by Paul Levine
“Letters float around in my head, and I catch them. Give me another name.”
“Monica Lewinsky,” Victoria said.
Bobby fidgeted a moment, then said, “INSANE MILKY COW.”
“Wow,” Victoria said.
Steve sat down on the sofa. “Bobby suffered sensory deprivation-”
“When Mom locked me in a dog cage for, like, a year,” Bobby said.
“Oh, God,” Victoria said.
“Bobby's left brain sort of shut down,” Steve said. “Limbic memory, logical and sequential thinking. But his right brain took off. Striatal memory, habit and procedural thinking.”
“I can memorize stuff,” Bobby said.
“We've been reading a lot of medical journals together,” Steve said.
“We're best buds,” Bobby said. “I'm gonna live with Uncle Steve until I'm old enough to hook up with Jenna Jameson.”
“Is she from the neighborhood?” Victoria asked.
“Duh.”
“She's an actress,” Steve said.
“I don't think I've seen her movies,” Victoria said.
“Jennatilia,” Bobby said. “Lip Service. Cum One, Cum All.”
“I should be going,” Victoria said.
“Will you come back?” Bobby asked.
“Now, there's a first.” Steve tousled Bobby's hair and looked at the boy with genuine warmth. Gone was the smart-ass grin, the wiseguy guile. At home, with his nephew, Solomon was a different man, Victoria thought.
On the sofa, the boy swiveled up onto his knees and held up his right hand toward Victoria, fanning out his fingers.
“Son-of-a-gun,” Steve said. “He wants to touch hands.”
Victoria raised her right hand and they touched palms and fingers.
“Like with Mom,” Bobby said. “Except no window.”
“Window?” Victoria asked, bewildered.
“Jail visitors' room,” Steve interpreted. “When Bobby was little and his mom was doing time, they'd touch each side of the glass.”
Victoria didn't want to embarrass Bobby by asking about his mother's incarceration. Behind his glasses, there was a sadness and vulnerability in his eyes.
“Please come back,” Bobby said.
“If it's okay with your uncle,” she said.
“Anytime.”
“So long, Solomon,” Victoria said. “Bobby, you're a wonderful kid. Sofia, nice seeing you and your Rudnicks.”
“You bet,” Sofia said.
Steve walked Victoria to the door. “Good luck on the case. If you need any advice, just call.”
Solomon seemed sincere, Victoria thought, stepping into the humid night, heading for her car. What was that she was feeling, her emotions as tangled as raveled wool? A tinge of disappointment, maybe. She was going to miss the sparks that crackled off their crossed swords. She had the strange sense of something ending without ever having begun.
“Victoria, wait,” Steve called out, hurrying down the flagstone path after her.
For a reason she couldn't fathom, excitement buzzed inside her like a bee against a windowpane. What did he want?
Steve handed her a snakeskin Gucci pump. “You forgot this,” he said, then walked back into his house and closed the door.
3. I will never take a drink until sundown… two o'clock… noon… I'm thirsty.
Twelve
THE BIRD-DOGGING, CLIENT- RUSTLING CASE POACHER
Maybe she'd judged him too quickly, Victoria thought the morning after her visit to Solomon's house. Sure, in court, he was a gunslinger, taking potshots at anything that moved. But at home, he displayed something else altogether. Besides his pecs, she meant.
For all Solomon's flaws, he clearly loved his nephew, and the boy adored him. So few men these days were good candidates for fatherhood. If Solomon could only cure several dozen obnoxious traits, maybe he'd be a decent catch for someone.
Victoria was thinking these thoughts as she drove under a canopy of banyan trees along Old Cutler Road on her way to Katrina Barksdale's house. Giving it some gas, she passed a Gulliver Prep bus, a reckless maneuver on the two-lane road that meandered along the coastline. But time was of the essence, as lawyers were inclined to say. The Grand Jury was in session this morning. Word had leaked out that Katrina would be indicted for murder by Happy Hour. Victoria needed to sign her up and prep her for the forthcoming arrest and booking.
