I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (18 page)

I had planned to spend a few hours preparing for Gabriel's appearance the next day at remand court, where I would condemn the injustice of witnesses being concealed from counsel. An early night was in order.

But after sharing a final glass with Fingers, I went on a pub crawl, maybe to drown a sense of revulsion. Something to do with having seen Dermot naked, his thick, unsatiated cock. More to do with my disappointment in him, and in myself, my own failure to see that side of him. As consolation, the affair – and Dermot's notoriety as a campus skirt-chaser – knocked the stuffing out of the Crown's theory of a male lovers' quarrel.

At nightfall I was in a beer parlour by the Granville Bridge: the Cecil Hotel, full of rowdy anarchists and poets. I remember having a merry time spouting Byron.
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined …

I
affected a false air of sobriety and confidence as I strolled into the remand court at 312 Main, all the while struggling to remember the night. I hazily recalled stumbling from the Cecil, the beatniks and I, with a couple of cases of off-sale, then finding our way to a flat under the Granville Bridge. A “pad,” its resident poet called it, a scrawny chap who called himself, poetically, Newlove. Somehow I'd staggered home and remembered to set the alarm.

I settled on the counsel bench, hoping the Listerine and cherry breath mints would be potent enough to mask my beery exhalations. There was a full house: witnesses, complainants, miscreants on bail, and the usual lot of retired regulars enjoying the humiliations being dealt out to life's losers.

Vancouver abounded with news outlets in those pre-Internet days, and the press table was overflowing.
Regina v. Swift
was the menu's main course, so in a sense they were there for me, Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, Esq., the alleged up-and-comer.

A sentencing was in progress. Hugh McGivern was in fine form, seeking forgiveness for a collector of protection money from neighbourhood mom-and-pop shops. Magistrate Oscar Orr, a wise old hand, surprised me by letting the extortionist off with two years less a day. It bode well that he was in a good mood; I'd been wise to bypass the jeweller.

Smitty finally made his smiling entrance. Heads turned, elbows nudged ribs, and voices churred his praises. Orr immediately put him at the top of the list – seniority prevailed in remand court, especially when it came to the old fox.

“An unusual role for you, Mr. Smythe-Baldwin, representing Her Majesty.”

“I shall have to fight the impulse to make light of the Crown's case. I call Gabriel Swift.”

I hastened to the defence table as magistrate and prosecutor continued their to-and-fro, Orr letting Smitty know he was honoured by his presence in any guise. The prisoner's door opened and Gabriel was led into the dock, rubbing a wrist recently cuffed. The nod he gave me was curt; he looked out of sorts. He was something of a Janus, Gabriel – a brittle, bitter face and then frequently an affable one, as when he relaxed in debate.

“To business at hand,” Smitty said, “the setting of a preliminary inquiry date. I suspect we may need three or four days.”

Orr conferred with his clerk, flipped through a datebook. After a few exchanges with Smitty the hearing was set to begin Monday, July 30. I was not called upon, merely nodded my assent. I had already warned Gabriel that the dockets were crowded, but he seemed displeased at this long delay, his arms crossed defiantly.

“And now my learned friend wishes to be heard on a matter regarding certain witnesses.”

On observing me standing there, Orr started, in the manner of one who'd suddenly noticed an intruder in his bedroom. But he settled in to listen to my complaint that the police had erected a no-go zone around the Josephs and may have contrived to spirit Monique across an international boundary. My right to a fair defence was being grossly compromised. This was a capital case; denial of access to witnesses could have irreversible consequences.

Orr was nodding. I'd done well, overcoming the pain, the thrumming in my head. My pitch made, I sat, then twisted around to the counsel bench to see Alex Pappas lowering his ample bottom onto it. I'd seen Hugo Schlott's name on the docket, the woman-batterer Pappas had foisted on me – he was due for sentencing.

Smitty was velvety in reply: he was powerless to countermand the Joseph family's wishes, even though their fears of intimidation by his honourable and learned friend were surely baseless. They were decent folk but naïve in the ways of the law, unsophisticated. At preliminary inquiry his able friend would have full and untrammelled right to cross-examine these guileless, unworldly, God-fearing Indians.

Gabriel took this in with a growing expression of incredulity. He seemed about to say something but swallowed his words.

Orr had the apologetic look of one fearing for his soul if he defied the Almighty's commandment. “I'm sorry, Mr. Beauchamp, I deny your motion. You will have your chance at the preliminary. Were these people educated Caucasians I might have a different view –”

My sinking heart sank further into my tender, gassy gut when Gabriel called out, “That is insulting, patronizing, sanctimonious bunk!”

Astonished whispers and murmurs in the gallery. Orr was nonplussed for the moment. “Order,” he called. Court security officers were on the move.

“It's one law for the educated so-called Caucasian, another for the rest of us dumb, unsophisticated, thieving Indians.” Gabriel's voice carried to the far wall, the room going silent for him. “What law punishes the thief who steals our land and language? Where is that law written in your books of justice?”

As a trio of burly constables dragged him off, he continued to declaim. Ours was a legal system that “thrives on bigotry and is structured to maintain class interests.” This actually encouraged a smattering of applause, a hurrah from someone at the back. The rest went unheard, except dimly from behind the lockup door. Orr was crimson-faced. The only lawyer in the room who hadn't gone rigid was Smitty, who gave me a pitying smile.

Orr: “Call the next case.”

“Hugo Schlott, assault causing bodily harm.”

As Pappas exchanged places with me, he whispered, “You better get that fucking loudmouth under control, pal.”

I waited until Schlott got four years, one for each of the teeth he'd knocked out, then headed past his wailing mother on my way up to the cells. Yes, I was less than pleased with my short-fused client, yet struggling against an impermissible pride in him for saying the unsayable truth.

