THIRTY-FOUR
THE ENTRANCE TO Raphael Angelo’s house is a good five-minute drive from the front gate. With an engraved wooden plaque announcing it as THE GRAVEYARD, my hopes aren’t exactly high. The house suddenly comes into view. It’s an enormous wood cabin with large panes of glass that reflect the forest behind us. It’s almost as if the few bricks we can see are a mirage, floating in the center of the forest, as though the house is trying to camouflage itself. I get out of the car and stretch my legs, feeling anxious. I don’t know what to say; I need help, but after the argument with Carrick, I can’t ask.
“So who’s going to talk?” I ask quietly. “We need to make a plan.”
“Bit late for that now,” he snaps, avoiding my gaze. He walks straight to the door and presses the doorbell. Stubborn as anything. I rush to catch up and the door opens before I get there.
The man who answers is a little over four feet tall.
He looks from me to Carrick and back to me again. “Well, my life just got interesting. Come in.”
He opens the door wider and leads the way farther into his house.
We walk through a large entry with a wooden staircase to an open-plan kitchen with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a rambling garden and the forest beyond. The interiors—walls, floors—are timber, all of varying types, colors, and grains. The cabin is light and bright, modern and classy. It is also manic. Everywhere I look I see children. From teenagers all the way down to a baby in a high chair, some with dwarfism, some not. They scatter when we walk in and gather at a long timber table beside more floor-to-ceiling tinted windows. They’re covered in paint.
“Ash, I told you not to eat the paint,” Raphael says. “Aspen, share the brushes with Elm. Hazel, the paint water is not for drinking. Little Myrtle is working on a masterpiece.” To us, “Myrtle makes everything look brown. I think it’s a skill.”
I look to the wall he’s pointing at, a section for each child. Ash, Aspen, Elm, Hazel, Cedar, and Myrtle. Myrtle’s are entirely brown.
“They’re all named after trees,” I say.
“Ding!” He makes the sound of a game show bell.
A woman laughs and makes her way past us and to the table to restore order.
“This is my wife, Susan. She is a saint.” She bends down to give him a long kiss as she passes. “A genius and the reason for my success. Susan, kids, this is Celestine and Carrick. Say hi.”
“Hi,” they say in unison.
Carrick and I glance at each other, noting he knows both our names.
Susan grins and waves us off.
We follow Raphael. Carrick’s eyes are more green than brown now, his innocence shining through as he studies the place with curiosity. We enter a room with a desk, and we both look around in awe. It’s no regular home office. Everything has been built for Raphael’s height, apart from the couch for us. Raphael sits in his chair; we sit on a couch opposite him.
On the floor is a rug made from the sewn-together outfit of a cowboy, a flattened rubber face, and a cowboy hat. I step over the boots, trying not to trip on the spurs. Over the fireplace is a human head, fake I hope, with antlers. It’s of a gray-haired old man who’s smiling with a gold tooth. The couch we’re sitting on, I realize, has been made to look like white skin with freckles.
“Nothing animal here,” he says, watching our reactions. “Irony. Go on, take it in. I’m vegan. Don’t believe in the murder of animals for food, fashion, or interior design. Everything here is faux, including the leather chaps on the rug. I call it Wayne.” He pauses. “I know, I know, a vegan little person. Dining out is difficult, but more so for my sister. She’s a celiac. That’s a joke,” he says, not breaking a smile or taking a breath. “I don’t have a sister.” He stands and goes to a cabinet for a whiskey. “I’d offer you both one, but you’re Flawed and the rules say you cannot drink alcohol. Here’s some water.” He throws us each a plastic bottle from a fridge and we catch them.
Carrick views the water suspiciously.
“Don’t worry. It’s not a trick: No animals were harmed in the packaging of that water. So here’s the thing. I love movies.” He reaches over and pulls out a drawer displaying hundreds of DVDs. “I watch around three a day and I know the score. Aged cop is about to retire, but he solves one last case and gets shot. Aged thief takes on one last job before retirement. Goes wrong and he gets caught. It’s inevitable. You attract your fears, art imitates life, life imitates art, and so on, and even though it will concern my wife, Susan, greatly—”
“Do it or I’ll leave you,” she shouts from the room next door.
“Even though it will concern my loving wife, Susan, greatly, I will consider taking you on. In my story I won’t get shot or caught. I’m a lawyer who has never lost a case, so for me, the movie is that I come out of retirement, and then I lose.”
I look at Carrick finally.
“But that’s the worst-case scenario. I never lose, don’t intend on doing so now. I assume you have no money; you’re on the run, which makes it difficult for you to hold down a job and pay me, and even if you were working, no Flawed job could afford you my fees. It also puts me in a precarious position and makes this even more difficult than it would have been had you not become evaders, but that’s okay. I’m used to complications. I suggest representing you both separately, no offense, Carrick, and I noticed you were surprised I knew your name, but I read the news, follow the court proceedings, and while you didn’t get anything close to the publicity of your neighbor here, I managed to read a few sentences about your little debacle. An honorable if stupid one.
“Celestine’s the star here. Every power couple has one member who’s less successful—it always causes cracks, but suck it up, some people figure out ways to work it out. I’m assuming you’re here because I am the only lawyer in the history of the world who has had a Flawed verdict overturned. I don’t know how you found that out, it was strictly confidential, no paper trail whatsoever, but you can tell me that later. It was an outcome that didn’t even benefit your dear friend Mr. Crevan. So how did I do it?”
He pauses, then smiles.
“I was right. And right wins every time. Along with hard work, perseverance, ridiculous amounts of money, threats, trickery, and somebody leading the case who has the time to be bothered to care. When I care, I care.