Mortal Sin

by Paul Levine

  “Heaven on earth,” I said.

  “You got it.” His laugh was like a dog’s bark.

  Below us, on the muddy bank, one of the alligators, a nine-foot bull, slipped quietly into the water and disappeared under the surface. “It’s a damn shame,” Florio said, “but people get a distorted view of builders from the news media and zealots like Tupton. We’re not predators.” With the tip of his rod, Florio pointed toward the sky where six white birds flew in formation. “The snowy egret. Nearly became extinct because women wanted feathers in their hats a hundred years ago. What kind of bullshit is that? I’m as sensitive to the environment as the next guy, but I’m here to deliver what the country needs and wants.”

  “Who decides what the country needs and wants? You?”

  “No, the consumer decides. I just fill the need, me and guys just like me. Businessmen. Who’d you rather have doing it? Congress, state agencies, local mayors?” He looked back toward the sky, but the birds were gone. “You think developers are money-hungry sleazebags, don’t you, Jake?”

  “Well put,” I agreed.

  “Then wake up and smell the money, friend. Who’s been convicted lately? The mayors of Miami Beach and Hialeah, commissioners in Sweetwater, city and county cops, bankers and lawyers and judges you probably have lunch with. Bribery and extortion and what have you. It’s all a game. Money and power. Whoever’s got the biggest dick wins. It’s all around us, Jake. It’s the way of doing business down here. Always has been and always will be.”

  All the talk of criminals reminded me of somebody. “I was surprised to see Diaz working for Gondolier,” I said.

  “For Gondolier? Diaz works for me. Everybody works for me, including that pretty boy Gondolier, though he tends to forget it.”

  The manatees cruised back under the house, and Florio dragged his line away from them. Like a lot of people, I figured, he didn’t want to hurt a living creature he could see up close.

  “You think it matters to me that you fucked over Diaz?” Florio said. “I couldn’t care less. If anything, it just proved something I suspected.”

  My look shot him the question.

  “I don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own, and neither do you, Jake.”

  “What are you saying, that deep down, we’re blood brothers because we do things our own way? You can’t reduce a man to one character trait.”

  “Maybe not, but we’re more alike than you might think.” Florio cranked at his reel. “Just ask Gina.”

  I wasn’t going near that one. Florio looked back at the water. “C’mon, now, let’s have some fun. You want to catch some snook?”

  “Snook?”

  “Yeah, ever hear of them?”

  “I don’t have a saltwater license or a snook stamp. Besides, they’re out of season.”

  “Ay, Counselor, you don’t listen real well. You don’t need a license. You don’t need a stamp. This is God’s country.”

  And the gods make their own rules.

  Florio dragged his line across the top of the water and began telling snook stories. Hard to find, much less catch, the fish detects movement on the water with that black lateral line along its body.

  A thunderous splash from below jarred me.

  The bull gator surfaced, its tail smacking the water, its jaws wide. One of the pink flamingos disappeared into the gator’s huge mouth. One chomp, no more flamingo. The other bird squawked and flew away before it could become the second course.

  “Survival of the fittest, Jake, in the wild and in the boardroom. Some animals survive with toughness, some with cunning. With men, it’s best to have both.”

  “How about a measure of decency?”

  “In small doses, like a dash of sherry in a bowl of conch chowder.” He jiggled his rod. No bait, no snook. “We come up empty, I might get Jim Tiger to help. You’re not opposed to a little gigging and netting, are you?”

  I gave him a look.

  “Now don’t go and tell me that’s illegal, Jake. Remember, we’re—”

  “In Florio country,” I interrupted.

  “Right. You’re catching on, partner. C’mon, put some mullet on your line. I pulled out a thirty-pounder last week on eight-pound test line.” He paused to remember the fight. “You ever taste snook, Jake?”

  I had. Last summer, Charlie had caught a pair, the daily limit, and asked me to drive over. You can’t get snook in restaurants. Against the law to sell them. A rare, sweet-tasting fish of firm white meat.

  “We have any luck,” Florio said, “Jim will cook us up some fillets. Afterward, we’ll see just how much alike we really are.”

