by Paul Levine
So why am I so miserable?
He figured part of it was simply the adrenaline crash, the letdown after a battle. They'd won the headline-making murder trial. He'd won custody of Bobby. A truly joyous event, more important than any case he ever had or would have. Bobby was already talking about an upcoming fishing trip with his grandfather.
But still, a feeling of emptiness crashed over Steve.
Victoria would be stopping by later to pick up her things. And then she'd be gone.
Win the case, lose the girl.
Not that he ever had her, unless you count a stolen hour on a surreal night of firelight and snow. Had it even really happened? Maybe it was all a dream.
There was no reason to feel down, he told himself. Last night, he'd paid a visit to the Barksdale home. Katrina had kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for his splendid work. Her exact words were: “You're a fucking great lawyer and you've got one fine ass.”
She was drinking Cristal, which she offered to Steve, and even though he considered champagne carbonated piss, he said, sure, why not. She wore a white, ripply camisole with cabana pants that tied at the waist, or to be accurate, about several inches below her flat and suntanned belly. She kept flinging her dark hair around, repeating how fucking brilliant he was. Soon she was slurring her words, saying he was positively “edible,” but probably meaning “incredible,” he figured.
She handed Steve a flute of champagne and a cashier's check, her frozen accounts having defrosted after the charges were dismissed. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars to be split evenly with Victoria. After taxes and repaying Teresa the hundred thousand he'd borrowed, Steve figured he'd be about twenty thou in the hole. A few more victories like this, he could declare bankruptcy.
Steve asked where Manko was, and Katrina said he was preparing the boat for a trip to Bimini, just the two of them.
“You remember, I told you we were all going to go to Bimini, before Charlie croaked?”
“Sure, it was part of our defense-why would you plan a trip with Charlie a week after you were going to kill him.”
“Now Chet and I are going. But not Charlie.” Giggles burst from her like bubbles of champagne.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Katrina?”
“Nope.” Another sip, another giggle. “Unless you want to know a big secret.”
He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear that his edible and incredible self had cleared a guilty woman of murder. But he had to know. “Go ahead. Tell me a secret.”
“No,” she said with a little-girl pout. “I shouldn't.”
“Let's play a game, Katrina. I'll confess something if you will.”
“I like games,” she said with a titter. “You first.”
“Okay. Remember that security tape?”
“Sure. First you thought there was a shadow of somebody out in the hall. But then your expert said it was nothing.”
“That's what I told you. Victoria, too.”
“Yeah?”
“I lied.”
“Whadaya mean?”
“It was a simple photogrammetry problem, solved with a trig equation. The shadow was a person about six-foot-three, probably over two hundred pounds. Who does that sound like?”
“My Chet,” she cooed. She put down her wineglass, cocked her head coquettishly. “So you knew Chet was there?”
“I knew.”
“Why didn't you tell Victoria?”
“I wanted her to work as hard for you as I would.”
“Why work so hard if you thought I was guilty?”
“It's my job.”
“That's all?”
“That's a lot.”
“You still think I killed the old perv?” She seemed to be sobering up.
“You tell me.”
“C'mon, you proved Charlie committed suicide.”
“I proved Charlie wrote a suicide note. There's a difference. I figure you and Manko killed Charlie before he had a chance to do the job himself.”
“You've got it backward, silly. Sure, Chet was gonna kill him, but Charlie beat him to it.”
“Is that the truth? You might as well tell me. They can't try you twice for Charlie's death.”
“Final jeopardy, right? But it's the truth, I swear. Charlie committed suicide by strangling himself. You should have seen it. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. Gross!”
She seemed totally guileless, and Steve felt a mixture of relief and revulsion. Okay, maybe, she wasn't guilty, but she wasn't exactly innocent, either. Had justice been served? He supposed it had. Katrina had wanted to kill Charlie, but we punish people for what they do, not what they wish. If every woman who wanted to strangle her husband was indicted, criminal defense lawyers would all drive Ferraris. Katrina was morally guilty, of course. If there truly were a judge on a heavenly throne, a real Court of Last Resort, Steve figured she'd face some ultimate justice. But as far as earthly law was concerned, Katrina had been rightfully acquitted. He'd done his job well.
