Cheater's Game

by Paul Levine

  “Later. Walk with me, pal.” Then, over his shoulder, “Eyes on the rim, Moses! Don’t follow the flight of the ball. Dominique, how are his mechanics coming?”

  “Getting better, Mr. Pincher,” Barkley reported, diplomatically.

  As we rounded the corner heading toward the dock, Pincher whispered, “My son-in-law pays Dominique two hundred bucks an hour to teach Moses to flip his wrist to get the backspin right. But the kid’s a klutz. Poor Barry thought he might get my fast-twitch muscle fibers. And I thought with Paulette’s height, Moses might be taller.”

  “Got his dad’s genes. What’s Barry, five eight?”

  “Six feet if he’s standing on his wallet.”

  We both laughed at that. Pincher loved his son-in-law but also loved razzing him. We parked ourselves on a bench on the dock and admired the Variance, Popkin’s motor yacht, named for his skill at winning zoning changes that let him build high-rises with woefully insufficient parking. It was a sleek tri-deck with six staterooms for guests and another five cabins for crew.

  “Okay, Jake. Your turn.”

  “At what?”

  “Like we agreed in my office. You gotta share everything you get. I told you about the twenty-five thousand bucks in the Tesla. So, your turn.”

  “Ray, you don’t have to treat this like the Treaty of Versailles.”

  “My legal training,” he offered as an excuse.

  I thought about Melissa’s misgivings. Just what was Pincher’s angle? “You don’t have a dog in this hunt, do you, Ray?”

  “Only my antipathy for the Justice Department and its minions, thick as mosquitoes on a sweaty neck.”

  The wind picked up, rippling the waterway and squeezing the Variance into the rubber fenders that cushioned the big boat from the dock.

  Because I couldn’t think of a good reason not to, I spent the next few minutes telling Pincher what I knew. I told him about the twins who couldn’t swing a baseball bat, aim a Taser, or take a standardized test without hiring a ringer. I told him that Kip was on his way to California to see his boss, Max Ringle.

  Pincher listened quietly, a priest in a confessional, as I admitted that Kip took SAT and ACT exams for pay in Houston, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. My tone was as regretful as if my nephew’s misdeeds were my own.

  “My turn,” Pincher said when I had finished. “One more tidbit. It’s hearsay on hearsay, so who knows what it’s worth. It’s what the tow truck driver told Foyo he overheard the FBI agents saying.”

  “I’m listening.”

  A horn blasted, and a Hatteras Sportfish in the forty-foot range chugged up the waterway, beating the storm back to dock. Two bare-chested men on the flybridge waved to us in that merry way of neighboring seafarers, and we waved back.

  “The FBI approached your nephew, asking him to cooperate in an investigation of Max Ringle, and he told them to shove it.”

  “Oh, shit. When did this happen?”

  “No idea.”

  “Those twins I told you about seemed to think a grand jury is meeting now, and this would corroborate it.”

  “Jesus, Jake, why didn’t you mention that?”

  “It . . . It . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Did it slip your mind?”

  “Maybe.”

  And it had. I wasn’t lying. Another check mark in the wrong column of Melissa’s questionnaire.

  Short-term memory? “Sketchy.”

  “Somehow, Ray, I let Kip get away from me.” I felt like a mourner at a funeral, filled with regrets for words unsaid, things undone, and the knowledge that it was too late for amends. “He’s strayed so far, and I’ve been clueless.”

  “Jesus, Jake! This isn’t your fault. You gave everything you had to that boy.”

  “I don’t know, Ray.” Something was tickling my brain, something about grand juries and federal prosecutors. Not a lost memory, but a legal question that hadn’t occurred to me in the hours since I learned the source of Kip’s new wealth.

  “Ray, let’s assume rich parents are paying Kip to take their kids’ tests.”

  “Safe assumption.”

  “I haven’t done the research,” I said, “but I don’t know any statute on point. Nothing that expressly prohibits what Kip’s doing.”

  “Right, insofar as ‘expressly prohibits’ goes. There’s no standardized test security law, or whatever Congress would deem to call it.”