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  Six-to-Five Against

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK WHEN A SECOND AIRBOAT MANEUVERED toward the dock. I heard it from inside the house, just as Nicky was showing me where all the mahogany trees from the hammock had gone. Reddish-brown paneling, custom-made furniture, hardwood floors. Windows were open on either end of the house, and what had been a gentle breeze earlier in the day was whipping up into gusts from the west.

  The screen door opened, and Rick Gondolier walked in followed by Guillermo Diaz. Gondolier was wearing baggy black pants, black loafers without socks, and a black silk shirt. More South Beach than Tamiami Trail. Diaz wore jeans and sneakers, a blue shirt and a blue nylon jacket. A gun in a shoulder holster protruded from under the jacket.

  “Ay, my favorite abogado,” Diaz greeted me.

  Gondolier shook hands with me, but not as if it were the highlight of his day.

  Jim Tiger grilled the snook over an oak fire. A thirty-incher I caught and a whopper, a twenty-two-pounder, brought in by Florio. Basted with butter, seasoned with a little celery salt and basil, some paprika for color. There was also a salad of cabbage palm, some boiled corn, and a dessert of pumpkin pie sweetened with Everglades sugarcane. We ate at a knotty-pine picnic table on the porch, then sat on rockers drinking whiskey and talking sports and politics and weather and nothing at all.

  By nine o’clock, raindrops were tap-dancing across the metal roof and we were back inside. Jim Tiger closed the shutters on the western side to keep out the wind-driven rain, and we sat in straight-backed wicker chairs at a table covered with green felt. A shaded lamp hung directly over the table. I faced Florio with Gondolier to my left and Diaz to my right. I don’t know why I thought of it, but Diaz’s gun hand was on the side away from me. “Seven-card stud?” Florio asked. “Ten-dollar, twenty-dollar?”

  “They’re your cards, Nicky,” Gondolier replied.

  “Right, and don’t forget it.”

  Diaz divided the chips among the four of us, five hundred dollars to a man.

  Florio shuffled the deck, which he offered to me. I cut, and he began dealing. ‘Three cards, the first two facedown, the third face up. “Jake, you know anything about the Indians in Florida?”

  “Not much.”

  Florio showed a king, Gondolier a seven, and Diaz a deuce. I had a ten up and a pair of eights down, a good start. The first three cards are called Third Street, with the high card showing opening the betting. Florio slid a ten-dollar chip into the center of the table, and everyone called him. Jim Tiger delivered a tray of fresh drinks to the table and took a chair behind his boss to watch the game.

  “It’s a damn sorry history,” Florio said, as he dealt a card face up to each of us. “First you have the Calusa and the Tequestas. ‘They fought old Ponce de Leon back in the 1500s. That was just the beginning of what turned out to be hundreds of years of bullshit by the whites. Now fast-forward a bit, and there’s Andy Jackson’s soldiers chasing the Creeks south from Alabama and Georgia. White men called them the Seminoles.”

  Florio showed a king and a nine, Gondolier a pair of sevens, and Diaz added a king to his deuce. My ten was joined by a three, while my pair of eights grew warmer underneath. Fourth Street. Gondolier opened with ten dollars.

  “By now, Jackson becomes president and begins removing Indians from east of the Missi
ssippi to what was called Indian territory. It was a useless desert we now call Oklahoma. Do I have that right, Jim?”

  “The Trail of Tears,” Jim Tiger said. “Your government violated the Treaty of Moultrie Creek.”

  “Right,” Florio agreed. “Rule number one, Jake. Never trust the government.”

  Florio slid a ten-dollar chip into the pot, calling Gondolier, and Diaz folded. “Of course, not all the Indians left for the west. Chief Osceola led a band of under-armed, underfed warriors against the U.S. Army. Eventually, of course, he was overpowered, and his people retreated into the Everglades. The army pursued them, using maps the Spaniards made in the 1500s. The poor bastards had Lake Okeechobee in downtown Miami. What’s the joke about army intelligence, Jake?”

  “It’s the classic oxymoron.”

  “Right. Hey, you and I make a good team.”

