Riptide

by Paul Levine

  “Cuidate mujer!” Manuel, a skinny twelve-year-old from the second floor, flew by on his skateboard and Violet stumbled off the curb.

  “Stay off the sidewalk, you little greaseball!” Violet shrieked after him.

  Tingling with anticipation, Violet climbed the stairs. The hallway smelled of fried bananas. Behind the thin walls, a child wailed. Once inside her apartment, Violet’s bony hands were a blur of motion. She made a small pot of black coffee. She tied her hair back into a ponytail and sat cross-legged in the tiny living room. She spread the papers onto the living room floor, the cheap shag carpeting matted under the glorious display of colors, blue and orange and purple borders. On top of each one, a finely etched eagle, a magnificent predator with wings unfolding and poised for flight. Violet Belfrey felt like singing the national anthem.

  Sipping the strong coffee, she arranged the papers alphabetically, which seemed the businesslike thing to do. First came “Allegheny County Industrial Development Authority Environmental Improvement Bond, United States Steel Corporation Project 6-3/4 percent.”

  Bonds, she thought, smiling, for she had heard of stocks and bonds. She had posted bond once on a crummy soliciting charge, but that was different. Posting bond, you paid them; stocks and bonds, they paid you. She folded the bond along its creased lines into a little package. On the front, it said, “Five Thousand Dollars,” a wonderful round number. She unfolded the pretty package and inside, attached to the bond, were three dozen little slips with tiny print like an eye exam. Must be the coupons the old man mentioned, she thought. They each said $168.75 payable every September 1 and March 1. Then, what the hell, in the year of our Lord 2012, she would get the five grand.

  Too damn long.

  Her tits would hang to her hips by then. Tomorrow she would take the bonds to her bank where the vice president with the rat’s tail mustache and wandering hands would tell her how the hell to get some money now. Not about to wait six months to cash little tickets like a shitty bolita prize, much less nearly twenty years for the jackpot.

  Violet stacked the rest of the bonds in a neat pile. Next came “Brookhaven, Mississippi, Industrial Revenue Development Bond, General Motors Corporation Project 5-3/8 percent.” The damn coupons here were only $140.62, and the bond said, “Principal due May 1, 2007.”

  Fucking General Motors. Violet had a Chevy Impala die on her once, and Brookhaven, Mississippi, sounded like shitkicker city. Next, “Dalton, Georgia Revenue Bond, Salem Carpet Mills Project 7.25 percent.” Due date September 1,1998, not so long to wait. But Jesus, why do all the bonds come from stumpjumper towns? These coupons said $181.00 each, and Violet could not figure out why bonds that each said “Five Thousand Dollars” on front could have different amounts on the coupons inside.

  Then, “Evanston, Wyoming Industrial Development Revenue Bond, Dow Chemical Company 13 percent,” with coupons of $325.00 each. Now we’re talking, but the five large ones were not due until September 1, 2014. Jesus, why would the old jerk buy these things? By then, there wouldn’t be enough left of Sam Kazdoy for the cockroaches.

  Violet’s eyes were blurry from the small print, so she stopped reading and counted her neat stack of colorful papers, eleven of them, each with dozens of the tiny coupons, some payable in three weeks on December 1. Eleven times five thousand equals fifty-five thousand dollars. Not bad for a night’s work, especially when you don’t have to gargle afterward with Listerine.

  Then Violet’s mind drifted. Her little bundle barely made a dent in that file cabinet. How many more eagles were caged there, wings stretching even now? Hundreds at least. And the other drawers, thousands maybe, millions of dollars doing no good to an old fool.

  * * *

  That night, Samuel Kazdoy dreamed of Rachel, his wife, buried long ago, and how her pale body trembled under his touch on their wedding night.

  * * *

  Violet Belfrey slept restlessly, the traffic in the street below clicking like the tumblers of a combination lock. When sleep came, she dreamed of an eagle gliding high, wings proudly swept back, talons of steel clutching papers splashed with colors. She called for the eagle to bring her its catch, but the bird soared toward the sea. Again the eagle flew and now there was another and soon the sky was streaked with their inky smears until the birds disappeared and it rained blues and purples and oranges and Violet saw her prize a last time. Glowing in the moonlight, the papers fluttered to earth, tumbled along a beach, and, one by one, disappeared into the cold tomb of a black sea.

