by Paul Levine
“Heavy son of a bitch,” she muttered.
At first I thought she meant me.
I like a woman who curses. Makes me think she’ll be honest in personal relationships. It’s stupid, I know, like believing a guy who doesn’t look you in the eyes is shifty, when he may just be bashful.
“Damn right,” I said, adapting my lingo, chameleonlike, to my companion. “Try leaning back. Let your legs do the work. Don’t be afraid. You won’t fall, just keep hold of the uphaul.”
Beginners have this fear of toppling over backward, so they stand straight up and do all the pulling with their arms. Gradually, she leaned back and got the tip of the mast out of the water, and the rest followed. She grabbed the boom, raked it in, and headed the twelve-foot board out through the surf.
She yelled something that sounded like “whoopee,” and looked back at me over her shoulder through her flying blond hair, brave enough now to loosen up a little. “Sail with me.”
Willingly, I ducked under my boom and lay in the water on my back. I propped my feet on the board, and tilted the mast into the wind. When I felt a gust, I lifted the boom gently and let the sail pick me up as it filled with air. I slid my feet into the straps, tugged the boom toward me, and followed my Minnesota friend. I pumped the sail twice and whizzed alongside her.
“Thanks for showing me the ropes,” she called out. “I’m Jillian. Will you let me take you to my hotel for lunch?”
I couldn’t think why not. “Sure. I’m Jake. Let’s get past the surf line. I’ll show you some tricks they don’t know in Duluth. When we get in, I’ll give you some salve for those scrapes.”
Doctor Lassiter at your service; we make beach calls.
She smiled and kept sailing. I stayed upwind and behind her, watching her calf muscles undulate through the window on my sail. “Watch out for those jet skis,” I yelled, pointing in the general direction of Bimini. Three hundred yards away, two machines euphemistically called “personal watercraft” were chawing away, fouling the breeze with their noxious noise. Nearby, a sleek yacht was anchored, pitching gently in the offshore waves.
What loggers are to forests, what sheep are to grass, that’s what jet skis are to a fine patch of turquoise water. It’s not the machine, of course, loud and irksome as it is. The yahoos who ride them, water bullies, are the problem. They ignore the rules of right-of-way, cut off sailboats, terrorize swimmers, scare the fish, and toss beer bottles into the surf. Down in Islamorada recently, a fisherman plugged a jet skier with a. 22 rifle when the punk wouldn’t heed his warnings to keep a distance. Only a flesh wound in the leg. Most of the locals wish the fisherman was a better shot.
These two surf jockeys were headed right for us on their black-and-white monsters, churning up the water, jumping each other’s wake, and generally destroying the tranquility of a place where the only sound is the smooth slash of water and the tune of the wind. We stayed on our tack, a close reach to the northeast. The onshore wind swept the gaseous stink across the waves. The two intruders slowed about thirty yards away. Two Hispanic men, early twenties. Both wiry, both looking at me, instead of Jillian, which any red-blooded guy would do. One of them said something, but with the sound of the damned engines and the whistling wind, I couldn’t hear. A second time, louder. “Ay, you! Follow us.”
I shook my head, dumbfounded.
“C’mon, asshole. Somebody wants to see you.”
I luffed the sail and slowed, but at two hundred twenty-something pounds, I can’t stop. If I do, the board will sink. “No thanks, have a lunch date.”
Jillian sailed by and was looking back over her shoulder. Probably thinking about all the Miami horror stories she must have heard. It’s one thing to be caught in the crossfire of a Colombian cowboy drug war at a shopping mall. Or to wander into a Santeria ceremony sacrificing live goats to the god Yemaya. But to witness a boardsailor’s kidnapping might be a new one for the folks in mid-America.
Their engines were idling, and the incoming tide brought them closer. Both had tattoos on their upper arms. The talker had a neatly trimmed mustache. “C’mon, Hector. We’ll tow him.”
They revved up and followed me, Hector zooming close, reaching for the bowline that sweeps back into the water as you sail. I pumped the sail and caught a gust that took me out of his reach. Except for a couple of space-age trimarans, a fiberglass board with a sail is the fastest wind-driven craft in existence. The America’s Cup yachts? Spare me. The fastest boards can triple their speeds. But a sail is not an engine. I depend on nature: wind and water. Those damn motorcycles on water generate four hundred fifty pounds of thrust out a jet nozzle.
