Solomon versus Lord svl-1

by Paul Levine

  “What would you do?”

  “Can't help you, Vic. But I might be interested in your discard.”

  Victoria tried to focus, tried to see through the clouds of indecision. It's fine to celebrate the power of multiple orgasms, but that's surely no reason to spend your life with the perpetrator…

  “If you've gotta think this hard,” Jackie said, “you're gonna make the wrong decision.”

  “I can't just go with my emotions. I need to analyze all the factors.”

  “You're getting a man, not a mutual fund.”

  Victoria took a deep breath. “Bruce and I have similar interests. Similar values. Our love is perfectly logical. Perfectly rational. I made a commitment to him, a reasoned, thoughtful commitment. He's everything anyone could want. I mean, no one's perfect, right?”

  Jackie didn't answer, so Victoria just kept going. “I'm going to marry Bruce. And that's final.”

  Forty

  NO HUGS, NO KISSES, NO ERRORS

  On a quiet Sunday night-Victoria wouldn't return his calls and Bobby was reading the encyclopedia-Steve sat at the kitchen table, snacking on red peppers and goat cheese and drinking Grolsch, the Dutch beer. He turned on the laptop and started Googling.

  First, he plugged “Replengren” into the search window, and bingo, a hundred references popped up. A synthetic hormone manufactured in Germany, Replengren regenerated damaged brain cells in rats, but not without side effects, including impaired motor skills. The FDA was considering whether to approve the drug for testing on humans, but so far, no decision had been made.

  Holy shit.

  Would Kranchick jump the gun with an experimental drug?

  He put her name into the search engine and came up with a dozen monographs and research papers she'd written over the years. He'd found these earlier when he did his original homework, coming up with her article “Unlocking Your Inner Rain Man.” But this time, he was looking for something specific. Using the FIND function, he searched everything she'd written for the word “Replengren.”

  Nothing. She'd never mentioned the drug.

  He set about reading Kranchick's papers anyway. He skipped the highly technical studies with charts of acid secretions and diagrams of brain electrical activity. He skimmed the ones speculating on the cause of autism, everything from measles in pregnant women to food additives and PCBs. He spent more time-a two-beer read-on a savant syndrome piece in which Kranchick predicted that transcranial magnetic stimulation would soon produce startling mental feats in both autistic and nonautistic persons.

  What he read twice, highlighting with a yellow marker after printing it out-just as Victoria would have done-was the oldest and least technical of all the articles. It was an opinion piece in a medical journal from Kranchick's first year of residency at a Baltimore hospital. He'd read it before but it had meant little then. Now, viewed in the context of Replengren, it took on new meaning. In the article, Kranchick criticized a hospital's decision to fire a researcher who'd purposely induced psychotic episodes in schizophrenics by giving them amphetamines.

  “Didn't Edward Jenner inject smallpox into an eight-year-old boy in order to come up with a vaccine?” she wrote. “Didn't Walter Reed allow infected mosquitos to attack Cuban workers in order to discover the cause of yellow fever? Didn't Louis Pasteur test his rabies vaccine on children even before he tried it on animals?”

  Steve felt his heartbeat quicken. What was the question he'd just asked himself?

  Would Kranchick jump the gun with an experimental drug?

  Some questions are too easy. Why not ask: Is Pincher a prick? Is Zinkavich a ton of truffled pork? He skipped to the last paragraph of Kranchick's article.

  “Advances in medicine require courage, vision, and the uncompromising ability to go where others fear to tread. The greater good demands no less.”

  The greater good.

  Steve wanted to ask Kranchick who gave her the right to play God. But that could wait. He had his trial strategy to consider and another Grolsch to drink. How could he prove that Kranchick was giving an unapproved drug to the patients at Rockland? The handwritten note Cadillac snatched from the wastebasket wasn't admissible. And how would he even tell Victoria about it? He could imagine their conversation.

  She: “Dammit, Solomon. What you've done is unethical and illegal.”