She downed the rest of her champagne. “So, congratulate me.”
“For not killing your husband?”
“For marrying Chet.”
“Thought you said Chet was just a sport fuck.”
“But a good one.” She laughed. “We're getting hitched in Bimini.”
“Congratulations.” Two scorpions on a yacht, he thought. He wondered how long it would take one to sting the other.
“Before we go, there's something I need you to do.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you make me one of those prenups?” Katrina asked.
The Caddy was just passing Parrot Jungle when Steve's cell phone rang.
“Althea Rolle called me this morning.” Herbert Solomon sounded peeved.
“Oh, shit. I was so drained last night…”
“You forgot to tell me some big news.”
“I'm sorry, Dad. Really.”
Herbert harrumphed into the phone. “Anyway, ah'm glad for you. And Bobby.”
It sounded as if forgiveness was forthcoming, so Steve relaxed a bit.
“So if we're on for the weekend, ah'll gas up the boat,” Herbert said.
“We're on. Thanks, Dad. For everything.”
“You don't know the half of it.”
“What's that mean?”
“Where's mah hundred thousand?”
A Saab convertible with its radio blaring salsa passed the Caddy, and Steve wasn't sure he'd heard his father correctly. “What'd you say, Dad?”
“When Marvin paid me a visit, ah was steamed. Hurt, too. Mah own son wouldn't ask me for help.”
What the hell? He'd heard right, after all. He just couldn't believe it. “It wasn't Teresa's money?”
“Sweet lady, but she was mah courier, that's all. Ah cashed in mah pension. It's what a man does for his son.”
Steve was so astonished he nearly rear-ended an SUV hauling a little runabout on a rickety trailer.
“You still there, son?”
“You gave me all that money without even knowing what it was for?”
“Ah didn't know then. But your sister paid me a visit on her way out of town. Now ah know.”
Steve felt a wave of heat roll over him. So this is what shame feels like.
“Ah was surprised,” Herbert continued.
“I don't know what to say, Dad.”
“It was generous of you, son.”
“Generous?”
“Paying for Janice's drug rehab like that. A damn fancy place, too.”
Drug rehab? Is that what Janice told him the hundred K was for? Or is he just making this easier for me?
“You did the right thing, Stephen. You took care of family. Your sister and your nephew.”
Steve couldn't be sure, but he sensed his father knew the truth. What a strange way for the two of them to come together, enmeshed in a family conspiracy. “We gonna catch some fish this weekend, Dad?”
Herbert laughed. “You bring the bee
r, I'll bring the bait.”
Steve slowed the Caddy as a giant Hummer pulled in front of him from the adjacent lane. They were five minutes from the office. The radio was tuned to a sports talk station, a caller complaining that the Dolphin Dolls didn't shake their booties the way the Cowboys' cheerleaders did. Bobby was on his second pastelito and had just popped the top on a Jupina pineapple soda. Sugar overload any second.
“Will Victoria still come over to the house?” Bobby said. “You know, after…”
“Doubt it, kiddo. Married women hang out with their husbands, at least for a year or so.”
Bobby seemed dejected. Which made two of them.
After a moment, Bobby said: “I could light a stink bomb in the church.”
There'd been a message on the phone yesterday. Bigby calling to remind him of the rehearsal next Friday. The groom's cheery voice depressed Solomon even more. Why had he agreed to be an usher? He could already hear the comments, could anticipate the torturous death by a thousand compliments.
“Don't they make a lovely couple?”
“She's found herself a real catch.”
“Steve, make a toast to the bride and groom.”
He'd never get through the reception and dinner. By the time they served avocado vichyssoise, he'd feel like someone was scooping out his vital organs with a soup spoon.