  “So, what Kip has done is unethical and immoral and a lousy thing to do. I get all that. But if a grand jury is investigating, what the hell is the crime?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Postcards from Hawaii

  “I’ll tell you how the feds would answer your question,” Pincher said.

  But before he could, his daughter Paulette appeared, carrying a tray with a bottle of tequila and three leaded crystal glasses. “Welcome, Jake,” she said with a wide smile. “Forgive my father for his terrible manners. Has he even offered you a drink?”

  “Nah. Usually, he plies me with fancy cigars and sweet rum, then picks my brain.”

  “Would it be presumptuous of me to think you might like some sipping tequila?” She poured from the bottle into the three glasses.

  “Presume away, Paulette. You know me well.”

  When she was done pouring, Pincher examined the bottle. “Casa Dragones 16. Small batch sipping tequila. Bottela Número 001. The first bottle. Did Barry buy the distillery?”

  “Not yet, Dad.”

  Paulette wore a white physician’s smock. A statuesque woman with carved cheekbones, she seemed tired around the eyes. She ran a women’s health clinic in Liberty City, a neighborhood untouched by the gentrification of nearby Wynwood and the Design District. Paulette often spent late nights and weekends delivering babies, and she seldom billed her patients.

  “Jake, when are you going to marry that wonderful fiancée of yours?” Paulette asked.

  “Soon, before she changes her mind. You’ll get the first invitation, just like that bottle of tequila.”

  Paulette and Melissa, both high achievers with nimble minds and sharp senses of humor, had hit it off immediately. When their crazed schedules permitted, the two physicians had lunch together.

  Paulette sipped at her tequila and said, “Please thank Melissa for sending me those studies about the brains of teenagers not being fully developed.”

  “Will do,” I responded.

  “I use the data when I tell tenth-grade girls that they might not want to have sex quite yet. When they ask why, I tell them it’s because in three or four years you’ll look back and say, ‘I can’t believe I let that lame-ass bone me.’”

  I laughed and asked, “Does that work?”

  Paulette shrugged. “Not so much. That’s why I pass out condoms like party balloons and birth control pills like jelly beans. You gotta cover all the bases.”

  We all took long pulls on the tequila, smooth and mellow, liquid sunshine on the way down.

  “I saw Moses shooting hoops,” I said. “Boy’s sprouting up.”

  Paulette glanced toward the house. “Barry hopes he can make the high-school team.” She tipped her glass in my direction. “I just hope he passes calculus.” She got to her feet. “I’d better see how the cook is doing. Jake, will you join us for dinner?”

  Pincher butted in. “P-Three, please tell me it’s not fried chicken and okra again.”

  “And sweet potato pie,” she replied, cheerily. “Barry’s deep into his ethnic identity program.”

  “Then why aren’t we having matzoh ball soup?”

  Paulette turned to me. “Jake, how about it?”

  “Thanks Paulette, but Melissa is waiting for me,” I said.

  “Jake, is that you?” A male voice came from overhead.

  I looked up and saw the pink, cherubic face of Barry Popkin at the balustrade of the second-floor balcony. “Yo, Barry!”

  He was wearing what looked like a silk doo-rag in a floral print with a tail that fell halfway down his back.
“I’d join you, Jake, but I’m taking my Swahili lesson.”

  “Lord, have mercy,” Pincher grumbled.

  “Another time, Barry,” I said. “Gotta go.”

  “Nenda kwa amani ndugu yangu,” Popkin called out. “Go in peace, my brother.”

  Pincher pointed a finger at his son-in-law. “If you tell Alexa to play any of that hip-hop shit at dinner, I’m gonna throw her electronic ass in the ocean.”

  “Got it, Pop. Strictly the Supremes and Sinatra tonight.”

  Popkin went back inside to practice his Swahili, and Paulette left us alone on the dock. I said to Pincher, “You were about to give me a lesson in federal jurisprudence. Just how does the Justice Department make something a crime when there’s no law on the books? What statute will they use?”