Still rehashing last night, she realized that Solomon had surprised her with something else, too. He'd graciously backed off the Barksdale case. Maybe he wasn't a total shark, after all. Now that she thought of it, there had been other moments when he showed a human side. Hadn't he defended her to Ray Pincher? “She's gonna be really good if you don't squeeze the life out of her.”
And there was Bobby repeating what his uncle had said. “She's pretty and smart and the best rookie lawyer I've ever seen.”
So, upon rehearing, she reconsidered the case of Stephen Solomon, Esq. She'd been too harsh with him. She knew she could be abrasive. Maybe she brought out his worst behavior with her own. Next time she ran into Solomon, she promised herself, she'd apologize and make amends.
As she turned on Casuarina Concourse, her mind settled on the business of the day-State v. Barksdale-and Solomon had no part in it. Would the indictment be for first-degree murder? What was the evidence of premeditation? What was the motive? Which led to another thought, more philosophical than legal. Just why do spouses kill, anyway? It all seemed so foreign to her. Solomon said he had tried more than two dozen murder cases, and now, for a moment, she wished she had handled at least one.
She wanted to appear confident with Katrina, but tension started to creep up her spine. She pictured Ray Pincher holding a press conference just in time for the evening news. Whipping up the media like a lion tamer at the circus. Maybe she should hire a PR firm. Hold her own press conference. Would that even be ethical? She had no framework for a high-publicity trial.
As she headed toward the bay, a soft breeze rustled the fronds on the towering Royal Palms in the grassy median. She passed a dozen postmodern houses, asymmetric concrete boxes gleaming in the morning sun. At the end of the block, sitting on a promontory surrounded on three sides by water, was Casa Barksdale. Victoria drove through an open wrought-iron gate, wended past bubbling bronze fountains, and stopped in front of a seventeenth-century Italian palazzo… built in 1998. Her mother, who always fancied ruffles and flourishes, would love this place. A sprawling estate of courtyards and loggias, arches and gazebos, curlicues and ornate designs. Inside were marble stairwells and terrazzo floors, dark wood wainscoting and plaster crown molding. Behind the main house, facing the waterway that opened directly to the bay, a lap pool with a mosaic pattern floor, and a keystone deck. At the tiled dock, the Kat's Meow, a custom Bluewater yacht.
Victoria had been here for several charity events-cocktails and canapes on the deck under an air-conditioned tent. At each, Charles and Katrina had walked hand in hand, moving from guest to guest, offering small talk and thank-yous for helping the zoo or symphony or book fair. Had they gone upstairs later, stripped out of their party duds, and hauled out the kinky paraphernalia?
She'd come to the parties with Bruce, of course. Funny, thinking of him just now. Bruce and kinky paraphernalia didn't usually occupy the same thoughts. Solomon hadn't been far off. Sex with Bruce was fine, though predictable. If they didn't swing from a trapeze, so what? She had no complaints, even if the word that sometimes came to her mind during Bruce's exertions was “workmanlike.” He expelled his breaths in short and steady puffs, as though running the marathon. And like a distance runner, he had stamina. So much, she was often sore by the ten-mile mark.
She had tried a few tactics to speed him up. A tongue in the ear merely tickled him and slowed him down. Changing positions, searching for a new friction point, didn't work either. But marathon runners were preferable to sprinters, to say nothing of guys who couldn't get out of the blocks. Besides, she could teach him, coul
d harness that engine. Bruce so far exceeded Minimum Husband Standards in every other respect, sex was simply not a problem.
As Victoria approached the front door, she straightened her skirt. She'd dressed in one of her favorite work outfits. A Zanella double-breasted, wide-collared brown pinstripe jacket with a matching A-line skirt that fell below the knee. A simple dark brown silk blouse underneath with sensible-if obscenely costly-Prada pumps, a single strap at the ankle. Only the shoes had been purchased new. The rest, which would have cost at least twelve hundred dollars retail, she'd bought for a fifth of that at the consignment shop in Surfside.
She carried a suede briefcase that held a Retainer Agreement she had typed herself. It would formalize her hiring and set her fee. She'd left the amount blank. How much should it be? Enough to pay off the student loans, rent an office, print stationery and business cards, pay a secretary, and still have something left in the bank.
