Back to Brooklyn

by Lawrence Kelter

  BACK TO BROOKLYN

  Based on characters created by Dale Launer

  from the screenplay My Cousin Vinny

  Lawrence Kelter

  PRAISE FOR BACK TO BROOKLYN

  “I’ve been waiting for years to find out what happened to Vinny Gambini and Lisa. Now we know. My Cousin Vinny comes into the 21st century with this fast and feisty tale of a most unconventional lawyer and his most unusual assistant. Top-notch fun.” —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Order.

  “Like visiting with old friends, Back to Brooklyn captures the fun and spontaneity of every lawyer’s favorite legal comedy, My Cousin Vinny. As surefooted as a ’63 Pontiac with Positraction.” —William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob.

  “If you’re anything like me, you can’t get enough of My Cousin Vinny. So what could be more fun than the continuing adventures of Vincent Gambini and Mona Lisa Vito? I loved every word and every scene of this pitch-perfect, rollicking good story. Lawrence Kelter has an unerring ear and a wonderful knack for comedy. This is the kind of book you will want to read again and again. I loved it!” —J. Carson Black, New York Times bestselling author.

  “I can still remember falling on the floor laughing at My Cousin Vinny. I’ve watched that movie twenty times since. Now, Vinny and Lisa are back thanks to the brilliant mind of Lawrence Kelter. The characters of Back to Brooklyn have not only arrived back into my life like long-lost friends, but the novel has got me down on the floor laughing my tail off.” —Vincent Zandri, New York Times bestselling author of The Corruptions.

  “With Back to Brooklyn Lawrence Kelter turns the traditional mold inside out by taking a screenplay and using it as the basis for a novel. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Readers will soon find that nothing about this continuation of the My Cousin Vinny franchise is ‘normal.’ Vinny Gambini litigates a murder case while his sharp-tongued girlfriend, Mona Lisa Vito, investigates. The result is a murder mystery set in Brooklyn that is full of local flavor, twists and turns, and is just plain funny as hell. I loved it!” —Scott Pratt, bestselling author of the Joe Dillard series.

  “A quarter century and they haven’t aged a day. Vinny and Lisa are still going toe-to-toe in that riotous cat and mouse game we just can’t get enough of. Back to Brooklyn is clever, crisp, fun. I dare you not to laugh.” —Diane Capri, New York Times bestselling author of The Hunt for Jack Reacher series.

  Praise for Lawrence Kelter …

  “Lawrence Kelter is an exciting new novelist, who reminds me of an early Robert Ludlum.” —Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of Radiant Angel.

  Copyright © 2017 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Down & Out Books

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Edited by Chris Rhatigan

  Cover design by James R. Tuck

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Back to Brooklyn

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Other Titles from Down & Out Books

  Preview from The Place of Refuge by Albert Tucher

  Preview from Crossed Bones, a Tommy and Shayne Crime Caper by S.W. Lauden

  Preview from Gitmo by Shawn Corridan and Gary Waid

  For Tessa, Isaiah, and Azalia, our new additions

  FOREWORD

  In the world of satire it is so incredibly rare that voices are created with such endearing charm and personality that they resonate with us still, decades later. Yet Dale Launer has done just that with the film My Cousin Vinny.

  The film was released on March 13, 1992 and has become an iconic comedy classic, a tale about two wrongly accused young men who are defended in an Alabama murder trial by Vincent Gambini, an inexperienced, wildly inappropriate lawyer unaccustomed to southern rules and manners.

  Mention the film by name or parrot any of the classic lines and you’ll find that practically everyone within earshot is immediately on the same page, going tit for tat with smiles plastered on their faces. “Am I sure? I’m pos-i-tive.”

  It’s rated the #2 all-time greatest legal thriller by IMDB, the Internet Movie Data Base, second only to John Grisham’s masterpiece A Time To Kill. To this day, the film is still used by professors in law schools as reference material in the instruction of courtroom procedure.

  Today, fans of the comedy are still tickled by the film’s wry sense of humor and sight gags. Personally speaking, I still get sucked in every time the film pops up on TV, and laugh just as hard as I did the first time I saw it. It just never gets old.

  Dale and I foresee a bright future for our sidesplitting couple, with Lisa investigating and Vinny litigating, much like Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles.

  I hope that you share my appreciation for this unique comedy. I look forward to continuing its legacy.

  Enjoy!

  Larry Kelter

  Back to TOC

  “Men at some time are masters of their fates:

  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

  But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

  —Cassius from Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II

  by William Shakespeare

  Chapter One: Leaving Alabama

  Jimmy Willis was dead, gone in the blink of an eye, rocketed to heaven on the wings of a .357 magnum slug.

