by Paul Levine
The bearded man with the walking stick.
The man smelled like wet straw and tobacco. Sometimes he slept in Mom's bed, and sometimes, after they yelled and hit each other, he would spend the night on the floor of the shed, farting and cursing. Bobby had watched the man carve the stick from a solid piece of wood. It was as long as a cane, but thicker, with a curved top like a shepherd's staff. The man had polished it and painted it with a shiny varnish.
Whoosh! Ker-thomp!
The sounds from that night. The man had tried to hit Uncle Steve with the staff. But Uncle Steve was very quick and strong, too, stronger than he looked. He wrestled the staff away and swung it like a baseball bat. Whoosh. Then, ker-thomp, the stick struck the man's head, sounding like a bat hitting a ball. Home run.
Bobby remembered Uncle Steve carrying him through the woods, slipping on wet stones, but never falling. Bobby could feel his uncle's heart beating as he ran. Instead of slowing down, he ran faster, Bobby wondering how anyone could go so fast while carrying another person, even someone as skinny as him.
Ever since that night, Bobby had lived with Uncle Steve. They were best buds. But Bobby couldn't tell him about Mom in the window. Uncle Steve hated Mom, even though she was his sister.
"My worthless sister Janice."
That's what he called her when he didn't think Bobby was listening.
There was another reason to keep quiet, too. It might only have been a dream.
* * *
Bobby spotted Maria kneeling at her locker, her shirt riding up the back of her low-rise jeans, revealing the dainty knobs of her spinal column, like the peaks of a mountain range. He caught a glimpse of her smooth skin, disappearing into the top of her black panties. Black panties. PACK A SIN BELT. Maria was the hottest hottie in the sixth grade. Caramel skin, hair as black as her panties. Eyes as dark as the obsidian rock Bobby handed her in earth science class, their hands touching. Maria Munoz-Goldberg.
Bobby crouched down at his own locker. He wanted to say something, but what?
Maria had taped photos of Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray to the inside of her locker. Bobby had seen them in that dipshit movie, A Cinderella Story, but maybe slamming Maria's favorite actors wasn't the way to go.
What could he do? Maria lived only a block away on Loquat, 573 steps from his front door. Should he tell her that?
No, she'll think I'm a stalker.
"Hey, Bobby," she said.
"Hey." He turned too quickly and bashed his elbow into his locker door. Owww! His funny bone, the pain so intense it momentarily blinded him.
"You read the history junk?" she asked.
He mumbled a "yeah" through the pain.
"The Civil War has too many battles," she complained. "I can't remember them all."
Bobby thought about saying he'd memorized the battles alphabetically from Antietam to Zollicoffer. But that would sound so dorky. "For the quiz, just know Gettysburg and both Bull Runs," he said.
"There's so much to read." A faint whine, but coming from her parted lips, it sounded musical.
Antietam, Bachelor's Creek. Chickamauga, Devil's Backbone, Ezra Church . . .
He couldn't help it. His brain was reciting Civil War battles from A to Z.
"Do you think you could help me?" she asked.
"You mean . . . study together?"
"I could come over to your house after school."
He tossed his shoulders, as if that would be okay, but no big deal. "Sure. Cool. You know where I live?"
She smiled, perfect teeth, the orthodonture having been removed at the beginning of the school year. "I know it's gotta be close. I've seen you outside my house."
Busted!
"I, uh . . . walk . . . sometimes. The neighborhood. Kumquat. Loquat. Avocado . . ."
Shut up already! You sound like a total wingnut.
"My hood, too." She stood up, and so did Bobby, miraculously managing not to drop his books or bang his shins into the locker.
"Give me your address," she said. "I'll come over around four."
Bobby wrote the address on a slip of paper. He knew that some people couldn't remember things the way he could.
"I'll bring some DVDs," Maria said. "If we get done early, maybe we can just hang and watch a movie."
"Great. Have you ever seen A Cinderella Story? It's pretty cool."
"Are you kidding! I love that movie. I've seen it like a zillion times."
