by Paul Levine
“Tarnation,” Violet said, raising the back of one hand to her mouth the way she imagined Bette Davis would do it. “Who woulda done this?”
“Zoll vaksen tsibiliss in zein pupik!”
“Huh?”
“Whoever did it, onions should grow in his navel.” A shudder went through Samuel Kazdoy’s body and he sagged on his desk, folded over at the middle as if his stomach ached. For a moment Violet felt his pain. Samuel Kazdoy had been nice to her, and now he was hurting. That was bad. But from the look on his face, there must have been a fortune there, and that was good. She couldn’t wait to see Harry and help with the counting, but first there was work to do.
“What are we gonna do, Mr. K.?” she asked.
Samuel Kazdoy’s eyes were misty and his skin was gray. “Jacob… I need Jacob. Hand me the phone.”
Bent over the sink in the partners’ rest room, Jake Lassiter closed his eyes and tossed cold water onto his face. The sign on the door did not say MEN, just PARTNERS. No women had yet gained entry into what Marshall Tuttle called The Brotherhood. The uniformed rest room attendant, a Cuban man in his seventies who pretended not to understand English, stood at a discreet distance with the practiced look of one paid not to observe.
Lassiter was letting the adrenaline ebb, sharing the sergeant’s grief. Claude Ferguson was striking out at the system, not at Jake Lassiter. It was a system that had buried him in endless delay, had tied him up in mind-numbing depositions and repetitive hearings, had pried into his personal life, picking at his wound, treating his loss with impersonal cruelty.
Men had killed his wife, men who went to work each day in suits and ties and met in quiet rooms where they calmly decided to place poisons on pharmacy shelves. These men, Lassiter knew, paid his salary, and the thought made him ill. Even now, in a hundred conference rooms, the bozos in research or marketing or risk management are figuring the cost-benefit analysis of selling death with a jingle and a rhyme, and if a few million-dollar settlements threaten to dent the quarterly report, not to worry, the excess liability coverage will pick up the tab. Earnings up, bonuses all around. The Glory of the Bottom Line.
But are you any better than they are, he asked, another splash of water hitting the face. What are you anyway, besides a moderately skilled practitioner of the fast shuffle and the soft shoe? Liability, now you see it, now you don’t. Comparative negligence, assumption of the risk, or that all-time favorite, statute of limitations. Sure, you caught us, but you caught us too late! His job was to excuse, to deny, and to obfuscate. There you are, Jake Lassiter thought. Former second-string linebacker, current All-Pro obfuscator ready to roll up the score with a verdict here, a summary judgment there.
Jake Lassiter leaned on the marble-topped sink with its gold-plated faucets and stared into the mirror. Not a healthy look. Dead eyes. A sour expression. Charlie Riggs was right.
Without looking at him, the old attendant handed Lassiter a terry cloth towel. “ Gracias, Pablo,” Lassiter said.
“De nada, Doctor.”
Once, at a partners’ meeting, Lassiter had suggested that partners and associates share the same rest room. “An egalitarian gesture. Lawyers that pee together plead together.”
Marshall Tuttle had tabled the motion, then referred it to the Committee on Facilities, but not before saying, “The officers ought not be displaying their wares to the enlisted men. Loss of stature, you know.”
“Maybe we need officers with bigger stature,” Jake Lassiter had suggested helpfully.
When Lassiter returned to his office, Cindy was missing from her desk, probably riding a chopper with Tubby Tubberville in the Keys. She had taped a pink telephone memo to the top of Lassiter’s leather chair, a place reserved for important messages such as emergency hearings and small-craft advisories:
Mr. K.; Mr. K.;
Bonds away,
Gone with the wind.
“What the hell?” he said to himself, trying to decipher Cindy’s version of Japanese poetry. Bonds, Lassiter thought. He had advised the old man to keep his negotiable paper in a safe-deposit box and to do his monthly clipping in a bank. Probably didn’t listen. Bonds away?
“Oh shit,” he said aloud. Then he headed to the parking garage at the pace the coaches use for the twelve-minute run.
