Mortal Sin

by Paul Levine

  And talk he did. More about her empty world. A couple of old saws about the value of human life, and how much money we spend protecting the lives of our astronauts and pilots or searching for one capsized boater in the Gulf Stream. Lawyers are great at making non sequiturs sound like eternal verities. When he finally built to a crescendo, Patterson asked the jury for $6.5 million. Nobody winced or gasped. Not even me.

  Before I stood up, Nicky Florio clasped me on the shoulder. It was as close to a display of affection and goodwill as I would get. I walked toward the jury box, being careful not to knock over the lectern. It is unpleasant having jurors laugh at you. When I was a public defender, just out of night law school, I was snakebit. I originally attracted Marvin the Maven’s crowd because they thought I was better than a stand-up act in the Borscht Belt. In one of my first criminal trials, I tried to discredit a prosecution witness by asking, “You’re not an unbiased witness, are you, sir? Isn’t it true that you, too, were shot in the fracas?”

  “No, sir,” he answered. “I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel.”

  Now I planted myself in front of the box and thanked all the good folks who gave up their normal routine to come downtown and risk being mugged. Briefly, I agreed that Peter Tupton was a fine fellow, and it was a shame for him to die before his appointed three score and ten. Then I hammered away at liability. I told the jurors that not every accident ought to lead to a lawsuit. I talked about personal responsibility as one of the great American character traits. Ruling for the plaintiff, I implied, was somehow unpatriotic.

  “There were more than a hundred people at the party, and only one got falling-down drunk. How can that be the host’s fault? In this country of self-sufficiency and freedom of action, we take care of ourselves.”

  As I spoke, I watched myself. Our brains let us do that. We raise a camera, look down, and listen and judge ourselves. On the surface, I was doing fine. A B+ in trial tactics, a solid B in performance. But there are other subjects in my personal report card, and another part of my brain was computing the moral responsibility of my actions. Lawyers aren’t supposed to do that. We really are hired guns. Give us the targets and the ammo, and we’ll blast away. But here I was, grading the culpability of my own actions, just as I was saying…

  “You heard a grieving widow, and it is right and proper that she grieve. What is not right is that my client be made to pay for her grief. You heard the testimony from Mr. Gondolier. He sees a wobbly Peter Tupton and warns him, ‘Watch it, those mimosas can sneak up on you.’ Mr. Tupton should have known that he couldn’t handle his liquor. He’s drinking in the hot sun, and he’s warned, but he goes on drinking. He wanders into the house and snoops around the host’s desk. I’m not here to cast aspersions, but it wasn’t very polite. No sir, that’s not the kind of conduct you expect from a guest.

  “Then he goes back outside and drinks some more and becomes belligerent for no reason, except one. His judgment was clouded. He was intoxicated. He harangues Mr. Gondolier over the proposed golf course. He’s behaving badly, rudely. Then he goes back into the house and ends up in the wine cellar, where he continues to drink his host’s champagne, but not by invitation. There is but one conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, and that is that the harm which befell Peter Tupton was of his own making. Nicholas Florio was not the proximate cause of Peter Tupton’s death. Peter Tupton was.”

  So my personal report card had me failing the course in basic decency and morality, even though I did everything by the book. I had an ethical obligation to use Gondlier’s testimony because I did not know it to be false. When I surreptitiously taped Guillermo Diaz, I broke the rules but did the right thing. Now, I followed the rules, but what I did was unalterably wrong.

  After I sat down, H.T. Patterson got his last chance. It’s the plaintiff’s great advantage in a civil case, the government’s in a criminal trial. Rebuttal. The last word.

  He pointed out that we had no corroboration for the testimony of Rick Gondolier, an associate and dear friend of Nicholas Florio. He harked on the animosity between Florio, a filthy-rich developer, and the saintly Peter Tupton. He hinted at a vague conspiracy and the bizarre nature of his client’s death. Finally, he told a little story.

  “There once was a smart-aleck young boy who wanted to fool a wise old man,” Patterson said. “The boy captured a small bird and asked, ‘Wise old man, what do I have in my hand?’ And the wise old man said, ‘You have a bird, my son.’ ‘But is the bird alive or dead?’ the boy asked. And the old man smiled a sad smile and answered, ‘The bird is in your hands, my son.’”

