by Paul Levine
That seemed to silence him. Then he said: "Okay, I get it. I'm going to take care of my stuff first. Go to Kreeger. Get my head shrunk, get the case dismissed. Then I'm going to see Myron Goldberg and ask politely but firmly that he apologize to Bobby."
"And if he doesn't? What then?"
"I'll kick his ass from here to Sopchoppy," Steve said.
SOLOMON'S LAWS
7. When you run across a naked woman, act as if you've seen one before.
Eighteen
SKIN SHOW
Halloween had come and gone, Thanksgiving was around the corner, but the air was washcloth thick with heat and humidity. The palm fronds hung limply on the trees, no ocean breezes drifted inland. Driving through the winding streets of Coral Gables, Steve wore green Hurricanes shorts and a T-shirt with the logo "I'm Hung Like Einstein and Smart as a Horse." On the Margaritaville station, Jimmy Buffet was singing "Off to See the Lizard."
Steve parked next to a pile of yard clippings in a culde-sac off Alhambra, next to the Biltmore golf course. Halfway down the block was the home and office of Dr. William Kreeger.
Steve hopped out and headed down the street on foot. He could hear a power mower churning away behind one of the houses, could smell the fresh-cut grass. Around the corner, on Trevino, the sounds of sawing and chopping, a city crew cutting back the limbs on neighborhood banyan trees.
He wasn't quite sure why he parked so far away. Kreeger's place had a driveway, and there was parking at the curb, too. Maybe it was the embarrassment, going to visit a shrink. Or was Steve more like a burglar, stashing the getaway car out of sight? Didn't matter. The walk through the neighborhood of Mediterranean homes with barrel-tile roofs gave him a chance to plan. Should he bring up the subject of the boat captain? He could try bluffing, tell a big, fat lie.
"Say, Kreeger. I found the guy who was driving the boat when you killed your pal Beshears. Oscar De la Fuente. He's got some interesting things to say."
No. Too obvious. Let Kreeger bring it up. By now, he should know that Steve had been looking for the guy. Herbert had dropped off Steve's business card at every saloon and boat-repair yard in the Keys, lingering longer in the saloons, no doubt. Steve had placed ads in newspapers and on the Internet, promising a reward for anyone finding De la Fuente. No one came forward.
Kreeger lived in a stucco house that dated from the 1920s. The walls had been sandblasted, giving them the pallor of a dead man. Kreeger's office was around back. Steve followed a path of pink flagstones between hibiscus bushes and emerged in a yard surrounded by a ficus hedge. A waterfall gurgled between coral rock boulders and spilled into a rectangular swimming pool.
Steve had been here before. A lawyer always visits the scene of the crime. At the far end of the pool was the hot tub where Nancy Lamm had drowned.
Nothing had changed since Steve was here seven years ago, except that day, best he could recall, there was no naked woman on a chaise lounge. But today, reclining on a redwood chaise with thick patterned cushions was a very lithe young woman wearing sunglasses and nothing else. Her body was slick with oil, and the scent of coconut was in the air.
"Hello there," he said jauntily.
She sleepily turned her head toward him. "You don't recognize me, do you?"
"Sure I do." In truth, he hadn't been looking at her face. "Amanda, right? The niece. But I don't know your last name."
"Is that important?"
"I was just wondering how Dr. Bill is your uncle."
She rolled onto her side. "It's an honorary title. But I think that makes Bill even more special, don't you?"
The random fortuity of life struck Steve just then. One sunny day, you're walking on the beach and a bird shits on your head. Or if you're really unlucky, a tsunami swamps you and drags you out to sea. But another day, you're going to see a homicidal guy who hates you, and poof, a naked woman appears directly in your path. A woman who could alter the course of several lives. Could do justice where justice has failed. And there she is, like the gatekeeper at a bridge in a Greek myth.
It's almost too coincidental. Okay, strike the "almost."
Kreeger always seemed to be one step ahead of him. If Steve had plans for Amanda, surely Kreeger did, too. Steve just wasn't sure what they were.
"Wanna go for a swim?" Amanda asked.
