I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel Read Online Free Page A

lovely young lady with you?”
    â€œOphelia Moore has just finished her articles. You may be seeing more of her.”
    â€œHow much more of her?” An unabashedly lewd grin. She gave him a wink, playing along.
    I was an Oakalla regular by then, known to the staff, so the process of signing in was casual. While Jethro made pleasant with Ophelia and tried to see through her see-through blouse, I flipped through the visitors’ registry.
    Swift had been transferred there yesterday after being remanded in Squamish police court. He’d had a visitor that evening: Jim Brady, a name familiar to me from left-wing labour circles. Brady had come with a lawyer, Harry Rankin, an eloquent socialist, hero to the destitute of Vancouver’s rough streets. I assumed I had lost Swift as a client, and was surprised at how disappointed I felt.
    Swift’s only other visitor, earlier that day, was Celia Swift – his mother, as I later learned.
    Usually in a murder case, lawyer interviews were held in rooms the size of wardrobe closets, but all were in use, so Ophelia and I were led to the gymnasium-like visitors’ hall with its long central table, its array of smaller tables and chairs bolted to the floor, most of them occupied by inmates with parents, girlfriends, lawyers, or probation officers.
    One of the green-clad convicts called, “Hey, counsellor, you’re the slickest,” and proudly pointed me out to his mother.
    â€œGot him off a warehouse break-in,” I told Ophelia. “That encouraged him to do it again.”
    We found a free table near one at which a woman was softly crying, her incarcerated boyfriend showing annoyance that she refused to let him touch her. Among the other lawyers in the hall were Harry Fan, infamous for his baffling, impenetrable submissions, and Larry Hill, beloved for his stirring, alcohol-fuelledcourtroom orations. He’d just dismissed a client and was awaiting another; while the guards were looking elsewhere, he grinned at me and sneaked a drink from a flask.
    Too many of Vancouver’s best criminal counsel were problem drinkers in those days – maybe a majority. That made a damning statement about the stresses of this rarefied, ill-regarded area of practice. I had sworn (believe it or not) never to fall victim to the curse of drink, though I tied one on occasionally to signal I was one of the guys.
    As Swift shuffled to our table – he was shackled but not cuffed – his dark eyes were firmly, unwaveringly fixed on me. Decorating one of them was a purple bruise, and welts appeared elsewhere on his face and arms, badges likely earned within these brutal walls. He seemed taller than in the news photos I’d seen, and stringier. His hair was in handsome braids that hung well below his shoulders.
    He declined my hand as he sat. Affronted, I said, “Do you know who I am?”
    â€œArthur Beauchamp.” Astonishingly, he pronounced my surname correctly. “Why are you here?” he asked.
    â€œBecause I was asked by the Legal Aid Society to represent you. This is Ophelia Moore, also from my office. My junior.” I felt silly calling her that.
    â€œHello, Gabriel.” Her big, dimpled smile.
    He frowned as he studied her, as if taking exception to the brightness of her lipstick, if not her blue eyes and blond tresses. He brushed from his forehead strands of his own jet-black hair, then dismissed her as irrelevant to the discussion. “Why would you want to be my lawyer?”
    A good question. Why would I want to represent this impolite young brave with his pointed refusal of a hand extended? This jail alone was full of the poor and the desperate who would weep their thanks for legal aid from the up-and-comer Beauchamp.
    â€œI haven’t asked to be your lawyer, Gabriel. But you unquestionably need a lawyer. You are charged with a capital crime.”
    â€œI turned down Harry Rankin. Why would I choose you