by Paul Levine
Carraway snapped his notebook shut. “Should have figured. We do the work, the lawyer gets the money.”
Kazdoy turned his attention to the sergeant. “Mis-ter Policeman, who do you think you are, some Cossack, you come in here and threaten me like there’s gonna be a pogrom. I been a friend of the mayor since he was a little pisher. You don’t want to help, he’s gonna hear about it.”
Sergeant Carraway swallowed hard and swung his bulk toward the broken door. “Fine with me. I gotta open a case number, but nothing says I gotta be a hero. Lassiter, call me when you got something to say.”
The sergeant left without promising to call for lunch. Lassiter looked around the office for another few minutes, then said his good-byes and headed down the stairs and out the fire door, opening it slowly, studying the latch. Nothing to see. He ran his hand over the mechanism, the little bolt that locks from the outside but slides open when the bar is pressed from inside.
Hullo! A tiny piece of silver duct tape, like you use to patch a torn sail, and the rest of the latch faintly sticky, like it was covered with the same tape but was torn off in a hurry. Okay, a guy doesn’t wait in a rest room all night, somebody tapes a door open for him. Just like Watergate — why not — most of those characters live in Miami anyway.
He stepped into the alley. No one had stolen his car, a canary yellow 1968 Olds 442, or sliced the canvas top in search of a tape player to exchange for a day’s ration of crack. Not that a slash and grabber would have found anything to sell. The car had no tape player, no CD, no cellular phone, and the radio was the original equipment: AM only.
The late-afternoon ocean breeze whipped discarded popcorn boxes against the building’s foundation and rattled the top of an aluminum garbage can. The temperature was dropping, and it was growing dark. Sliding into the bucket seat of the old beauty, Lassiter turned on the headlights. Then he got out, knelt into a catcher’s position and looked around. Crushed soda cans, candy wrappers, old newspapers. Street crud, nothing more. A mercury vapor light clicked on two buildings away, bathing the alley in a sickly green light. Then, something glared back from the pavement.
What the hell! He picked it up carefully, touching only the sides. A photograph, Violet Belfrey’s sharp face and round breasts. The photo was clean, everything else in the alley covered with grime. Couldn’t have been there long. If Carraway could see over his belly, maybe he would have found it.
Now what does Violet have to do with this? She was in the theater last night and could have taped the door. Lassiter leaned against his old convertible and thought about it. He felt a chill. It didn’t make any sense. Violet didn’t have to tape the door. She could have given anyone a key. Unless someone didn’t want to be seen walking through the front door after midnight. But the picture? Who would be so stupid as to leave a picture of one of the culprits at the crime scene, unless it was supposed to be found. Someone could be framing her, but who and why? He would give the picture to Carraway as a peace offering. If they didn’t drool over it first, the lab boys could dust it for latents.
Across the alley, an old woman wearing a tattered sweater used a cane to poke around in a dumpster behind a Burger King. Lassiter walked toward her, reached in his wallet for a ten-dollar bill and offered it, but she swatted at him with the cane. He got back into the car, turned the ignition, and listened to 455 cubic inches of rebuilt V-8 growl to life. He was low on gas — at eight miles a gallon, Arab sheikhs should send thank-you cards — and wondered if any stations in South Beach still carried high-test with lead. He flicked on the radio. The talk show host was bellowing at a caller, simultaneously questioning his patriotism, intelligence, and sexual preference. He turned off the radio and ran through all the facts, finishing with one that hit him square in the face. On December 1 — less than two weeks — the first coupons would become due. He would have to work fast, and it could all be for nothing. Even now the coupons could be in New York or La Paz or Grand Cayman.
But the coupons were not nearly so far away. They were in a cardboard box that once held Coca-Cola syrup in the storeroom of the Lincoln Road Grill three blocks west of the theater. And there, too, was Harry Marlin, a guy whose prayers would be answered if he could only figure out one thing — how to turn paper into gold.