  He: “But we learned the truth. When the law doesn't work…”

  She: “Live with it! You can't decide what laws to follow and what to ignore. Who gave you the right to play God?”

  He: “Touche.”

  Even after polishing off another Grolsch, he didn't know what to do.

  By Monday, the cold front had pushed out to sea, and the morning was sunny and warm. Parked under the portico at Brickell Townhouse, listening to Bob Marley ask, “Is this love?” Steve waited for Victoria. He figured he had not seen her in thirty-two hours, nineteen minutes, and forty-six seconds. Roughly.

  This morning they would begin selecting a jury in the Barksdale trial, and sometime after dark, they would start taking testimony in Bobby's case. He was up to his ass in Pinchers and Finks. But at the moment, all he could think about was Victoria.

  Thirty-two hours and twenty minutes ago-make it twenty-one-she had climbed out of the straw, leaving him alone and forlorn. He had dialed her number three times on Sunday; she never picked up, never returned his calls.

  She's pretending it didn't happen. Well, he could do the same.

  But it wouldn't work. Their lovemaking was playing on an endless loop in what was left of his brain.

  A moment later, she came flying out the lobby door in full trial uniform: double-breasted charcoal suit and a simple strand of pearls. Looking serious. Businesslike. And beautiful. She good-morninged the doorman, tossed her briefcase into the backseat, and hopped in. “Sorry I'm late.”

  No “Good morning, sweetheart.” No peck on the cheek. Not even a smile.

  “No problem,” he said.

  Sooner or later, she'd have to confront it. He felt like shouting: “I told you how I feel. Now you tell me.”

  In sullen silence, he drove up Twelfth Avenue toward the Justice Building. This was how it was going to be. No hugs, no kisses, no errors. So much he wanted to say, but the atmosphere was all wrong. The harsh sunlight of day had replaced the flaming torches, the Cuban love songs, the swirling snow. Besides, hadn't he already laid it all out? He'd said he loved her. What else could he do?

  “Who's going to handle voir dire?” she asked. A professional tone, one partner to another.

  “You do the talking. I'll watch the jurors, take notes.”

  “Really?”

  “You're friendlier. They'll like you more. Hell, they'll fall in love with you.”

  Love, he thought. He had love on the brain.

  The air horn sounded on the drawbridge at the Miami River. Dammit, they'd be stuck a good five minutes. He wouldn't add it to his laws, but it's a good idea not to be late to court the first day of a murder trial. He pulled to a stop, third car in line.

  “So?” he said.

  “So?”

  He couldn't help himself. He couldn't not ask. “What's the deal? Is this gonna be another ‘it never happened'?”

  She stayed quiet. A white egret high-stepped its way up the ascending bridge. On the radio, Jimmy Cliff boasted he could see clearly now.

  “It happened,” she said finally.

  He waited for her to continue, but she didn't. The egret kept going uphill. Jimmy Cliff claimed it was a bright sunshiny day, but it sure didn't feel that way to Steve. “I'm a little on edge here, trying to figure just where I stand.”

  The bridge had gotten too steep. The egret took off and circled over the river, where a freighter loaded with minivans moved ponderously toward the open ocean.

  “I can't think about you right now,” she said.

  “That's a little cold, isn't it?”

  “We have a murder case to try all day, then Bobby's case tonight, then w
e do it all over again tomorrow. Bruce is breathing down my neck about seating charts for the reception, and he's ordered an avocado tree ice sculpture without asking me. Jackie hates her dress, my period's due tomorrow, and you, Steve Solomon, want me to bat my eyes and tell you how the earth moved, and it's never been that way before, and oh, my God, let's sail off to some island together.”

  “Did it? The earth move, I mean.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “First you blast me because I didn't express my feelings. Now I've put my balls on the chopping block, and what do you do?”

  “I'm tabling you.”

  “Table Bigby and the ice sculpture. Talk to me, dammit.”