  Patterson turned to look at me, though I didn’t hold any birds. “The old man knew that if he answered that the bird was dead, the boy would open his hand, and the bird would fly free. If he answered that the bird was alive, the boy would squeeze the life out of it. So it is with Mr. Lassiter, who controls the premises, the party guests, the testimony of Nicholas Florio and Rick Gondolier. We introduce evidence of a shocking revelation made by Peter Tupton in the Florio home, and Mr. Lassiter has a ready explanation. A golf course! Really, now. The party guests were friends of Mr. Florio and Mr. Gondolier. They don’t contradict their friends’ testimony. Peter Tupton didn’t have any friends at the party, so Mr. Lassiter holds all the marbles. He holds the bird in his hand. We present the evidence of excessive drinking at the party, and Mr. Lassiter presents his statistics that we are not in a position to refute. Nine ounces per person. Do you believe that? We weren’t there, and you weren’t there, but you can use your common sense. An answer for everything, that’s their defense. They say they even had champagne left over, so how much drinking was going on…?”

  Then it came to him.

  I saw the emotions cross his face. One after the other.

  Confusion, then delight, then terror.

  Because he hadn’t asked the question of Nicky Florio when he could have. And now it was gone, though he gave it a shot, anyway.

  “And what happened to that leftover champagne?” Patterson asked. “Where did it go after—”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” I was calm, quiet. No need for alarm. “There’s been no testimony about the disposition of the champagne. Rank speculation is not comment on the evidence.”

  “Sustained.”

  Patterson licked his lips, tried to remember where he was, and closed up with a plea to award just compensation for Melinda Tupton’s sorrow.

  The judge gave his instructions and sent the jurors into their room, telling them to first pick a foreman. For a while, the county had switched the language to “foreperson” but switched back again after one verdict form came back to the judge all bollixed up. Below the signature line for the foreperson, four jurors signed their names.

  The knock from inside the jury room came seventy-eight minutes later. Fast. Figure ten minutes to pick the foreman, fifteen for everyone to use the bathroom, and another ten to order dinner. Which left less than forty minutes to decide that Nicholas Florio was not liable for either compensatory or punitive damages and “shall go hence without day.” That’s what it says on the form, and I’ve never known what it means.

  Nicky Florio laughed, then cuffed me twice on the shoulder and told me I was a better lawyer than he thought.

  Thanks a lot, I told him.

  He said I’d have to come play poker with him some night; we’d drink beer and swap lies. He was nearly skipping down the limestone steps on the way out of the courthouse when he asked something else. “What was that stuff about the leftover champagne?”

  I didn’t want to go into it. I really didn’t want to know. Still, I answered him, Charlie Riggs style, with a question. “The party ended about eight o’clock, right?”

  “Yeah. It was supposed to go until six. But you knowhow it is, some hit you for dinner as well as lunch. The last people left around eight.”

  “And nobody saw Tupton after what, three or four o’clock?”

  “I guess.”

  We crosse
d Flagler Street, avoiding a Miami policeman on horseback and a clutch of South American tourists wheeling microwave ovens in shopping carts.

  “The champagne. Did the caterers provide it?”

  “Hell no, not at a hundred percent markup. I buy in bulk. It came from my wine cellar.”

  “That’s what I figured. Patterson figured it, too, but not quickly enough.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Who took care of the leftover champagne?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, the bartenders, some of my workers. Why?”

  “When did they do it?”

  “Right after the party. They wanted to clean up and get home. I’d say they were finished no later than nine.”

  “And what did they do with the leftover champagne?”

  “They put it back in the wine…”

  A bus horn bleated at us as we jaywalked across First Street, heading for the parking lot. Nicky Florio wasn’t going to do it, so I finished his answer for him. “They put it back in the wine cellar, of course. That’s where it had come from. If Peter Tupton had been there, they would have stumbled over him. He would have been alive, and they would have saved him. But, of course, they never found him. You’re the one who found him, right in front of the champagne racks the next morning, right?”