Another smile, and she spun on her heel and headed off, breathing a "See ya later" over her perfect shoulder.
Holy shit.
Maria Munoz-Goldberg was coming to his house with her history book, her DVDs, and her black panties. He watched her walk toward home room, the symphony of her voice still echoing in his brain, along with . . .
Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Irish Bend, Jenkins' Ferry, Kennesaw Mountain . . .
The names wouldn't stop. But they were so soft, he could still hear Maria's voice and could still see her parted lips, warm and sugary in his brain.
Three
GAFF FROM THE PAST
Steve parked the car and admired the twenty-foot-high likeness of himself. It was a part of the day he always enjoyed.
The two-story mural was painted on the chipped stucco wall of Les Mannequins, the modeling agency where Solomon & Lord maintained its offices. There was Steve, sitting on the edge of a desk, wearing a charcoal gray suit, reading a law book. Something he never wore, something he never did. Standing next to him was Victoria, in a ruby red knit suit with a two-button, ruffled-trim jacket, her breasts fuller, her hips rounder than in real life.
Artistic license.
Then the caption, in fancy script:
Solomon & Lord, Attorneys-at-Law
The Wisdom of Solomon, the Strength of the Lord
Call (555) UBE-FREE
Victoria had been appalled, of course. "Cheesy" and "blasphemous" were two of her kinder adjectives. The mural was the handiwork of Henri Touissant, a sixteen-year-old Steve had represented in Juvenile Court. One of the best graffiti artists in Little Haiti, Henri was busted while tagging an overpass with a drawing of President Bush having intimate relations with a goat. "Profound political satire," Steve argued in the lad's defense. The judge gave Henri probation, and Steve hired him to paint the mural, in lieu of attorney's fees.
Now, heading into the building, Steve was plagued by a question that had been bothering him all morning.
Just how much should I tell Victoria?
It was one of the recurring issues of their relationship, both professional and personal. He'd been more open with Victoria than with any other woman he'd ever known. Of course, he'd never cared for any other woman with the depth of feelings he had for her.
But she can be so damn judgmental.
Steve remembered the fireworks in Bobby's guardianship case. Faced with the possibility that the state would take his nephew away, Steve had secretly paid Janice, his drug-addled sister, to change her testimony. When Victoria found out, she exploded.
"You can't bribe a witness."
"I'm paying her to tell the truth. If I don't, she'll lie and we'll lose."
"It's still illegal."
"When are you gonna grow up? When the law doesn't work, you've got to work the law."
Smack. Vic slapped him. Hard. Sparring partners instead of law partners.
So just how would Victoria react if he told her the truth?
"Oh, by the way, Vic. State versus Kreeger. Forgot to tell you. I tanked the case."
She'd clobber him with his Barry Bonds rock-hard maple baseball bat. Or his Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, or Rafael Palmeiro models. Steve favored bats by baseball's most notoriously juiced players.
Or maybe not. Would she even believe him?
"You took a dive? You, the guy who cheats to win?"
As he walked through the front door, Steve decided to tell Victoria everything about the Kreeger case. What he did and why he did it.
Wo
men appreciate honesty. He'd read that in one of Victoria's magazines, a relationship column tucked away in the ads for overpriced Italian footwear. Expose your doubts, express your fears, confess your weaknesses, and she'll be understanding and forgiving.
Okay, he'd bare his soul. He'd do it today. He made that promise to himself. He wished he had a Bible to swear on, wondering what happened to the one he lifted from a hotel room in Orlando.
* * *
"Ste-vie! Ste-vie!" A high-pitched whine.
"Wait up!" A second voice. Louder and more insistent.
The shouts came from somewhere between the photo studio and the wardrobe room.
Damn. If I don't hustle, they'll cut me off at the stairs.
"Stevie, wait!"
Steve heard the clackety-clack of leather hoofbeats, and in a second there they were. Lexy and Rexy. Pale blond twins. Models, six feet tall. As litigious as they were leggy.
