Authors: Paul Levine
“Bobby, it's your uncle Steve.”
The boy scuttled to the far corner of the cage, eyes wide with fear.
“Don't be scared.”
Bobby rocked back and forth.
“Do you remember me?”
The rocking grew faster.
A padlock secured the cage, and Steve began working at the hinges with his bare hands, trying to lift the pin. Just then, the door to the shed flew open and a broad-shouldered man with a tangled beard stepped inside. The man could have been thirty or sixty or anywhere in between. He wore a dirty red Mackinaw and a winter hat with fur earflaps, and his face was smudged with black splotches that looked like charcoal dust. He gripped a stick as thick as a man's forearm. Probably carved from an oak tree, the stick was curved at the top like a shepherd's staff.
“I'm the boy's uncle,” Steve said. “He's coming with me.”
“He ain't going nowhere,” the man said.
Bobby continued rocking.
The man closed the distance between them and drew back the curved stick. His voice rumbled, “‘Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.' Matthew, Chapter Ten, Verse Eight.”
“Get the fuck out of my way. Solomon. Chapter One. You don't want to hear Chapter Two.”
“Be gone!” The man swung the stick, and Steve took the impact on the shoulder and staggered backward. The man swung again and Steve stopped the stick with both hands and shoved back, hard. He slammed the man against the shed wall and pushed the stick to his neck. Steve's face was buried in the collar of the soggy Mackinaw, and a mangy smell like a wet dog made him gag. The man squirmed and gasped for air and tried to knee Steve in the groin. Steve kept up the pressure, jamming the stick hard into the man's Adam's apple. When his attacker's face turned crimson, a gurgle coming from his throat, Steve released him, and the man dropped to the floor.
Still holding the stick, Steve turned to Bobby. “The padlock. Where's the key?”
The boy stopped rocking, but he still hadn't said a word.
“Bobby, do you understand what I'm saying?”
“Uncle Steve, look out!”
Steve pivoted and swung the stick like a baseball bat even before he saw the man coming up from the floor, a hunting knife in his hand. Head down, hips turning, it was a compact but powerful swing.
The stick caught the man squarely above the temple with a
crunch
of bone: he dropped like a mallard felled by a hunter. Steve stood over him, breathing hard, aware of his own pounding heart. Frozen in place, filled with fear. Had he killed him?
“We better go, Uncle Steve.”
The voice was so close it startled him. Bobby was outside the cage, the back panel removed. “Mom doesn't know I can do this.”
The man on the floor was moaning, trying to get to his feet. Thank God he wasn't dead. Steve grabbed Bobby and swung him into his arms, stunned by how light he was. All elbows and knees, no meat on his bones.
They ducked out of the shed. Dogs barked. Lights flicked on in the farmhouse. Steve could make out a shadowy figure on the porch and the silhouette of what looked like a rifle or a shotgun.
“You! Stop!”
Carrying Bobby, Steve took off. He headed for the tree line, heard shouts from behind, looked back over his shoulder, caught glimpses of men with torches. A shotgun roared. Then another blast, echoing across the valley. He ran through the woods, leaping over fallen trees, slipping on wet rocks, crossing a stream, chugging hard up a hill and down the other side, through a strand of mahogany trees, running hard and not stopping until there were no more torches, no more gunshots, and no more men.
They were in the car headed toward Tallahassee before Steve spoke again. “I didn't think you remembered me.”
“You took me snorkeling,” Bobby said.
“That's right. I did. You must have been about five or six.”
“It was September eleventh. I was five plus eight months and three days. We saw lots of green-and-yellow fish with blue spots that sparkled.”
“Angelfish.”
“Holacanthus ciliaris.
I gave one a name.”
“Really?”
“You told me not to touch the coral because it'll break and it takes hundreds of years to grow back. I liked the sea fans best because they wave at you like they're friendly. And the parrotfish.
Sparisoma viride.
They look like parrots but they don't talk.”
“How do you remember all that? How do you know their Latin names?”
The boy's thin shoulders shrugged.
“Do you want to go to my house?”
“Eleven white stones from the driveway to the front door.”
“I guess there are. Would you like to go there?”
“I named the angelfish ‘Steve,'” Bobby said.