I heard the machines growling behind me, louder now. In a smooth patch of water, I carved a fine jibe, and headed the other way. They just leaned into the turn like bikers, and followed me. In a moment, they had me sandwiched. Hector reached for the bowline again, and I whipped the boom toward him with my aft hand. The outhaul tip caught him on the side of the head and nearly toppled him from his steed. His curses were drowned out by the engines.
The other one sped up and shot across open water ahead of me. Then he turned and idled, blocking my path. I could have jibed again and headed back toward Hector, who was bleeding just above the ear. Or I could imitate some of the wind fanatics from Maui and the Columbia River Gorge, gymnast-sized guys who fly over objects in their path. A decent-sized roller was coming, just between us. I had the board for it, but not the body. At my weight, you don’t jump waves so much as hippity-hop them. Still, I tried to unweight, lifting my feet against the footstraps just as the wave hoisted me, pumping the sail hard.
I got airborne, all right, but only about eighteen inches. I heard him scream, saw him duck, felt the pointy nose of the board strike metal, as I catapulted forward. I didn’t know my bow had hit the gas tank until a moment later. The explosion wasn’t much. You don’t get much of a pop from three gallons of lead-free. Besides, I was under water at the time, and it felt no worse than a tight end cuffing me across the ear holes of the helmet. Hector’s pal wasn’t so lucky. If his nose wasn’t broken from the mast smacking him, its appearance wasn’t improved any, either.
As I treaded water next to my splintered toy, Jillian sailed close, trying to figure out how to stop her big, lunky floater.
“Jeez, you were right,” she said, splashing by me. “I’ve never seen anything like this in Minnesota.”
W ould you care for lunch?” Matsuo Yagamata asked, gesturing toward a buffet table spread with cold seafood that somebody had forgotten to cook.
My social life was improving: two invitations in one day.
Yagamata didn’t wait for me. He lowered himself into an orange deck chair with a canvas back, while a lean Asian man in white served him raw octopus from an ice-filled platter. We were anchored a mile offshore, the bow pointing northeast, and we had a splendid view of the Art Deco hotels of South Beach. I still hadn’t said a word.
“Mr. Lassiter, you did call my office asking to see me.”
I took a seat at the table directly across from him. “Most clients simply call back, set up an appointment. They don’t send two goons to scoop me up.”
His look told me he was not like most clients. I glanced over the rail toward the beach. “Besides, I had other plans.”
“Don’t worry about your friend. My crew members saw to it that she made it safely to shore.”
“Your crew members are thugs,” I said. Beneath my feet, the deck of Yagamata’s yacht swayed with the surge of the windwhipped tide.
Yagamata nodded so gravely it was almost a bow. “You have my sincere apologies for the conduct of my men. They obviously did not convey my invitation in the proper manner. Had the occasion been strictly social, I could have asked your beautiful friend to join us, also.”
Yagamata was wearing khaki cotton slacks and a matching short-sleeve shirt with buttoned pockets and epaulets. He looked at me from behind wire-rimmed sunglasses and tapped the barrel of the yellow, waterproof b
inoculars that hung around his thick neck. For the second time in a week, I thought of Pearl Harbor.
“I watched you approach her on the beach.” Either he had something in his eye or he winked at me. “You can learn a lot about a man by the way he handles women. I have heard a saying in your country that all you need to know about a man is the car he drives, the shoes he wears, and the woman he marries. Would you agree?”
“My car’s twenty-five years old; I go barefoot whenever possible; and no woman has ever had the nerve.”
Yagamata allowed himself a brief smile. From somewhere below deck, a pump began whooshing. The clipped chatter of Japanese-two men, voices competing with the rush of the wind-came from the galley. I had changed into a dry pair of trunks that were too small for me, and I wore a terry-cloth robe with the monogram “ Yugen,” which was the name of the fifty-one-foot Bluewater cruiser whose deck was now pitching beneath my feet. My board and rig had been hauled aboard and were lashed to the starboard rail.