“Turn it up!” Bobby yelled, reaching for the radio.
“What?”
“Hammering Hank's sports quiz.”
Their hands both hit the volume at the same time, boosting Hammering Hank Goldberg's bellow into the red zone:
“Next. Bernie in Surfside. Do you know your U of M sports?”
“Yeah, Hank. Shoot.”
“Didja hear about that murder trial, the rich babe from Gables Estates?”
“I seen it on TV.”
“Defense lawyer's a nobody named Steve Solomon. For a lechon asado dinner at La Hacienda, what infamous sporting event was Solomon involved in at U of M?”
“Oh, shit,” Steve said.
“Shh,” Bobby said.
“Uh, was he the guy called for pass interference in the end zone against Ohio State?”
“Wake up, Bernie! How many Jewish cornerbacks you know?”
“Wait a second. Was he that kid got picked off in the College World Series? Last Out Solomon?”
“Bernie wins dinner! You eat pork, Bernie?”
“Gives me gas, but I eat it.”
“Bottom of the ninth, the 'Canes trailing Texas by a run. Two out, Steve Solomon gets picked off third! What a dipstick!”
“At least he won the murder trial, Hank.”
“Wrong, Bernie. This Solomon couldn't find his butt with both hands. The prosecutor solved the case, dismissed the charges. What a loser, that lawyer.”
Steve punched a button, picked up the reggae station where Bob Marley was singing “No Woman, No Cry.”
“I don't know why, kiddo,” Steve said, “but I have a feeling this is gonna be a really bizarre day.”
Fifty-four
THE LAST DAY
Steve and Bobby had gotten two steps inside the front door of Les Mannequins when the first wave of infantry attacked.
“Steve, I need you!” Lexy shouted. Her long blond hair, usually ironing-board flat, was poufed up today. She wore hot pink Lycra short shorts with a white shell top.
“Look at me,” she commanded, extending a long, bare arm. Her wrist was wrapped in a leather brace.
“I don't do Rollerblade accidents,” Steve said, without stopping. If he lingered, he'd pick up half-a-dozen freebie clients before he reached the stairs.
“It's a workers' comp claim,” Lexy declared.
“You have a job?” Moving past the front desk now. One stumble, he'd be a wildebeest set upon by lions.
“Part-time. At 1-800-BLOWJOB.”
“You're a phone-sex operator?”
The stairs were in sight. A haven as inviting as Key West to Cuban rafters.
“Easy money,” Lexy said. “All I do is masturbate.”
“Masturbation,” Bobby said. “ANATOMIST RUB.”
“But if you diddle a dozen times a day, five days a week, you end up with carpal tunnel.” Lexy held up the wrist support for show-and-tell.
Steve violated his own rules and stopped at the foot of the stairs. “You really do it? I thought the oohing and aahing was fake.”
“Say, you're not Steve the Stud who calls at three A.M., are you?”
Before Steve could answer, Lexy's twin, Rexy, stepped out of a dressing room in her skyscraper Jimmy Choos. She wore identical short shorts and her hair was piled into an identical pouf. “Steve! They arrested me!”
“Who? Why?”
“DUI, can you believe it? All I had were four or five black Russians. They're like milk shakes, right? Plus they charged me with obstruction of justice.”
“Why?”
“For eating my panties.”
“You were wearing panties?”
“Just a thong. The cloth is supposed to absorb alcohol and screw up the Breathalyzer, but I still blew a point nine. What should I do?”
“Next time, wear boxers.”
Steve started up the stairs and was tugged backwards. Gina had his coattail in one hand and was waving a blue-backed document in the other. “Steve, can you sue a dead guy?”
“If he's got an estate. Why?”
“I was going out with this rich old guy, trying to pull an Anna Nicole Smith.”
“And you killed him?”
“No way. He said if I went to bed with him, he'd name me in his will. So I did it, and now, guess what, he's dead.”
“Congratulations.”
