John Brunner - The Squares of the City

“Speaking of Lucas, wasn’t he also involved in this case of dangerous driving someone brought against Guerrero?” I suggested. “I meant to find out what happened.”

Angers scowled. “Dangerous driving be damned. It’s just another move in the National Party’s smear campaign against Guerrero. They can’t bring him down by fair means, so they resort to foul ones. The man who brought the charge—this fellow Dominguez—is another lawyer, as a matter of fact. Legal adviser of the National Party. He’s forever going after either Lucas or Guerrero, and people say he really wants Lucas’s prestige as leading lawyer in the country. I don’t like him at all. Too smooth.”

“What’s likely to happen?”

“I don’t know about the chauffeur, but Guerrero will get off, of course. The Nationals have two or three witnesses, but they’re all well-known party members, and Lucas will make hay out of them.”

He reached into a drawer of his desk and took out a thick document tied with gold thread.. “This is the subpoena to appear as an expert witness for the city council in the Sigueiras case. As I say, I doubt if you’ll actually be called; if you are, we’ll warn you in advance. Oh, and that reminds me: unless you’re absolutely tied up tomorrow afternoon, Vados has said he wants to meet you. There’s a garden party at Presidential House at three p.m. in honor of our local chess champion, who came out on top in the Caribbean tournament the other day. If you can make it, I’ll have an invitation sent down to you at your hotel.”

“I look forward with great pleasure to meeting this president of yours,” I said with emphasis.

Angers smiled. “I don’t mind betting he will impress you tremendously. He really is a remarkable man.”

I was in a more confused state than ever when I left Angers’ office. What he had told me about Senora Posador being the widow of the candidate Vados had defeated for the presidency cast a dash of cold water on my earlier reaction. But then, of course, “going to any lengths to discredit Vados” could hardly imply laying on a superbly elaborate hoax for my exclusive benefit this morning.

I was walking past the Courts of Justice toward the park where I had last left the car provided for me by the city council, deep in cogitation, when a familiar figure caught my eye on the steep, curved steps leading up to the entrance: fat, sweating in his white suit, sucking alternately at a ropy cigar and the straw stuck in a soft drink bottle. He yelled at me as I went by.

“Hey, Hakluyt! C’mere!”

I turned aside and went up the steps, starting to smile—I couldn’t help it. Brown looked a caricature of misery. I said, “Can I buy you that drink now?”

He scrambled to his feet and dusted off his broad behind. “Pal, I feel I could do with something stronger than that —horse urine. You want to know what kind of a country you’re in? Want to know what passes for law an’ order in Vados? Want to see murder?”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“In there”—he jerked a pudgy thumb over his shoulder and sprayed cigar ash down his jacket— “there’s one of the damn finest lawyers in Vados bein’ ripped to shreds by a judge who don’t give a ounce of horse manure for legality, justice, or the rules of evidence. Miguel Dominguez—heard of him?”

“Is that the dangerous driving case—Guerrero’s? I shouldn’t have thought it was important enough to be tried here.”

Brown spat. “Nothing but the best for Mr. Guerrero, no, sir! If they’d tried to put him on in a ordinary local justiciaria where it belongs, he’d have raised hell from here to Mexico City. It’d do you a heap of good to go inside an’ see what really goes on. C’mon!”

He took my arm and nearly dragged me into the building. As he went, he kept up a running fire of explanations. “This concerns you, y’know, Hakluyt. You been mentioned about six times so far that I heard. I just got so sick I had to go find some fresh air. I was hangin’ around waitin’ for the Sigueiras case to be called over the other side, in the civil court, but there’s a long one ahead of us an’ it looks like we won’t get heard till tomorrow or next day. So I thought I’d see how Mig was gettin’ on, and oh, Christ, it’s murder .”

“Where in hell do I get into the act?” I demanded.

“Old Romero—that’s the judge—he’s about a hundred, an’ he’s forgotten anything they ever managed to hammer into his thick skull about admissible evidence—he started by makin’ it quite plain he thought the case against Guerrero was nothin’ but an attempt to smear him. He gave a fifteen-minute political lecture on the iniquities of the National Party, accused Mig of being a paid perjurer, said it was a damn good thing someone was goin’ to clear out the bunch of peasants the National Party sponged on—that’s you, natch—ach, I’m too goddam’ revolted to repeat it!”

We came to the courtroom door; an usher rolled back a sliding panel for us, and we slipped into seats in the public block. There was a fair audience. In the front row sat Sam Francis, scowling like a fiend, and with him there were two or three other people whom I recalled seeing at meetings in the Plaza del Sur.

In the dock, in a comfortable armchair, sat Guerrero, a smug grin on his handsome face; below him in the lawyer’s seat was Andres Lucas, also smiling. On the other side of Lucas’s table was a man with a very white face, whose jaw was trembling visibly.

“That’s him,” whispered Brown. “That’s Mig.” The judge was a wizened man—not perhaps a hundred, as Brown had claimed, but certainly seventy or more. His gavel seemed almost too heavy for his clawlike, shriveled hand. His voice was reedy and penetrating, and he was using it now. I got the gist of his remarks; he was saying:

“—cannot, of course, entertain the evidence offered by the prosecution when it is so plainly colored by personal animosity and political considerations of the basest kind. I have heard cases in this court and others for upward of thirty years; never before have I been faced with such a farrago of rubbish. I shall, of course, report Lawyer Dominguez’s conduct to the appropriate professional body, and I look forward to the day—which cannot be far distant—when the persons responsible for this unprincipled attack on the good character of one of our leading citizens are swept away along with the repositories of filth and immorality where they were spawned. It only remains for me to pronounce the formal verdict—not guilty. Court adjourned.”

The gavel banged; as if it had been a trigger, Sam Francis leaped to his feet and, forgetting his languages in the heat of the moment, shouted at Romero in English.

“Why, you unprincipled old bastard! You’re just a—”

The gavel rapped again, but a storm of booing drowned it and the rest of what Sam Francis said. Beside me, Fats Brown scrambled to his feet, yelling execrations. The judge signaled to the clerk of the court, who ran to open the door behind the dais for him, and the ushers struggled to restore order.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Brown at length. “I couldn’t face Mig in the state he must be in. He’s just been legally slandered to death, so far as his career’s concerned. Like this country, Hakluyt? I think it’s a wonderful country. It’s just got some stinkin’ bastards in it.”

“But how can Romero get away with it?” I demanded.

“Who’s to stop him?” Brown snarled. “Romero’s the senior judge in the country, bar the chairman of the supreme court, an’ he’s a rubber stamp for Vados. Ugh! Fresh air—and quick!”

He led me through the corridors to the entrance so fast that he was panting when we halted at the head of the steps. He hauled out a large bandanna and mopped his face with it. “Well, like I was sayin’, you’ve seen what passes for law an’ order in Vados. Like it?”