One wore florescent orange spandex shorts and a white halter top. The other was in Daisy Duke cutoffs with a leopard-print halter. Both wore strappy sandals with stiletto heels that could take out an eye.
"You gotta help me," Lexy demanded. Or maybe it was Rexy. Who could tell?
"Got to," her sister agreed.
"What now, Lexy?" Taking a shot at the name. "I'm really busy."
"I'm Rexy! My belly button is an inny."
"And mine's an outy," Lexy confirmed.
"Everybody on South Beach knows that." Rexy shook a long index finger at him, the lacquered nail festooned with gold stars. "Margaux says you have to represent me. It's in your lease."
Margaux being the owner of Les Mannequins. Solomon & Lord got free office space under the litigate-for-rent clause he'd thought was such a great idea. Now he was spending half his time handling mishegoss for the models.
"Haven't I done enough for you two?" he asked.
"Hah." Rexy again.
He'd already gotten them handicapped parking stickers, successfully arguing that bulimia was as much a disability as paraplegia. He'd skated Lexy out of a RWI case—Rollerblading while intoxicated—even though she'd plowed into a group of tourists on Ocean Drive, knocking them over like bowling pins. And he'd beaten back a lawsuit against Rexy by an angry suitor who had spent two thousand bucks on dinner, drinks, a limo, and a Ricky Martin concert, only to have her go home with a member of the band.
"A man who dates a South Beach model takes the risk she'll be a rude, inconsiderate airhead," Steve had argued to the judge. Rexy thought he'd been brilliant.
Now the sisters blocked his path to the stairs, bony elbows akimbo, like wooden gates at a railroad crossing.
"Look at this!" Rexy waved an eight-by-ten flyer at him. An advertisement for a South Beach plastic surgeon with before-and-after shots of a woman's breasts. She pointed at the photo. "Can you believe this?"
"Boobs. What about them?"
"Don't you recognize them?" She yanked down her halter, exposing two coconut-size, gravity-defying breasts with pointy nipples.
"Ah," he said. "The afters." Suddenly, Steve was happy Victoria was across the causeway in the courthouse. Not that he kept his past a secret from her. Still, sleeping with a room-temperature IQ model wasn't something he'd post on his résumé. "They're your boobs, right?"
"You gotta sue that quack for my mental anguish." Rexy kept the top pulled down and stood, hipshot in model pose, as if Richard Avedon might record the moment for a coffee-table book. "A million dollars, at least."
Steve was about to say: "A million bucks of mental anguish seems excessive for a twenty-dollar mind," then realized he'd told her that every time she wanted to sue someone.
"They're handing these out in the clubs," Rexy wailed, shaking the flyer in his face.
"I don't know, Rexy. Your face isn't even in the photo. What are your damages if you're the only one who knows it's you?"
"Are you nuts? You know how many guys already called me, saying they saw my tits on the way to the men's room?" She pulled her top back up, and Steve took the opportunity to brush past her and hightail it up the stairs.
"I'll go to the library, research the law," he called out, with as much sincerity as he could muster.
"Like you know where the library is," Rexy shot back.
At the top of the stairs, Steve was just about to open his reception room door when he heard a thump, followed by a woman's scream. Another thump, as if someone had bounced off a wall, then a woman's angry voice: "No me toques, idiota!"
Cece's voice!
Steve threw open the door and saw a jumble of images. His secretary, Cece Santiago, in red panties and bra. A man hoisting her into the air, swinging her left and right, her feet sailing off the floor.
"Hey, put her down!" Steve thundered.
"Fuck you!" The man was bare-chested and big, with a watermelon gut. Mid-forties, face lathered in sweat. He wore suit pants with suspenders and was barefoot.
Steve crossed the room in two steps. The man let go in midswing, and Cece flew across her desk, knocking files to the floor.
Steve grabbed the man by the suspenders.
"Hey! I don't do guys," the man protested.
"Steve, no te metas!" Cece shouted, just as he uncorked a straight right hand. It caught the man flush on the chin, and he fell to the floor like a sack of mangoes.