  We stopped in front of a hot-dog vendor. Nicky Florio didn’t look hungry. “So Peter Tupton wasn’t there, Nicky. He was someplace else from the middle of the afternoon until he was dumped in the wine cellar sometime after nine o’clock. Dumped there by party or parties unknown, as the police like to say.”

  “There’s no evidence—”

  “Don’t talk like a lawyer, Nicky. And don’t look so worried. I’m your lawyer. I did my job, and I won. I owe you the duty of loyalty and confidentiality. You bought it fair and square.”

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  Story of My Life

  I SELDOM DRINK.

  Really drink.

  Sure, I’ll have a beer or two with a burger or a steak. But sit at a bar and down the hard stuff? Not for me.

  Usually.

  If I’ve lost a case or a woman, I’ll head to the Gaslight Lounge downtown and watch Mickey Cumello make a martini. Plymouth gin, two and a half ounces give or take a drop, four ice cubes, and a splash of dry vermouth. He stirs with a glass swizzle because shaking clouds the drink. Then Mickey strains the potent concoction into a chilled glass. Finally, he squeezes a lemon peel above a burning match, letting the oil pass through the flame and into the drink. The perfect martini—sharp as a polished blade—with just a hint of burnt lemon.

  Okay, so I don’t just watch him make the martini. But I seldom drink more than two.

  Sometimes, I tell Mickey Cumello my problems. He’s a good listener. Quiet, attentive, thoughtful. I’ve never seen Mickey in the light of day and probably wouldn’t recognize him if he came out from behind the scarred teak bar. In the dark, windowless lounge, he’s a stocky man of indeterminate age wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and black bow tie, his gray hair combed straight back, revealing a lot of forehead and a widow’s peak.

  “A woman or a trial?” Mickey asked.

  “I lost the woman and won the trial,” I told him, “but I wish it was the other way around.”

  From behind me, a woman’s voice: “You were always a romantic, Jake.”

  I turned on the barstool and didn’t fall off. She was holding a tray full of empty cocktail glasses and soggy napkins. Wanda had red hair she hadn’t been born with, long legs, and the practiced smile of a woman who depended on tips to pay the rent. She was wearing one of those outfits that makes a waitress look like a French maid in a porno flick, a black mini with a deep-V top, bare shoulders, stockings with meandering black seams, and black shoes with stiletto heels. If she had a tail, she could have been a bunny, if they still had bunnies. She’d been in the chorus line in a couple of Broadway musicals, but that had been twenty years and three husbands ago. “I always told Mickey you were a romantic,” Wanda said, winking at me. “Just like what’s-his-name tilting at windmills.”

  “Wanda, how long have we known each other?” I asked.

  “Jeez, Jake, forever. You handled my last divorce, remember?”

  “Do you think I’m a good man?”

  “The best. You’re practically the only guy who comes in here who doesn’t hit on me. Except for the choreographer types, I mean.”

  “But do you think I’m essentially moral? When faced with questions of good versus evil, which path would I choose?”

  “I dunno, Jake. Good, I suppose.”

  “What if evil is an easier path, paved with milk and honey?”

  “Sounds sticky.”

  “While the good path is a potholed son of a bitch.”

  “Just like Bird Road,” she agreed, emptying her tray onto the bar. “Hey, Mickey, how ’bout a frozen ’rita, hold the salt, a Campari and soda with a slice, one Pellegrino, and one Calistoga.”

  Mickey tried not to wince, but I caught him, anyway. He was from the old school. Bourbon, rye, scotch, and gin, maybe something fizzy for the ladies.

  “Good is always the harder path,” I said.

  “I know what you mean,” Wanda whispered to me, leaning close. There were freckles at the top of her cleavage. “Like should I declare all my tips to Uncle Sam, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, and like last weekend, this gentleman—at least I thought he was a gentleman—asked me to cruise the bay on his new Bertram. Wouldn’t you know it, we’re halfway to Bimini, and it’s the same old story. Suck or swim. Spread or tread.”

  “A real Hobson’s choice.”

  “Huh? This guy’s name was Kornblum. He sells insurance.”