A handsome beige helicopter was tied down near the stern. An Italian model, the Agusta. The Yugen was a fine boat, Yagamata told me, with a modified V-hull and a flared bow, and though it displaced twenty-six thousand pounds, its draft was only twenty-three inches. So it was suited for cruising the shallows of Biscayne Bay, but here on the ocean side, in twenty knots of wind, it was top-heavy and rocked me right out of my appetite. I can windsurf in the choppiest water for hours and never feel a thing. But anchor me on a bouncing tug, I’d lose my lunch, if I had any, which I hadn’t.
Whether he sensed the problem or not, Yagamata barked orders at his captain-a sunbaked man in his forties-in what I first thought was Japanese but then realized was Russian. Somewhere among the guttural sounds, I picked up the word “Intracoastal.” Then, Yagamata asked again if I wanted some sushi. I had to be polite. This guy was an important client, who also went to some effort to demonstrate that a luncheon date was more a command than an invitation. I knew I could get the raw tuna down with no problem. It looked like beef tenderloin, and I’d had it before with ample quantities of Kirin. But the salmon roe and eel did not make my mouth water, and I’d stepped on enough sea urchins to know I’d rather eat porcupine quills. Besides, I’ve seen the sludge that pours into our waters, so I prefer my fish cooked.
When I hesitated, Yagamata tried gentle persuasion. “Perhaps some miso ae, a very light appetizer?”
I looked a question at him.
“Conch, octopus, and cucumbers in a miso sauce. Or you may prefer flying fish eggs and swordfish belly.”
I would have preferred a cheeseburger with a chocolate shake, but I settled for cold tofu spiced with ginger and scallions. The taste was fine, though the consistency reminded me of a soggy sponge. I was washing it down with some of Matsuo Yagamata’s champagne when he asked why I had wanted to see him.
“To learn more about Crespo and Smorodinsky,” I told him.
His arms were folded across his stocky chest. “You received their personnel files, did you not?”
I had. There was nothing useful in them. Crespo had worked for Yagamata Imports for five years, Smorodinsky for three. Each one had been shifted around, sometimes assigned to the Atlantic Seaboard warehouse, sometimes helping at a wholesale distribution office, or on the Yugen, even doing chores at Yagamata’s Palm Island home.
“The two men shared some work details,” I said. “Did they ever argue? Did Smorodinsky do anything to provoke Crespo?”
Yagamata dismissed the notion with an economical wave of his hand. “I am not that close with my workers. Ask your client these questions.”
“I have. All he talks about is an argument over eighteen dollars.”
Yagamata speared a slice of squid on a fancy toothpick with a frizzy red head like Little Orphan Annie. “Men have been killed for less. Surely you know that.”
“Crespo’s making it up as he goes. He didn’t kill the Russian.”
Yagamata showed me a meager, quizzical smile. “Tell me, what does a lawyer do when he doesn’t believe his own client?”
“Keeps on breathing, ‘cause it happens every day.”
“So your job is not to find the truth, Mr. Lassiter.”
“Truth is for judges and juries. My job is to make the best possible case with whatever evidence I’ve got, and leave judgment day to somebody else.”
“Then why do you worry so much? Take what you have and present it to your judge and jury.”
“What I have stinks worse than two-week-old catfish.”
I immediately regretted the reference to rotting fish, but staring at octopus tentacles doubtless has a subliminal impact. I drained the rest of my champagne, which made my head rock gently with the tide. I am not used to midday doses of the bubbly. Especially combined with sun and a swaying boat.
“Besides,” I continued, “I lied.”
He looked puzzled.
“I can’t do it, leave judgment day to someone else,” I explained. “I have to know. It isn’t enough just to win or lose. Like the sign says in the courtroom, ‘We who labor here seek only the truth.’ My problem is I believe it. Not that the system searches for the truth. It doesn’t. It only seeks evidence, and that can be true or false; it doesn’t matter as long as it meets certain technical rules of admissibility. The truth can be excluded and the falsehoods can be admitted and polished to a fine gloss by smooth-talking lawyers. I’m looking for the literal truth. Who done it? And why? I can’t help it. I just have to know.”
