John Brunner - The Squares of the City

Sigueiras had to stand up and shout at his lawyer to get him to file notice of appeal; there were shouts and complaints from people in the public seats—it was great to leave the court and breathe fresh air outside.

This morning I had noticed a stranger sitting in court: as I left in company with Angers, he came up to us—a tall, black-haired man, faultlessly dressed, whom I had a vague idea I had seen somewhere but did not know.

“Good morning, Luis!” said Angers warmly. “And congratulations on your new appointment! Hakluyt,” he added, turning to me, “you must meet Senor Luis Arrio, the new chairman of the Citizens of Vados.”

Arrio smiled and shook my hand. “Delighted, Senor Hakluyt!” he exclaimed. “I have been hoping to make your acquaintance since your arrival. I saw you at Presidential House the other day but did not contrive an introduction.”

So that was where I’d seen him. And the name also rang a bell now. Multiple stores. I’d seen it in half a dozen places in Vados alone, over large and small branches.

“Well!” he continued. “So as it turned out there was no call for your assistance in this little matter that has been settled today. The judgment, of course, represents a further triumph for—might one not almost say civilization over barbarism? Like your own work, Senor Hakluyt, this will help to make our beautiful city yet more beautiful!”

“Thank you,” I said shortly. “But—being a foreigner, not a Vadeano—as far as I’m concerned, it’s just another job. One that I almost regret having taken on.”

He looked sympathetic immediately. “Yes, that I very well understand. So your esteemed colleague tells me”—he gestured at Angers—”that rascal Dalban and his associates have made threats to you. Well, I can personally assure you, senor, that you have nothing to fear from them. We, the Citizens of Vados, will see to that—and you may rely on our guarantee.” He looked forthright, like the statue of el Liberador in the Plaza del Norte, but there was something more than just a pose in that. As far as he was aware, he was speaking the absolute literal truth. I took the statement at its face value.

“Yes, Senor Lucas and I will ensure that you meet no further incidents of that kind,” he pursued. “I am convinced it is all a matter of correctly informing the people—once the citizens see what benefits these changes will bring, there will be no further hindrance. Senor, you must do me the honor of dining with me and my family one evening during your stay.”

“I’d be delighted,” I said. “Unfortunately, I can’t accept at once—I’m spending most of my evenings out on the streets studying the traffic flow.”

“Of course!” he exclaimed, as though chiding himself for stupidity. “Your work occupies you all day and night, does it not? Not the profession I would have chosen, senor. I admire your self-dedication. Then if it cannot be dinner, let it be luncheon, and let the time be now, here in the plaza.” He glanced at Angers. “You will join us?”

Angers nodded; the three of us, and Lucas who joined us a few minutes later, took a table under the palms.

Much of the conversation was concerned with the affairs of the Citizens’ Party. While if flowed past me, I had a chance to study my companions.

There was Lucas, of course. I had seen enough of him in action to know that he was a brilliant lawyer—he lacked Fats Brown’s gift of identifying himself with the cause he was pleading, but his faculty of analyzing arguments with detachment more than compensated. He struck me as a cold man; he could be an angry man—as I had seen when Sam Francis killed Guerrero—but I doubted if he had it in him to be fanatical.

Nor had Angers. Dogmatic, certainly, and stubborn. But— well, Angers was almost too much of a type. The reason was probably not far to seek: perhaps it was simply the common expatriate habit of overemphasizing one’s personal background in reaction against alien surroundings.

I’d have been hard put to it to find a reply if someone had asked me, “Do you like Angers?” His own manner discouraged any strong feeling of like or dislike toward him. I should probably have replied, in an unconscious imitation of Angers’ own British accent, “Oh, he’s all right!”

Which was probably exactly what Angers himself would desire.

As for Arrio, I characterized him as an actor. A man who had adopted a role, probably when young, and found that it served him so well he eventually came to live it. I found the role rather impressive; having decided that the man had become the part he played, I could not be less impressed simply because it was a part. Now the role and the individual were inseparable.

So here were three leading citizens, leading voices of those who spoke in Ciudad de Vados. Steady men. Probably as reliable personally as they were solid in their business. I had, I realized, still been unconsciously worrying about Dalban’s threats and trying to mask the fact from myself. Now I had been assured of Arrio’s support, which seemed worth having, and I felt relieved of an imaginary burden.

The meal broke up, Arrio apologizing and explaining that he had to go to the television studios and record an interview for tonight’s current affairs program; they were doing a feature on his new appointment. I asked him to give my regards to Senora Cortes and Francisco Cordoban. Wryly, I wondered in passing whether they would put out a picture of Arrio in the guise of an angel; certainly he would look better in the role than I had.

When he had left us, Lucas, Angers, and I strolled back across the square. After a moment, deep in thought, Angers spoke up.

“Relieved at not having to face a cross-examination by Brown, Hakluyt?”

“In a way,” I admitted.

“Oh, he is one large bluff!” said Lucas offhandedly. “Did he perhaps say to you that he ate expert witnesses for lunch?”

“As a matter of fact—”

Lucas nodded, smiling faintly. “He said the same to our good Dr. Ruiz, but he was not taken in. Strange about what has happened, no?”

“Strange?” echoed Angers. “The sort of thing one might have expected, surely.”

“I suppose it is,” Lucas agreed abstractedly. “I hear—did I tell you, or did Luis?—that el obispo is also tonight on television, by his special request.”

“Really?” said Angers in a slightly bored tone; presumably the whim of a Popish bishop held little interest for him.

“And I have heard —just a rumor, true, but I have definitely heard—that he intends to speak his mind on the matter of morality in Vados.”

Their eyes met, and it was instantly clear what Lucas was implying.

Angers smiled reluctantly. “Not by any chance a sermon on the text, ‘The wages of sin is death’?”

“Anything is possible,” shrugged Lucas. We had reached the sidewalk and had paused in a group with traffic rolling by. “I gather he is considering giving permission for the dead girl to be buried in consecrated ground.”

I butted in. “You mean he’s already made up his episcopal mind that she was murdered—didn’t kill herself? Look, I saw Fats Brown and his wife and brother-in-law yesterday evening in a bar—in fact I drove them home. I heard his side of the story, and he swore blind he had never seen this—this tramp before.”

They were both looking at me with quizzical expressions.

“Speaking professionally, Senor Hakluyt,” said Lucas after a pause, “I assure you that what Brown may have said to you is of no interest in law. If he is innocent, why has he hidden? Oh, admittedly many things might have happened—she might have thrown herself from the window in desperation, she might have been frightened and fallen back, she might have been struck in an argument, all possible! Yet Brown’s brother-in-law tells us that she was hard and self-possessed and seemed well in control of herself. Not distraught, so that she was likely to resort to suicide when she knew she could obtain—uh—sufficient provision for herself from the father of her unborn child.”