The question threw him.
"Uncle Bill's still with a patient," she continued. "We've got time."
She cocked her head in the direction of Kreeger's office, a converted Florida room facing the yard. Slatted wooden shades appeared to be closed, but it was possible someone on the inside was watching them.
"I don't have a swimsuit."
"Me, either."
"I see that."
Dumb. "I see that." Of course you see it, schmuck.
"Nice day for a swim, though," he said. "Hot."
"I love hot days," Amanda purred.
"I see that."
Again? "I see that"? Act natural. Act like you've seen a naked woman or two.
She stretched her arms over her head, yawned, and pointed her toes. The motion was graceful and catlike. Her breasts were small, round, and tan, the nipples the color of copper. She was thin but strong, with developed calves that flexed as she straightened her legs. Carved abs. Farther south, a thin triangular strip of pubic hair ran between two small tattoos, but he couldn't make them out from this distance.
"An arrow and a heart," she said.
"What?"
"The tats you're staring at."
"Oh. Well. I wasn't. Staring, I mean. Exactly."
In retrospect, "I see that" sounded more intelligent.
"I mean, I was looking at your ...uh... landing strip. That's what you call it, right? My girlfriend asked me if she should get one. I guess, technically, you don't 'get one.' It's not like buying a purse, right?"
He was aware he was babbling. What was it about a naked woman that discombobulated a man?
Her nakedness, idiot! Right. I see that.
What happened to his plans? He had wanted to find out everything about Amanda. How long had she known Kreeger? Did he ever talk about Nancy Lamm or Jim Beshears? Would she help Steve? But confronted with a naked woman, logical questions tend to evaporate faster than coconut oil.
"You were Uncle Bill's lawyer, weren't you?" Amanda asked.
"Right."
Wait a second. I'm supposed to be asking the questions.
"You double-crossed him."
"He tell you that?"
"Uncle Bill tells me everything."
"I thought he might. Maybe we can get together and swap stories."
"Uncle Bill wouldn't like that."
"Not a date or anything. I just want to talk."
Amanda gave him a patronizing smile with just a hint of an eyebrow raised above the sunglasses. "That's what he wouldn't like. Talking about private stuff. Having sex with you he wouldn't mind. If that's what I wanted."
Oh.
"But I haven't made up my mind about you yet," she said. She swung her legs out of the chaise and walked toward him. It wasn't a seductive walk. More bouncy and athletic, like a cheerleader, her small breasts not even jiggling. She came up to Steve, as if daring him not to move out of the way. He took the dare, and she stopped six inches in front of him. She took off the sunglasses. Her eyes were a greenish gold. "I don't know if you'd be as good to me as Uncle Bill. He always puts me first. My pleasures. My desires. That's how he got his honorary title."
"That's some uncle," Steve allowed.
"Uncle Bill loves me. And he has for a long time."
She took a half step toward him, stood on her tippytoes, and kissed Steve lightly on the lips. He didn't kiss back, but he didn't pull away, either. "But a girl can always have two uncles," she whispered.
She moved past him, one breast brushing his arm, giving him a last look at her from behind. Bouncing toward the house, calves undulating, her butt high and firm. And just above the crack between her cheeks, another tattoo: an ir
idescent jellyfish, beautiful and deadly, its tentacles streaming down each buttock.
Nineteen
SHRINK WRAPPED
Ten minutes later, Steve was settling into a brown leather chair in Dr. William Kreeger's home office. The floor was Dade County pine, the stucco walls painted a grayish-green color Steve didn't care for. He once read that shrinks used earth colors to calm their troubled patients. But no beige walls, no corn plant in the corner, no gurgling fish tank with parrotfish and lionfish frolicking through coral caves.
The only personal items were several framed photos on a credenza. Kreeger on a power boat, a big-ass sport fisherman in the fifty-foot range. Best Steve could tell, there were no bodies floating in the water. Then there were a couple of grainy shots taken from videotape: Kreeger on CNN, opining why husbands kill their wives or mothers kill their children, or maybe even why clients kill their lawyers.
