by Paul Levine
Great, Victoria thought. Just what they needed. A road rage incident.
Steve slid down the window on the passenger side, leaned across, and shouted: "Hey, you! Big car, little dick!"
Victoria swatted his hand away and hit the button, closing the window. "What's wrong with you! Don't you know how many drivers in Miami are armed?"
He turned on the radio. "No, but I'm sure you do."
"Your conduct lately simply defies description."
"Oh, c'mon, Vic. Give it a try."
"For starters, you've been both irresponsible and reckless."
A sports talk station came on, the caller and host debating whether Shaquille O'Neal was a better player than Wilt Chamberlain. The consensus seemed to be that Wilt scored more points and more women.
"Could you change that, please?" Victoria asked.
Steve punched a button, and another sports station came on, the host asking callers to choose the sexiest cheerleader from the Dolphin Dolls.
"How can you listen to this garbage?" she asked.
"I like it. Is that being reckless or irresponsible?"
"Juvenile."
"I guess good old Bigby doesn't listen to sports radio."
"Where did that come from? What's Bruce have to do with anything?"
"I don't know. He sort of popped into my head."
Ahead of them, traffic started moving and they inched past Mercy Hospital on the way downtown. Strange, Victoria thought. Just last night, her mother brought up Bruce. Victoria had been complaining about Steve and his penchant for trouble. Weirdly, The Queen had spoken up for Steve. What had she said exactly? Victoria couldn't remember.
Steve gave the Mustang some gas and said, "Good old boring Bruce Bigby."
Omigod.
That was almost exactly what The Queen had said. "Steve may drive you crazy, but you love him. And frankly, he's a lot more fun than good old boring Bruce."
"Have you been speaking to my mother?"
"Why would I? She hates me."
Victoria reached over and changed the station. On came Steve's damn Margaritaville music, Jimmy Buffet singing "Growing Older but Not Up." Another of the beach bard's paeans to the good life.
Victoria hit another button, and a deep voice rumbled from the speakers: "Now in its twenty-third printing, Looking Out for Numero Uno. So, log on to Dr. Bill's website and order the book today. With every purchase, get a free Dr. Bill ball cap with the logo 'Me First.' "
"I'll change that," she said, reaching toward the radio.
"No. Let's see who he's blasting today."
"Now, a special treat. You've heard Dr. Bill prescribe remedies for addiction before. Hard work. Willpower. Self-reliance. Forget groups and steps. Don't waste your time listening to other people's problems. Our guest today helped herself, and you can, too. Remember, folks, 'invincible' starts with 'i.' "
"What's he peddling now?" Steve asked.
"Today's guest is a woman who turned her life around. A woman who was mired in criminality and drug abuse and made the conscious decision to find the power that lies within. Welcome to the program, Janice Solomon."
"Oh, shit!" Steve slammed on the brakes and was nearly rear-ended.
"I couldn't have done it without you, Dr. Bill. You inspired me."
"That's generous of you, Janice. But I give you all the credit. Now, take our listeners through your life, from your upbringing in a dysfunctional family to your descent into drugs, to your rehabilitation . . ."
"What a load of crap," Steve said.
". . . and now your coming home to reclaim the son you love."
The words hit Steve like a one-two combination— jab-hook, jab-hook—and seemed to reverberate inside his brain.
"The son she loves?" Steve nearly spat the words. "She nearly killed Bobby!"
"The son who was illegally taken away from you."
Steve stomped on the gas and pulled through a U-turn, tires screeching.
"What are you doing?" Victoria said.
"We're going to the station. I'm not gonna let him get away with this."
"You can't play on his turf. Remember last time you went on the air?"
"Got no choice. Kreeger's setting the table for a custody fight. I've got to expose him as a fraud."
"He's taunting you. He wants you to come after him."
"Fine. He wants a fight, he's gonna get it. Janice, too."
Typical Steve, she thought. Rushing blindly into danger, never considering the consequences.
She sank back in her seat as the Mustang squealed around the turn at Seventeenth Avenue on the way to Dixie Highway. Steve was right about one thing, she thought.