A City of Miami Beach police car was double-parked in front of the South Side Theater, its front wheels over the curb and its tail slanted into Lincoln Road, a cop in a hurry. A van for the forensic team, the crime scene investigators, was parked neatly next to a planter on the pedestrian mall. Lassiter pulled his old convertible into the alley and jammed the rusty front bumper against the wall by the fire door.
The crime scene technicians were just leaving, their photos taken and surroundings dusted for prints. Lassiter climbed the stairs two at a time.
In a corner of the office, Sam Kazdoy was slumped into an old sofa. He looked up as Lassiter stepped through the broken door, but the cherubic smile was missing. “Jacob, there you are. I got tsuris, real trouble here.”
“Hello, Sam. Officer…”
The cop’s name tag said P. Carraway and he had three stripes on his sleeve. Early fifties, maybe older, big with a potbelly, a red face, and a veined nose that was a road map to every after-hours joint in Sunny Isles. A look that said he burned out so long ago he probably couldn’t remember when he liked his job or did it well. He didn’t say hello or offer his beefy hand. His partner, J. Torano on the name tag, looked bored. Late twenties, short but muscular, a bodybuilder maybe, sloping shoulders and huge biceps straining against a tapered, short-sleeve shirt.
Sergeant Carraway spoke first. “You the lawyer we been waiting for?”
“Guilty.”
“Your client here claims somebody stole one to two million in, what’d he say, Georgy boy, bonds?” A nasty, hard-edged voice, the cop watching the lawyer for a reaction. Lassiter kept quiet, still sizing up the players. The younger cop wasn’t paying attention to anybody. Carraway asked again, louder, “Georgy boy, what’d he call ‘em?”
“Called ‘em coupons, and please call me Jorge, like with an H where the J is,” Torano said.
“Coupons. Thank you, Whore-hay,” Carraway said, dragging out his partner’s name.
Samuel Kazdoy looked up and said in a whisper, “Bond coupons.” Then he sank back into the sofa. For the first time that Lassiter could remember, Kazdoy looked every bit his eighty-six years.
“Bond coupons, yesiree!” Sergeant Carraway hooted. The cop wanted to spar with him, Lassiter thought. Shit, might as well lead with your chin.
“What do you mean, claims they were stolen?” Lassiter asked.
The red face smirked. “What I mean, Counselor, is we got no signs of forced entry, this mess on the floor is as phony as a fifty-dollar roofing job, and who the hell keeps that kinda dough in a dump like this? What I’m saying in case you’re a bit slow on the uptake is that maybe there wasn’t a burglary here at all.”
Okay, if that’s his best shot, no blood on the canvas. Just open with a jab now, get the feel of it before getting into any clinches. “I don’t believe you, Carraway. You’re sent to investigate a B and E that doesn’t solve itself in half an hour, so you accuse the victim. No break-in, huh? Sam, was there a show last night?”
“Eisenstein festival,” the old man said softly from the couch. “A twin bill — Ten Days That Shook the World and Alexander Nevsky — a beautiful show, three hundred people.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Carraway said. “He told us that, but from what I hear about his customers, most couldn’t get up the stairs, much less bust down a door.”
Lassiter moved to the middle of the room. “Sergeant, you know what pisses me off? Salesclerks who are rude, TV repairmen who show up three hours late, and policemen too lazy for anything except cadging free drinks and copping cheap feels at topless bars.”
“And you know what pisses me off?” Carraway said, his watery eyes squinting. “Lawyers. All of you, the smart-aleck young
ones in the PD’s office and you downtown types with your bayfront views.” He turned to Torano, who was silently doing some slow-motion martial arts exercises by the door. “Yo, Whore-hay, what does a lawyer use for a contraceptive?”
“No se, man.”
“His personality.”
Carraway laughed at his own joke. His partner kept wheeling around, ready to slash an invisible opponent, and Kazdoy stayed on the sofa, apparently oblivious to the byplay. “Whore-hay, you hear the one about the lawyer who stepped in a pile of horseshit?”
“No, digame.”
“He looked down and thought he was melting.”
Carraway was laughing so hard his face turned purple. With any luck, Lassiter thought, he’d have a coronary, and a real cop could be assigned to the case. “If you’re done, Sergeant, maybe we can get down to work. Did you consider the possibility that somebody hides in the rest room, then after everyone’s gone and the place locked up, breaks into the office, takes the coupons, and walks out the fire door downstairs and into the alley?”