"Jesus! You knocked him out," Cece wailed. "I'll never get paid."
"What are you talking about? This guy was trying to rape you."
Cece stepped into a pair of spandex workout shorts. "Rape me? That limp-dick pays me two hundred dollars to wrestle."
"But you screamed. I thought—"
"I let him think he's gonna win, then I pin him."
"Here? In my office? You're running a sex service here?"
"Not sex, jefe. Fantasy wrestling. Some guys get off on it."
She tugged a sleeveless T-shirt over her head, her deltoids flexing, and the tattoo of a cobra coiling on her carved right bicep. Cece spent more time lifting than typing, and it showed, both in her ripped physique and in Steve's typo-laden legal briefs.
The guy moaned and tried to get to his feet.
"You all right, Arnie?" Cece asked.
"Gonna sue," the man mumbled, rubbing his jaw.
"Sorry I hit you, Arnie," Steve told him. "I didn't know."
"Yeah. Well, I know all about you, Solomon. I heard on the radio. You're that shyster who couldn't win a jaywalking case if the light was green."
"Aw, jeez."
"Gonna file criminal charges." Arnie grabbed his shirt from a corner of Cece's desk, picked up his socks and shoes from the floor, and hurried out the door.
"Are you gonna get in trouble, jefe?" Cece asked Steve.
"Me? What about you? This violates your probation."
"Doubt it. Arnie's my probation officer."
"No way."
"Verdad, jefe. On his reports, he says I enjoy competitive sports as a hobby."
Cece Santiago had been Steve's client before she became an employee. A little matter of beating the stuffing out of a cheating boyfriend, then driving his car off the boat ramp at Matheson Hammock.
Steve walked to his desk. "Do you think we can do a little work this morning, assuming it doesn't interfere with your hobby?"
"What work? Nobody called. Mail's not here yet. But you did get a personal delivery." She nodded toward the corner of the reception room.
Propped against the wall was a graphite pole, maybe eight feet long with a stainless-steel hook at the end.
"Fishing gaff," Steve said. "Who sent it?"
"No sé. It was outside when I opened up the store."
Steve picked up the gaff, hefted it, ran his hand over the sharp, lethal hook. "For landing big fish. Like marlin."
Kreeger on the radio. The marlin in the door. And now the gaff. It was all coming together, Steve thought, and he didn't like where it was heading.
Kreeger's telling me he's killed before, and he can kill again.
Steve
felt a chill run up his spine. He sensed a presence behind him, whirled around, but no one was there.
The bastard's getting to me.
Which had to be part of Kreeger's plant, too. It would give him pleasure to inflict fear as well as pain.
"Deep-sea fishing?" Cece said. "Didn't you get seasick when you took Bobby on a paddle boat at Water World?"
"The gaff's not for me to use. It's to remind me of something."
"Of what, jefe?"
"Of the time a client of mine went fishing with someone else and only one of them came home."
SOLOMON'S LAWS
1. I'd rather lie to a judge than to the woman I love.
Four
LOGICAL LOVE
I hate lying. Strike that. I hate lying to someone I love.
Some lies were worse than others, Steve thought. In court, lies come in all shapes and sizes. Outright falsehoods, cautious evasions, clever prevarications. Lies are as plentiful as the silk-suited lawyers mouthing them. Not to mention clients, cops, witnesses, and the guy peddling stale empanadas on the courthouse steps. Judges and juries do not expect to be told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And their expectations are always fulfilled.
But you should not lie to the woman you love. This morning, Victoria had asked what happened with Kreeger, and Steve had skated around the thin ice of the truth. Now, headed to meet Victoria at a condo open house, he tried to work up the courage to tell her everything. Just as he passed Parrot Jungle on the MacArthur Causeway, his cell phone rang.
"If you been tuned to the AM dial, you ain't got no cheery smile."
Steve recognized the mellifluous voice. "Good morning, Sugar Ray."
