They sat on the hard wooden bench, a holdover from the old courthouse, straining each time the familiar gong broke the monotonous human babble, to catch a glimpse of everyone the elevators had brought to the seventh floor. Abelard was being kept in the holding cells under the building, awaiting his arraignment and hearing for assault and attempted murder. Felicity had already been in to see him. They had just finished drinking the watery coffee, in the barely insulated cups dropped out of the noisy, decrepit vending machine, when a dapper lady, early thirties, curly hair, medium height and wonderfully kind face stopped before their bench.
“Madame Beauregard,” Felicity said, jumping to her feet, “I was so worried you wouldn’t come,” she said with evident relief.
“And why would I not come,” she asked, somewhat perplexed?
“VBI and my uncle seem to control so much here, I guess it’s made me a little paranoid.”
“I suppose you mean Mr. Lord, the principal witness for the crown, and his company, VBI. Well, not to worry, I have never knowingly dealt with either your uncle or his firm. But these big companies do have a wide reach, so I’d be greatly surprised if somewhere along the way I didn’t purchase something that had its origins with VBI.”
“I’m sorry,” she said to Elizabetta and Oliver as they patiently waited to be introduced. “This is Maître Isabelle Beauregard, the best criminal lawyer in Montreal, I have been assured.”
“I’m flattered,” she said to Felicity, shaking Elizabetta’s and Oliver’s hands. “I do hope you will not have to change your mind after the case. By the way, would you know why your uncle is here today? Other than asking Abelard to enter a plea and to set a trial date, nothing else will actually happen today.”
“My uncle, Madame Beauregard, always takes a detailed interest in matters that affect him personally. This spat with Abelard has been a big disappointment and you can be sure he will follow this case very closely.”
“Ms Lord,” the gravity in her tone meant that Isabelle Beauregard was now back to the business of law, “in my office you mentioned that Abelard had stumbled upon some nefarious activities at VBI, but you would rather not see these brought up unless absolutely necessary," the lawyer summarized what Felicity had not told her. “I’m afraid these are very serious charges Abelard is facing, attempted murder, etc. It will be his word against that of the VBI people regarding who assaulted who. We can try to negotiate a retraction from them, based on the possibility that a judge could eventually acquit Abelard, leaving them with a big PR headache. But, in the end, if it looks hopeless, will you or Abelard bring out the secrets?"
"Yes, but I hope it won't have to go that far." Felicity may have discovered her uncle’s seamier aspects, but she could not so easily put aside a lifetime experience, and dispassionately turn against him, all her lofty principles notwithstanding.
"I'll try my best," she said, with a very welcome, sincere smile. But she also gave them her best guess. Without something dramatic to bring out, Abelard really did not have much of a case. "Now let me go over and see my client," she ended their short conference, quickly getting up to go and do what she could.
When the courtroom doors were finally opened, they were carried forward by the surging mass of voices, human smells, arms and legs as the crowd jiggled into the large room through the inadequate entrance. They moved quickly to the front and slid into the pew like bench on the left side of the aisle. Others, of all shapes, sizes and colours did the same until all the available seats were taken.
"Excuse me, miss," a tall woman was saying to Elizabetta. She was very heavily made up, wearing a camisole that highlighted her prominent breasts and a piece of cloth around her thighs, that in a pinch obviously doubled as a mouchoir, themselves capping long, shapely, never ending legs shod in the highest stiletto heels she had ever seen.
"Yes," she said, doubling her neck on itself to look up into her black eyes.
"Will ya make some room,” she demanded!
"Oh, I am sorry, we need to sit here," Elizabetta said, with perfect Italian charm.
"Move your fuckin ass over or I'm gonna hafta rip your eyes out, and I ain't tellin ya again."
It took a while but she finally understood that this woman was serious and she squeezed over almost crawling onto Oliver’s lap and leaving an inadequate space for Felicity.