CHAPTER 9
The Case of the Kosher Kielbasa
The phone message from Great Southern Bank said “Urgent,” but that did not necessarily imply a threat to the ozone layer, or even a mildly interesting problem. Thaddeus G. Whitney, the bank’s general counsel, might have called because a computer glitch foreclosed the wrong mortgage. Or another customer could have dropped a safe-deposit box on a big toe, or a trusted bookkeeper might have run off to Acapulco with the Christmas Club fund.
Jake Lassiter put the phone message to one side and returned his other calls. He told Bernard/Bernice he would consider suing his/her insurance company for declining payment for a sex change operation on the grounds it was cosmetic surgery. He tried to calm down the mother whose infant was put on the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt at the airport by security guards because the baby was considered carry-on luggage. He listened patiently to the Hialeah man who insisted the First Amendment prevented the zoning board from removing La Virgen de la Caridad from his front yard, despite the fact the statue was forty feet high, contained blinking lights, and played music that kept the neighbors awake.
Then Jake Lassiter returned Thad Whitney’s phone call.
“Shit’s hit the fan,” Whitney said, each word a little puff, as if the breath were being squeezed out of him. The bank lawyer had a habit of speaking in scatalogical cliches. “You know Humberto Hernandez-Zaldivar, one of your basic Cube developers, gets rich on borrowed money?”
“Take it easy, Thad. I’ve known Berto since law school. We tried cases together in the PD’s office, and I consider him a friend.”
“Well, start considering him an asshole. I’ll make this brief, so listen up. A few years ago, when all the South Americans were bringing their cash into town, your buddy Berto buys thirty-eight oceanfront condos thanks to an overly generous loan officer I’ll tell you about later. When currency controls shut off the pesos and bolivars, the condo market dried up, and I he stopped making payments. Bottom line, with acceleration,› unpaid interest, penalties and fees, your buddy’s about four-point-six million in the hole. Pretty big bucks for a kid floated up from Havana on an inner tube.”
“A raft made of tires,” Lassiter corrected him. “He was twelve. His mother died in the Straits.”
“My condolences,” Whitney said coldly, “but frankly, I’m more concerned with our P and L statement for the current fiscal. We may have to call in the regulators, and you know how that frosts my buns.”
Lassiter pictured the bank lawyer at the other end of the line. A bland, forgettable face topped by pale wispy hair that threatened to blow away in the first easterly. Slinging the corporate jargon, feet propped on a marble desk, fouling the air with smoke rings and ill humor.
“Just call the loans and sue to foreclose,” Lassiter suggested, contemplating the ethics of punching out a client. “The condos give you the security.”
“They would, except your old classmate flipped Conrad Ticklin, one of our loan officers. Turned him over for a lousy twenty-five in cash plus an empty condo to play hide-the-weenie with a receptionist from installment loans. Ticklin approves about a hundred and twenty percent financing, and the Cube takes home close to half a mil, over and above the mortgages.”
“Bad news, Thad, but the apartments still secure most of the debt.”
“You’d think so,” Whitney said, “except the bastard slipped in another lien before ours. Closed four million in loans with Vista Bank the day before he closed with us. Theirs are all recorded first. We’re the bare-assed second mortgagee on thirty-eight empty, unsold condos. Get it? We’re sucking hind tit to the tune of four-point-six-million clams.”
Lassiter smiled, taking surreptitious pleasure at the bank
’s predicament. “That’s really a shame, Thad.”
“A shame? It’s a fucking crime. C’mon, Lassiter. Let’s see some of that toughness, pro football star, rah, rah, rah and all that shit.”
“Second string, Thad. Story of my life. A step too slow.”
“You’re telling me. Can you sue the wetback by Thursday?”
Jake Lassiter would have liked to put Thad Whitney in the middle of the nutcracker drill, a pair of linemen tattooing his flabby ass with their cleats.
“You there, Jake? How long will it take to draft a complaint, then set up a meeting with the U.S. Attorney so we can prosecute for fraud?”
“I could sue Berto tomorrow. But I’ve got a better idea. Let me take him to dinner tonight.”
“What the hell for? You hard up for black beans and rice?”