"Did you see Amanda on your way in?" Kreeger sat in his own leather chair.
"All of her." Steve looked toward the wood-slatted windows. Now he was sure Kreeger had been watching them, had planned the whole thing.
"She's a remarkable young woman," Kreeger said.
"Tell me about her."
"We're here to talk about you, Solomon. Not her."
"Hey, you brought it up."
"All I'll say is this: When I was in prison, Amanda was the only one who wrote me, the only one who cared. And when I got out, she was waiting for me."
"Seems a little young to be one of those wackos who fall for murderers."
"You have much to learn, Solomon. And so little time to learn it." He used a handheld sharpener to grind a fine point on a pencil, then continued. "Now, what should we discuss first? Your violent temper or your sleazy ethics?"
"That's sweet, Kreeger. You lecturing on ethics is like the Donner Party talking about table manners."
"I detect antagonism in your voice. Still having difficulty controlling your anger?"
"Aw, shit."
Kreeger crossed his legs and balanced a leather-bound notebook on his knee. An open leather briefcase, the old-fashioned doctor-bag variety, was at his feet. A rattan table with a green marble ashtray sat between the two men, and a paddle fan whirred silently overhead. They had barely started, and already Steve felt like bolting. If the bastard asked if he'd ever wanted to kill his father and sleep with his mother . . . well, there'd be a second assault-and-battery charge in his file.
"Tell me about your childhood," Kreeger instructed, his voice clinical and distant. "Were you a happy child?"
"Screw you, Kreeger."
"Did you have a good relationship with your father?"
"And the horse your rode in on."
Kreeger scribbled something in his notebook.
"Let me guess," Steve said. " 'Patient is obstreperous, uncooperative, manifests antisocial tendencies.' "
"Let's get something straight, Solomon. You're not my patient. I'm not here to treat you. I'm here to teach you how to manage your anger. It's up to you whether you take my advice. My report to the court will state whether your penchant for violence is under control or whether you should be incarcerated as a danger to the community. Understand?"
"Yeah."
"Splendid. Now, you still want to fuck with me?"
Steve took a breath and tried to relax. This wasn't going the way he had planned. He'd intended to be cooperative, maybe drop a comment or two about Nancy Lamm, maybe something about Jim Beshears, see if Kreeger brought up Oscar De la Fuente.
"Okay, Doc. Let's get this over with."
Kreeger reached into the open briefcase. He pulled out a photograph and slid it across the rattan table. "When you look at that, how do you feel?"
Steve picked up the photo and laughed. It was black-and-white and grainy, but there he was, in his U.M. baseball uniform, bareheaded. He'd already tossed his cap to the ground. His arms were thrown out to the sides, frozen in an awkward position as if he were attempting to fly. His face was contorted into an expression that seemed to be equal parts anguish and anger. A vein in his throat stood out, thick as a copperhead. He was screaming at an umpire, whose face was just inches from his own.
"Championship game of the College World Series," Steve said. "Bottom of the ninth. Two outs. I was on third, the potential tying run, and I got picked off. At least, the ump said I did, but I got in under the tag." He shook his head. "How do you think I felt?"
Kreeger scribbled something on his pad. "You tell me."
"Angry. Cheated. Humiliated. Angry."
"You already said that."
"I was really angry, but I didn't hit anyone. Write that down."
"What about this?"
Kreeger slid a photocopied newspaper clipping toward Steve, who immediately recognized the story from the Miami Herald. The headline read: "Judge Quits Bench, Dodges Indictment." A photo—a prizewinning photo, as it turned out—showed Herbert T. Solomon, in shirtsleeves, carrying a cardboard box down the steps of the Criminal Justice Building. Clearly visible in the box were miniature scales of justice, tilted to one side, the chains tangled. The look on Herbert's face: abject shame.
"Dad on the worst day of his life. What about it?"
"How does that picture make you feel?"
"It hurts. A lot. Happy now?"
"Let's analyze your pain. Which was greater? Pulling a bonehead play and losing the championship? Or seeing your father disgraced?"
"That's easy. Watching Dad go down was way worse."