  “Not until both cases are over. When everything's finished, we'll talk.” The barrier arm on the bridge was lifting. “Now, let's go win a murder trial.”

  Forty-one

  SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES

  Steve and Victoria climbed the front steps of the Justice Building, just as the Voodoo Squad janitors finished their cleanup. The cakes, candles, and skulls-offerings to various Santeria gods from families of defendants-were tossed into garbage bags, and the accused were left to their fate before mere mortals: judges and jurors.

  Katrina would be waiting in the lawyer-client lounge. Victoria hoped she had followed instructions on what to wear. They had spent several hours last night in Katrina's vast closet, Victoria spending a good deal of the time saying, “No.”

  No to the one-button tuxedo in silk crepe de chine, with the plunging neckline.

  No to the metallic cherry red crochet dress with the scoop neck.

  No to the shimmering, beaded lace dress with the sheer top.

  They had settled on a Carolina Herrera wool flannel skirt suit in pearl gray, a tasteful belt at the waist. Now, on the escalator headed to the courtroom, Victoria listened to Solomon lecture her on jury selection in that annoying, superior tone.

  “Watch the body language. Try to figure who are leaders, who are followers.”

  “I will.”

  “Strike all unattractive women, they'll hate our client.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “The man who sits with his elbows in his lap is submissive. The guy who encroaches on the next juror's chair is dominant.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “See who's carrying hardcover books, who's carrying the Daily Racing Form.”

  “Got it.”

  “Strike anyone reading a book by Bill O'Reilly.”

  “Why?”

  “They're gonna be obnoxious know-it-alls.”

  They got off on the second floor and took the escalator to the third floor. “Watch Marvin the Maven in the front row,” Steve said. “If he tugs an earlobe-”

  “He wants me to steal second base?”

  “He wants you to challenge the juror. Another thing: Let the panel know right away that our client's guilty of adultery.”

  “I'll do it in opening statement.”

  “Too late. Do it first thing in voir dire. I want to see their reactions, strike anyone who gets uptight.”

  “If we make too big a deal out of it, it'll look like we're afraid-”

  “Look, I don't have time for a tutorial here. Just do what I say.”

  “I don't need a tutorial.”

  Why's he lashing out like this? she wondered. Because she didn't leap into his arms today?

  I should never have slept with him. I'm an idiot!

  “I'm worried about the infidelity issue,” he said.

  You too? she thought.

  “We get some religious nuts on the jury, they'll hang her for screwing Manko, no matter what the evidence is on murder. Are you up to speed on cognitive dissonance theory?”

  “I studied psychology at Princeton.”

  “Congratulations. Do you know this corollary? If you can get people to publicly commit to positions they didn't previously agree with, they'll change their behavior to conform to their new commitments.”

  “I've read all the studies.”

  “Another thing, don't stand too close to the box. It's intimidating. Be relaxed. Walk back and forth if you want, but maintain eye contact. You're having a conversation with the jurors, not interrogating them.”

  “Jesus, Steve, I know how to pick a jury.”

  “But when you're cross-examining, stand sniper still. Let the witness squirm.”

  “I know how to cross-examine, too.”

  “If you'd listen, I could make a great lawyer out of you.”

  “That again? You're so damned overbearing.”

  “And you're just as frigid as the day we met.”

  “What!”

  “Rigid. I meant to say rigid.”

  “Screw you, Solomon.”

  “You already did, Lord.”

  Damn him, the cheap-shot artist.

  “I know you're angry,” she said, “but could you try to be an adult about this?”

  “I'm not angry.”

  Men are such babies. If he keeps this up, the next week will be hell.

  “You wanted all-business,” he said. “You got it.”

  Just like old times, she thought. She'd almost forgotten how caustic he could be. What had she been thinking the other night? Could she even imagine being involved with this petulant child? Nothing but bicker and banter, bicker and banter. She was certain she'd made the right decision. How could she have ever doubted that Bruce was the one for her?

  Another correct decision: her delay in giving Solomon the news.