  “Probably mail fraud. That’s the grab-bag when the feds don’t have anything else. You smack that piñata, all kinds of goodies spill out.”

  “Honestly, I don’t see it.”

  “It’s simple. Assume I go to Hawaii, and I send you a postcard, saying, ‘Jake, having a wonderful time, wish you were here.’ But I’m lying. I’m having a lousy time, and I don’t want to share the beach with you. The feds would say that’s mail fraud.”

  “That’s absurd,” I said.

  “Or, I send the same postcard to five friends. The feds would call that racketeering.”

  “C’mon, Ray. The racketeering statute is for organized crime and street gangs.”

  “Maybe that’s what Congress intended. But the Justice Department has its own ideas. Let’s say I buy a shaved ice stand on my Hawaiian vacation, then flip it for a big profit. I put the money in a bank, then decide I don’t like that bank, and I split the dough up among three other banks. Now, the feds say I’m money laundering.”

  “Aw, you’re going way too far.”

  “I’m stretching things. But not as much as you’d think.”

  I let that settle in and concluded that my old friend and adversary was probably right. When the federal government decides to come after you, they’ll find the weapon, and it won’t be a pea-shooter.

  I stood and took a last look at the Pincher-Popkin mansion. “You must be very proud, Ray. She’s really something.”

  “From the Liberty City projects to Gables Estates in two generations. Is this a great country or what?”

  “Can you forgive me, Ray, for being a little jealous?” I asked.

  He got to his feet and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Don’t be feeling sorry for yourself, Jake.”

  “I can’t help it. Look how Paulette turned out and how Kip . . .” I let it hang there.

  “Dammit, Jake! Life’s not over for him. You’re a defense lawyer. What have you argued all these years? Second chances and redemption. My advice, if your nephew is indicted, get him damn good counsel. And not you.”

  “If you’re thinking I’m brain-dead, I’m not!”

  “Your medical condition is only part of it. You’re too close to him. You can’t be objective, and if the feds offer a deal, you gotta be able to divorce yourself from your love of the boy.”

  “I’ll consider your opinion.”

  “No, you won’t! Do you know what Roy Black says about being a trial lawyer?” Pincher asked, referring to the dean of Florida criminal defense lawyers.

  “Says a lot of things. Been working his magic for fifty years.”

  “Roy says you leave a little bit of yourself behind in every case. Not that you want to, but that the practice of law demands it.”

  “True enough. There’s a lot of me smeared on courtroom floors.”

  “How much you got left, Jake? You’re in no condition to handle a federal trial.”

  “So, you’re saying I should turn over Kip’s life to another lawyer?”

  “Hell, yes! Doing this yourself is suicidal, a kamikaze mission. You want to die with your boots on?”

  I considered that as if it were a plea deal. “If I have a heart attack in closing argument and the jury acquits my nephew, I’d consider that a win.”

  Pincher gave me his exasperated look. “Your skull is so thick, I don’t know how you got brain damage. How are you going to prep for trial? How big is your staff?”

  “That’s a pretty personal question.”

  “C’mon, Jake! How many associates do you have? How many paralegals?”

  “In round numbers, zero. You know damn well I gave up my office when I took the job with the Bar.”

  “So how are you going to manage a federal case where you have to brief every motion? Who’s going to do your research, your writing?”

  “I can handle it.”

  He made a scoffing sound. “How many cases have you had in federal court?”

  “State or federal, it’s the same game. A contact sport. I buckle my chin strap and hit somebody.”

  “Dammit! How many federal cases, Jake?”

  “I pled a guy to tax evasion and a couple drug dealers when that was a thing.”

  “I’m not talking about pleas. I’m talking about jury trials.”

  “I had one securities fraud trial back in the day.”

  “What do you know about securities law?”

  “Nothing. I represented a co-defendant and rode Ed Shohat’s coattails.”

  “And what was the verdict?”

  I tried to dig up the memory, but it was an itch in the back of my mind that I couldn’t scratch. “It was a long time ago, Ray.”