  He took with him the dream of one day owning the Sack-O-Suds convenience store where he’d worked for many years. He’d saved every last dime and was a little shy of the down payment he needed to make the store his own. Old man Scruggs, the founder, hadn’t been out of bed in years, but the store he’d built with his own two hands and operated for decades was supposed to live on through young Jimmy.

  Supposed to.

  The convenience store had been closed since the day of the shooting and would probably never reopen. Anything that had been fresh at the time of the shooting had rotted before the police finished with the crime scene. Vandals had looted all the canned goods and the gasoline tanks had been pumped dry. Old man Scruggs didn’t have enough fight left in him to put the store back on its feet, and as such, a senseless act of violence had not only taken a life but reduced a thriving community business to little more than a rotting sarcophagus with grime-covered windows and a leaky roof—a hideaway for hormone-charged teens to use for their pleasure.

  Down the road from the Sack-O-Suds, Ernie Crane sat high atop his old John Deere lawn tractor cutting lazy eights in the grass. He’d skipped the last day of the murder trial because he’d been called upon to testify and wasn’t a fan of the crafty defense attorney from New York.

  A flask of moonshine slipped from his grasp as his eyelids grew heavy from the caress of the strong Alabama sun. He didn’t see that New York lawyer and his girlfriend whizzing by, driving their car as if it were stolen, leaving a trail of dried Alabama mud in their wake.

  Farm fencing disappeared a few miles north where fields of tall wheat bordered the road. Lanky blades of grass bent in the draft of a majes
tic red Cadillac convertible as it streaked by. Vince Gill’s velvety voice poured through the speakers while Lisa piloted the big Caddy on the long journey home.

  Across the cavernous front seat, Vinny’s mind was somewhere else, probably ten miles back in the Beechum County courtroom. He was still pumped from his first courtroom victory after successfully defending his cousin, Billy, and Billy’s friend, Stan, against false murder charges. Sheriff Farley had arrested and railroaded the boys—making them the lead suspects in Jimmy’s murder case.

  Vinny, nothing more than a fledgling personal injury attorney, had somehow snookered the highly respected judge, convincing him that he had the credentials necessary to represent the two boys in their murder trial. His heart thumped with a pang of guilt as he realized how very close he’d come to losing the trial and with it, the boy’s lives.

  He was staring at the countryside absentmindedly when his thoughts turned to his fiancée. His throat tightened for a moment while he thought about all the love and encouragement Lisa had given him during the lengthy courtroom ordeal. Judge Haller did not suffer fools gladly. He had chastised Vinny at every turn and held him in contempt three separate times. But the tension and sleepless nights they’d both endured were now behind them, vanishing like the sun setting on the horizon. He recalled the county prosecutor’s trial-ending words with great satisfaction, “We’d like to dismiss all charges.”

  His eyes were soft as he drank Lisa in. She was his every dream come true: young, beautiful, capable, nurturing, and as free-spirited as a wild colt. They’d been together more than a decade. With each sunset, he wondered what she saw in him and why she’d waited for him so long, why a woman of such beauty had chosen him. She could touch his heart or infuriate him with a simple glance or a single word, and he loved her all the more for it, that crazy cat and mouse game they played that drove him insane and more deeply in love with each exchange.

  In his heart, he knew that her insights and testimony, her guile and savvy, played a significant part in winning the case. It wasn’t his legal acumen alone that prevented a kangaroo court from sending two innocent boys to the electric chair. He gazed up at the blue sky and silently thanked God for her. She’d waited patiently for him to complete law school, pass the bar, and now finally win his first court case. They’d made a promise to each other many years back, and now it was time to make good on that sacred obligation. He had a sly expression on his face as he said, “I won my first case. You know what that means?”

  She sassed him. “Yeah. You think I’m gonna marry you.”

  “What, now you’re not gonna to marry me?”

  “No way. You can’t even win a case by yourself, you’re fuckin’ useless.”

  He considered for a moment. “I thought we’d get married this weekend.”

  “You don’t get it, do you? That is not romantic. I want a wedding in church with bridesmaids and flowers.”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. How many times did you say that spontaneous is romantic?”

  “Hey, a burp is spontaneous. A burp is not romantic.”

  He told her that he wasn’t in the mood to quarrel but that wasn’t the case, not even close. It was that old cat and mouse game beginning anew.

  It was why Vinny would one day be a great trial lawyer.

  It was why Lisa had been and always would be his match.

  It was the very air they breathed.

  Chapter Two: Still Leaving Alabama

  Lisa had developed a small fondness for country twang from hearing it day after day for almost two months. The wind was in her hair as “Wicked Game” played on the radio. The sorrowful, conflicted tone of Chris Isaak’s voice turned her insides to jelly. As her mind wandered, she glanced over at Vinny and saw that he was dozing. She couldn’t help but smile because she loved the infant-like face he made when he slept. She envisioned her wedding reception—dancing with Vinny as the band played their song, “Linger.” For a few brief seconds, that dirt-swept stretch of Alabama roadway became heaven on earth.