Jake Lassiter paused and held the phone away from his face, putting distance between Thad Whitney and himself. It wasn’t far enough. He thought about all the things he’d rather be doing than dealing with the repulsive bank lawyer who was good for forty grand a month in billings. He thought about telling Whitney to take the bad loans and shove them where the sun don’t shine. He thought about hanging up and heading for the beach. And he thought, too, how hard it would be to start a third career. After a moment, he simply said, “If we sue, we’ve got to join Vista Bank as a defendant. They’ll counterclaim and wipe you out with their first mortgage. This has to be finessed. Let me talk to Berto, and I might be able to help you both out.” Lassiter looked at his watch. “Yikes! I gotta get to court.”
“So, is this your biggest case, or what?” Sam Kazdoy asked in a whisper that could be heard throughout the courtroom.
Jake Lassiter leaned close to him at the defense table. “I had another false advertising case even bigger, defending Busty Storm when she was appearing at the Organ Grinder. The state claimed there was no way her bosom measured one hundred and twenty-seven. But I won.”
“How?” Kazdoy asked.
“Centimeters, Sam. Centimeters.”
Their discussion was halted by a stern look from the judge, and Lassiter returned his semi-attention to the witness stand t where Mrs. Sadie Pivnick was swearing to tell the truth, the I whole truth, and nothing but the truth, just like Abe, may his soul rest in peace, always told her.
The prosecutor, Chareen Bailey, a statuesque African-American woman a year out of law school, went through the preliminaries, eliciting name, address, and background, getting warmed up. Mrs. Pivnick sat there stiffly, eyeing the microphone suspiciously, her dyed hair the color of a copper penny. After establishing that her witness was a regular patron of Kazdoy’s All-Nite Deli, Chareen Bailey got down to business.
“Did there come a time, ma’am, when you had a conversation with Mr. Kazdoy about the food in his deli?”
“We talked, sure.”
“And when you talked, did Mr. Kazdoy characterize the food he served?”
“Objection!” Lassiter sang out. He stood, more to stretch his legs than to make a legal point. “No predicate laid as to time or place.”
Judge Morgan Lewis craned his neck to see over the bench and glanced at his watch. “Overruled. Let’s just move it along, Ms. Bailey.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, bowing slightly. They’re still polite when they’re green. She turned to the witness. “You may answer the question, Mrs. Pivnick.”
“Vad question? Who can remember a question when the three of you keep kibitzing?”
The prosecutor gave her a strained smile. “We’ll try it again. Did there come a time when you had a conversation with Mr. Kazdoy in which he characterized the food served in his delicatessen vis a vis the Jewish dietary laws?”
“Vad she say about Visa?” Sadie Pivnick asked, turning to the judge. “My late Abe always insisted I pay cash.”
The judge looked down from his perch and smiled tolerantly. “The food, Mrs. Pivnick. Did you ever discuss the food?”
“ Oy, the food! The stuffed derma gave me the heartburn. I wouldn’t feed it to a dog.”
At the defense table, Sam Kazdoy tugged at Lassiter’s sleeve. “She’s one to talk, that old kvetcherkeh. She put so much chicken fat in her chopped liver, Abe keeled over when he was still a boychik.”
“That’s a shame,” Lassiter whispered.
“He wasn’t a day over eighty,” Kazdoy said, shaking his head sadly.
Chareen Bailey cleared her throat and moved a step closer to the witness stand. “Mrs. Pivnick, what did Mr. Kazdoy say to you as to whether his food was kosher?”
“Ay, that’s what you want to know.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So why beat around the bush?”
“Mrs. Pivnick, in the courtroom, the lawyer asks the questions, and the witness answers,” Chareen Bailey said. “Do you understand?”
“What’s not to understand?”
Judge Morgan Lewis sighed and rolled his eyes. “Mrs. Pivnick, just tell us what Mr. Kazdoy said to you.”
“All right, already. I asked him about the food, and he said, ‘Strictly kosher.’ Twice he said it. ‘Strictly kosher.’”
Mrs. Pivnick smiled triumphantly at having done her civic duty. Ms. Bailey sat down, and the judge politely asked whether Mr. Lassiter wished to inquire.
Lassiter stood and smiled at the witness, then turned his back. “How is your hearing, Mrs. Pivnick?”
“Vad you say?”
