have earned enough points to lose my ticket.”

“This is worse than water torture, Brian.” Arthur’s worry meter is spiking.

“To the point. You pissed Skyler off, and he swore that once he was out of the freezer he was going to track you down, and slit your throat. His words.”

“Spoken when?”

“A few years ago. To a fellow inmate at Collins Bay, a professional recidivist who tested his luck out here on the coast after his release and had the bad fortune of getting nicked for a heist but the good fortune of hiring me as a lawyer. He walked. Paul ‘Pig-Eyes’ Burch, noted jewel thief.”

Arthur vaguely remembers the name, from some news story or other. A mob hit?

“We had a beer after. He was in a good mood. The name of a common acquaintance came up. Back around 2008, he shared a cell with randy Randy, who, after twenty years in stir was still very emotional about things. Burch said he kept going on about how that fucking prick Beauchamp ruined his life by pulling a fast one in court. Once he was out, he’d track you down and kill you. The last thing you would see would be his smiling face. Stuff like that.”

Arthur lets out a slow breath. The news is disturbing, but how serious could Skyler have been? Jailhouse chatter is often all about anger, complaints of injustice, vows of vengeance. Hyperbolic bravura. Venting. “You’re suggesting I take this seriously?”

Brian shrugs. “Yeah, because Randy said much the same to me after he went down. I wanted to talk about the appeal. He wanted to talk about how he was going to carve out your gizzard to eat on toast.”

Arthur feels his throat constrict. “And why did you never tell me this?”

“Solicitor-client privilege.”

Mahler congests the parlour with orchestral gloom as Arthur tends to the fire, adding split alder, while Brian refills his whisky glass, lights another cigarette, and glances out the window at the flickering bonfire, Yoki and Niko with their wiener sticks. “Those gals look lonely.” He checks his watch. “Nine-thirty. You mentioned a dance at the hall.”

“I am not in a dancing mood.”

“How can we not celebrate such an epic sporting triumph?” Brian has picked up the Bleat with its front-page photo of Tildy Sears being mobbed by her teammates. “Says here that Ms. Sears, more commonly described as ‘our Tildy,’ runs a home security business. Voila, our stars are aligned.”

Arthur isn’t listening, he’s thumbing through Brian’s copy of Thirst, chapter eighteen, “Death of a Stranger,” jogging his memory with the details. Chumpy’s sad dying declaration: Holy mother, I done wrong. The seven knife wounds. Manfred Unger’s leap to his death. The surprise witness, young Wyacki, who never got to testify. No mention, thank God, of Inspector Honch Harrison’s illegal entry into Skyler’s apartment.

“A condition of Randy’s parole is that his lawyer be kept advised, so this dweeb of a parole officer called. He doesn’t seem much on top of it. He’ll phone again Monday with details, but apparently Skyler hasn’t had any lucrative job offers — surprise, surprise — and has elected outdoor work as a transition job, caretaking a park in Northern Ontario.”

“And where is your jailhouse informant now, this Paul ‘Pig-Eyes’ Burch?”

“Enjoying everlasting peace. The competition took him out about sixteen months ago. It was in the papers. Hey, he honestly believed Skyler was serious about taking you down. He spent two months listening to his tirades from the bunk below.”

“Twenty-five years is a long time to hold a grudge, Brian.”

“Explicable, however, if it’s become an obsession, nursed over the last quarter century into a classifiable disorder. A psychopathic obsessive-compulsive may soon be stalking Garibaldi Island while the object of his obsession relaxes by his cozy fire reading about the glory days of Rome.”

“What exactly did Skyler say to you after his sentencing?”

“While you were being hustled by Mandy Pearl in Chez Forget — don’t deny it, there were witnesses — randy Randy was ranting over how that pompous prick of a prosecutor had set a trap for him, had conned the jury, and if he ever got out you were going to buy it in a very messy way. As I say, your gizzard was mentioned.”