  Mickey loaded Wanda’s tray with a green slushy drink, a watery red one, and two bottles of expensive water. Wanda turned and high-heeled it to a corner table where two young men had stripped off their suit coats to reveal suspenders and custom-made shirts with shiny cuff links. I would have known they were lawyers even if they weren’t loudly boasting of recent courtroom triumphs, real or imagined, ridiculing judges and their vanquished opponents. With them were two women dressed for success in designer suits—one blue, one peach—that were probably designer labels from Bal Harbour Shops. I analyzed the two couples in my detached, objective, nonjudgmental way and concluded they were Republican-voting, squash-playing, Volvo-driving Yuppie scum.

  I caught Mickey’s eye and made a stirring motion with my index finger. He nodded and reached for the bottle of Plymouth gin.

  I thought about it some more, the ethical morass I had wandered into. Hell, had created, if we’re being honest. I thought about taking the easy way out. The case was over, so forget it. Gina was out of my life, so forget her. Whatever Nicky Florio and Rick Gondolier had done was none of my business. I did my job, won the case. But I kept wondering. What had Peter Tupton seen on Florio’s desk? What were Florio and Gondolier up to? I waited for the cool drink to erase the thoughts, to clear the mind by muddling it.

  Just walk away.

  It would be so easy.

  Get back to the old routine, a reception room full of clients, a beach full of women. Meaningless work, meaningless play.

  Mickey delivered another martini. The first sip seared my throat with its icy heat. The second sent a shiver through me. I felt Wanda’s presence behind me. Actually, I felt her breasts pushed against my back. “I get off at one,” she whispered.

  I tried to say something, but my lips were numb. I felt myself nodding, my head too heavy a load for my shoulders to support.

  Wanda ran a hand through my hair and pulled hard. “Don’t fall asleep on me, big guy.” She let go and raised her voice a couple of notches. “Hey, Mick, give Jake a cup of coffee, will ya, hon?”

  Wanda had a town house in one of those clusters on Kendall Drive west of the Turnpike. All asphalt parking lots and wedge-shaped buildings. Not a blade of grass in sight, even i
f I could see. The place was furnished in fifties’ ultra-feminine. Fluffy pink pillows, fluffy cream drapes, fluffy white cat. Stuffed animals on the sofa, reproductions of Degas nudes on the living-room wall, a wooden wine rack on the kitchen counter. She slid a CD into the player, and Natalie Cole sang “Unforgettable.” Her dad joined in, thanks to some electronic wizardry.

  Wanda cooed sweet things at me and undid my tie with swift, sure fingers. My awesome powers of deductive reasoning told me she had done this before. I got my shirt off without any help, but she intervened when I tried to take off my pants before my shoes.

  In her bedroom, I leaned forward to kiss her but missed, my nose ending up in a sweep of red hair that smelled of cigarettes. She turned toward the bed, steadied me with one hand and used the other to pull back a thick white comforter. Then she effortlessly stepped out of her waitress mini, took me by the hand, and pulled me on top of her. My head touched down between her large, freckled breasts. I was aware of the white smooth expanse of her, the womanly scents. From somewhere, she produced a stack of foiled condoms, connected along perforated lines. There must have been a dozen. Either we were going to make party balloons, or she had confused me with somebody else. I fumbled with one of the foil wrappers, before she took it away and expertly opened it. The latex kind. White and cold and sexy as a surgical glove. Prevents disease, pregnancy, and nearly all pleasure. Like having sex through galoshes.

  Wanda was one of the sighers and moaners, the omigod-I-never-dreamed-it-could-be-like-this types. I took a few bows, but if you’ve been around the track a few times, you don’t take your press notices seriously. When she wasn’t purring with cinematic sincerity, she was a warm and giving bedmate with the full complement of womanly slopes and curves and warm, tender places.

  Sometime around dawn, she told me I looked like Harrison Ford.

  Or was it Henry Ford?

  I drifted in and out of sleep. I dreamed I was blitzing a quarterback on a rainy day on a field covered with knee-high mud. I moved in slow motion. An offensive lineman stood on sturdy ground and laughed at me. I tried the swim move, a high-arm maneuver, but he got underneath and pancaked me into the cold mud, which filled my nose and mouth. Just before I sank below the surface, I saw his face: Nicky Florio.