"Why do you suppose you hurt so much, when the disgrace wasn't your own?"
"Because I love my father. Is that concept a little tough for you to understand, Kreeger?"
"And if he were guilty, if your father had taken those bribes, would you still love him?"
"Sure. But Dad was innocent. He was falsely accused."
"Then why didn't the Honorable Judge Solomon fight the charges?"
"Maybe he was afraid of a bad call from the umpire, too."
"Fair enough. He'd lost his faith in the system. Like father, like son-of-a-gun."
"What are you getting at, Kreeger?"
Again Kreeger reached into his briefcase. Another photo. A police mug shot. The woman was in her thirties. Round, pasty face. The tattoo of a snake peeked out of her tank top. Greasy ringlets of hair seemed to be glued to her forehead. And the eyes, glassy and staring into some distant universe.
How long ago must it have been, Steve wondered, that she was a pretty, well-mannered girl living in an upscale house on Pine Tree Drive? With a posse of girlfriends that elicited remarkable electrochemical reactions in a fifth grader named Steve Solomon.
"My sister Janice. What's she have to do with this?"
"Your sister the thief. The drug abuser. The abusive mother."
"All of the above."
"Do you love her, too, Solomon?"
"I'm not doing this, Kreeger." Steve got up and walked to the windows. With an index finger, he lifted one of the wooden shades. Clear view of the pool, the hot tub, and the chaise lounge, now empty. Not a nude young woman in sight.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice. You kidnapped your nephew from your sister, didn't you?"
"I rescued Bobby."
"You hit a man, crushed his skull with a stick of some kind. What was it?"
"A piece of oak. A shepherd's staff."
"Not quite as heavy as a gaff, I would think."
Ah, so there it was, Steve thought. The boat in the Keys. Beshears overboard. De la Fuente at the wheel. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. "We talking about my hitting a guy named Thigpen or you hitting a guy named Beshears?"
"You'd agree there is some similarity. Except, of course, I was trying to rescue poor Jim Beshears."
"Funny. I didn't kill Thigpen. But you killed Beshears."
"Tell me about Thigpen, and I'll tell you about Beshears. Nancy, too."
Steve didn't know whether to believe him, but there was very little to lose. "Janice kept Bobby in a dog cage, fe
d him gruel. She would have sold him for half a dozen rocks of crack. I got him out of there, and I had to hit somebody to do it."
Remembering a snowy night in the Panhandle. A commune where Janice and her brain-dead friends grew marijuana in the summer and ingested all manner of illicit substances the rest of the year. Remembering swinging the staff, fracturing a man's skull, and carrying Bobby to safety. Bringing him home, the boy's first real home.
"Your turn," Steve said. "Did you push Beshears overboard? Did you intend to bash him with the gaff?"
"Police report said it was an accident."
"That's it, Kreeger? That's all you have to say?"
"Jim Beshears was an oaf and a boor and insanely jealous of me. He ruined a perfectly fine fishing trip with his incessant pestering."
"Sounds like he deserved to be killed."
"Draw your own conclusions, Solomon."
"You're boasting, aren't you? Letting me know what you're capable of."
"We should go fishing sometime, you and I, Solomon."
Steve laughed; he couldn't help himself. "Why? So you could use me for chum?"
Kreeger gestured toward the photos on the credenza. The big sport fisherman tied up at a dock, then another shot, the boat powering through a channel, a mangrove island visible in the background, and a third photo, a closeup of Kreeger at the helm. "I love my boat. Brings me peace in times of trouble. You know its name?"
Steve shook his head. He hated cutesy boat names. Once, in a divorce, he got the wife her husband's boat, which she promptly renamed Ex on the Beach.
"Psycho Therapy," Kreeger said. "Two words. You like it?"
"It fits."
"So anytime you want, call me. We'll take the boat down to Elliot Key."
"Not without a Coast Guard escort."
"With your history of violence, I should be afraid of you, not the other way around. Hypothetical question: Would you kill Janice to save your nephew?"
"What!"
"If your sister posed a threat to young Robert, would you kill her to save him?"