“Regardless of the consequences?”
Now it was my turn to look puzzled.
“Isn’t it conceivable that your client knows better than you how his interests are best served?” Yagamata asked.
“It’s possible,” I said, warily, realizing he was playing lawyer, setting me up for another question.
“So that if you thwart his intentions out of some misguided belief that you are helping him, you could actually do him great harm.”
We were dancing around like a couple of boxers in the first round, feeling each other out. I said, “It’s also possible he’s being misled by others, and unless he levels with me, or I figure out on my own what’s going on, he could be doing himself great harm without knowing it.”
Yagamata’s eyes were hooded by the wire-rimmed sunglasses. “And who would do such a thing to your angelic client?”
His voice was tinged with sarcasm, the words filled with challenge. Would I call his bluff? He didn’t think so, and he was right. Yagamata had probably paid for the thick carpet my partners loved so much in their offices. He was also paying my client’s fees. I had no proof, nothing to go on, and he knew it. “I don’t know. That’s why I do my best to poke around in the shadows, to turn over rocks.”
“In my country,” Matsuo Yagamata said, “we have an expression. If you look under enough rocks, you will eventually find a snake.”
I was just this side of woozy but could still figure that one out. A warning in pleasant tones, but I got the message loud and clear. While I was thinking about it, a crewman in a white smock silently delivered another bottle of champagne and expertly popped the cork. He refilled our glasses without spilling a drop. I could take being rich if I didn’t have to lie, cheat, and steal to get there.
Okay, I figured, my head buzzing pleasantly. Why not listen to the rich guy and let Francisco Crespo take the fall? He seemed willing enough to do the time. Be smart for once, Jake old boy. Go for the champagne lunches and six-figure fees. Or be a schmuck and keep turning over rocks until you grab a rattlesnake by the tail. Which would it be?
I moved the champagne glass across the table, out of my reach, but still within temptation. I always preferred beer, anyway. “I noticed several Russian names on your payroll list.”
It was a question, and Yagamata knew it. It was also an answer to my own question. I thought I heard him sigh, but it might have been the wind. We were cruising at a stately ten knots, the cruiser ably cutting through the chop, headed for calmer waters.
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br /> “A lot of Russians have emigrated in the last few years,” I continued. “But Miami hasn’t gotten that many, and I was wondering…”
C’mon, Matsuo, I wanted to yell. Help me out here. Don’t make me subpoena you. I’d have to commit hara-kiri if my partners found out.
He probably considered telling me to go to hell. But after a moment, he settled back in his chair and said, “As you know, I collect Russian art. I did business there even in the days of Brezhnev. It is much easier now, of course, though knowing who to bribe is a little more complex.” He allowed himself a slender laugh. “I do not have the traditional Japanese antipathy for the Russians. They are a sad, yet beautiful people. Very warm, very spiritual. Lovers of high art, ballet, the finest music. Even Smorodinsky was a worldly man of culture.”
I must have been thinking about the brute on the slab in the morgue, because Yagamata smiled and said, “Don’t look so surprised. Americans believe that you have to live on Park Avenue and subscribe to the Metropolitan Opera to be cultured. In Russia, art has long been enjoyed and understood by the masses. Both Smorodinsky and his brother were well versed in native Russian art and had a passing familiarity with European painting. Vladimir was an intelligent man, who knew the lessons of history. There were many nights he and I walked along the River Neva debating the future of his beloved homeland. He was more than a valued employee. He became a friend.”
Vladimir? Whatever happened to I am not that close with my workers? “You brought Smorodinsky here from the Soviet Union? You collect Russians, too.”
A hundred yards off the stern, two dolphins jumped in unison, their question-mark silhouettes etched into the horizon. Yagamata’s look was impenetrable. He seemed to be deciding how much to tell me. “Vladimir began as a low-level operative for one of my business contacts in St. Petersburg, when it was still called Leningrad. He spoke English reasonably well and knew how to grease the wheels in the old bureaucracy to get things done. He was a resourceful man who helped me obtain certain, shall we say, hard-to-get items.”