Coincidentally, as Arthur leafs through the biography, he finds that avian organ mentioned in a quote from For the Fun of It. “I’ll get you one day, Grodgins!” Lord Scarfe-Robbins cries. “I’ll cut out your gizzard!” Add plagiarism to Skyler’s sins. Again, Arthur wonders just how seriously he should take this. Here was a man reeling from a devastating verdict and indulging in a juvenile tantrum. In searching for someone to blame he quickly settled on the prosecutor. It was almost to be expected. But still calling for blood after twenty years? A little unusual.

“You may want to move to safer digs until things shake out. Ottawa is lovely in the fall.”

“I shall not be going to Ottawa or anywhere. I’ll not be frightened out of my home by some hobgoblin invented by an over-imaginative lawyer who trades his services for psilocybin mushrooms.”

“You ever tried them?”

“Never have, nor will.”

“Well, there’s a bag of them in your freezer.”

“I would rather not know that.”

“A friend’s coming over from Vancouver to pick them up.”

How far this once fine lawyer has fallen. Dealing magic mush­rooms. Yet he seems buoyant, full of energy and humour. An exotic Haida artist awaits his return. He’s having fun writing some kind of screenplay. He is poor, but out of the rat race. Arthur is also out of the rat race but with substantial means. Why shouldn’t he be even more at peace than Brian?

“If you’re into mystic experiences, add some fungi to your tea. I might take a sample to the dance. By the way, Arthur, did you ever complete the transaction with Mandy?”

“What transaction?” He tries on an expression of bewilderment.

“Getting laid. She was going through men like a tractor mower after her divorce. A.R. Beauchamp was a real catch for her trophy case. Top shelf. Maybe you heard — she’s going to the BC Supreme Court.”

“She’ll be a fine jurist.”

“Here’s your choice, Arthur, you can come with me to the dance and perform your role as respected island elder, or I’ll take the Caddie and you can sit around with your Woofers and roast your weenies. We can get back to all the Skyler shit tomorrow. Maybe I’ll invite Tildy over. We can make some plans to keep you alive.”

“The keys are in the car.”

“Meantime, to the shower, ho!” Brian strikes a mannered, hammy pose. “And thence to arm myself with a manly scent that hopefully will twitch the nostrils of the strikeout queen.”

§

Arthur spends an hour in his club chair, reading and rereading the chapter called “Death of a Stranger.” He is distracted occasionally by a rustle outside, or a snap of twig, but sees nothing from his window except leaves stirring in the breeze. His yard lights are on, and he wonders if that is wise. Maybe he should shut off all lights — why illuminate an intruder’s way?

He has always taken pride in not locking his doors on carefree, innocent Garibaldi, and he’ll be damned if he’ll do it tonight — he’s not going to surrender to his inner worrywart, to give in to irrational fear. Besides, he has his own alarm system: Homer, his border collie, who sleeps light and awakes alert, and two tough, noisy geese, which patrol the farmyard.

But he doesn’t have the Woofers. Brian stopped at their bonfire and offered to run them up to the dance. Niko and Yoki hesitated, giggled, succumbed.

The dance will also miss another of the island’s iconic figures: Dog, who is in the Saltspring hoosegow. The little midget up against the hulking monsters of the state. Arthur refuses to entertain regrets over having rebuffed Stoney’s plea.

Maybe he ought to have gone to the dance. Surrounded himself with friends, protectors …

As he makes his evening cup of tea, he laughs at himself for being silly. Skyler was released less than a week ago, and from a prison in faraway Ontario. He will not appear on Garibaldi Island out of the blue.

Arthur still can’t accept that Skyler’s hunger for revenge has not abated. Or that he would take any risks. Skyler might be psychopathic, but he’s not stupid.

On the other hand, he might have read Thirst for Justice and remembered why he hated Arthur: for exposing the charade of the masculine heartthrob. “You are frigid!” “You sought sexual fulfilment in grisly murder!” Yes, that might have rekindled his enmity.

He decides that the negligible chance of confronting Randy Skyler tonight is taking up too much of his worry quota. He will tuck that one away until he faces present danger — for instance, if Skyler doesn’t show up for his park job. A more legitimate source of immediate concern is the presence of psilocybes in his fridge. Brian could drop a loose word at the dance, and some stoner might slip in and nick them. Yes, it is probably wise to lock the house. Just tonight.