  CHAPTER 3

  Trial Lawyer

  Jake Lassiter waited patiently for an answer from number three, a portly thirty-year-old accountant in a gray suit. The man’s eyes darted from side to side, and he tightened his arms across his chest. Lassiter stole a glance at Marvin the Maven in the front row of the gallery.

  Marvin tugged his right ear, ran a hand over his bald head, and nodded. Either he wanted Lassiter to steal second base or he was telling him to keep this guy on the panel. Some lawyers hire psychiatrists at three-hundred bucks an hour to help pick juries. The shrinks are full of advice: The man who sits with his elbows in his lap is submissive, while the one who encroaches on the next juror’s armrests is dominant; the guy who crosses his legs is tense; the woman in a miniskirt with exotic earrings is plaintiff oriented. In Chicago, a cab driver sometimes helps a famous personal injury lawyer by pinpointing jurors’ neighborhoods and determining their economic standing. That wouldn’t work in Miami where most cab drivers don’t speak the language and wouldn’t know 1-95 from the Tegucigalpa Turnpike.

  Lassiter preferred to rely on his own instincts with help from Marvin the Maven and Saul the Tailor, two retirees who spend every weekday, nine to five, in the courtrooms and corridors of the Dade County Courthouse.

  “Why … yes,” the accountant finally answered. “I would agree that just because someone has been injured doesn’t mean someone else is at fault.”

  Lassiter nodded, letting all the jurors appreciate number three’s wisdom. He wouldn’t have a drink with this guy, but he might let him sit on the jury.

  “And you understand that the defense is as entitled to a fair trial as the plaintiff?”

  “Of course,” the accountant piped up, without hesitation. “Insurance companies have rights, too.”

  Lassiter nodded at this pearl of tight-assed wisdom. “And you will not be swayed by sympathy for the injured person?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Lassiter smiled. Bingo!

  Marvin the Maven leaned toward Saul the Tailor and whispered, “Fatso saves his sympathy for clients with long-term capital losses.”

  * * *

  Lassiter had watched the accountant when he had landed in the third chair in the jury box. Unhappy to be there, he had examined the orange vinyl seat as if a wad of Juicy Fruit might have formed a stalagmite there. Too busy to waste his time, he would likely take out his displeasure on the plaintiff. Which was fine with Jake Lassiter because at the moment he was stuck on the skid row of trial work, the slip-and-fall case.

  Only thing worse than defending a slippin’ Sylvia suit, Lassiter thought, was a dog bite case.

  It would be all Lassiter could do to keep awake while witnesses debated why Mrs. Ana Fraga-Freitas slipped on a slice of papaya at San Pedro’s Supermercado and skidded headfirst into a pyramid of Pony Malta bottles. Bebida de campeones, drink of champions. The Fraga-Freitas case was not nearly as interesting as one involving the soft drink a few years earlier when Colombian drug dealers laced a shipment with pure cocaine, then overlooked one case after it had cleared customs. A man who bought a spiked bottle at a convenience store ingested enough of the drug to make a buffalo think it was a butterfly. The man didn’t last the night.

  Lassiter looked across the courtroom at Mrs. Fraga-Freitas. She wore a neck brace, but that was for show. The soft tissue injury was a product of her chiropractor’s vivid imagination. The broken collarbone had long since healed, and at a solid five feet three, 230 p
ounds, she could unload refrigerators at the dock. With one hand.

  God, how he hated slip-and-falls. The cases were nearly always identical. The plaintiffs were middle-aged to elderly, and if they didn’t slide across the floor at a supermarket, they tripped over invisible cracks in the sidewalk. Every two-bit plaintiffs lawyer with an office in a shopping center and commercials on late-night TV had a fistful of slipping, falling, tripping clients and a stable of orthopedic surgeons better at testifying than operating. The cases took little legal ingenuity but a substantial ability to schmooze with doctors and push them to the limits of their oath, something that became easier when the hefty expert witness fee was paid in advance.

