Mortal Sin

by Paul Levine

  “But Mr. Lassiter didn’t obtain court permission for this so-called exhumation, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Just as he didn’t obtain court permission for the blatantly illegal surreptitious tape recording in this case, correct?”

  “I’m not familiar with this case, Counselor.”

  “Ah so,” Faircloth said, as if he had elicited a devastating admission.

  On his way out of the courtroom, Charlie patted me on the shoulder and whispered, “Vincit veritas. Truth wins out.”

  Damn, I thought. Truth was, I committed a crime.

  We took a brief recess so the judge could call his bookie. When we resumed, my backside hadn’t even warmed up the witness chair when Wilbert Faircloth announced, “Mr. Lassiter, you have the right to counsel at this hearing. So that the record is clear, do you waive that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you do so freely, knowingly, and voluntarily?” Faircloth asked in the typical lawyer’s fashion of using three words when one will suffice.

  “Affirmative, yessir, and friggin’ A,” I answered. One of these days my sarcasm was going to get me in trouble. Maybe this was the day.

  Faircloth seemed to puff out his bony chest. “The hour is growing late, so I suggest we cut to the chase without further ado.”

  “I’m all for skipping the ado,” I agreed. Judge Gold gave me a pained look, or maybe he just had stomach gas.

  “Now, sir,” Faircloth continued, “did you or did you not surreptitiously tape-record your own client, one Guillermo Diaz, on or about February 12, 1993?”

  I remembered the day. It was cool and breezy. I should have gone windsurfing. The black vultures soared effortlessly around the windows of my bayfront office, lazing in the updrafts. Thirty-two stories below, the predators in double-breasted suits were toting their briefcases to the courthouse. Birds of a feather.

  Guillermo Diaz was chunky and round-faced with a nose somebody hadn’t liked. He wore loafers with elevator heels, a short-sleeve knit shirt that was stretched taut against his belly. He had soft white hands and hard black eyes. He was harmless-looking, which made him better at his job. His job was killing people.

  Diaz worked with a brute named Rafael Ramos who was twice as big but only half as tough. Together they were hired to shake down a horse trainer in Ocala who borrowed sixty thousand dollars from their boss at 5 percent interest. A week.

  The trainer figured he’d pay it back quickly out of winnings, but his nags had an annoying habit of either finishing fourth, tossing their riders, or suffering heart attacks in the backstretch. With interest accumulating at three thousand a week, before compounding, the debt soon reached a hundred grand. When the trainer couldn’t pay, Diaz and Ramos headed north on the Turnpike in a blue-black Lincoln Town Car.

  Diaz joked that they should lop off the head of Ernie’s Folly, a three-year-old filly, and leave it in the trainer’s bed. “Just like in the movie.”

  Ramos was puzzled. “What movie?”

  “Jesus, with Pacino and Brando. ‘I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.’”

  Ramos stared blankly at him.

  “You know, you gotta get out more,” Diaz said.

  Guillermo Diaz hated working with someone so stupid. He had to do all the thinking himself. What can you talk about with someone like Rafael Ramos, who sits there cleaning his fingernails with an eight-inch shiv? Playing Julio Iglesias tapes all the way up the turnpike. Jesús Cristo! Julio Iglesias.

  Make him an offer he can’t refuse. Though it started as a joke, riding through dreary central Florida past the orange groves and into the scrubby pine country, the idea sounded better all the time. Outside of Okahumpka, Diaz aimed the Lincoln toward the exit ramp. Ramos didn’t even notice. He was humming along to “Abrázame.” Diaz found a hardware store in a strip shopping center and bought a chain saw from a pimply clerk who tried to sell him tree fertilizer plus fifty pounds of mulch on sale.

  Back in the car, Ramos asked, “Fuck we need a chain saw for?”

  “The horse.”

  “What horse?”

  Diaz explained again, and Ramos started whining about his new white linen guayabera, and what a mess it would be. Diaz was so tired of the bellyaching, he agreed to forget about the horse—they’d just use the saw to scare the guy. The noise alone would make him shit his pants.

  “No need to chop him into pieces,” Diaz said. “Not like in that movie with Pacino and the guy in the shower.”