  She reveled in the moment and let her mind go. She thought about the life they would make together and a family of their own, a boy and a girl—they’d have the girl first…naturally.

  And then…

  She jammed on the brakes and swerved as a large raccoon darted from the shadow of a dense patch of brush, racing across the road just as the tires of the big Caddy threatened to pulverize it.

  Vinny’s eyes shot open and he clutched his chest. “Whoa! What the hell, Lisa? You asleep at the wheel or something?”

  “Me asleep? No, I’m not asleep.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Lisa, you gotta be more careful. You scared the ever loving shit out of me.”

  “That’s because you were asleep. Some copilot you are. I could’ve been driving down a backwoods road where some good ol’ boys were waiting to go all Deliverance on your ass.”

  “Me asleep? Don’t be ridiculous. I was just resting my eyes.”

  “Well while you were resting your eyes a rat the size of a leopard shot across the road like Secretariat coming down the home stretch and almost took out the front bumper. What did you want me to do? Hit the fuckin’ thing?”

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “For the love of God, Lisa, look at the way you’re holding the wheel.”

  “What? You don’t like the way I’m holding the wheel?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You got your hands at the bottom. Ten and two, Lisa,” he instructed. “Ten and two.”

  “Listen, Vinny, I’ve got five times more experience behind the wheel of this car than you do. My hands are just fine where they are, thank you.”

  “Oh yeah? Then why do they instruct new drivers to keep their hands at ten and two when they take the test for their driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles?”

  “They teach that, do they? What did you take your road test in? An Edsel? Or was it a horse and buggy?”

  “Why? Are you saying something’s changed?”

  “Yeah, it did. Something did. That’s right.”

  “Well I drive just fine and I didn’t hear nothin’ about it.”

  “That’s because you’ve been in law school and taking the bar exam for the last ten years. Ain’t ya ever heard of air bags?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Because. During a collision, an air bag will explode out of the steering wheel hub at more than a hundred miles per hour. It’s ignited by a detonator, just like the ones used to detonate bombs. As you know, it’s designed to protect the driver’s head and chest from slamming into the windshield, but with your hands at ten and two or higher, the driver’s arms can be thrown back at very high velocity and you can get severely hurt.” She nodded emphatically. “Keeping your hands lower down on the wheel prevents that. I routinely keep my hands at eight and four.”

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Yeah? Well picture this. It’s a beautiful sunny day. You got the top down and the sun is shining in your face. You’re driving on a nice twisty road back to New York when out of nowhere the guy in the oncoming lane loses control, swerves, coming right at you, and bam! The next thing you know an explosion rips your arms out of their sockets and they’re pointing backwards, dangling in the breeze like the scarecrow’s after the flying monkeys had their way with him in The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Oh,” he said. “So I guess you could say that eight and four is the new ten and two.”

  “That’s a very good analogy.”

  “Just like when people say that sixty is the new forty.”

  “Also a good analogy. Only in your case, forty is the new eighty because you’re using driving techniques that went out of practice with the stagecoach. And don’t you dare wait until you hit the new sixty before you make a change in your driving habits.”

  “Oh, yeah. And why is that?”

  “Because…” She gla
nced at him over the top of her sunglasses. “You’ll be dead.”

  Lisa’s father and brothers had all worked as automobile mechanics. Even though Vinny sometimes helped out in the garage, she had worked as a mechanic extensively and knew considerably more about cars than he did. She was a veritable compendium of automobile knowledge and had bested him yet again. He smiled nonetheless—he had a card up his sleeve and was dying to play his hand. He shook his head and grinned, slid closer to her and stroked her cheek affectionately. “You’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?”

  She smiled happily. “Yeah, maybe I am. I mean it’s been a very, very good day for me. I watched my fiancé save two innocent young men from going to the electric chair, and I received a proposal of marriage. Don’t get me wrong—you proposed like a real dope. Still, things could be worse.”

  “So where do you want to get married? Back home in Brooklyn or right here in Ala-fuckin’-bama?”

  “That’s a very silly question.”

  “No it’s not.”

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. “What do you mean? Didn’t you hear what I said about being romantic? How could you ask me a question like that after what I told you?”

  “It’s not a silly question,” he insisted.

  “Yes. It is.”

  “No. It’s not!”

  “Why isn’t it?” she asked, already sure from the confidence he displayed that he had her.

  He pointed at the instrument cluster and tapped the fuel gauge. “Because, genius…we’re about to run out of gas.”

  Chapter Three: Stuck in Ala-Fuckin’-Bama