False Dawn

by Paul Levine

  “Actually, I drove us both.”

  “And just why did she need a lawyer?”

  “Her boss, Nicolai Gorev, was holding her passport. She wanted it back plus some money he owed her.”

  “And how exactly were you going to help her do this?”

  Steve let out a long, slow breath. “Well, that’s where it gets a little sticky.”

  “Doesn’t it always?”

  “I think it was maybe a language thing, her being Russian and all.”

  “Damn it, Steve. What aren’t you telling me?”

  He was quiet a moment, then gave her that twinkling smile. It was intended to distract her from whatever he needed to say but didn’t want to. He was a handsome man with black hair and deep-brown eyes. Mischievous eyes, Victoria thought. Devilish eyes, her mother always said. She did not mean it as a compliment. He had an aquiline nose that reminded Victoria of George Washington, except that if Steve had chopped down a cherry tree, he would have lied about it.

  At last, Steve said, “Well, you know how you always hated that TV commercial I did for the firm?”

  “The blasphemous one? ‘If you want the best lawyers in Miami, hire the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of the Lord.’”

  “Nope. The one where I was a cowboy with the pearl-handled pistols?”

  “How could I forget?” Victoria said. “The cease-and-desist letter from the Florida Bar is on my desk.”

  “Well, if you want to know exactly what happened . . .”

  “I do! Word for word.”

  So before Victoria could begin pulling out his fingernails with pliers, Steve told her.

  ***

  “Do you have one gun or two?” Nadia asks.

  “What?” Steve answers. They are inside Club Anastasia, headed toward an office at the end of a corridor behind the bar. A heavyset woman in an apron is mopping the floor. Two thick-necked men in black suits are riffling through a stack of credit card receipts and using an old-fashioned, noisy adding machine with a paper scroll. The men glance at Nadia and return to their work.

  “On the TV, you have two guns,” Nadia says.

  “You talking about my commercial?”

  “I told you. I got your name from the television.”

  In the commercial, Steve was dressed in cowboy garb. Right down to the chaps, Stetson, and pair of six-shooters. He fired at a blowup doll—a man in a suit intended to resemble, well, The Man. The doll exploded, and Steve blew smoke from the gun barrel.

  An actor’s baritone voice intoned: “If you need a lawyer, why not hire a gunslinger? Steve Solomon. Have briefcase. Will travel.”

  On the screen, the logo of Solomon & Lord. And the phone number: 555-UBE-FREE.

  “No guns,” he tells Nadia as they approach Gorev’s office. “I hate guns.”

  “Then what can you do to frighten Nicolai?”

  “What I always do. Threaten to sue.”

  She exhales a little puff of displeasure, opens her purse, and shows Solomon what is inside. “Well, at least I have a gun,” she says.

  ***

  “Don’t say it, Vic. I know I screwed up. That’s why I need you so much now. Have you filed your notice of appearance?”

  She shook her head, felt her gold hoop earrings swinging. They had been a present from Steve after they’d won their first murder trial. “I can be your lawyer or your lover, Steve, but not both.”

  “Jeez, Vic.” His eyes went wide with surprise. “We’re partners in everything.”

  Victoria could feel his disappointment. Didn’t he realize you don’t put this sort of burden on the person you love?

  “You won’t listen to me,” she said. “As soon as you’re indicted, you’ll try to take over.”

  “No way. You’ll be the boss.”

  “You’ll push me to go over the line. Like that stupid saying of yours.”

  “‘When the law doesn’t work, you gotta work the law.’ It’s the truth, hon.”

  “Not the way I practice.”

  They were both quiet a moment. Somewhere inside this hellish place, a steel door clanged shut. Shouts of men could be heard on upper floors. The cat piss smell seemed to grow stronger.

  “I need you, Vic.”

  “I already retained Jake Lassiter.”

  “Lassiter! I want a lawyer, not a linebacker.”

  “He’s won some tough cases.”

  “He’s a slab of meat. If you won’t represent me, I want Roy Black.”