He's not like Bruce at all.
Bruce carried an umbrella, even when the forecast was sunny and clear. Steve windsurfed in thunderstorms, mast pointed toward the sky, daring Zeus to toss lightning bolts his way.
Just now, good old boring Bruce doesn't sound so bad.
On the radio, Janice was going on about how much she missed her son when she was incarcerated and how, alone in her cell, she pledged to clean up her act so she could come home and raise the boy.
"My brother did the best he could while I was gone. But he's a bachelor, without any children of his own. He's actually quite immature himself."
"The Eva Braun of mothers is criticizing my parenting," Steve muttered.
"No way my brother can do what I can."
"Right. No way I'd abandon the boy and nearly let him freeze to death."
"Steve. Don't do anything stupid, okay?"
"I'm the mother and there's nothing like a mother's love."
"I'm not going to do anything stupid," Steve said.
"I'm so anxious to make up for all the lost time."
"But I'll tell you this, Vic. I'll kill her before I let her have Bobby."
Twenty-Seven
LET'S KILL ALL THE LAWYERS
When Steve and Victoria entered the control room, Dr. Bill Kreeger was just finishing his umpteenth commercial for one of his products, a seven-set CD collection entitled: "Stop Kissing Butt and Start Kicking It." Through the window, Steve could see Kreeger and Janice, earphoned and miked, engaged in the mutual stroking of egos.
"Welcome back Janice Solomon, a truly courageous woman who took control of her life," Kreeger said. "Janice, tell my listeners how you did it."
"Sitting in my jail cell, I read all your books," Janice answered. "Looking Out for Numero Uno made me realize I needed to love myself. When I finally put myself on a pedestal—that's chapter three—I realized how much my son needed a person as worthy as me."
"Attagirl," Kreeger enthused.
"Attagirl?" Steve said. "A sociopath high-fiving a child abuser."
"Let's get out of here," Victoria said.
"Tell us about your childhood, Janice," Kreeger coaxed.
"When I was a kid, I was in Girl Scouts, and I was a candy striper at Mount Sinai. Really caught up in the pleasing-others game."
"Chapter four," Kreeger said. " 'The Pleasing Others Fallacy.' Altruism is for suckers. Pleasing others is a waste of time."
"That was me. I baked cookies for shut-ins and babysat for poor families for free. I never got in touch with my inner 'I.' Never learned to say, 'I am numero uno.' So naturally, the more I gave, the more I was taken advantage of. Especially by boys."
"Do-gooders do bad all the time," Kreeger agreed. "No good deed goes unpunished."
"Then there's my brother, Stevie."
"Regular listeners will remember Steve Solomon, another family member with a checkered past," Kreeger pointed out, helpfully.
"You got that right, Dr. Bill."
"Well, speak of the shyster." Kreeger gestured toward the window. "Here's your brother now. C'mon in, Solomon. Let's have a family reunion."
"Don't do it, Steve," Victoria said. "Please don't do it."
"I have to, Vic. My inner 'I' says so."
* * *
Twelve minutes later, just after a promo for Kre
eger's new video game, "Shaft Thy Neighbor," Steve listened as the shrink prattled on about himself.
"I've been an expert in quite a few custody cases over the years," Kreeger said.
Yeah. The deceased Nancy Lamm's case, for one.
"And correct me if I'm wrong, Counselor, but doesn't the law favor mothers over fathers, much less uncles?"
"Only with very young children," Steve said. "And not when the mother is demonstrably unfit."
" 'Demonstrably unfit.' Now, there's a pettifogger's term for you. So, you don't believe in rehabilitation, Counselor?"
"We talking about Janice or you?"
"Do you really want to go there, Solomon? Because I'd be forced to ask if your shoddy representation of me proved you're a 'demonstrably unfit' lawyer."
"Janice is an unfit mother, and I can prove it."
"You'll have your chance, Counselor."
"Kreeger, why don't you just butt out of my family's personal matters?"
Next to him, Janice laughed. "Too late for that, little brother. Dr. Bill's testifying for me."