“Yeah, I considered it.”
“And?”
“And I don’t have to tell you nothing, smart guy.”
“Carraway, my first impression is that you couldn’t find your dick with both hands, but maybe I’m wrong. Tell me, am I wrong?”
Carraway studied him impassively, tucked his thumbs in his belt, and said, “All right, the show was over at what, eleven o’clock. The break-in didn’t occur until after two o’clock, according to the broken clock. If someone’s in the rest room, they don’t wait that long. They’d be going bananas by then, anyway. If you’d ever done surveillance, you’d know how slow ten minutes goes by, much less three hours. Plus, like I said before, this crowd ain’t exactly a bunch of cat burglars.”
Lassiter thought about it a moment, then turned to his client. “Any new faces last night, Sam?”
“More strangers than fleas on a dog.” It was Violet, coming through the broken door, filing her fingernails, chewing gum, and walking, all at the same time. “I jes’ hadda get outta here, it was givin’ me the heebie-jeebies, even with such handsome officers to keep me company.”
Jorge Torano grinned and flexed his broad shoulders, then resumed his t’ai chi ch’uan, or wing chun do, or whatever the hell it was. Sergeant Carraway tried to peek down Violet’s low-cut blouse. She let him have a quick look, then sashayed to the couch, lowered herself ceremoniously next to the old man, blew on her fingernails, and said, “Last night, had a class here from the university, moviemaking or somethin’. Bunch a guys with earrings and hair down to their ass. Wouldn’t of trusted a one of them. Mr. K. and I left here about eleven and I fixed a late supper at his place and so on and so forth as I told these two gentlemen.”
And so on and so forth. The phrase rattled around in Lassiter’s mind.
“We’re looking into the UM class, cinema arts,” the sergeant said. “But what the hell were all those bond things doing here?”
Kazdoy was paying attention now. “If I kept them all in a safe-deposit box, I’d have to go there every month to clip coupons. So I clipped enough for the next two years, I don’t know, maybe one-point-five million, maybe a little more. The rest are still attached to the bonds in my box at the bank.”
Lassiter said, “As for the mess, whoever did it either was looking for other valuables or wanted us to think so.”
“Whoever did it should have an onion grow out his belly button,” Violet piped up. “That’s what Mr. K. said.”
“Make him easier to ID,” Lassiter said.
“Cute,” Sergeant Carraway said without smiling. “But I ain’t seen nothing yet to convince me anybody from outside took whatever was in those drawers. Far as I’m concerned, the three of you are as much suspects as some joint-smoking hippies at UM.”
The old man whimpered. The sergeant looked right at Lassiter, testing him, seeing if he could get out of a clinch. The cop’s hands were on his hips now, his belly hanging over his pants, straining the buttons on his regulation blue shirt. Lassiter was wearing his uniform, a charcoal-gray suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie, and it was time to play lawyer games with the bigmouth cop. A simple strategy, act dumb, sucker the cop into dropping his hands, then unload with a hook to the jaw.
“Interesting theory, Sarge. You got a motive for this allegedly fake burglary?”
“Sure, tax evasion. Ever heard of it, Counselor? Your client here reports an imaginary theft. He still has the bond things plus he gets to take a whatchacallit from the IRS.”
Lassiter turned to face the cop straight on. He lowered his voice, a trick used by lawyers and leg breakers alike. The most effective threats are delivered sotto voce. “They call it a casualty or theft loss, and I call your statement slander. You’ve just published the defamatory statement to a third person, Miss Belfrey here, which creates the cause of action and obviates any privilege you might have had to say it directly to Mr. Kazdoy and his counsel. Now, I’m going to let that one slide, but I’ll serve you with process on your favorite barstool the day you open your fat trap to the papers.”
Lassiter paused and let the silence fill the room. Then he picked up the volume just a bit. “And, as long as we’re talking litigation, let’s not forget a civil rights action, depriving Mr. Samuel Kazdoy, one of the city’s most respected philanthropists, of his rights under color of law. Plus intentional infliction of mental distress and a few other things my bright law clerks come up with, and even if I don’t win the suit, there’ll be a helluva fuss, Internal Review investigation, who knows, a lot of trouble for a cop maybe a year or two from pension.”