I met Gabriel in a dark locked room, a guard glaring at us though metal-wire glass. Gabriel looked fiercely at me. “Okay, I lost it.”

“I hope it's out of your system, but I bet it felt good.”

“It felt right.”

I wasn't aware I was smiling until I saw him staring oddly at me. “The look on Oscar Orr's face …” I couldn't help myself, and let go. Gabriel joined in. It felt good and it felt right to share that moment with him. Laughter is such a catalyst for friendship, and we were easing ourselves in that direction.

“You letting me off the hook, Arthur? I was sure you were going to fire me as your client.”

“Just promise it won't happen at your trial.”

“It won't.” He shrugged, put on a serious face. “They found another way to screw me.”

“Please explain.”

“They put a rat in my cell.”

From “Where the Squamish River Flows,”
A Thirst for Justice
, © W. Chance

THE REPERCUSSIONS FROM SWIFT'S OUTBURST were unexpected and contentious, for on the following day Attorney General Robert Bonner signed a rare direct indictment, sending the case to jury trial without a preliminary hearing. It was widely known that Smythe-Baldwin had not been consulted and there'd been a flap over that. But the press already had the story; there was no backing down.

In his column in the
Sun
, Jack Scott wrote acerbically: “It seems Mr. Bonner jumped to the impetuous conclusion that the defendant planned to use the preliminary as a pulpit for expressing incendiary views that are not in accord with Social Credit philosophy. Apparently the smattering of applause in court spooked the Cabinet into thinking the revolution was at hand.”

The direct indictment had the effect of accelerating the onset of the trial, which had been expected to take place in late fall. So now the prosecution had to scramble to ensure that defence lawyers had reasonable access to Chief Joseph and his family. Otherwise Beauchamp would have a telling ground for appeal.

In those days the press was allowed to report on a preliminary, and Beauchamp had hoped to use it not just to prepare his defence but to alert all of Vancouver there was something rotten going on in the Squamish
RCMP
. The pool of citizens from which a jury would be selected would already have a taste of the defence and come armed with skepticism about police assertions. But Beauchamp was persuaded there were also advantages to foregoing a preliminary …

G
rab it and run with it,” Alex Pappas instructed me, confusingly. “Do not stop at Go. Go directly to trial.” He had called me into his office to give me his counsel about the advantages of bypassing a prelim. “It's just a free dry run for the Crown, Stretch. Gives them a chance to correct their fuckups, rehearse their witnesses. You ever noticed on a second go-round how witnesses always sound more credible? Especially the cops.”

That wasn't quite my experience, but he had more of it. At least Gabriel would be cheered by the prospect of an earlier date.

Smitty, when he'd called that day, had been as close to apoplectic as was possible for the old smoothie. I gathered he'd almost resigned his retainer. This rancour against the Attorney General seemed a blessing from the Fates, those mischievous sprites, because I suspected – he implied as much – that he was no longer interested in putting that much oomph into the case. “Do not, Sir Arthur, expect any rabid pursuit of your client. Justice is all I aspire to. A fair trial and a friendly glass or two at the end.”

“Another big advantage,” Pappas continued, “is you'll get extra leeway because you'll be constantly on your feet, complaining they robbed you of the right to a prelim and you need absolute full disclosure, extra time with the witnesses. Your judge will have to pamper you, give you free rein. Smitty ain't gonna be ready – he'll be too busy plugging all the holes. I don't even think he's got a junior yet to do all the dog work.”

Pappas didn't know the particulars of the case beyond what was in the papers, but he was a pretty good tactician, and he made sense. But I had to tell him that Smitty had just been assigned an assistant counsel: Leroy Lukey, from the Crown counsel office.

“That dumb fuck? You're in even better shape. I think he took too many hits to the head in his football days.”

Lukey had been a college all-star, even had a couple of tryouts with the Edmonton Eskimos. I'd been lined up against him several times, found him abrasive, lacking a firm handle on ethics. Smitty had charged him with getting us face time with Monique Joseph and her parents, Benjamin and Anna. Ophelia, with her finely tuned social skills, would do the interviews.

Smitty had dropped a hint he'd like to set the trial for the week already put aside for the prelim. His fall calendar was filled to “catastrophic proportions.” We agreed he'd have to use all his wiles to persuade the Chief Justice to order a special summer assize.

I thanked Pappas for his insights and wisdom and headed off to Oakie to compare notes with Gabriel about the rat in his cell.

One could never predict the moods of Gabriel Swift. He seemed uncommonly relaxed as he was ushered into the interview room, and shook my hand with some enthusiasm. I brought him up to speed and asked him how he felt about a July 30 start to his trial.

“Thanks for asking. I'm okay with whatever you advise.” That was a new and helpful tone.

“I've checked out your cellmate.” A longshoreman, Burt Snyder, who sold an undercover cop an ounce of uncut heroin from a freighter out of Hong Kong. “I can't find a record, so he's a first-timer, but he's still looking at five and up.” I told Gabriel he was right to be suspicious of him; it was a hallowed Crown tactic to offer deals to prospective snitches – a minimum sentence, even probation, witness protection.

“He's so obvious it's pathetic. A union guy, a brother, a fucking comrade. Claims he's part Native. Give me a break.”

Gabriel knew to keep his own counsel but I warned him anyway. His vocabulary in that cell should be limited to grunts and grumbles. He assured me he was ignoring Snyder in favour of books, currently working through Frantz Fanon's
The Wretched of the Earth
, in French, aided by a
dictionnaire
Larousse. (During
later visits, as I recall, he even conversed with me in that liquid tongue, with growing ease.)