  “We can’t afford Roy.”

  “Tell him it’s me.”

  “Already did.”

  “And he didn’t offer a courtesy discount?”

  “He doubled his fee.”

  “What about Marcia Silvers? She’s won some big cases.”

  “Marcia’s in Washington, prepping for a Supreme Court argument.”

  “Damn! But why Lassiter?”

  “Because he won’t put up with your bullshit. And if you’re innocent, he’ll tear apart the courthouse to prove it.”

  “Says who?”

  “He promised me. He’ll be like Samson ripping down the pillars of the Temple of Dagon.”

  “If I recall my Old Testament,” Steve said, with an air of resignation, “that’s what killed old Samson.”

  -4-

  I want an innocent client.

  I need an innocent client.

  I don’t mean not guilty because the state can’t meet its burden of proof. But innocent. “Factually innocent,” as we mouthpieces call it.

  I’ve been trying cases for twenty years after a short, unspectacular career as a second-string linebacker with the Miami Dolphins. I made a few memorable hits on the suicide squads—the kickoff and punt teams—but mostly I sat so far down Shula’s bench, my ass was in Ocala. I went to night law school in the off-season, graduated in the top half of the bottom third of my class, and passed the bar exam on my fourth try. I’ve been bouncing from courtroom to courtroom in the so-called justice system ever since.

  My name is Jake Lassiter, and I’m a grinder. I am not called to speak at fancy conventions in five-star hotels. The governor has not offered me black robes and elevated me to the bench. I am not interviewed by CNN to comment on the latest trial of the century. And I am not rich.

  Here’s what I do. Burglary. Robbery. Assault and battery. Con games. Stolen cars. Embezzlement. Drug possession. And, of course, murder. For whatever reason, I’m particularly good at murder. Maybe because the stakes are so high, my engine revs to the red line. Not that a murder trial is a sprint. It’s a marathon where everyone along the road throws rocks at you as you chug along. You have to be able to take a hit.

  It’s a lot like the kickoff team in football. The fastest man is not necessarily the one who makes the tackle. More likely, the flier will be picked off by one of the blockers. The player who’s not particularly fast but senses the blocker’s angle can knock the bastard aside, keep rumbling along, and make the hit. That’s what kept me on the Dolphins for three years, and it’s my theory of trying a murder case. Play within yourself. Predict your opponent’s move before it happens, and beat him to the punch. If you’re not particularly swift or shifty—meaning if you’re me—a forearm blast to the throat will do.

  On the field or in the courtroom, try not to get knocked on your ass, but if you do, never let them see your pain. Bounce to your feet and head for the ball.

  Here’s what I won’t do as a lawyer. I won’t represent a man accused of violence against women or children because my granny taught me that such scum do not deserve my time or effort. Otherwise, it’s pretty much anything goes.

  I take a lot of cases other lawyers turn down. Either the money is short or the odds of winning are long. That’s earned me the name “Last Chance Lassiter.”

  I pick up cases here and there. Sometimes I just stand by the elevator on the fourth floor of the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building. Someone who’s headed for an arraignment naked—without a lawyer—will spot me. I’m a big guy in
a suit with a briefcase, and I don’t look lost. Maybe they like my broken nose or my decent haircut, or maybe they’re just scared.

  “You a lawyer, dude?”

  “Best one you can afford . . . dude.”

  Money is always a problem. My first question to a potential customer—yeah, I sometimes call them that—is not “Did you do it?” It’s “How much money do you have?” And, yes, I take credit cards. But not a mortgage on a customer’s house. Not because I’d feel lousy about foreclosing. Because I once got burned when the IRS leapfrogged the mortgage I was holding with a lien for unpaid taxes, leaving my client without a house and me without a fee.

  Sometimes former customers refer their pals. This puzzles me, because those ex-customers are nearly always in prison. I guess they don’t blame me for losing. After all, they were guilty, and they watched me work my ass off on their behalf.