  Lassiter had begun voir dire the same as always. We ask these questions only for the purpose of seating a fair and unbiased jury. A little white lie, he told himself. After all, he could hardly reveal the truth: We seek a jury predisposed by background and experience to favor our clients and to despise the opposition.

  It’s an imperfect system, lawyers like to say, but the best one ever devised. Excluding trial by combat, of course.

  While trying to decide about the accountant, Lassiter was still concerned about his neighbor, juror number two. A self-employed carpenter, he responded to questions quickly and loudly, then looked around, waiting for the applause. Might want to show off in the jury room, Lassiter worried, get macho and run roughshod over the others. A one-man jury, no lawyer wants that.

  There were two other men seated so far, a college student wearing jeans and a cable TV installer in a khaki jumpsuit with his name above the pocket. Three women had survived the cut, a social worker, a flight attendant, and a homemaker. It was a typical jury, but hardly a fair cross-section of Miami. To truly represent the community, you’d have to include drug dealers, boiler-room bullion salesmen, small arms runners, porno filmmakers, swampland hucksters, and goat-sacrificing santeros.

  Choosing jurors is like going out on a blind date. No matter how much you’ve been told in advance, there are always surprises. “Look at their shoes,” Marvin the Maven always advised. “Leather oxfords, shined up good, that’s your foreman.” Marvin had owned a shoe store in Pittsburgh, and he could analyze your temperament with a downward glance.

  “What about the women?” Lassiter once asked him.

  “Stay away from the ones who show their toes. Especially if they’ve painted their nails.”

  Jake Lassiter looked at his notes. The carpenter wore paint-stained loafers, the student sandals. Only the accountant had shoes with laces. Tied tight, Lassiter figured. Two of the women wore conservative pumps, the flight attendant ankle-high work boots that make SoBe club hoppers look like lumberjacks.

  Lassiter squeezed his six-foot-two frame out of the heavy oak chair and walked toward the jury box. Every juror watched him. He gave the impression of filling his space and the next guy’s too, had what they can’t teach in law school… presence. A dozen years since he’d torn down the field to make a tackle — or get his clock cleaned — on a kickoff, but you could still play racquetball against his abdominals. He watched the jury panel through clear blue eyes and tried not to betray his boredom, then pretended to study the juror chart on his yellow pad. Struggling to appear earnest, he stroked his chin and ran a hand through his thick, sandy hair. He looked toward Marvin the Maven who tugged his left ear this time and nodded.

  “The defense accepts the jury panel,” Lassiter said to the judge.

  Lester Jeffries, the plaintiff’s lawyer, walked to the podium and bowed formally to the jury before speaking to the judge. The obsequious bastard was trying to score points already, Lassiter thought.

  Jeffries was short and squat with a high forehead and sparse, dark hair. He was partial to suspenders and bow ties and cowboy boots, a combination that made no sense to Lassiter. “Your Honor, I believe we tendered the jury panel to Mr. Lassiter without accepting it,” Jeffries said. “Therefore, at this juncture, without undue delay and without further inconvenience to the venire, and noting that the lunch recess is nearly upon us, the plaintiff now excuses juror number three.”

  A lawyer will always use a bushel of words when just a peck will do. Lassiter slumped in his chair and rolled his eyes upward. A heavy teak beam split the middle of the ceiling and connected with rows of smaller beams that spiraled downward toward the walls. A giant spinal column with ribs attached. I’m in the belly of a whale, Lassiter thought, and in a moment, I’ll be whale shit. He glumly watched the accountant leave the jury box, then rose from the defense table and strode to the podium, where Lester Jeffries peered into the gallery, smile cemented into place.

  “Jeffries, we’re gonna be here all week with this lousy case,” Lassiter whispered hoarsely.

  “C’mon, Jake, that guy was an anal retentive numbers cruncher. It’d be malpractice for a plaintiff’s lawyer to seat him.”

  “Yeah, but I left on the lady social worker with the heart of gold. We could have called it even.”

  “Maybe next time,” Jeffries said.

  “Next slip-and-fall, let’s make a deal. No peremptories, no challenges. We’ll seat the first six people, no matter what. Put your perjurious osteopaths and chiropractic quacks on the stand by ten a.m., case goes to the jury by noon.”

  Jeffries thought about it and fiddled with his yellow bow tie.