  I matched the ten dollars and raised another twenty. Gondolier and Florio called the bet without hesitation. The wind made a whistling sound off the corrugated roof. Jim Tiger stood up and closed some shutters that were banging against the house.

  “So there they were,” Florio continued, “a proud, independent people living off the land and water, sleeping in little chickee huts built on hardwood hammocks. They ate the fish and grew corn and cane and had about a hundred uses for alligator hides and meat, and meanwhile the U.S. troops kept dying of malaria or gangrene or an occasional bullet, and the war got so expensive, the government just called it off.”

  “Sounds like Vietnam,” I said.

  Florio dealt us into Fifth Street, another card face up. I latched on to a third eight and tried not to smile or yell hoo-boy. As far as anyone could see, I had a bunch of scattered cards.

  “Good analogy,” Florio said. “And what’s the lesson?”

  Gondolier drew a three, and Florio showed a second king, the king of hearts, holding a sword in his left hand. But did he have a third one? Realizing he had the highest hand, Florio frowned and checked. No third king lurking facedown. If he had it, he would have anted up ten lousy dollars. By checking, he forfeited the right to raise when it got back to him. But Florio’s second king was enough to scare off Gondolier and his pair of sevens, and he tossed his cards away in disgust.

  I dropped a ten-dollar chip into the pot and said, “Lots of lessons. Some about the morality of dispossessing a people, another about the strategy—”

  “Fuck the morality!” Florio thundered. “Immoral battles are fought every day. Immoral wars are won by the meanest sons of bitches who ever lived. The lesson, Jake, is that you can’t fight if you don’t know the territory. It’s rule number two. If you’re on somebody else’s turf, you gotta co-opt the enemy. Infiltrate, buy ’em off, make ’em your partners. You can’t just ride your horses into their swamps, blowing your bugles, or you’ll disappear in the mud.”

  Florio slapped a chip down, staying in the game, and dealt us into Sixth Street. Just the two of us. A six for me, a deuce for him, face up. Again, he checked. I was getting confident. I put in my ten bucks, and he called. He dealt the last card, facedown to each of us. He had his two kings, a nine, and a deuce showing. Four different suits. I had an eight, a six, a ten, and a three up, and my two eights underneath, now joined by the king of clubs facedown.

  A king!

  Diaz had drawn the king of diamonds way back on Fourth Street. Nick had the king of spades and hearts showing. I was right all along. Unless this was a deck with five kings, Nicky Florio had a lousy pair of kings, or maybe two pair, kings high, if he had a second nine or deuce underneath. No difference to me. My three eights take the pot.

  Nicky opened with the required ten. I slid in my matching ten and raised him twenty. He did the same, and I did again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And then I simply called, feeling good.

  Which is when he showed me the ten, jack, and queen that were facedown. Which he combined with his nine and king, giving him a king-high straight. Oh.

  Nicky swept in the chips. About three hundred bucks’ worth, give or take a twenty. “Sorry, Jake, some days three of a kind is just a loser.”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” I admitted. Then I laughed. “That’s funny, isn’t it? I mean I was afraid you’d draw a third king, and not thinking about you filling a straight.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” Florio said. He signaled Jim Tiger to bring another round of drinks. Florio had switched to scotch on the rocks. Two with dinner, two after, another one when he started dealing.

  We played another couple of hours as the storm built, lightning glinting off the black water below the windows, the thunder rattling the roof. I won a few hands, lost a few more, and was still behind maybe two hundred bucks when Florio looked me straight on. “I need some legal advice, Jake.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You have a way with words, Counselor.” His face was smiling, but I wasn’t sure about his mind. A bolt of lightning crackled outside, and the room brightened with its reflection. “It’s a criminal law question.”

  Diaz was dealing the first two cards. Jim Tiger returned to his chair behind Florio. He was using a machete to cut slivers of sweet sugarcane from a stalk.

  The third card arrived face up, but Florio didn’t look at his or anyone else’s. “What’s it called when somebody kills someone else, but he’s got a reason for doing it, a reason that’ll get him off?”

  “A lawful excuse,” I answered, “like justifiable homicide. If somebody’s threatening your life or breaks into your home trying to rob you, you’re justified in killing him in the heat of the moment.”