  “The movie with the horse?”

  “No, different movie. Pacino’s a Marielito in this one. More Cuban than you. Smarter, too.”

  They stopped at a service station, and Diaz filled the small tank on the chain saw, dribbling gasoline onto his patent-leather loafers. At the horse farm, they found the trainer in a barn made of telephone poles set in concrete. A light rain was falling, pinging off the barn’s tin roof.

  The trainer was a gray-haired man in his fifties, lean and wiry, with the blue-veined nose of the drinker. They backed him into a corner, where he stumbled over a pile of Seminole feed bags and nearly impaled himself on a pitchfork. The two enforcers felt out of place here, nearly intoxicated from the ripe, earthy smells of the barn, the distinctive tang of horse sweat, the sweetness of molasses from the feed mixing with the aroma of manure and urine, sawdust and creosote.

  It took Diaz half a dozen pulls to get the new, warranty-covered Black & Decker chugging. He threatened to cut off the man’s head if he didn’t pay up. Diaz yelled this, because sure enough, the little machine made a hell of a racket. The trainer was crying, begging for more time to pay. All the while, two golden palominos and a paint were kicking and snorting in their stalls. Ramos cursed and lifted his left foot, a moist glob of excrement sticking to his tasseled loafer. Flies buzzed around Diaz’s ears. Not little houseflies. Big, blue-winged monsters that looked like they could suck blood. By the quart.

  Diaz felt ill. He would rather be in Miami, banging a guy’s head against the asphalt in a back alley. He lived in a two-story stucco apartment building just off Jose Marti Avenue in Little Havana. The smells there were of cooking pork and steaming espresso. There were no horses with ugly square teeth and jackhammer hooves pounding the sideboards. He wanted to do the job and get the hell out of there.

  While the trainer was pleading for another twenty-four hours, Diaz decided to send him a message. Take a little chunk out of the man’s shoulder, just as a warning. Maybe get the guy to find a safe with some cash in it underneath the manure piles. In a movie, he saw the bad guys chop off someone’s little finger. He couldn’t remember if it made the man talk.

  Diaz lifted the chain saw with both hands. “No!” the trainer shrieked, his eyes filling with tears.

  “Ay, be thankful it’s not your pinga,” Diaz yelled over the roar.

  The saw was bucking, and the man was screaming, and the horses were kicking the place down, and Ramos was saying something he couldn’t hear. Diaz tried to gently tap the wailing machine against the trainer’s shoulder, but he missed. The churning blade came to rest against the man’s neck, where it bit through his carotid artery, splattering Ramos’s white linen guayabera a rich scarlet and spraying the two palominos, turning them into pintos.

  A week later, on that cool and breezy day, Guillermo Diaz sat in my office. “Grand jury meets this afternoon,” I told him.

  “Big fucking deal. They got no witnesses.”

  “Ramos turned state’s evidence, testified yesterday. You’re going to be indicted for Murder One.”

  “That’s bullshit. Where is the chickenshit cobarde? Where’s he now?”

  “In protective custody.

  “¿Dónde?”

  “How should I know? And what difference does it make? You think you can get him to change his mind?”

  “No, I think I can kill him.”

  Outside the windows, a buzzard landed on the ledge, spreading its six-foot wings, then folding them in that familiar h
unched-shoulder look. The ugly birds fly south each winter and perch outside the windows of high-rise lawyers, reminding us of our ethical standards.

  “You’re not kidding, are you Guillermo?”

  “You get to take his statement, “¿verdad?”

  “Right, a pre-trial deposition.”

  “You tell me when and where, it’s over real quick.”

  He stood up and paced to the window. Spooked, the buzzard spread its wings and soared away. I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on the credenza, and flicked the button on the Dictaphone. A little red light blinked on. “Let me get this straight, Guillermo. You’re asking me to set up Rafael Ramos, so you can kill him.”

  “Ay, Counselor, I do it with or without your help. What other choice I got?”

  “Yes,” I told Wilbert Faircloth. “I recorded my conversation with Mr. Diaz.”

  Faircloth let his voice pick up some volume. “And did you have a court order permitting you to conduct this recording?”

  “I did not.”

