Lost Girls Read Free

she’s gone.
    The boy pulls his head through to the light, counts to two and goes under once more. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. This time, when he’s down as far as he can go and moves his arms out to feel for her, there’s nothing there.
    He tells himself not to do it, that it will be too horrible and do no good, but he does anyway. He looks.
    What he notices first is that the opening of his eyes also opens his ears, because it is only then that he hears his cousin’s scream. Then he sees her scream, her gaping mouth blowing a diminishing stream of bubbles up toward him before breaking soundlessly at the surface. But as she runs out of air her scream becomes something worse, a moaning inhalation of the lake’s purple weight. Eyes a wild white, blonde hair now black as oil, writhing outfrom her head like eels. Fingers grasping up toward the light, at him, at anything, but when they stop they are frozen into gnarled fists.
    She goes down fast, but he remembers all of this.
    Not sinking but pulled. That’s what he sees. His cousin pulled down from the last snaking shafts of sunlight into the black, into the blind, cold depths.

O NE
    T here is nothing more overrated in the practice of criminal law than the truth. Indeed it’s something of a trade secret among professionals in the field that the facts alone rarely determine the outcome of a trial. What’s overlooked by the casual observer is the subtle distinction between the truth and the convincing of others to accept one of its alternatives.
    Allow me to make reference to current events:
    Later today I’m expected to complete the defense’s case in a sexual assault trial where the facts are clear and they all disfavor the position of my client, a Mr. Leonard Busch. To make matters worse, counsel for the prosecution is as skillful, determined and ambitious as yours truly. A consti-pated-looking young woman whose eyebrows form a dark, piercing “V” when she speaks and whose every word vibrates with accusation, qualities which contributed to the splendid job she did in her exam-in-chief of the complainant. When the tears started in the middle of the girl’s recounting of the night in question my opponent stepped helplessly toward the witness box, leveled a vicious glare at my client, and shushed the girl with, “It’s alright, Debbie. You don’t have to look at him ,” while at the same time stabbing a trembling index finger at my man Lenny. It was a beautiful move: theatrical,maternal, prejudicial. The effect was so damaging that I was tempted to leap to my feet and make an objection against what was so obviously a purely tactical maneuver. But in the end I remained seated, met the prosecution’s eyes with what I hoped was a look of indignation and held my tongue. It’s important at such moments to remember one of the first rules of successful advocacy: sometimes one has to accept small defeats in the interest of capturing the final victory.
    But victory for Mr. Busch (and more importantly for his lawyer, Bartholomew Christian Crane) did not appear to be an imminent outcome of the trial. In fact, as the Crown’s evidence was paraded plainly before the court, the prospect of an acquittal seemed a fading likelihood unless our defense could come up with an ace. Nothing short of a miracle would do judging from the set faces of the jury who, although thoroughly screened to exclude socialists, feminists, and those who believed O.J. did it, knew a bona fide creep when they saw one. So as I raise my head from the pillow and blink my eyes open to the abusive light of a Toronto August dawn I search my mind for a savior for the otherwise doomed Leonard Busch.
    And nothing comes to me. But this is not unusual, given the time of day. The left ear buzzes, the right ear hums, my brain swollen inside its skull and tickling the nerves at the back of my eyes. Roll my head from side to side and let the whole mess slosh around. It’s on occasions like these (i.e. the