“No. Read it! Paragraph seventeen.”
She thrust the document in front of Steve's eyes, and he read aloud. “‘Finally, I promised Ms. Gina Capretto that I would name her in my will. Hello, Gina.'”
The reception room was empty, unless you counted the Pamela Anderson inflatable doll at the desk. Steve and Bobby walked past her and into the inner office.
“Forty-five… forty-six… Hey, jefe.”
Sweating and red-faced, Cece was doing elevated push-ups, her feet on Steve's chair, her arms on the floor, veins throbbing in her neck. She wore denim cutoffs and a chopped T-shirt. Three toes on each bare foot were encircled by faux diamond rings.
“Forty-seven… forty-eight… Hey, Bobby… Brittany Spears.”
“SPINY RAT BREAST,” Bobby shot back.
“Good one,” Cece said. “Forty-nine… fifty!” She kicked off the chair into a handstand, pointed her jeweled toes toward the ceiling, lowered into a vertical push-up, then sprang into a front flip and landed on her feet.
Steve glanced at Victoria's desk. The few law books and files she'd brought with her were neatly packed in three cardboard boxes. Though he'd never been married, he imagined this is what it felt like on the verge of divorce. A piece of himself would soon be missing.
Cece grabbed a towel and roped it around Bobby's neck. “Hey, brainiac, I hear you're stuck with your uncle from now on.”
“Next year, we're going back to court and he's gonna adopt me,” Bobby said. “Then I'll call him ‘Dad' instead of ‘Uncle Steve.'”
Steve grabbed his calendar from his desk. “Cece, where are my appointments?”
“Don't got any,” she said.
“No one's called?”
“MasterCard. You've been canceled.”
“I don't get it. Where are the new clients? I just won a big murder trial.”
The door opened, and Victoria walked in.
“I mean, we just won a big murder trial,” he said. “Hey, Vic.”
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
She wore a glen plaid outfit that reminded him of something. What was it?
That first day. It's what she wore the day we were thrown in jail. And now it's the last day.
Later, when Steve would think about this moment, he would remember her face.
Troubled. Eyes puffy. Hair messy. Not much sleep and maybe a crying spell. But just then, he barely noticed. He was too wrapped up in his own punctured dreams of a big-time law practice. “This doesn't make sense. We win a huge case, and this place is like a morgue.”
“That's just it,” Cece said. “You didn't win Barksdale. At least, people don't think you did. I was in the clerk's office yesterday, and everybody was saying how great it was that Pincher figured out your client was innocent, even if you couldn't. They say he's gonna run for governor as a compassionate prosecutor.”
“I don't believe this. Vic, you believe this?”
“Could we talk now? Please.”
The phone rang and Steve said, “Maybe that's a new client.”
Cece picked it up: “Solomon and Lord, Attorneys at Law…”
For a few minutes more, anyway, Steve thought.
“Civil and criminal litigation,” Cece continued. “Hablamos Espanol.”
“Steve…” Victoria said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Cece said into the phone.
“Hang on,” Steve told Victoria, trying to listen. When a judge calls, it was usually not to compliment your lawyering skills.
“Yes, sir. I'll tell him right now, Your Honor,” Cece said, then hung up.
“What?” Steve said. “Who was that?”
“Judge Gridley himself. He's pissed 'cause you're late for the Sachses' final hearing.”
“What final hearing! You didn't put it on my calendar.”
“You expect me to keep track of all the places you're supposed to be?”
“That's your job!”
“Don't yell at me. I'm not your slave.”
“Victoria, come on. You've got to represent Harry's wife.”
“Why?”
“The Sachses' divorce. Gridley requires both parties be represented, even when it's uncontested. I'll introduce the property settlement agreement. Harry and Joanne will say they signed it, and we'll be out of there in five minutes.”
“Then we'll talk?” she asked, but Steve was already hustling her toward the door.
10. We all hold the keys to our own jail cells.
Fifty-five