Now, ten months later, Bobby was putting on weight—thanks to the paninis—and becoming more comfortable around people. He said good-bye to his grandfather, hung up the phone, and came over to the counter just as Steve opened the lid of the grill.
“Turn them a hundred eighty degrees,” Bobby said.
“That's what I'm doing.” Steve slid the sandwiches around to cross-hatch the bread with grill marks.
“Not a hundred ninety,” Bobby ordered. “The marks won't be even.”
“Got it.”
The melting cheese sizzled seductively, and an aroma of salty sweetness filled the kitchen. “How come you and Pop always argue?” Bobby asked.
“I guess because we've each done things that disappoint the other.”
Bobby used his tongue to snap a rubber band on his braces. “Do I disappoint you?”
“Never. Not once.”
The boy's smile was all orthodonture. “Don't burn the sandwiches, Uncle Steve.”
“Have I told you today how much I love you, kiddo?”
“You tell me every day, Uncle Steve.”
“Well, today, I'm telling you twice.”
Five
MONEY, SEX, AND MURDER
Inside the Justice Building, Steve was feeling as gray as the weather outside. The morning session ended with a Customs Officer testifying that Amancio Pedrosa was harboring a menagerie of smuggled birds, including a foulmouthed cockatoo.
A beaming Victoria then crowed: “Having established a prima facie case, we rest, Your Honor.”
Steve made his obligatory motion for a directed verdict. Judge Gridley called a sidebar conference and asked his advice: Should he take the over or the under on the Michigan State–Penn State game? The under, Steve said. The weather forecast for central Pennsylvania was wind and rain. The judge agreed, then denied Steve's motion.
With no pyrotechnics to ignite, Steve had spent considerable time studying his opponent. Today Victoria wore a dark, tweedy jacket with a matching skirt. She looked professional and businesslike—and, given the conservative wool, unaccountably sexy. Next to her at the prosecution table, Ray Pincher whispered to a variety of aides, who brought him messages and kneeled at his feet like supplicants to a king.
Now, returning from lunch, Steve hurried along the crowded corridor, weaving past sheriff's deputies, touring schoolchildren, and lawyers soliciting clients. A courtroom door opened and an elderly man toddled out; Steve braked but still bumped the man. “Whoops. Sorry, Marvin,” he apologized.
“Watch out, boychik, or I'll sue you for whiplash,” Marvin Mendelsohn said.
Marvin the Maven was the unofficial chief of the Courthouse Gang, a posse of retirees who moseyed from courtroom to courtroom, observing the juiciest trials. The Maven was a dapper little man, almost eighty, with a pencil mustache, oversize black-framed glasses, and a bald head that shone under the fluorescent lights. Today he wore gray wool slacks and a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons. A paisley cravat of shimmering silk blossomed like a colorful bouquet at his neck.
“Looking good, Marvin.”
“Horseshit. My sciatica's killing me. You wanna sue my chiropractor?”
To most lawyers, Marvin and his Gang were either invisible or bothersome.
Alter kockers.
Old farts who clogged the cafeteria line and kibitzed in the corridors. Steve enjoyed their company. He lunched with them, listened to their stories, took their advice. Marvin the Maven had uncanny instincts about jury selection, particularly with women, where Steve needed the most help. Marvin had owned a women's shoe store in Buffalo for forty years before fleeing the winters. Maybe it was selling thousands of pumps and slingbacks, stilettos and sandals over the years that gave Marvin insights most men lack. Or maybe it was just listening to the women themselves.
“So what you got going besides your
farshtinkener
bird trial?” Marvin asked, as they made their way down the corridor.
“I'm trying to hustle Katrina Barksdale.”
“The woman who
shtupped
her husband to death?”
“Can you imagine the trial? Money, sex, and murder.”
“Save me a seat in the front row.”
“If I got that case, I could pay my bills, get a new car, hire a tutor for Bobby.”
“I love you like a grandson, Steve, but why would this woman hire a low-rent lawyer like you?”
“Because Victoria Lord's going to recommend me.”
“You romancing that fancy lady prosecutor? That your way in?”
“All business, Marvin.”
“What happened to that nice Jewish girl you were going out with?”
“Sally Panther? She's a Miccosukee.”