  She'd said: “I'm tabling you.” As if Solomon were a motion taken under advisement. As if she hadn't made up her mind.

  A little white lie.

  Okay, maybe it's cruel, letting him hang on like that. But they had two cases to try, and this was no time to tell him to get lost.

  She didn't know how he would handle it. What if he cracked?

  When they reached the fourth floor, the corridor was clogged with reporters and photographers. The questions came fast.

  “Any chance of a plea?”

  “Will Katrina Barksdale testify?”

  “Any surprise witnesses?”

  Steve held up a hand to quiet them. “You know I try my cases in the courtroom, not in the media.”

  “What kind of jury you looking for?” one of the TV guys asked.

  “Same as always. Alert and smart.”

  Right, Victoria thought. Alert enough to stay awake. Smart enough to memorize two words: “not guilty.”

  “Got any aces up your sleeve?” the guy persisted.

  “Don't need tricks when your client's one-hundred-percent innocent.”

  Are any of us one-hundred-percent innocent? Not me, Victoria thought.

  Steve kept gabbing as they hustled down the corridor to the courtroom. Blasting the state's case and singing hosannas to their client, Katrina Barksdale. The world's perfect wife, the real victim here. Blah, blah, blah.

  Whistling past the graveyard, as her mother liked to say.

  Where did that cockiness come from? How could he always be so sure of his footing when anyone else would be sinking in quicksand?

  The Barksdale trial was supposed to lift him out of the low-rent district and launch her career. But what if Steve pulled one of his crazed stunts? It's one thing to be held in contempt in a talking cockatoo trial, but in this case, with the news media camped in the corridors, the slightest peccadillo would make headlines. What if the case turned out to be professional suicide?

  Not to mention my personal life.

  She'd made a horrific mistake, tumbling into the straw with Steve. Now it seemed he had the potential to lay waste to both her nascent career and her impending marriage.

  No. I won't blame Steve for any of that. I can't. Any damage to me is purely self-inflicted.

  Forty-two

  DEAREST

  The carnival started with Ray Pincher telling the panel he wanted to seat a jury that would be fair and impartial, not one that would favor the state. It was
the first of numerous lies that will be told in the courtroom today, Steve thought glumly.

  The first dozen souls in the box were fairly typical by Miami standards. Three retirees, two homemakers, an unemployed man, and a Protestant minister filed into the box. Then a cross-dressing South Beach party planner, a mime who failed to answer audibly, an exotic dancer noted for wrestling men in tubs of coleslaw, a beauty-salon colorist who specialized in pubic hair, and an elderly Hispanic who described himself as a freedom fighter against that butcher Fidel Castro.

  Steve sat at the defense table beside Katrina Barksdale, who was demure in her gray suit, seeming to Steve neither slutty nor homicidal. Pincher sat ramrod straight at the state's table. His bulging eyes were alert and wary.

  Standing a perfect six feet from the jury box, Victoria said: “Now, Reverend Anderson, you're familiar with the Ten Commandments?”

  “Every one,” the minister avowed.

  “The Commandments say, Thou shalt not commit adultery, and Thou shalt not kill. But do you understand, Reverend Anderson, that in this courtroom, we're concerned only with killing?”

  “Indeed I do. Judging adultery is in someone else's jurisdiction.” The minister pointed skyward.

  Steve heard someone whisper his name. When he turned, he saw Marvin gesturing toward the rear of the courtroom. Teresa Torano, Marvin's lady, stood near the door. Steve gave Marvin a What's up? look. The Maven nodded in Teresa's direction. Go boychik, go.

  Steve rose and walked to the back row of the gallery, where Teresa had taken a seat. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and she wore a dark tweed jacket and matching skirt. When he slid into the seat next to her, she reached in her purse and took out an envelope.

  “Cashier's check,” she whispered.

  Steve looked at her blankly.

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” she said.

  “You, Teresa?”

  “Me.”

  “Marvin said something about asking his friends. I didn't think he meant you.”