  “Was the recording made in the course and scope of a bona fide law-enforcement investigation?”

  “No, I did it on my own.”

  “And, as a lawyer, you are familiar with Chapter 934 of the Florida Statutes, are you not?”

  “I know the gist of it.”

  “The gist of it,” Faircloth repeated with some distaste. He paused, apparently considering whether to press me on the particulars of the law. “Do you know, sir, that the statute forbids tape recording a conversation unless all parties to that conversation have consented?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that on February twelfth, 1993?”

  What would be better, I wondered, denying knowledge of the statute and therefore admitting incompetence, or conceding I knew my conduct was felonious? Probably the former, but damn, it would be a lie. They couldn’t prove it, of course. No perjury charge. Still, one of Lassiter’s Rules is not to lie to the court.

  “Yes, I knew the law at the time.”

  “May we assume you obtained your client’s permission?”

  “You may assume it, but it wouldn’t be true.”

  “So then, you did not have Mr. Diaz’s consent to tape-record his conversation?”

  I can’t stand it when lawyers posture. “You expect me to ask permission to record his threats to kill a witness?”

  “No, Mr. Lassiter. I expect you to follow the law.”

  Touché.

  “Look, my plan was to record Diaz, withdraw from his case, and warn him that the tape would be turned over to the state attorney if anything happened to Rafael Ramos. The idea was to force him not to kill a man.”

  “But you were his attorney, Mr. Lassiter. You owed Mr. Diaz the duty of unyielding loyalty. The conversation was privileged. What gave you the right to act as his conscience?”

  “My conscience,” I answered. “Besides, once he disclosed the plan to commit a crime in the future, I believed the privilege was lost.”

  “Did you seek an advisory opinion from the bar to confirm your so-called belief?”

  “No. There wasn’t time.”

  “So you proceeded to knowingly violate Chapter 934 and to also breach the privilege by contacting the state attorney?”

  “Yes. Diaz fired me when I wouldn’t agree to set up a murder. I contacted Abe Socolow after Ramos was found with three bullets in his skull.”

  “Do you have any regrets about your conduct?”

  “Yeah. I regret not calling Abe before Diaz killed Ramos.”

  “Now, isn’t it true that Mr. Diaz was never convicted of that crime?”

  “Right. There was a profound lack of witnesses.”

  “And you have no proof that Mr. Diaz committed this crime, do you, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I have no proof.” I hate questions phrased in the negative.

  “And do you have an explanation for your behavior?”

  “It seemed the right thing to do at the time,” I said.

  Faircloth couldn’t suppress a snicker. “It seemed the right thing to do.” He shot a look at the judge, trying to figure if he was scoring points. When he turned back to me, his smirk announced he was three touchdowns up with a minute to play. “Is that how you live your life, Mr. Lassiter, doing what seems right at the time?”

  I didn’t have to think about the answer. It was just there, the simple, stark truth. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I do.”

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Goblins in the Night

  CHARLIE RIGGS WAS WATCHING A LITHE YOUNG WOMAN IN BLACK Lycra shorts and a bikini top whirl through a pirouette on her Rollerblades, smack in the middle of Ocean Drive. No drivers yelled. No horns honked. A white stretch limo politely pulled around her. Four bearded guys gunned their black Harleys in an admiring salute as they gave her room. Two Miami Beach cops in khaki shorts weaved in and out of traffic on their bicycles, looking tanned, fit, and friendly, despite the Sig-Sauer nine-millimeters on their hips.

  “Fascinating,” Charlie said, as the young woman sped down the center line.

  “Her abdominals, or the aerodynamics of the sport?” I asked.

  “Dying of hypothermia in Miami in August,” he answered, dipping a piece of pita bread into a bowl of pureed eggplant with garlic. We were sitting at a sidewalk table of the News Cafe, gathering spot for artists, actors, models, and assorted junior-varsity wannabes. A light breeze from the ocean, a few hundred yards to the east, cut the midday heat to manageable levels. To the west, storm clouds gathered over the Everglades. In the summer, lunch is followed by mid afternoon thunderstorms nine days out of ten. I was wearing jeans, running shoes, dark glasses, and a Hawaiian shirt festooned with orchids. Charlie had on baggy pants that he must have worn while painting his house, a green surgical smock, and a fisherman’s vest with various hooks and flies attached. He wore a shapeless canvas hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. To the casual observer, he was either the hippest guy on trendy South Beach or a demented professor.