  “Ah, jeez, the one federal trial you took to verdict, and you can’t remember. What are you gonna do when the government buries you in documents? Ten thousand pages, a hundred thousand pages, half a million, a blizzard of paper!”

  A jagged bolt of lightning flashed over the bay, followed by a cacophonous thunderclap that I felt in my teeth. The darkened sky opened and, at long last, the deluge poured down in great slanting torrents. I closed my eyes and raised my head to the storm, raindrops pelting me so hard they stung my face. Pincher, soaking wet, hadn’t moved. He was still looking at me, his expression one of puzzlement.

  “A kamikaze mission,” I declared.

  “Yeah, Jake, that’s what I just said.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Ray, but those bastards sunk a lot of ships.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kiss Kiss, Pet Pet, Bam Bam

  Melissa Gold . . .

  Melissa was removing a baking dish from the oven when Jake walked in the door.

  “Smells great, Mel.” He picked up a bottle of tequila from the counter. “Margarita grouper?”

  “Your favorite.” She had marinated the fish filets in a mixture of tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur, with a touch of olive oil and garlic. Now, she spooned a sauce of tomato, jalapeno, onion, and brown sugar over the cooked fish.

  As she put on the finishing touches, Jake told her about Ray Pincher’s advice to hire a lawyer for Kip.

  She knew Jake wanted her input, but hesitated before asking, “What lawyer will care about Kip as much as you do?”

  “Exactly. Pincher doesn’t get it. I’ve prepared my entire life for this. To put everything on the line, to defend someone I love. I’ve got to be the one.”

  She looked at him, feeling a warm flood of emotions for this oversize man she loved. “I know you’ll do the right thing for Kip. You always have.”

  He dipped a fork into the baking dish, stole a chunk of the grouper, tasted it, and smacked his lips with approval. “And how was your day?”

  “Strange,” she said. “There’s a problem with appropriations for the C.T.E. program.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Apparently, NFL lobbyists are whispering in congressmen’s ears that they don’t like the program’s mission statement.”

  “Why? Are they against saving lives?”

  “They think the statement overly emphasizes football and by participating in the study, the NFL will look like it’s trying to make amends for killing former players.”

  “Those ba
stards! The owners have always had an aversion to the truth, just like the tobacco companies. If they were honest, they’d change their name to the National Brain Damage League. They like to boast about their billion-dollar class-action settlement for C.T.E. victims, but they always forget to say it’s to be paid over sixty-five years and doesn’t cover everybody.”

  “What I’m hearing is the NFL wants hockey, boxing, and martial arts prominently mentioned in the mission statement.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “We intend to study traumatic brain injuries in several sports, so it’s no big deal to change the wording.”

  “Great.”

  “But that’s a smokescreen, not the real problem.”

  He looked at her a moment, waiting.

  “I have a friend at N.I.H. who’s in the loop,” Melissa continued. “The league claims the program will be biased because I’m the one who wrote the protocols and will likely be running the show.”

  “Biased how?” Before she could answer, he asked, “Because of me? Because you’re my fiancée?”

  She shrugged. “They know you’re one of the former Dolphins with symptoms of C.T.E., and you’re an outspoken critic of the league. The NFL suits think I can’t be objective.”

  “Damn them! Who are they to question your integrity?”

  “When you petitioned for higher pensions benefits for retired players . . . well, you upset the powers that be on Park Avenue.”

  “Bastards! I spoke up because of the NFL’s discrimination. Pensions for guys who retired before 1993 are half that of current players. We have no 401(k)’s, no annuities, and no health insurance, like the younger retirees get. It’s an outrage! And to punish you for what I say and do, that’s beyond the damn pale.”

  “My friend tells me to give it time,” she said. “I have allies who are trying to help.”

  “Why does the NFL even get a vote? When Congress appropriates money for the FBI, they don’t ask the Mafia for permission.”

  “We need the league’s cooperation to get their medical records. That’s really the starting point.”

  “Okay, okay.” Jake seemed to be calming down after blowing off steam. “We’ll give it time. But we’re not gonna let them shitcan your project or veto you. We’ll fight.”