“So? Indians are the lost tribes of Israel.”
“Whatever she is, she dumped me.”
“Okay, so sniff around after Miss Lord. But if you ask me, she'll buy her pumps at Wal-Mart before she brings you a case.”
As they walked, Steve told Marvin his game plan. He was about to put on the defense case in the Pedrosa trial. He'd dazzle Victoria with his footwork and hypnotize her with his words. He'd win, but he'd win nice.
Marvin gave him a skeptical look. “You're playing by the rules?”
“Strictly Marquis of Queensberry.”
“This I gotta see.”
“You don't think I can do it?”
Marvin shrugged. “Why do you think the Gang watches your trials?”
“Because I'm the only lawyer who'll talk to you.”
“Because you're Barnum and Bailey. You try a case, there's always a dozen clowns crawling out of a little car.”
“Not today.”
Marvin was quiet a moment. Then he said: “Sometimes a woman who needs a size nine will lie to herself. Try to squeeze into an eight-and-a-half.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you don't know it, boychik, but getting the Barksdale case is your alibi. It's the girl you're after.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good, because this one's not your type.”
“Meaning what?”
“She's classy, is all. No offense.”
“Jeez, Marvin. I thought you loved me like one of your grandsons.”
“They never visit,” the old man said.
The corridor was jammed with the usual flotsam and jetsam. Sheriff's deputies herded shackled prisoners from holding cells to courtrooms, bail bondsmen trailing in their wake like rudderfish after sharks. The prisoners' girlfriends and wives lined the walls, yelling encouragement or insults at their men, depending on the current state of their relationships.
The elevator door opened, and an attractive, trim woman in her seventies walked out.
“Hola,
Marvin. Stephen.”
Teresa Toraño wore a stylish two-button herringbone jacket with a matching camel skirt. Her dark hair was tied back in a bun with what looked like ivory chopsticks.
“Teresa,” the men said in unison.
Teresa's husband, Oscar, had owned a chain of funeral homes in Havana but lost the business—and his life—when he opposed Fidel Castro. In the early 1960's, Teresa brought their children to Miami and worked for minimum wage as a mortician's assistant. Within five years, she had her own license and opened Funeraria Toraño on Calle Ocho. By the time she turned the businesses over to her children, Teresa owned seven funeral homes, a jai-alai fronton, and a Chevrolet dealership.
In Steve's accounting ledger—a ragged notebook where he recorded his income, when he had any—Teresa Toraño was listed as Client 001. Looking back, he wondered if he could have made it that first year if she hadn't hired him to represent her companies. Since then, they had grown close. Teresa adored Bobby, taking him to the Seaquarium and baking him
pastelitos de guayaba.
It was almost time for her homemade
crema de vie,
the anise Christmas drink that makes eggnog seem like Slim-Fast.
At about the time Teresa became Steve's client
numero uno,
she became Marvin's second love—the only woman he'd been with since the death of his beloved Bess. Now Marvin spent every Friday night at Teresa's Coral Gables villa. Neither ever acknowledged the relationship, not even when Steve ran into them holding hands and drinking mimosas at brunch one recent Saturday morning.
“Stephen, what did you do to Jack Zinkavich?” Teresa demanded as they approached Judge Gridley's courtroom.
“Nothing. Why?”
“I hear things.”
“Yeah?”
“The receptionist in Family Services is a cousin of my late Oscar's grandniece,” Teresa said, “and she eats lunch with an investigator who works with Zinkavich.”
“What's that gotta do with me?” Steve asked.
“Zinkavich told his investigator he's gonna kick your
culo.”
“The
momzer,”
Marvin said.
“Zinkavich wants to take Bobby away from me,” Steve said.
“That's not it,” Teresa said. “He's talking about criminal charges.”
Steve stopped dead. “For what?”
“All I know, he took a trip to Blountstown to look into it.”
Calhoun County, Steve thought. In the Panhandle. Where he'd busted Bobby out of the commune. And busted the bearded guy's skull.
A feeling of dread swept over him. Criminal charges?
Why's the Fink coming after me? All I want is to protect Bobby, give him a life.
“You watch out for Zinkavich,” Marvin warned. “He may look like a schlub, but he's mean as a Cossack.”
