Face/Mask, page 18
As they raced across Notre-Dame Boulevard he wondered if he had really hated Joe so much that he’d been willing to put him and his whole family through this agony. Or was this the only way he could regain some sense of relevance?
On the other side of the street they entered an office building that looked over a century old. They didn’t have an appointment but he hoped the lawyer would find time to listen to them. Still, he expected no miracles from this supposed expert in security matters.
They took a shaky elevator up to the fourth floor, to the offices of Silver et associés, avocats. The frosted glass door opened onto a small waiting room with two well-worn sofas and a tired-looking woman sitting at the reception desk. She looked up from her P-screen with an expression that showed surprise to see anybody there.
Janus rushed up to her and got right to the point.
“I’d like to see Mr. Silver, please.”
“Vous avez un rendez-vous?”
“What? No, I don’t have an appointment. But this is an emergency. Please, I have to speak to him.”
The receptionist let out an exasperated sigh.
“Je suis désolé. Sorry. But Maitre Silver never sees anyone without an appointment. Il est très occupé. Very busy, you see.”
“Look,” Janus came close to exploding. “This Silver is supposed to be an expert in security proceedings, and this is an emergency. I’m a Director at the Department of Municipal Infrastructure, so if you’re worried about money, don’t be.”
At that point the single door behind the receptionist opened and out stepped a tall, slim man in his mid-sixties. His curly hair was grey and thinning. He wore dress pants and shirt, neither of which had been ironed recently, and no tie. He wiped brown flakes from his chin with a napkin as he approached.
“Jeff Silver!” He nearly shouted when he spoke. “How can I help you folks?”
“Ils n’ont pas de rendez-vous,” the receptionist said accusingly.
“That’s OK, Gisèle, I’ve finished my lunch.”
He turned his attention to Janus and stepped forward to shake his hand. “I heard somebody mention security proceedings. Well, if you’ve been charged then you’ve come to the right place.”
“It’s not for me. It’s my wife’s uncle,” Janus said, motioning toward Terry.
“Right. Otherwise you’d be in jail instead of standing here talking to me, wouldn’t you? Well, it just so happens that I had a cancellation this afternoon, so come in and tell me your troubles.”
He led them around the reception desk and back through the door he’d just walked through. Janus saw no signs of any associates in the small office, nor was there any room to put them if there had been. He wasn’t surprised that the furniture in Silver’s office looked about as old as its owner. He and Terry sat down in front of a desk with several chipped edges and coffee-cup stains along its top. Janus slid himself forward on his chair to avoid a spring that was threatening to break through the worn seat cover.
Silver sat and reached out wordlessly. Terry handed him the small envelope she’d been carrying. On the outside of the envelope were stencilled the words “La Reine contre Giuseppe Pizzi.”
“This might take a while,” Silver said. “Can Gisèle get you a coffee?”
“No,” Janus answered for both of them. “We’re fine. Take as much time as you need.”
Silver slid the disc from its sleeve and pushed it into a slot in his desk. Turning on his P-screen he leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet up onto his desk, placing them next to a plastic wrapper that held the remains of a tuna salad sandwich. The soles of his shoes, nearly worn-through, were pointing toward Terry’s face. Janus remembered Sahar telling him that showing someone the soles of one’s feet was considered disrespectful in Middle-Eastern culture.
Perhaps sensing that his position didn’t project an appropriate image of professionalism, the lawyer abruptly lowered his feet and cleared his throat with a glance at Janus and his wife. He took a legal pad out of a desk drawer and began writing notes as he read from the screen.
Janus looked at this man and had an uneasy feeling that they weren’t in the right place. Whatever Pascal thought of him, the best years of Silver’s legal practice were clearly behind him. Janus worried that the lawyer might be desperate enough for paying clients that he’d take on a case that was out of his league just for the fees. He decided to hear him out and see if he knew what he was talking about.
Silver spent fifteen minutes skimming through the report, and then looked at them over his P-screen.
“Do you know this guy he was arrested with: Antonio Cirillo?”
“The name means nothing,” Janus said.
“That’s the butcher,” Terry said. “Where Uncle Joe gets his groceries.”
Silver wasn’t really listening to them, his attention still on his P-screen. After a while he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Half these damn reports are redacted, you know. They could have written anything under there…”
He let his words die out, as Janus and Terry looked at him expectantly. Janus wasn’t sure if Terry had gotten the drift of what the lawyer was saying, but he wasn’t surprised to learn that they’d been given little evidence of Joe’s alleged terrorist ties. He felt like they were just spinning their wheels.
Silver looked at Terry with a pensive expression. He sat silently for about a minute before speaking.
“So, he’s your uncle, right?”
“Yes.”
“You love him, right?”
“Of course. He pretty much raised me.”
“Hmm. I see.”
Janus had had enough. He leaned forward, barely keeping the impatience out of his voice.
“Just what are you trying to say?”
Silver raised his hands in a defensive posture.
“I’m not trying to say anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out what your wife is willing to do to help her uncle out.”
“She...we are willing to do whatever we can. Whatever is necessary.”