  Charlie took a sip of his lemonade and said, “A few years ago, a body turned up in Bayfront Park. It was July. A lad in his late teens, frozen stiff as a board and banged up a bit. Nobody could figure out what the deuce had happened. We checked the local meat lockers, ice plants, that sort of thing. I did the autopsy. Cause of death was asphyxia. Checked the inventory of his pockets. No wallet, no ID, no nothing except an Eastern Air Lines schedule and a hundred colons in Costa Rican currency. Of course, that solved the mystery.”

  “It did?”

  “The poor wretch had no visa and no money for a ticket, so he crawled into the wheel well of a jet at the airport in San Jose. There’s space up there that a man—well, not someone your size, but this fellow—could fit into. The wheel well isn’t pressurized, and if the lack of oxygen hadn’t killed him, the temperature would have.”

  “The fall probably didn’t do him any good, either,” I speculated.

  A group of Hare Krishnas chanted and bangled their way along the sidewalk, sweat glistening on their shaved heads. I took a bite of my cheeseburger. South Beach overflows with chichi cafés where the pasta is al dente and the tuna rare, but I’m still a burger-and-brew guy. I’m as health-conscious as the next guy, as long as the next guy is sitting on a barstool, but there are limits. It doesn’t bother me if someone waxes poetic about the joys of bean sprouts. If a scrawny woman feasts on grapefruit and lettuce, fine. If a guy is a vegetarian jogger, that’s great, too, though most look as if they couldn’t buck a force-three wind. I don’t tell other people how to live, and I appreciate reciprocity.

  Once when I was chomping a cheeseburger with a side of fries at an outdoor cafe in Coconut Grove, a fragile-looking guy in a gold velour warmup suit and white bicycling helmet stopped short at my table. “I’d hate to see the inside of your arteries,” he said somberly.

  “Fine,” I responded, taking a long swallow of my chocolate shake. “I’ll tear your heart out, a
nd we’ll look at yours.”

  He blinked and took a step backward. “Eat yourself to death, if you want. All that animal fat leads to cardiac arrest and the excess protein causes kidney failure.”

  “So does a good left hook,” I advised him.

  I don’t believe in being judgmental. You eat your tofu, I’ll eat my T-bone. Today, though, it was a rare burger with purple onions, ripe tomato slices, and tangy mustard on a fresh-baked roll. A nice slab of melted Jarlsberg cheese to keep the juices in the meat. With all the pasta and sushi places, it isn’t easy to find a good burger any more, so it’s a real quiniela if the same place also serves Grolsch, the Dutch beer.

  “You say Mr. Tupton had been drinking?” Charlie asked.

  “Heavily.”

  “And the room temperature was in the fifties?”

  “Fifty-six, right on the button, and Tupton was soaking wet.”

  In the street, several young men carried a banner protesting discrimination against AIDS victims. The Miami Beach bicycle cops patiently directed traffic around the demonstrators. Charlie smoothed his beard with the back of his hand. “That could do it. Once in a while, in the winter down here, with the ambient temperature in the fifties, we’ll see a homeless person die of hypothermia. If there’s been excessive alcohol intake, vasodilation is the killer. The blood vessels dilate, body temperature plummets. All kinds of complications can result, metabolic acidosis, elevations in serum amylase, and pancreatitis.” A shirtless man walked by, a bright green mynah perched on his shoulder. Hardly anyone turned to stare. “How long was Tupton in there?”

  “Twelve, fourteen hours. The maid discovered him in the morning. When the paramedics arrived, his body temperature was seventy-seven degrees. No respiration, no heartbeat.”

  “Ventricular fibrillation was the likely terminal event. Seems like he died of natural causes, so what’s the problem, Jake?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know. It was just this vague uneasiness. I took a bite of the burger and drained the beer.

  “Any surprises in the autopsy?” asked the man who had performed twenty thousand before retiring to a life of fishing and reading medical texts in their original Latin.