“Even worse,” Teresa said. “Mean as a
comunista.”
Six
VICTORIA'S SECRET
Walking into Judge Gridley's courtroom with Marvin and Teresa at his side, Steve took a quick inventory of his life. Zinkavich was gunning for him; his crazed sister was on the loose; and a mysterious pickup truck might be tailing him. Not only that, a case he lusted after seemed beyond his reach. Maybe a woman, too.
Could it be, he wondered, that the high point of the last couple days was spending time in jail with Victoria Lord?
The jurors were in their box. Reading, knitting, staring into space. Ray Pincher was in the gallery, pumping constituents' hands. Judge Gridley was in his chambers, probably on the phone with his bookie.
At the prosecution table, Victoria was shuffling through her neatly arranged note cards. Steve nodded in her direction. “Marvin, give me your quick read.”
The old man squinted through his thick glasses. “Gucci pumps, snakeskin. And that woven leather handbag. Bottega Veneta. Fancy-schmancy.”
“I figure she's an heiress.”
“Not just expensive,” Teresa said. “Good taste, too.”
Steve headed toward her. “Wish me luck.”
“Gai shlog dein kup en vant,”
Marvin said. “Go bang your head against the wall.”
Steve sized up Victoria's miniature war room. Her table was ringed with a Maginot Line of law books stacked six high. At her feet were boxes filled with files. On the table were cross-indexed depositions, fat pleadings binders, a box of index cards, and a dozen yellow pads. Lined up alongside were colored pens, Magic Markers, a ruler, and a pair of scissors. A plastic salad container held her uneaten lunch.
As Steve approached, he noticed that her skirt was hiked several inches above the knee. He'd known women lawyers who intentionally gave the jury a peek. Not Victoria. Any show of thigh would be totally accidental. But still appreciated.
He watched her drum her fingers on the table. Rookie jitters. The nails were painted a light pink. He pictured her at an expensive spa. Massage, facial, body wrapped in seaweed. Marvin was right. Fancy-schmancy.
At that moment, Victoria was also looking at her nails. Before racing to court, she had clipped, filed, and painted them a color called “Alaskan Dusk.” They'd been in terrible shape, the polish chipped, cuticles ragged. Now she used a fingernail to scrape some excess polish from a cuticle. Damn, she'd been rushed. When was the last time she spent the money for a manicure, much less a pedicure? These days, she did all her own grooming, including the blond highlights in her hair. Number eight Winter Blonde mixed with twenty volume peroxide. Her mother, who spent endless hours in the best salons, was appalled and let her know about it.
Victoria heard her stomach growling. There'd been no time for lunch. Not when she had to prepare for Solomon's stunts. While she had put on the state's case, he'd been unexpectedly well behaved. What was he planning? Pincher had it right when he advised her: “Keep your cool while he plays the fool.”
Don't worry, boss. Nothing Solomon can say or do will frazzle me.
She made another vow, too.
I'm going to win.
She had the evidence; she had the law; and she was smarter than Solomon.
Victoria imagined herself an architect, drawing up precise plans for a solid house. Solomon was a vandal, tearing down pillars, spray-painting graffiti. To him, laws were meant to be twisted, judges manipulated, jurors confused. He didn't even do research, for God's sake. She indexed every deposition by subject matter and cross-indexed by keyword. Every relevant appellate case was Shepardized, summarized, and yellow-lined. Her closing argument had been prepared for weeks. When Solomon came to court, carrying nothing but a cup of coffee, his hair was still wet from the shower and he was shaving in the elevator.
And here he came now, with that annoying grin on his face. Was he staring at her legs again?
“Got some trial tips for you.” Steve parked his butt on the corner of her table.
She covered up her index cards so he couldn't steal her closing argument.
“Never skip lunch,” he said, pointing at the unopened salad container. “Trials are draining. You need your energy.”
“What do you want, Solomon?”
He picked up a pair of scissors from her table, folded an index card twice, began snipping. “Look at my table. What do you see?”
“Your client. Sound asleep.”
True. Slumped in his chair, bird smuggler Amancio Pedrosa was snoring, drool dripping into a rectangular patch of whiskers just south of his lower lip. He was a stocky man in his forties in a rumpled guayabera.
