William Deverell - Snow Job

Arthur nodded. “One of those Serbian ethnic cleansers.”

“He earned forty years from the War Crimes Tribunal, and I earned a promotion to run the entire South Danube bureau. Then they suddenly pulled me out, God knows why, and one rotten stolen computer and I’m shelved, stuck in a corner cubicle.”

Arthur nodded sympathetically. Margaret had excused herself a while ago, was in her office, on the phone or her laptop. An hour earlier, after ushering DiPalma into their flat, she’d asked if he cared for tea, coffee, juice, or something stronger. His disarming politeness in choosing the latter was, to Arthur, a typical mannerism of one who regularly sought escape in drink. As an AA veteran of nearly twenty years, Arthur recognized him as a brother of the bottle, a perception reinforced as DiPalma worked his way through half a litre of wine plus a substantial share of the five-star brandy kept for guests.

It was as if he needed drink to keep his vocal cords from drying out. He seemed unable to stop talking, mostly about his own sad life, and Arthur wondered if he had crumbled under the pressure of work, the pressure of keeping secrets for a living. An alternative theory was open, that he was performing — “conniving,” as Margaret put it — but if so, DiPalma had missed a distinguished career on stage, one finer than would ever be enjoyed by the theatre major in apartment 1 °C. But if this was all a clever act, what purpose would it serve?

“When CSIS got the laptop back they found I’d logged onto a wife-swapping site. It was just an idle thing, I was surfing, but they made an issue of it, showed it to Janice, my wife. That’s when the marriage headed south. And, yes, there were some photos of Janice and me at a nudist camp on Lake Massawippi. She went ballistic when Crumwell asked her about them. It was stupid of me to leave them on the computer. Now they’re monitoring my Internet use, at least at the office — I heard them laughing over a couple of lonely-hearts sites I’d accessed during lunch.”

So far, DiPalma had not divulged any state secrets, or offered an inside scoop about anything, including this morning’s multiple assassination. Occasionally, he stepped out to the balcony for a smoke, taking his glass with him. But otherwise he sat by the roaring phony fire blathering away about his fall from grace, as unlike a trained spy as one could imagine. Arthur had known many who’d suffered breakdowns; this man matched the type. The heartbreak type. Brian Pomeroy was the worst case he’d known: alcohol, cocaine, he’d gone delusional, spent time in a care facility.

“This is her picture.” Janice, in a wallet photo folder, blond, winsomely appealing. “She went off with a lobbyist for the mine industry, a rattlesnake, no human values, he’s all about money and power. I phoned her a few times, maybe I got too loud. All I wanted was to talk with her, so I went to her house one afternoon, and of course she complained I was stalking her.”

DiPalma jumped at the angry shout from next door. “I am not seeing another woman! I am fucking her!” Arthur explained to DiPalma that the aspiring young actor was rehearsing for a comedy about the travails of matrimony.

DiPalma took a moment to recover. “That sent shivers, a little too close to home.” He fumbled for his pack of Rothmans, then had to retrieve a couple of cigarettes that spilled to the carpet. When he slid open the balcony door, Arthur could hear the anxious noises of the city, plaintive howls of sirens, giving way to his neighbour crying, “Come on, it’s just a game! Just don’t tie me too tight …”

He got up to a ringing phone. Wentworth Chance, said the caller ID, the nagging biographer. Arthur let it ring. Wentworth had been his junior counsel on a notorious case, the murder of a judge. In a weak moment, Arthur had agreed to a series of interviews, and this lanky young apostle, who regarded him with an awe befitting the gods, was constantly on the phone, assailing him with questions.

“I’m a mess, but they don’t know it in the service,” DiPalma said as he came back indoors. “I’m a fairly good actor, I play it cool, straight. I don’t have anyone to talk to any more since Janice took off, that’s the problem. I used to tell her all my woes until she became one of them. I lost my mother when I was six, to cancer. My father, forget it, I didn’t exist for him.” DiPalma drained his glass, looked woefully at the brandy bottle, now empty.

Arthur directed him away from what he feared would be a maudlin history of childhood trauma. “There’s something you wanted to tell me, Ray. If you want legal advice, I’m prepared to give it. We’re now solicitor and client. I may not, without your permission, divulge what you say.”

The moment was punctuated by screaming guitars from the flat below. That was met by a banging on the floor next door, which persuaded the rock fan to turn the volume down.

Suddenly, Margaret raced from her office. “Oh my God, Bhashyistan has declared war on Canada.” She turned on the console TV. “The Calgary Five have been arrested on some trumped-up charge.”

On the screen, a reporter in the lobby of the Foreign Affairs Building: “They are accused of insulting the Revered Mother, apparently a crime in Bhashyistan. The state police are seeking, quote, the usual fifteen years’ imprisonment. Back to you, Mark.”

“We’ll continue to stay on top of this dramatic story.” Mark, looking wan and weary, was sharing the camera with a bearded political analyst. “Dr. Jethrop, what’s your reaction to that?”

“Well, I’m sure it will take them all of five minutes to convict these innocent Canadians, who are obviously intended as pawns in a scheme of criminal extortion. Insulting the president’s mother, that is utterly farcical. Bhashyistan’s institutions of justice are an insult. The entire country is an insult.”

“The cabinet has remained behind closed doors ever since Bhashyistan’s declaration of war,” Mark said. “What do you think their reaction should be?”

The expert hesitated, stumped. “I shall leave that up to wiser heads than me.”

Cut to the Alberta premier, urging swift and decisive action. Cut to the Liberal Opposition leader, describing Bhashyistan as a terrorist nation. The U.S. secretary of state: her government will always stand beside its allies and neighbours. The British prime minister. The French president.

Reaction from people on a Toronto street. “I guess we have to put our trust in the government.” Others were less typically Canadian: “Let’s show them who they’re dealing with.” “Go in there and take them out.” DiPalma watched all this with a quizzical frown, then jumped as the phone sounded, Pierette’s ring. Margaret took it in her office.

“Okay, Ray, what did you want to tell me?”

He played with another cigarette, then looked up. “Abzal Erzhan didn’t just disappear. He was disappeared .” He slurred that slightly: dish-appeared.

“How do you know?”

“You ought to talk to Vana Erzhan. She wanted to see a lawyer, but the cops encouraged her not to. You should also talk to their landlord, Mr. Zandoo.”

“How could this be arranged?”

“Julien Chambleau.” Margaret’s friend, the Bloc Quebecois member for Iberville-Chambly. “They live in his riding.”

Arthur nodded. “So it would be appropriate if he visited.” He was tantalized by this intrigue. His planned getaway to the West Coast might have to be made brief.

“Who do you think might have disappeared him, Ray?”

“I’m trying to get something on that.”

Margaret breezed back, woke up Arthur’s desktop computer. “Pierette says to check out YouTube.”

All Arthur knew about YouTube was that people posted all sorts of twaddle there, video clips of kids playing dress-up and puppies being bathed. Margaret typed in the link she’d written down, and in a moment the Bhashyistan flag appeared, words superimposed: A Production of Third Son of Ultimate Leader Films .