Lassiter wheeled around toward the bench. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
As soon as Lassiter was in his chair, Sam Kazdoy poked him in the ribs. “That’s it? Perry Mason wouldn’t sit down so quick unless it was time for a commercial.”
“Trust me, Sam.”
“But I never said such a thing. She’s meshugge.”
“She’s a sympathetic witness, and I don’t want to embarrass her. We’ll win or lose on your testimony.”
The old man looked at him skeptically.
“Sam, please trust me. You’re like family to me, and I’d do anything for you.”
“You mean that?” Sam Kazdoy said, his eyes going misty.
“Yeah, I do. And I haven’t said anything like that since I told Coach Shula I’d do whatever was best for the team.”
“He must have liked that.”
“Sure did,” Lassiter said. “He told me to retire.”
Isidor Pickelner scratched at his beard and waited for the next question.
“What is your official capacity, Mr. Pickelner?” Chareen Bailey asked.
“Officially, I’m the Kosher Food Inspector for the City of Miami Beach. Unofficially, I’m Izzy.”
Chareen Bailey leveled her gaze at the witness to tell him this was serious business. “Are you a rabbi?”
“No, ma’am. I’m a shochet. I slaughter animals according to the Jewish dietary laws as laid down in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And I investigate all establishments in Miami Beach that hold themselves out to be kosher.”
“What do your duties entail?”
“Ascertaining the ingredients and the method of preparation of foods served in restaurants and delicatessens. Only those four-footed animals that chew their cud and have cloven hooves are kosher. So, a cow is kosher, a pig is not. Creatures that crawl such as lizards or snakes are forbidden. Fish must have both scales and fins, so shellfish is taboo.”
“No stone crabs?” Judge Lewis mused.
“Afraid not, Your Honor,” Pickelner replied.
“Did you have an occasion to investigate the food served at Kazdoy’s All-Nite Deli?” Ms. Bailey asked.
Did he ever. Pickelner claimed the sausage was made of pork!
“ Trayf, Your Honor. Unclean! Kielbasa sausage posing as kosher knockwurst. An abomination under the religious laws and false advertising under state laws.”
Ms. Bailey allowed as how she had no further questions, and the judge suggested it was a good time for lunch.
The courthouse wits could not restrain themselv
es as they stopped at Lassiter and Kazdoy’s table at the Quarterdeck Lounge.
“Hey, Jake, that Reuben’s not kosher,” announced Marvin the Maven. “No mixing meat and cheese.”
“How Trout the beer?” Lassiter asked.
“No problem.”
A few ex-clients wandered over. Luis “Blinky” Baroso, a con man and lobster pot poacher stopped by to say hello. He was being arraigned in federal court for stealing rare ostrich eggs. Stuart Bornstein was eating grilled grouper at the next table. He once tried to cash in on the fast-food craze but went bankrupt when no one would buy into his franchise for Escargot-to-Go. Mike DuBelko was perched on a barstool and saluted Jake with his old-fashioned glass. He owned a service station and was still on probation for pilfering freon from his customers’ cars while he changed their oil. At twenty bucks a pound, the freon was more profitable than tune-ups.
Sam Kazdoy frowned when Lassiter ordered a second sixteen-ounce Grolsch. “What now, I got a shikker for a lawyer?”
“Don’t worry, Sam. I can hold it. Let’s talk about the case.”
“Why get fartootst? What does God care what we eat? What matters is how we treat each other. Which reminds me, have you found the gonifs who robbed me blind?”
“Not yet, Sam. With your bonds, the bank, and the windsurfing race, I’m spinning in circles right now. That’s why I needed your kosher kielbasa case like I needed a…”
“A second hole in your bagel,” Kazdoy said.
Judge Lewis was waiting impatiently in the courtroom, but Jake Lassiter was on the pay phone in the corridor.
“Es negocio o es placer?” Berto asked him. “Business or pleasure, Jake?”
“Business. I’m representing Great Southern Bank.”
Silence. Then a hearty laugh. “Jake, I’m glad it’s you, mi amigo. I thought it would be one of those bloodless WASPs downtown, those pasty faces, sin alma ni corazon.”