Steve continued snipping at the card. “What else you see?”
“Nothing. There's nothing on your table except a blank legal pad.”
“Almost blank,” he agreed. “Sofia wrote her home number there while we were at lunch.”
“Sofia?”
“The court reporter.”
He nodded toward the attractive, dark-haired woman slipping a new roll of paper into her stenograph machine. Sofia Hernandez smiled back.
The woman's see-through orange blouse seemed inappropriate for court, Victoria thought. It was also a trifle small, or were her breasts simply a trifle large?
“What do you and Sofia do for fun?” Victoria asked. “Have her read back your best objections?”
“C'mon, this for your own good. What do the jurors think when they look at my table?”
“That you're not prepared.”
“That I'm not worried.” He gestured with the scissors toward the wall of law books on Victoria's table. “This little fortress seals you off. Unfriendly. Off-putting. The jury's thinking, ‘If she had to do all that work, she's got a weak case.' So, tip two, come into court lean and mean.”
“You practice your way, I'll practice mine.”
Steve unfolded the scissored index card and handed her the cutout of a long-winged bird. “For you. To remember this day.”
The courtroom door opened, and in walked a tall, handsome man with a great head of silvery blond hair.
“Oh, no,” Victoria groaned. She scooped up her salad container and tossed it into an open trial bag.
The handsome man walked toward them with long strides. He wore gray slacks, a blue blazer, and a white shirt with a club tie. His tie tack was a Phi Beta Kappa key. He looked Steve in the eye and extended a hand. “I'm Bruce Bigby,” he boomed so cheerily he might have been running for County Commissioner. “Are you Steve Solomon?”
“I am, unless you're a process server.”
Bruce Bigby? The name was familiar, but Steve couldn't get a handle on it.
“Heard all about you.” Bigby shook Steve's hand hard enough to crack walnuts. He leaned over and kissed Victoria on the cheek. “Hello, sweetie.”
Sweetie?
“Bruce, what are you doing here?”
“Zoning Commission meets downstairs. How was the avocado salad?”
“Delicious,” she said, shooting a look, sharp as a dagger, at Steve, who judiciously kept quiet. “So thoughtful of you to make it.”
Who the hell is this guy? Boyfriend or personal chef?
“Sweetie!” Bruce Bigby sounded alarmed. “Where's your ring?”
Victoria glanced toward the jury box, then whispered: “It's a little ostentatious in front of the jurors.”
“Nonsense. They'll understand. You've got a man who loves you enough to go whole hog.”
Victoria smiled wanly, dug into her Italian handbag, brought out a small velvet box, and opened it.
“Holy shit.” Steve peered at a hefty slab of a diamond, held up by four pedestals, like one of those houses built on stilts in Biscayne Bay. Running up each side were two rows of smaller yet still chubby diamonds.
Victoria slipped the ring on. It looked heavy enough to give her a case of carpal tunnel.
“You're engaged?” Steve felt like someone had slugged him in the gut.
“Say, Steve, you like avocados?” Bigby said.
“I don't spend a lot time thinking about them.” He was still processing the information.
Victoria Lord was engaged!
“Because Monday, I could bring two salads,” Bigby said. “Baby lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes, and fresh avocados from Bigby Farms.”
Bigby Farms. Bingo. Thousands of acres between Homestead and the Everglades. Agriculture, real estate, land development . . .
Bigby said: “Nothing like six grams of fiber to flush you out.”
“Or a thousand grams of beef burrito,” Steve said, sinking deep into depression.
“Those nitrites will kill you, my friend. Thank God I got Victoria to become a vegan.”
Steve could have sworn he'd seen Victoria at the Sweet Potato Pie the other day, sucking on a short rib.
“Lips that touch pork chops shall never touch mine,” Bigby said.
Dammit, why hadn't she told me?
A beautiful woman without her engagement ring is like a handgun without a safety. She'd known he was interested. He'd offered her margaritas and tapas and his own personal mentoring. But she wasn't available. And still she let him go on. Had she told Bigby about the schmuck who kept hitting on her? Had they laughed at him over guacamole?
The more Steve thought about it, the hotter the fire burned. What was he doing giving her trial tips? Using kid gloves instead of brass knuckles? Didn't he have an obligation to zealously represent his client?