  That’s a fact of the business. Most of my customers are guilty as hell. I only win when the state can’t prove its case or otherwise screws the pooch. I’m a damn good cross-examiner, and I’ve won cases by catching cops in lies. That doesn’t mean my customer wasn’t technically guilty. But if I can eviscerate the state’s witnesses and then work my magic in closing argument, I can get my customer off.

  How else can I win? Sometimes the cops will conduct an unconstitutional search, or the prosecutors will fail to turn over exculpatory evidence, or the trial judge will err. On the occasions I win, I receive little gratitude. No Christmas cards or baskets of fruit. Maybe a grumbling complaint about the size of my fee.

  The customer sees the stage play, not the work behind it. Writing the script, building the sets, painting the props, and learning the lines. The ingrate couldn’t care less. I’ll never hear from the victorious client again . . . until he’s arrested for something else.

  Mostly I lose. Or plead my guy guilty. It’s a dirty little secret, but that’s the deal with most criminal defense lawyers, even the big names who pontificate on the tube. If anyone knew our real winning percentage, they’d cop a quick plea or flee the jurisdiction.

  We all want to be heroes to our paying customers. John D. MacDonald, my favorite Florida writer—yeah, I read a bit—once began a book: “There are no hundred percent heroes.” If you ask my customers, they’d probably give me 51 percent. MacDonald also wrote, “If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.” Well, I’m tired of holding a pair of deuces or a busted flush. Tired of the grind. Tired of losing. Which is why on this sweaty July day with a sky as gray as an angry ocean, I needed an innocent client.

  I was juggling these thoughts while driving north on Dixie Highway toward I-95 on my way to the jail. Victoria Lord had called this morning while I was slicing mangoes for my nephew Kip’s smoothie. Victoria’s law partner and live-in lover, Steve Solomon, had managed to get himself arrested in the shooting death of some Russian club owner on South Beach.

  “I don’t like Solomon,” I told her on the phone.

  I know. I know. My marketing skills could use work.

  “Do you like most of your clients?” she asked.

  “Practically none.”

  “But you bust your hump and break down doors to win.”

  “I hate losing more than I hate the clients.”

  “That’s why I’m hiring you. Plus you have street smarts and won’t fall for any of Steve’s bullshit.”

  “Has he agreed to this?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell him I’ve punched out clients who lied to me.”

  “You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to smack him.”

  In front of me, a landscaper’s overloaded Ford pickup was dropping palm fronds and dead ferns all over the highway. I goosed the gas pedal and pulled my ancient Eldorado convertible into the passing lane. “Victoria, do you ever get tired of representing guilty people?”

  “Steve swears he’s innocent.”

  “And the law presumes he is. But I’m not talking about him. Does it ever get you down? That nearly everyone is guilty.”

  She was silent on the phone a moment. Maybe wondering if she’d called the wrong guy. Then she said, “It comes with the territory, Jake. We force the state to meet its burden of proof. If they do it, we haven’t really lost. The system has won.”

  “So you really believe the stuff they teach in law school?”

  “If I didn’t, how could I go on?”

  Exactly, I thought. She hadn’t practiced long enough to lose her religion, the belief in the holiness of the justice system. I didn’t want to be a prick, so I didn’t say, “Give it ten more years, Victoria; then get back to me.”

  Instead, I said, “See you and your presumably innocent partner in an hour.”

  I knew them both a bit. They lived together on Kumquat, and I’m on Poinciana in Coconut Grove, so we’re practically neighbors. I’d recently seen Solomon tooling around the neighborhood in a jazzy new Corvette with a paint job they call “torch red.” Not my style. I’m also too big to fit comfortably in the driver’s seat. His personalized license plate was “I-OBJECT,” a pretty good summation of his temperament.

  Solomon was a herky-jerky guy, always in motion, always gabbing. About six feet tall with dark hair that usually needed trimming. He weighed about as much as one of my buttocks, but he had that wiry strength. I’d seen him jogging down Old Cutler Road, and he kept up an impressive pace. In court, he badgered witnesses, pestered lawyers, and interrupted judges. His files were always a mess, and, basically, he was a pain in the ass. Showy and over the top by my standards, and I’m not exactly the shy and retiring type.