  He seemed to think about it. “Very interesting, Counselor. Now, how about if somebody you know has been fucking your wife?”

  I had a jack showing. Spades. The jack seemed to be laughing. Jim Tiger was sucking on a chunk of sugarcane. Diaz and Gondolier were studying their cards.

  “What do you mean, Nicky?”

  My voice sounded weak.

  Tinny.

  Guilty.

  Florio was tapping his face card with an index finger. The ace of spades. “Like a husband knows someone’s fucking his wife, maybe has been for a long time. The husband gets the proof. Dead-solid perfect proof, and it enrages him. Rocks him to the core. So in the heat of the moment, he kills the bastard. Think he’d get off?”

  I felt my face heat up. “Depends on the circumstances. If he caught them in flagrante delicto,” I heard myself saying, sounding like old Charlie, “it wouldn’t be Murder One or Two, but it’d still be Murder Three or Manslaughter.”

  “What would a guy get, eight years, out in three?”

  “Maybe. But if it was planned,” I added, quickly, “an assassination, it could be Murder One.”

  “But what if there’s no body recovered? Think the guy would ever be charged?”

  I looked at Gondolier and Diaz. They were both staring at me as if horns had sprouted from my forehead.

  Florio waited for an answer. Jim Tiger stood and moved to a position behind me. The machete hung straight down from his right hand.

  I hate a blade.

  Guillermo Diaz slipped his hand inside his nylon jacket. I was frozen. “What’s this all about?”

  “I think you know. C’mon, Jake, talk. Were you billing me for the time spent screwing my wife? Or was that part of the overhead?”

  “Nicky, I’m your lawyer. I—”

  “And a half-assed one at that. I had to get Rick here to make up a story just to win a lousy civil case. And who do you think sweet-talked Abe Socolow into that little courtroom visit? I did, pal, not you. You see, Jake, we might be alike in some things, but not in others. I play to win! That’s the name of the game.”

  “You warp the system, Nicky, and I don’t.”

  “Listen to him!” Florio turned toward his buddies, then back to me. “Don’t give me that Boy Scout bullshit, you hypocrite. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘loyalty.’ A
man who won’t lie, cheat, and steal for a friend is worthless to me. And one who stabs his friend is gonna get it back in spades.”

  “Look, if you’re implying that Gina and I…”

  “Implying! Want to listen to the tapes of your phone calls? How about a little letter?” He reached into one of the buttoned pockets on his shirt and took out several sheets of monogrammed pink stationery and slid them across the table.

  Dearest Jake…

  Five or six of them. All starting the same way.

  You are so very special…

  A different word here or there, the paper crumpled. Her rough drafts. Poor Gina. She wrote the letter a bunch of times to get it right. She must have tossed them in the garbage, where Nicky or one of his helpers salvaged them.

  “There’s nothing in that letter that admits a sexual relationship,” I said. Ever the lawyer, making a fine point, not really lying but ignoring reality.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Jake. We both know the truth. Gina’s a beautiful woman. You’ve had a thing for her for years. A husband and a wife have problems. They drift apart. A woman is weak. She likes a shoulder to cry on, someone to listen. But you do more than listen, don’t you, you bird-dogging son of a bitch? You fucked your client’s wife. It’s a mortal sin, Jake, a goddamn mortal sin. You had free will, and you abused it. You’ve fallen from grace, and you’ll go straight to hell without collecting your two hundred dollars.”

  Outside, thunder rolled across the Everglades, and the stilted house shook. No one said a word. I could hear the soft, creaking sounds of the house groaning in the wind. I seemed to have stopped breathing.

  “Of course, there is repentance,” Florio said, “and there is absolution. So, Jake, do the right thing and tell me about it.”

  “Tell you about what?”

  Stalling.

  Thinking.

  Sweating.

  What’s worse, I wondered, the shame of being caught or the fear of inflicted pain? Perspiration tracked down my back, chilling me. I counted my options. They kept coming down to Diaz with a gun and Tiger with a machete. “Look, Nicky. I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve known Gina a long time.”