"Thank ya honey, Bartholomy likes his girls here for his bail settings. He sometimes don't have the cash so we use what we earned overnight ta help him out," she said, with surprising friendliness, now that their misunderstanding had been cleared up. This set Elizabetta to wondering how nice it would be if everyone could so quickly toss acrimony onto the rubbish heap and start every next moment afresh. But, feeling she had to justify her eagerness to help her employer, she added, “Bartholomy is a good shit, he’s fair, protects us and don’t rob us like lots of the shits who run girls.” Elizabetta, as in everything else, saw the relativistic merits of the Amazon’s argument.
Ever so slightly, not wishing to be indiscreet, she bent over and looked along the bench past the Amazon. Eight pairs of legs, long, short, thick, thin, muscled and flaccid, they were all represented there; waiting for their boss, manager, pimp, Bartholomy to be arraigned. He would probably appear before Abelard since these things, she had been told, proceeded in alphabetical order. In her agitated state Elizabetta did not fully appreciate the opportunities for academic study such a spectacle represented.
"All rise," the tar pit voice droned through the courtroom, "Judge Eugenia Libertas Schwarz, presiding. They all stood and the side door opened, through which emerged a diminutive black judge. Elizabetta is not normally a superstitious person but for just one little moment she hoped that her middle name would prove as predestined as her last.
There were so many A's that morning they surmised that frequent clients of these courts must often change their names to be first on the roles. It wasn't until past 10:00, on the old, excruciatingly slow clock, Felicity had been eyeing, that the B's began arriving. She expected quite a wait, considering the twenty letters which occur before the letter ‘u’. Mr. Bartholomy was first.
"How do you plead Mr. Bartholomy?" the judge asked, looking down at the thick folder before her, and not at the defendant. He was a young man, not more than 20, black hair in a long permanent running to the base of his neck. Mr. Bartholomy meant something to Elizabetta. She had already gone through a love-hate relationship with one of his girls. He was actually very attractive and, queer as this may sound, very respectably dressed in pin striped, dark grey woollen suit, of excellent cut. Much like any of Milly’s executives.
"It is Bartholoméo, Madame, Italian," he said, and Elizabetta cringed in embarrassment. "Not guilty, your honour."
"As I suspected," the judge said, not hiding the sarcasm in her surprisingly deep voice. "Unless the prosecutor has any objections, bail is set at 500 dollars," she said, looking up at the defendant and his lawyer.
Bartholoméo looked behind him, over to his girls now visibly fidgeting beside Elizabetta, the Amazon nodding vigorously in his direction. He turned back with a broad smile, "Thank you, your honour." And he left to pay the bailiff.
Then the door through which so many other accused had stepped opened and Abelard walked into the courtroom. He was unshaven and still bruised from the fight he had had at the jail to establish his position in the food chain, but otherwise seemed in good cheer, alert and surprisingly unconcerned. Many of the others came before the judge, furtively glancing at faces in the crowd, looking for support, gazing with fear and disdain at the authorities. Not Abelard, he strode in erect, confident. He could have been the host and the judge an invited guest.
"Bush, Abelard" the clerk’s gravelly, viscous voice began by naming the defendant, as he had with all the others. But just then there was a disturbance at the back. The large double doors had opened to admit a latecomer. As one, the spectators turned their heads to look at the new arrival. Oliver, Felicity and Elizabetta could only gawk. It was the man in th
e chequered jacket they believed was following them in Florence. Right beside him was Detective Sanschagrin, who had arrested Abelard two days earlier. Their lawyer, Isabelle Beauregard had earlier told Felicity that it was Sanschagrin who had asked the court to delay by one day the hearing. She was baffled by the request but not concerned. Normally there would have been a plea within 24 hours. Abelard, it was easy to see from the crease in his forehead, was also mystified. As for Milly and Attendolo, they expressed no reaction at all.