She approached a ten-foot-high door with a scroll design that made her think of a Spanish monastery. She rang the doorbell, and in a moment a Honduran housekeeper, a short squat woman in a white uniform, opened the door. “Te estan esperando, senorita.”
They're waiting for you. Victoria's Spanish was passable. In Miami, it had to be. But is that what the housekeeper had said? They?
Her pumps clicking on the mosaic terrazzo of the foyer, Victoria followed the woman. They passed a library with thousands of books, many rare first editions. Charles Barksdale had been both a serious collector and a serious reader and often quoted the classics. Next came the billiard room, and the living room, with its huge Italian stone fireplace. Then out through double doors and into a landscaped courtyard with a covered loggia. She heard the soft gurgle of water from a fountain of spitting cherubs. But another sound, too. A man's laugh. The robust, jovial laugh of a car salesman who's just talked you into that options package you didn't really need. The laugh sounded just like…
No, it couldn't be.
They rounded the fountain, and there he was, sitting at a redwood table. Steve Solomon, the sleazy, conniving son-of-a-bitch. He wore a blue sport coat with gold buttons over a pink polo shirt and white slacks.
Gold buttons, pink shirt, white slacks!
Like some banker from Greenwich at the yacht club. Sitting next to him was Katrina Barksdale, laughing with the trill of a mockingbird. Having too damn much fun for a woman about to be indicted. And check out the lipstick-red, low-cut, one-shoulder spandex halter. The slit skirt was white and low on the hips, exposing her bare, tanned midriff at the top and a lot of thigh below. The shoes were strappy slingbacks, and the toenails were the same color as the halter. No, this would not do for booking.
“Vic-tor-ia,” Katrina sang out. “Join us!”
Katrina's makeup was a little heavy for a Monday morning. Her raven hair cascaded over her shoulders and stopped at the top of her creamy white breasts. It gave her the overall look of a hot fudge sundae.
As Victoria approached, Katrina crossed her long legs, and the slit slid higher up her thigh. “Victoria, we were just talking about you.”
“Oh, really?” Victoria forced a smile that stopped before it got to her eyes.
She knew that Katrina had started life as Margaret Katherine Gustafson in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Not that she hid her background. On the contrary, Katrina bragged about each step up. She had twirled flaming batons at halftime at St. Cloud State football games, then took a snow princess act onto skates in a traveling Ice Capades show. According to the bitchy set at La Gorce Country Club, Katrina had supplemented her wages by twirling other batons at night in various hotel rooms along the tour. Then a feathers-and-boobs skating show in Las Vegas, where she met the newly widowed Charles Barksdale, and it was love at first double axel. For him, at least. Victoria preferred to believe that Katrina loved Charles, too, but when a hardscrabble young woman marries an older, wealthier man, questions are raised. Pincher would certainly raise them.
“How clever of you to team up with Stephen,” Katrina said. “He was just telling me about all his exciting trials.”
This couldn't be happening, Victoria thought. She half expected a low-flying gull to drop another load of shit on her.
“Hello, partner.” Steve popped up and pulled out a chair. The perfect gentleman. The perfect, bird-dogging, client-rustling, case-poaching gentleman. Just when she was starting to feel all warm and fuzzy, he had sandbagged her.
Dammit, how could I have been so stupid!
“Iced tea?” Steve asked, reaching for the pitcher even as he slid the chair beneath her. “If my taste buds are in tune, it's passion fruit.”
“Passion fruit it is,” Katrina said. “You have a good tongue, Stephen.”
Good tongue? Did she really say that?
“But perhaps you both want something stronger,” Katrina said.
Even on the precipice of jail, she hadn't forgotten her Gables Estates etiquette. Victoria forced herself to remain calm. “Iced tea's fine.”
“Stephen?” Katrina asked.
“I usually don't imbibe until sundown,” he said. Putting on airs.
“Somewhere in the world, it's got to be dark.” Katrina's voice swirled like wine in crystal.
“In that case, a single-malt Scotch, if you've got it.”
“How's a twenty-year-old Glenmorangie?”