  One day, in the Justice Building cafeteria, I joined Solomon at a luncheon table with several other lawyers. He was spouting off about “Solomon’s Laws,” rules he makes up that flout the system.

  “If the facts don’t fit the law, bend the facts,” Solomon said, stuffing his face with eggplant Parmesan.

  Everybody laughed. Except me. When I was a young lawyer, I represented an old musician named Cadillac Johnson whose song had been stolen by a hot young hip-hop artist. The copyright claim was murky and documents had been destroyed, but I knew in my gut that my guy had written the song several decades earlier.

  “It’s a tough case, maybe impossible,” Cadillac told me.

  “If your cause is just, no case is impossible,” I said.

  Ever since, I’ve tried to live by those words. Problem is, just causes are hard to come by. And, oh yeah, I won a pile of cash for Cadillac’s retirement without bending the facts, though I did punch a guy out.

  The first time I saw Victoria Lord, she was in court, and what I noticed was her posture. A tall, slender blonde who stood very straight and spoke with quiet confidence and authority. Tailored business suits and patrician good looks. Her table was neatly arranged with color-coded files that I’m sure were alphabetized and cross-indexed. Highly organized. A real pro at a young age. Maybe overly earnest for my taste. I could be wrong, but she seemed to be one of those anti-gluten, pro-yoga, organic wine bar, Generation-Y echo boomers. A Gwyneth Paltrow type who would name her first daughter Persimmon or whatever.

  They’re really different, Solomon and Lord, but as people say, opposites attract. For whatever reason—maybe because they each bring different strengths to the courtroom—they’ve become a damn good trial team.

  Traffic slowed to a halt between Seventeenth Avenue and the entrance to I-95. A mattress lay in the middle lane. Typical. At least it wasn’t on fire. I was stuck behind a muddy old Chevy that belched oily smoke. The tag was expired, and I’d bet a hundred bucks the driver had neither a license nor insurance. I squeezed my oversize Eldo into the left lane, cutting off a young guy in a white Porsche. He banged his horn, and through the rearview, I saw him shoot me the bird.

  Aw, screw you, Porsche Boy. And your designer sunglasses, too.

  I’m tired of Miami. For a long time, I’ve felt out of place, a brew-and-burger guy in a pâté-and-chardonnay world.

  I
got a call a few weeks ago from Clarence Washington, an old Dolphins teammate. After retirement, he picked up a master’s degree and then a doctorate in education. And this from a kid who grew up in the projects. I have a lot of respect for Clarence. Now, he’s headmaster at a boy’s prep school in the green hills of Vermont. And to think I knew him when he tossed a beer keg off a seventh-story balcony into a hotel swimming pool. With a Dolphins cheerleader riding that keg all the way down.

  Anyway, Clarence said he needed a new football coach. The guy who had the job had retired after like a hundred years. Apparently, there’s very little pressure coaching a bunch of pampered skinny white boys who play against others of their ilk. It doesn’t really matter if you win, as long as the uniforms don’t get too dirty and the parents’ cocktails are chilled. And you get to wear a sweat suit to work with the crest of the school on the chest.

  So Vermont was on my mind as I drove to the stinkhole county jail, stuck in traffic, horns blaring, and the thermometer closing in on ninety-six degrees.

  Steve Solomon, you may not know it, but you’re the tipping point. If you’re a lying scumbag murderer, I’m hanging up my shingle and heading north.

  Green hills. Autumn leaves. Ben & Jerry’s.

  Half an hour later, I pulled off the Dolphin Expressway onto Twelfth Avenue and parked my thirty-year-old convertible, canvas top up, in an open lot.

  I walked to the jail, a hot rain falling, as it did practically every day in the summer. But as the fat drops pelted me, I could smell the dewy grass of a manicured playing field on a cool September morning.

  ###

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