Sanschagrin and his companion took seats right behind Milly as the judge hammered her desk to demand silence. While she was looking at the small file folder to familiarize herself with the case, Sanschagrin leaned forward and, to get his attention, tapped Milly on the shoulder. Felicity was looking at them and could see that whatever it was Sanschagrin had said to Milly it was having a visibly negative effect. Milly then had a quick exchange with Attendolo before leaning forward to tap the crown attorney on the shoulder. All this time the judge was still reading the charges out to Abelard, who was waiting to plead not guilty. Then the judge stopped, tired of competing with the growing racket from the prosecutor.
“May we approach the bench,” a visibly upset crown counsel practically yelled at the judge, who summoned both him and Abelard’s lawyer to come forward. After a few moments of angry whispers and head shaking, a clearly annoyed judge sent everyone back to their places.
“You are free to go, Mr. Bush,” she said, with surprising calm, “it seems the plaintiff has decided to drop all charges. Next.”
Abelard just stood there, stunned, until Isabelle Beauregard took him by the arm and led him over to the court bailiff to have his manacles removed.She then led all four out of the courtroom where Felicity burst into tears and hung her entire frame from Abelard’s neck.
“May we know to what felicitous intervention I owe my discharge,” Abelard asked the lawyer?
“Better ask him,” Isabelle Beauregard said, pointing to Sanschagrin.
“The man I was with just now was kind enough to come to Montreal from Rome as quickly as he could,” Sanschagrin said very matter-of-factly. “He is with the Italian National Police and had been interrogating Dona Maria Donatello. Apparently she was willing to tell all for a reduced sentence and he very soon had enough information to tie her to Mr. Lord and VBI. When I mentioned this to Mr. Lord he immediately saw the wisdom in dropping all charges against you.”
“But why,” Abelard asked, mostly very surprised. “I was under the distinct impression that you were out to get me.”
“I was and I still have some misgivings about you and your obviously fabricated past. However, when I reread your dossier I noticed a very distinct pattern. All the people you put in the ground were objectively bad, except for the man you killed at the VBI Pharma plant. But there you risked your own life to save a stranger. I chose to see the pattern in a positive light, when I could just as easily have seen it as evidence that you hang out with people of your own ilk. So that’s it, Mr. Bush. I am still very curious about who you really are but a little less concerned that you might be a dangerous predator. Perhaps one day you shall be able to tell me.”
“I hope so too,” Abelard said with an expansive smile and an outstretched hand.
*
Elizabetta and Oliver had come out and hung the imaginary sign on their common door: we are a couple. Abelard and Felicity decided to remain in Montreal despite misgivings about sharing the same city with Milly. They put great reliance into the del Verme contract. Abelard knew that his small circle was not yet convinced as to either his identity or his philosophy. Was he still the same man with unrestrained ambition willing to use any means to further his ends or had he moderated his goals and put principle above intrigue in their pursuit? Abelard tried, as best he could to reassure them and, undoubtedly, himself.
“I had always firmly believed that all humans were predatory by nature and I still do. That is why trust is probably so very rare. It is most jealously guarded and rarely, if ever, freely given, to the delight, I expect, of divorce lawyers.” He paused a moment, noting the consternation saddening his friends’ faces. “But as you may have guessed these are personal beliefs I’ve cooked up from what I recall, and that is all I have to go on, so please forgive me, since my more familiar world was a hard place where trusting anyone was more often than not a fatal mistake. Today, however, what looks like trust is freely given, not because individual humans are more trustworthy, since as far as I have been able to observe they are not, it is rather that people legitimately expect dishonesty to be punished by a disinterested authority. So, trust is still important if conflict is to be avoided, and most people would rather do so, particularly conflict of the violent variety. But now they only have to trust the system to be fair, rather than each other. Hope that works better today, as the system in my memories was far from fair, and it really showed.
“Do you trust us,” Felicity asked with some doubt, having found Abelard’s apology, too abstract and all but depersonalised, not very satisfying?
“Of course I do.”
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