"I can't wait to cross-examine him," Steve said.
"More lawyer tricks?" Kreeger said. "Technicalities and obfuscations. No wonder Shakespeare said, 'Let's kill all the lawyers.' "
"Shakespeare had a villain say that," Steve replied, miraculously remembering a long-ago English Lit class at the U. "Dick the Butcher said it in a play, one of the Henrys. His pals were planning to overthrow the government, so the first thing they planned was to kill the lawyers to make the job easier. You're misconstruing the line, just like you're mischaracterizing my sister."
"More legalese?" Kreeger taunted him. "More fine print and sleight of hand. Yes, indeed. Let's kill all the lawyers before they kill all of us."
Janice leaned closer to the microphone. "I think Stevie's capable of murder. When he kidnapped Bobby, he broke Rufus Thigpen's skull."
"I didn't kidnap Bobby. I rescued him from the dog cage you locked him in."
"If I'd been the one in that shed instead of Thigpen, would you have cracked my head open, too?" Janice prodded.
"I'm not gonna answer that."
"Hear that, listeners!" Kreeger said happily. "The shyster invokes the Fifth Amendment."
"This is bullshit!" Steve slammed his hand on the table.
"Please refrain from profanity and violence, Counselor. Janice, should I call security?"
"I'm not worried," she said. "When we were kids, I used to beat the crap out of Stevie."
"Yeah," Steve said. "When you outweighed me by thirty pounds."
"You oughta thank me. How do you think you learned to run so fast?" Janice lowered her voice as if sharing a deep secret. "I used to make him eat mud pies."
"Hold that thought, and don't touch the dial," Kreeger instructed. "We'll be back right after this news break." He pointed toward the control room and took off his earphones. "This is great radio. Solomon, perhaps you can ask Ms. Lord to join us for a while. I'd love to ask her about you."
"Why don't we talk about you?" Steve said as a news announcer droned in the background. "About you and Amanda."
"What's to say? I saved the poor girl, just as you claim to have saved your nephew."
"No, you didn't. You killed her mother to get at her. You're a freaking pedophile."
"Delusions and hysteria. I'd better make a note to add that to your report."
Just then, two uniformed officers entered the studio from the control room. Steve had a disconcerting sense of déjà vu. He'd been arrested here once before, for slugging Arnold Freskin. But these two were City of Miami, not Beach cops. And he recognized them at once. They'd shown up at Goldberg's house last night and taken statements. Rodriguez and Teele. Hispanic cop and black cop, just like on TV. Rodriguez had a thin mustache and Teele sported a mini-Afro, again like a TV cop, circa The Mod Squad.
"Hello, Mr. Solomon," Rodriguez said. "Is this your sister?"
"Yes! Take her away, officers. What is it this time: drug possession? Parole violation? Did she rob a bank this morning?"
"Ms. Solomon," Teele said. "Last night, were you present when your brother struck a Dr. Myron Goldberg on or about the face?"
"Yeah. Stevie slugged him right in the kisser."
"Was your brother protecting you from Dr. Goldberg at the time?"
"What do you mean?" Janice asked.
"Was Dr. Goldberg threatening you with a firearm?"
A moment of silence.
"C'mon, Janice," Steve prodded. "Tell them about the Uzi."
"Mr. Solomon, please remain quiet," Teele instructed.
"Dr. Goldberg didn't do anything," Janice said. "Stevie just hauled off and sucker-punched him."
"That's a lie!" Steve was halfway out of his chair when Rodriguez grabbed him by a shoulder and spun him around. Teele had the handcuffs on before Steve could say he wanted to make a phone call.
Kreeger punched a button and yelled at his board operator. "Cut into the news. We're going live. State versus Solomon. Chapter two."
SOLOMON'S LAWS
9. Q: What do you call a judge who is old, cantankerous, and flatulent?
A: "Your Honor."
Twenty-Eight
GET THEE TO A SHRINKERY
A week after being booked for slugging Myron Goldberg and released for a second time in a month on his own recognizance, Steve was driving south on Dixie Highway, Bobby riding shotgun, when the pipsqueak said, "I don't want to go to Jewey school."