Officer Jorge Torano stopped his Asian isometrics and let out a whistle that sounded like “oh boy.” The old man sat up straight, something flickering in his eyes. Violet seemed flushed, expectant and alert at the possible clash of stags in the forest. For a moment Sergeant Phil Carraway didn’t move, didn’t say a thing. Then he smiled a sloppy grin and put his hands up, palms forward.
“Okay okay,” Carraway sang out. “Just doing my job, part of the book, making sure it’s not an inside job, don’t get your nose outta joint, you never know, sometimes you come on like that and bam! You get a confession. But Jesus, we got no leads here.”
Lassiter smiled and walked to a neutral corner. The cop was throwing in the towel. Now that the macho bullshit was over, how to get him to solve the crime and get back the coupons?
“You said no signs of forced entry,” Lassiter said. “Who has keys to the front door?”
“Only Mr. K. and little ole me,” Violet said, studying a cuticle on her right pinkie.
“And Miss Belfrey has an alibi,” Sergeant Carraway said with a wink and a leer. Now the cop was Lassiter’s buddy, sharing confidences with him. It took a second but Lassiter figured out the alibi when Violet put an arm around the old man, then gently stroked his neck. It wasn’t a sexual gesture, just a comforting one, but the body language was unmistakable. She may not have gotten into the old man’s cabinet but she’s in his pants, Lassiter thought.
“Mr. Kazdoy said you’d be able to tell us something about these coupons, what a thief would do with them, that sort of thing,” Sergeant Carraway continued, his tone finally respectful and professional. Torano groaned and asked if he could leave, had to work out, and the fat sergeant nodded okay.
“Where do you want me to start?” Lassiter asked.
The sergeant pulled out a vinyl-covered notebook. “Well, what the fuck are these things anyhow?” That was as good a place as any, so Jake Lassiter told him to think of Mr. Kazdoy as a lender who gives five thousand dollars to, say, the city of Jacksonville to help build a sewage plant and the city agrees to repay him over twenty years at 8 percent interest, four hundred dollars a year, payable two hundred bucks a pop, every December 1 and June 1, then at the end of twenty years, he gets back the five grand. In the meantime, he pays no taxes on the interest payments.
“I built a box factory in Jacksonville once,” Kazdoy sai
d to no one in particular. “Cost me nine million in 1958, would be worth forty million today, but I don’t own it.”
Lassiter looked toward his client, hoping the old man wasn’t losing his marbles along with the bonds. Then he turned back to the sergeant and explained that to get your two hundred bucks, you have to turn in a coupon at a bank. “A bond payable over twenty years will have forty coupons. What the burglars took would have been… what, Sam
… six or seven thousand coupons?”
“Never liked Jacksonville,” Kazdoy said. “More anti-Semites than Warsaw.” The old man wasn’t going to be much help.
Lassiter said, “A securities newsletter will alert all the local banks. But the coupons will more likely turn up out of the country, maybe in the islands at some doper bank good at money laundering. Problem is, these are negotiable securities, anybody can cash them.”
Violet Belfrey was trying hard not to show that she was paying attention, but if she kept filing her nails, she’d soon draw blood.
“If real pros masterminded this,” Lassiter concluded, “they already have a buyer, maybe in the Bahamas or Switzerland, or someone in organized crime, so they wholesale them for fifty cents on the dollar, let somebody else worry about dropping them at banks all over the country or all over the world.”
Now Samuel Kazdoy was coming alive. “Jacob, you get them back for me, boychik, one half is yours.”
The old man pulled himself off the sofa, struggled for a moment to gain his balance, and then stepped between Lassiter and the sergeant. He turned around, asserting control as he must have done in conference rooms for more than half a century. The events of the day still hung on his shoulders, but a brightness returned to his eyes.
“One half, Jacob. You got a good kop on your shoulders, I always said that. You can do it. Just like you got those momzers in Hollywood off my back. Just like you saved my driver’s license when the sons of bitches in Tallahassee said I was too old. You’re my friend, Jacob. You break bread with me and drink borscht with me, now find the bonds for me. If you can keep your mind off the shiksas for a while, you’ll figure it out.”