“Like a Sunday stroll through the heather,” he purred. “Three fingers neat ought to do me.”
Katrina smiled coquettishly and called for the housekeeper. Victoria gave Steve a look that could leave second-degree burns, then asked: “So what have I missed?”
“Stephen was telling me about your new partnership,” Katrina said.
“Was he now?”
“Solomon and Lord,” Katrina said. “It has cachet, no?”
“Cachet, yes,” Steve said, and Katrina giggled like a schoolgirl.
“And what have you told Stephen?” Victoria asked her, trying not to exhale the steam she felt rising from deep inside.
“Everything. What happened that night. And other nights. He'll fill you in.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Believe me,” Katrina said, “some of the details make me blush.”
How could we tell through all that Deep Cover Number Nine?
“For a guy his age, Charlie had some appetite.” Katrina's laugh jangled like a pocketful of coins.
The widow Barksdale seemed to be handling her bereavement quite well, Victoria thought.
“The night it happened,” Katrina continued, “Charlie had this stomach virus, and I thought no way he'd want to fool around. But he hauled out the latex and leather and popped a hundred milligrams of Viagra. I mean, there was no stopping the guy.”
“I wonder if I could talk to my partner for a moment,” Victoria said, resting her hand on Steve's, then digging her fingernails deep into the underside of his wrist.
“Don't be long,” Katrina said, winking at Steve.
Victoria dragged Steve to his feet and led him to the dock. They stopped in the shadow cast by the flying bridge of the Kat's Meow.
“What do you think you're doing?” Victoria meant to whisper but it came out like a hiss from a punctured tire.
“Interviewing our client.”
“My client.”
“I think she likes me.”
“She'd like a Great Dane if it had balls.”
“This is for your own good, Victoria. You need me on this.”
“You lied to me! Last night you said, ‘It's all yours.'”
“I semi-lied. It's half yours.”
“Just when I was starting to think you were almost human.”
“Really? Thanks.”
He seemed genuinely moved, like the nicest thing anyone ever said to him was that he wasn't just a lump of useless protoplasm.
“I'm sure we'll work great together,” he said.
“Forget it. I'm reporting you to the Bar.”
“Be sure to tell them you misled Katrina
about your trial experience. Naughty. Very naughty.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I'm trying to get you to redirect your anger. Think how good it would feel to beat Pincher in court.”
“Almost as good as it would feel to see you disbarred.”
“When I said you had the makings of a great lawyer-”
“It was a con, a pickup line.”
“It was the truth.”
“Forget it. I can't work with you.”
“Too late. Katrina already wrote a check. Payable to Solomon and Lord.”
“There's no such firm. Never will be.”
Steve looked back toward the courtyard and gave Katrina a little wave. “Okay. We're a one-case firm. Win, lose, or draw, we split up. But for now…”
“No way. I'll tell Kat you're an impostor and a shyster.”
“We'll look like clowns. Neither of us will get the case.”
“You bastard. You low-life, bullshit-slinging bastard!”
“Go ahead. Get it out of your system.”
They were at the edge of the dock, the huge yacht looming over them. A three-foot metal gaff was mounted on hooks attached to a piling. She could grab it, bash his skull, and push him into the water. When he tried to crawl out, she'd clobber him. Again and again. Watch him slip under in a mess of splintered bone and bubbling blood. Justifiable homicide. No jury would convict her.
“Trust me,” he said. “Someday you'll thank me.”
“Someday I'll kill you.”
“Like it or not, we're attached at the hip.”
Furious, she spun around so she wouldn't have to look at him. She needed a plan. She could torpedo him, no doubt about it. But what would Katrina think? That she didn't have her shit together. Solomon was right, damn him. If she opened her mouth, they'd both lose the case.
She wheeled back and faced him. “Katrina really wrote a check?”
Smiling like a lizard on a sunny rock, Steve patted his jacket pocket. “It's right here. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand? For a murder case? Are you kidding? It's got to be six figures.”
“Sure, it should be. But Barksdale's kids have filed suit against Katrina for wrongful death, tied up all the money. She's got hardly anything in her own name.”