  “What if a juror doesn’t speak English?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lassiter said.

  “What if they’re all illiterates or cousins of the plaintiff?”

  “Hell, I don’t care if they’re illegal aliens or convicted felons.”

  “Actually, I’d like that,” Jeffries said. “Resentment of authority is always good for the plaintiff, but I don’t think they’re eligible.”

  Lassiter shrugged. “I’m not kidding. Let’s grab the first six people on Flagler Street.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Jeffries said, hooking a thumb into his suspenders, trying to look like Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, but actually resembling Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinnie.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” whined the judge, “if your colloquy is complete, may we resume picking a jury?”

  Judge Morgan Lewis stood five feet three and sat three feet seven. When he sank into his cushioned chair, he disappeared from view, but he was still within earshot, and the lawyers could hear the rasp of the irascible jurist from time to time. Under his breath, Judge Lewis cursed them for their youth, his parents for his shortness, and himself for the dumb-ass decision to become a judge at $93,111 a year, while snot-nosed lawyers drove home in Porsches after knocking off seven-figure verdicts in his courtroom, the by-God biggest courtroom in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Dade County, Florida.

  “Or if you prefer,” squeaked the voice from behind the bench, “I’ll pick the jury, and you two can keep quiet.”

  The bailiff, a retired bail bondsman whose primary job was to collect campaign contributions for the judge, summoned a replacement for the accountant. Lassiter watched a woman with dyed-red hair and a leather mini rise from the gallery. As she walked toward the jury box, Lassiter noticed the earrings, large as basketball hoops. On her feet were Roman sandals, the toenails painted fuchsia and embedded with little gold stars. From the front row of the gallery, Lassiter thought he heard a sigh.

  * * *

  On Flagler Street a group of chanting Hare Krishnas competed for sidewalk space with Nicaraguan exiles denouncing the Sandinistas, or maybe these were Sandinistas denouncing the new regime, you could never tell. The fronds swayed gently on the palm trees in front of Miami Center, a skyscraper of brown travertine marble wedged between the bay and eight lanes of Biscayne Boulevard. Near the top floor, black turkey buzzards — ugly as death — glided outside the windows of Miami’s high-rise lawyers. Vultures and lawyers, Jake Lassiter thought, birds of a feather. One difference, though. The feathery scavengers arrive from the north each autumn and depart each spring. The birds in seersucker stick around all year.


  “The souls of lawyers paying endless penance,” a Cuban spiritualist once told Lassiter, pointing at the vultures flying their endless circles.

  “Not so,” he replied. “Lawyers never repent.”

  On the ground, Haitian immigrants lounged in nearby Bayfront Park hawking bags of oranges. Old Cuban men with pushcarts sold doughy empanadas and sweet pastelitos, jockeying for position with hot dog vendors. Slinging his navy blue suit coat over one shoulder, Jake Lassiter settled into the elevator of Miami Center, bulky trial bag resting on the handrail. As the elevator door closed, a woman’s hand snaked in and caught the rubber bumper. When the doors parted, Lassiter saw the smiling face of Cindy Clark, his secretary. Two middle-aged men in white guayaberas followed her in the door.

  “Thought I recognized that hand,” he said. “So few women wear rings on all five fingers these days.”

  “What about Cher?” his secretary laughed.

  Cindy Clark, a twenty-two-year-old free spirit, was an aberration in a conservative, downtown law firm that represented banks, construction companies, and insurance carriers. Monday through Friday, Cindy was the perfect secretary, running interference through the law firm’s bureaucracy like a blocker leading a sweep. On weekends she could be found on the back of a candy-apple red Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Classic headed for the Keys. On the front in a sleeveless leather vest was Tubby Tubberville, all 260 pounds of him, much of which was decorated with tattoos.

  If Cindy was different from the upscale secretarial staff, her boss was just as much an outsider. Jake Lassiter’s partners in the old Miami firm were buttoned-down MBA types, corporate lawyers who poisoned the worlds of business and law with clinically efficient takeovers, and litigators whose frivolous pleadings tied up opponents in strike suits and class actions. Wimps outside the boardrooms and courtrooms, these lawyers got their rocks off by manipulating the rules for money, power, and prestige.