“OK, that’s good. I just want everything to be out in the open.”
“Obviously you’re talking about money, Mr. Silver. How much is it going to cost?”
“You’re looking at two hundred thousand dollars.”
Janus was stunned at the amount. He saw that Terry had hardly reacted, clearly uncertain if this figure was exaggerated or not. He looked around at the shabby furniture and concluded that his earlier fears of a money grab by the lawyer were well-founded.
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Silver, we didn’t think you were that expensive.”
“First of all Mr. Janus, it’s Maitre Silver. It’s the title we get here in Quebec, and I think I’ve earned it. Second of all, no I’m not that expensive. Even at five hundred dollars an hour I’d have trouble running up that big a bill for a case like this. It’s actually fairly short and straightforward. I’ll be lucky to get twenty or thirty billable hours out of it.”
“Then what’s the money for?”
“The case against Mr. Pizzi, from what I’ve read so far, looks quite strong. As a matter of fact, in my experience when someone is charged with sedition offences the evidence against him is always quite strong. Even when the accused has done nothing.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“When the administration decides that someone is going to be accused of a sedition offence they always get their conviction. They’re very efficient that way.”
“But the money…”
“Bribes, Mr. Janus. To keep Mr. Pizzi in Canada and out of a long jail term, people will have to be paid off.”
Janus was shocked at the lawyer’s words. Although he was willing to go to any extreme to help Joe out, he was still an administration official. The idea of trying to bribe judges or lawyers both insulted and scared him.
“Listen, Mr. Silver…Sorry; Maitre Silver. I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. I’m-”
“Head of the electric company or something. Yes, I know. You’re a big muckety-muck in the city and you can’t believe I’m suggesting we bribe anyone, let alone a Security Prosecutor and a Con or two. But that is what I’m suggesting. Because that, Mr. Janus, is how the system works.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“No, you don’t want to believe it. That's not quite the same thing. What you don’t get is that under the Illegal Alien Enforcement Act, the consequences for even the most minor infraction for non-citizens have become draconian. And the charges here are far from minor.
“But, let’s assume that he really is innocent, or at least not nearly the danger to national security they’re making him out to be. There are some people who work in our judicial system who understand that government witnesses may lie, and cops may plant evidence, and false accusations may be brought for a variety of reasons. And these very few people can be convinced, from time to time, to let some poor, deserving Joe, or Giuseppe, slip through the cracks.”
Terry leaned forward with a look of supplication that almost broke Janus’s heart.
“So these people could help my uncle? If he’s nothing more than just a naïve old man, maybe they’d look the other way?”
“It has been known to happen.”
“If they want to help out the innocent,” Janus spoke up, still not trusting a thing this lawyer was saying, “then why do we have to bribe anyone?”
“Because, Mr. Janus,” Silver spoke with a sigh that showed he’d had this conversation once too often in his life, “these people are not auditioning for sainthood. Like everyone else, they’re just trying to make a living and keep out of trouble. It bothers them when good people get run over by the administrative apparatus, but that doesn’t mean they’re in any hurry to put their own necks on the line for anyone. So…”
“So, you pay them off.”
“You make it worth their while to take a pretty big risk.”
“And nobody suspects anything?”
“There are dangers, so everyone involved has to be very careful. And very well-compensated. But it’s a very big machine, a huge bureaucracy. Witness statements sometimes get lost. Police reports have to be rewritten to take account of new evidence. There are always enough poor bastards to meet a prosecutor’s quota of convictions. You just want to make sure your Uncle Joe isn’t one of them. You pay them enough and they’ll pass over his name and go on to the next schmuck.”
“This is ridiculous,” Janus exclaimed.
“But are there no trials? No rules to follow?” Terry asked.
“Yes there are. And the word from on high at the Security Directorate is to enforce the law like it’s the word of God. But the reality at the most basic levels, like with some Security Prosecutors I’ve dealt with, is that not everyone believes there are terrorists under every bed. And like I said, there are so many others who can’t get their hands on the money they need to save their asses that few people care if the occasional harmless son of a bitch can help himself by spreading some geldt around.”
Janus stared at the lawyer, not sure what to say. Silver was so matter of fact about the whole thing that Janus wanted to believe it was a joke. But Silver was clearly being serious.
“We’ll still have to present a defence based on humanitarian grounds,” the lawyer continued. “Show that he’s a great guy in the community, well-loved, and so on. Not a rabble-rouser or anything. Then the prosecutors decide who is worthy of the court’s clemency and who isn’t. All we do is help them decide.”
“I can’t believe this,” Janus said, standing up abruptly.
“Allen, please,” Terry sobbed.
“No. We can’t even be having this conversation.”
He suddenly looked around him, as if someone was standing there listening to him. Then he sat down hard and bent over to look under the desk top.
“Are we being bugged? Is this some sort of set-up? Because we’re not going along with this crazy guy’s plans, if you’re listening to us.”
“Hey!” Silver yelled out, slamming his hand loudly on his desk to get Janus’s attention. “Relax, will you? You aren’t being bugged, by me or anybody. In fact every lawyer in town with half a brain has signal jammers in their offices. So, just relax.”