"To what?" Steve had never heard the expression.
"You know. Beth Am Day School."
"Who said anything about transferring?"
"Grandpop."
"Why, that alter kocker."
Ever since Herbert had gone ortho, he'd been behaving strangely. Not only was he schlepping to temple every Friday night and Saturday morning, he seemed to be celebrating a new holiday every week, either a feast or a fast. Sure, Steve knew about pigging out—without the pig—at Sukkot and starving at Yom Kippur. But there was his old man, celebrating the Fast of Esther, the banquet at Simchat Torah, eating blintzes and cheesecake on Savuot but zilch on the seventeenth of Tammuz. Maybe his old man was acting weird because his blood sugar was riding a roller coaster.
"If your grandfather wants to discover his roots, fine," Steve told Bobby. "But you're staying in public school. It's good to mix with kids of different backgrounds."
"That's what I told Grandpop. I can say 'fuck off' in five languages."
Steve pulled into the left-turn lane and waited for the light to change. Only way to cross traffic during morning rush hour was to wait for a yellow light turning red. To his right was the University of Miami and the baseball stadium where once he won a game by scoring from first on a single. Looking back—the high-fives, the cheers, the late night with a Hurricane Hottie—he wondered if that was the high point of his life.
Just examine the facts.
Victoria, the woman he loved, was stewing over their relationship. All talk of moving in together had ceased. Even staying together seemed problematical. Jeez, they hadn't had sex in an eternity.
Kreeger was pulling his chain like a puppeteer with a marionette. Taunting him with Janice and the threat of a custody fight. Nothing had changed. Every step Steve took, the bastard was one step ahead of him.
Gotta stop playing defense, start playing offense.
And Bobby? If Victoria was Steve's heart, the boy was his soul. Steve would do anything for his nephew, make any sacrifice. Just watching Bobby smile clutched at his heart. There had been damn few smiles and laughs those first months after Steve brought the boy home from the commune. Half-starved, locked up, deprived of social contact, Bobby had withdrawn into a shell. In Steve's house, he would sit cross-legged in a corner, swaying, speaking gibberish, if anything at all. Now, seeing Bobby's growth, watching in awe as his brain sizzled and snapped with electrifying speed, well, it brought tears to Steve's eyes.
So how could you betray me, Bobby? How could you sneak
off to see that woman who loved crack more than she loved you?
"Because she's still my mom."
That was Bobby's defense. The night Steve clobbered Myron Goldberg, Steve took Bobby home and made him a smoothie. They talked until dawn, Bobby crying and saying he was sorry he hadn't been honest. A few weeks before, when Janice got out of prison, she had started coming around the neighborhood. At night, she'd sneak into their yard and sometimes look through Bobby's window just to catch a glimpse of him.
Sure, Steve thought. Even with her brain cells burned out by twenty years of narcotics and hallucinogens, Janice had known better than to knock on the door and give her baby brother a big hug. So she'd hung out at the park on Morningside Drive like a regular mom and one day called out to Bobby when he rode by on his bike.
"Why didn't you tell her to fuck off? In five languages."
"Because she's still my mom."
Steve couldn't understand it. And knew he couldn't fight it, either. If he forbade Bobby to see his mother, he'd be the villain. The two of them would sneak around behind his back, make a game of it. He was in a lose-lose situation.
The light blinked yellow, and Steve honked at the Beemer in front of him to turn the hell left so we don't sit here another fifteen minutes. The light was red when Steve followed onto Augusto Street, pulling up to the entrance of Ponce de León Middle School. A sea of urchins in shorts, T-shirts, and backpacks was surging toward the front door.
Steve reached over and squeezed Bobby's shoulder. He wouldn't kiss the boy, not when his pals might be watching.
Bobby made no move to open the door. "I don't want to go to school."
"Why not?"
"First period is P.E. Second is Study Hall. Third is Civics, and I've got permission for independent study off-campus."
"Independent study? You getting your master's degree?"
"I can go to court with you today if you want me to."
"You have anything in writing to back up this story?"