Damn right. You could look it up. The preamble to Rule Four of the ethical rules.
Zealous advocacy. It's required. Wimps need not apply.
To hell with winning nice. It was time to take Victoria Lord to school and steal her lunch money. He'd slash and burn, scorch the earth, leave bomb craters in the courtroom. When he was done with her, she'd never set foot in the Justice Building again.
Another thought crept into his mind, a searing realization of blinding truth. What he was planning was not so much
zealous
advocacy as
jealous
advocacy. Was Marvin right?
“Getting the Barksdale case is your alibi. It's the girl you're after.”
Not anymore. As for his plan to hustle the Barksdale case, forget it. He pictured Victoria down on the farm with Diamond Bruce Bigby, ridiculing Steve.
“Solomon is so deluded, he thinks I'd send him Kat Barksdale as a client.”
“Say, Steve, mind if I say something out of school?”
Bigby talking. What the hell did he want?
“Shoot,” Steve said.
Bruce laid a protective hand on Victoria's shoulder. “My sweetie tells me you're one heck of a wily competitor.”
“She said that?”
Bruce laughed like a man who didn't owe anyone a dime. “Actually, she said you're a sleazy son-of-a-bitch who should be disbarred, flogged, and run out of town.”
“She's an excellent judge of character.”
“Isn't your hearing about to start, hon?” Victoria said.
Bigby plowed ahead, looking Steve squarely in the eyes. “I told Victoria you were her baptism of fire.” He stopped, caught himself. “That's not offensive to you, is it, Steve, the word ‘baptism'? I mean, I assume you're Jewish.”
“No problem. It's probably better than ‘Bar Mitzvah of fire.'”
“Anyway, I told her that crossing swords with you would be good training for coming in-house.”
“Not following you, Bruce.”
“After we're married, I want Victoria to come aboard. General counsel of Bigby Resort and Villas. We're converting farmland to vacation ownership units. More than eight thousand potential owners. Can you imagine the paperwork?”
“Time-shares?” Steve asked. “You're selling time-shares in the Everglades?”
Bigby held up a hand. “Please. Time-share is old school, used-car salesmen in cheesy sport coats giving away steak knives. Vacation ownership reflects modern sensibilities.”
“Like calling a garbage dump a sanitary landfill?”
“I can give you a heckuva deal on a unit right on the lake. Throw in upgraded cabinets, too.”
A
beep
interrupted them. Pulling out his pager, Bigby checked the digital display. “Whoops. Zoning Board's back. Gotta go.”
He brush-kissed Victoria, slapped Steve heartily on the back, and hustled out of the courtroom.
Victoria pretended to study her notes. “Don't say a word.”
“Real estate contracts? You, a paper pusher? And what's that bit with the salad?”
“I'm allergic to avocados.”
“And you've never told your fiancé?”
“It would hurt his feelings.”
“Why aren't you that nice to me?”
“You don't have feelings.”
“So, you can be honest with a guy you call a sleazy son-of-a-bitch but you have to lie to the man you allegedly love?”
“This doesn't concern you.”
“May I ask a personal question?”
“No.”
“This Bigby. Does he have a foot-long shlong?”
“You are such a vulgarian.”
“Because I don't know what you see in him.”
“Go back to your table.”
“He's not right for you. He's got no poetry in his soul.”
“And you do?”
“Maybe not,” Steve said. “But at least I wish I did.”
“All rise! Court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County is now in session!” Elwood Reed, the elderly bailiff, announced His Honor's arrival as if the judge were Charles the Second ascending the throne. “All those having business before this honorable court, draw near!”
Judge Gridley strode in, robes flowing, and with a wave commanded all to sit. “Are counsel ready to proceed?”
“State's ready, Your Honor,” Victoria said.
“Defense is ready, willing, and able, Your Honor,” Steve said, sliding off the prosecution table.
“Mr. Solomon, call your first witness,” the judge ordered.
“The defense calls Mr. Ruffles,” Steve said.
“Objection!” Victoria leapt from her chair and knocked over a stack of books.
“On what grounds?” the judge asked.
“Mr. Ruffles is a bird,” she said.