He waited a few seconds to make sure that Janus wasn’t going to interrupt him again, then continued in a calmer voice. “I realize this must be quite an unexpected conversation for you. Believe me, when I was called to the Bar forty-two years ago I never dreamed such a thing would be possible, let alone commonplace. But it is commonplace. It is how the system works, despite the best efforts of certain gung-ho chief prosecutors to convict anyone who so much as spits on the sidewalk.
“Maybe it’s how the few mensches that are left out there thumb their noses at the stupidity and cruelty of the laws they’re obliged to enforce. I don’t know. But it works and is so accepted that there are going rates. I didn’t exactly grab that two hundred thousand number out of the air, you know. That’s what it will take. Fifty for the prosecutor in charge, and a hundred to be split between the cops involved in the investigation.”
“How about the other fifty?”
Silver raised his eyebrows and allowed himself a little smile, letting Janus know exactly how much he planned to make from his role in this bribery.
“I can’t believe they’d accept to do this,” Janus complained. “How do they live with themselves?”
“Very well, I’d guess. Maybe they figure they’re doing a mitzva, instead of ruining some poor bastard’s life, and they make a little something on the side at the same time. They’re happy, your uncle is happy, your wife is happy. Or you can just decide you’re not willing to spend the money and kiss the old guy goodbye. Am I being too subtle for you, Mr. Janus?”
The ride back from Silver’s office was funereal in its silence. The rain that started moments after they got in the car left beige stains on the side windows. Only the ammonia-laced wiper fluid kept the windshield clear so that Janus could make his way through the heavy traffic.
The inside of the car grew darker as the windows grew dirtier, and the oppressive greyness surrounding them reflected his mood. The lawyer’s words were tumbling over each other in Janus’s head; insistent, yet terrifying. He couldn’t believe what Silver had suggested: bribe cops and prosecutors? Was the man living in some 90’s gangster movie?
Janus was sure that if he tried to pay anybody off he’d land in jail, bringing nothing but disgrace to Terry and the boys. As if Joe’s arrest on terrorism-related charges wasn’t bad enough.
The traffic on the Ville-Marie Expressway was at a standstill, allowing him to rub his face and squeeze his tired eyes shut for several seconds. He’d gotten himself and his family into this nightmare, and while Terry was counting on him to get them out of it, Silver’s idea would make things worse.
Who am I kidding? I don’t have two dimes to bribe anybody, so why the heck am I worried about getting caught?
He looked over at Terry, who was leaning her head against the window, her eyes invisible behind the dark glasses. The way she’d looked at him at Silver’s office told him that she’d latched onto the sliver of hope the lawyer had held out. What they had to do was clear in her mind, whatever dangers existed.
“We can’t exactly go to the bank for a loan,” he’d said when they left the lawyer’s office. “There’d have to be no official sources and no paper trails, and the administration has made that virtually impossible. I just don’t know where else we could get that kind of money.”
Janus’s arguments dampened her enthusiasm, although he wasn’t sure for how long. She reverted to her earlier silent state, but he suspected she was still trying to think of some way to get the money. He doubted that she had any more idea who to turn to for an off-the books loan than he did.
He shook his head and leaned it against the side window. He couldn’t believe he was even worrying about where to get the money, when the very idea of bribing an administration agent was crazy. He should have brushed Silver’s suggestion aside, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to. Nor would Terry let him.
Last night he’d thought it would be enough for her that he was doing his best to help Joe, even though he expected nothing he did to work. Now she had a faint hope that something could be done, and she would make sure he clung onto that hope with her. It was illegal and very risky, and he didn’t know how he was going to get her to drop the idea.
September 17, 2039:
Terry’s head rested against the scratched and dirty glass that separated her from her uncle. His own bald head was pressed up against the divider, a half-inch away, although they might as well have been in different worlds. She had come to visit him in the Rivière des Prairies Detention Center, and the harsh reality of the place terrified her: the barbed wire fences, the body-scanners, the stone-faced guards carrying truncheons.
Dear God, we’re in a real jail. How can this be happening?
She had already been crying for several minutes when he was brought into the small visitors’ cubicle. Joe rushed forward when he saw her, and he leaned against the pane to get as close to her as he could. After a few seconds she saw that he was waiting for her to get her sobbing under control. His expression was patient and loving, but he wasn’t crying. And he wasn’t happy that she’d come to see him.
“Teresa, this place is no good for you. You should not come here.”
“Uncle Joe, what are you talking about? I had to see you, to make sure that you’re…you’re…”
“I am fine. Nobody has hurt me.”
“I wanted to see how you were. If you were in pain, or sick. Do you need anything?”
“I need to come home, Teresa. But I do not think this is going to happen soon.”
“We’re working on getting you home. Allen and I, we met a lawyer. He may have a plan.”
“What kind of plan? Who is this lawyer?”
Terry looked over at a guard who was keeping a close eye on them. She hesitated to discuss Silver’s idea in a place with so little privacy, but there was something that she needed to speak to Joe about.
