Mortal Sin

by Paul Levine

  He looked up at me from under bushy eyebrows. “What sort of explosions?”

  “I don’t know. The loud kind.”

  “Where?”

  “Out there somewhere. Who knows where? I heard them first at Nicky’s house the morning after Gondolier was killed. For a while, I thought it was thunder. Then, when I was paddling the canoe, I heard some more.” I watched Charlie digest the information. “Why do you ask?”

  Charlie harrumphed and thought it over. I had finished the soup and just realized how hungry I was. When the waitress came by, I ordered a media noche and an order of sweet plantains.

  “The computer printout in the truck,” Charlie said. “Describe it, please.”

  “Just a bunch of squiggly lines, like an EKG.”

  He scowled at me. “You might have thought to bring it with you.”

  “Hey, Charlie. I was traveling light. I didn’t even have pants.”

  “Sorry. Let’s have a look at where you found the truck.”

  The sandwich arrived, but I slid my plate away and spread the map over the counter. Charlie studied it, then tapped a pudgy finger on what looked like a tiny island among hundreds of others. “A-653-G2,” he said, reading the handwritten notation. “That’s where you were. Notice anything different about A-653-GI?”

  I looked at a hammock maybe a mile away. “It’s underlined. That’s all.”

  “How about A-653-G3?”

  It took me a while to find it. “Not underlined.”

  “Which means what?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. C’mon. I got bored with the Socratic method my first semester in night law school.”

  “Not only does the numbering system identify the islands, it’s the order they’re being examined.” His finger stayed on A-653-G3. “You were on G2. So were the workers, maybe a day or two before you got there. Next, your boys are headed to G3. Think you could find it?”

  I looked at the map. A hammock like all the others. Teardrop-shaped, with the fatter end toward the north. The southerly water flow tended to erode the hammocks in that direction. “Not quickly, I couldn’t. You get out there, they all look alike. It’d take a week.”

  “What about from the air?”

  “Yeah, maybe. But so what? Do you know what’s going on out there?”

  “I think so.”

  “What! What is it?”

  “Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non prohat. A wise man states as true nothing he cannot prove.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do? What am I going to do when I find the hammock?”

  Charlie smiled at me. It was the sad smile of the patient teacher to the slow student. “You’re a lawyer, Jake. What is it that you do?”

  “Breach confidences, commit malpractice, sleep with my client’s wife. Why do you ask?”

  Charlie frowned with disapproval. “As I understand what you’ve told me, there’s a hearing tomorrow…” He looked at his watch. “Dear me, look at the time. There’s a Water Management Board hearing today at two P.M. in Belle Glade. The press will be there. The public will be there. Environmental groups will be out in force. You’ve got to find your witnesses, Jake. You’ve got to present your testimony. You’ve got to win your case.”

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  Dredge and Drain

  SHRIMP BOATS WERE CHUGGING DOWN THE MIAMI RIVER INTO THE, heading out on their predawn runs. Across the black water, the high-rises on Miami Beach blinked in the darkness. I sat in the isolation of my thirty-second-floor office, thinking and waiting.

  One chance. A long shot. Even if Charlie was right, I didn’t know if I could bring it off. Like a double reverse to the wideout coming around, the timing had to be perfect. I needed a witness who would talk, a public forum to hear what he had to say, and enough people around to keep me from getting a machete in the back. And I needed it all by two o’clock this afternoon.

  Cindy arrived at 3:00 A.M., bleary-eyed and curly-haired. Copper-colored curls, tight against her skull, like a 1920s flapper. She wore white jeans and a red T-shirt emblazoned SOME GIRLS DON’T, BUT I JUST MIGHT.

  “What happened to the blond look?” I asked.

  “What happened to nine-to-five? What happened to a boss who shows up for work, who still has his ticket to practice law, who isn’t being chased by—”

  “You fall out the wrong side of someone’s bed?”

  “My bed, and it didn’t please Miguel one bit.”

  “Miguel? The firm messenger?”

  “He can tote the mail. Now what’s so urgent?”

  “You still take shorthand?”

  “With my eyes closed, which they Ye gonna be if you don’t—”

  “Okay, take a lawsuit. A class-action suit, Jane Lassiter and all others similarly situated versus Environmental Systems, Inc., Florio Enterprises, Inc., Nicholas Florio, and a few others I’ll make up as I go along. Are you taking this down?”

  She picked up a pad and pencil. “Did you say Jane?”

  “Sounds better than Granny in a formal pleading, don’t you think?”

  So I dictated, and she scribbled. A suit for violation of every federal, state, and county environmental law I could find, plus some that ought to be on the books but aren’t. By dawn, crisp double-spaced sheets were flowing from the laser printer, and when the clerk’s office opened at 8:00 A.M., we’d have a pending suit and officially issued subpoenas.

  In the partners’ lounge, I splashed water on my face and changed into a dark blue suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie that always hang in my office closet for emergencies. After Cindy collated and stapled all the copies of the lawsuit, we drove in her car to the courthouse, where she paid the filing fees in cash. I dropped her off at the Metromover station with instructions to deliver copies to the newspaper and have Miguel do the same for the television stations, assuming he could still walk. Then I headed toward Tamiami Airport.

  Hank Scourby flew F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers in Vietnam. He survived a dose of the clap, a botched carrier landing that cost the taxpayers an aircraft, and the bombing of a Saigon brothel that broke both his eardrums. He came home a skilled pilot and a paranoid schizophrenic with a drug problem.

  Scourby retired to Homestead, thirty miles south of Miami, tended a garden for a few years, then took up piloting 727s for East Coast Airlines. In those days, he drove a red Corvette that had a habit of bashing into parked cars in back of late-night saloons. I helped him keep his FA A license by beating threeDUII charges. Just another public service by your neighborhood lawyer.

  When the airline sank into the morass of bankruptcy, Scourby began flying charter helicopters for one of the few companies that didn’t bring drugs in from the islands. I tossed some business his way, usually when I needed aerial photographs for a case.

  Today, Scourby wore a U.S. Navy jumpsuit and tied his shoulder-length gray hair into a ponytail under his helmet. His bloodshot eyes tended to dart back and forth when he was excited and to glaze over when he was not.

  I showed him the map. “Can you find this little island? A-653-G3.”

  “Find it? I could fucking napalm it.”

  Hank did a visual check of a four-seat helicopter, told me to climb aboard, chanted a Buddhist prayer to bless our journey, then got in next to me. He chattered to the tower, revved up the engine, then, in that up-up-and-away sweep peculiar to helicopters, we were airborne. We headed west, passing over town houses and tract homes of the suburban sprawl. Below us were strip shopping centers with empty parking lots and mounting vacancies. What used to be the eastern edge of the Everglades was a tangle of curving streets, barrel-tiled roofs, and turquoise swimming pools.

  In a few minutes, the endless concrete and asphalt disappeared. Patches of saw grass, a wet prairie unfolded, the morning sun bursting off the water. From five hundred feet, the tracks of swamp buggies were clearly visible, scars in the tawny pelt of grass. A flash of movement, and a small white-tailed deer splashed through the water.

  W
e soared over the national park, the water deeper and darker in the Shark River Slough. Turning north, we crossed Tamiami Trail and headed for the Big Cypress Swamp. We passed over mudflats and marshy hammocks, sparse trees, and thick forests. We watched the terrain change from pine rockland to mangrove swamps to cypress heads. We flew through morning mist and emerged into brilliant sunlight, watching the shadow of the helicopter skirt across the dark water below.

  Hank took an occasional look at the map, subtly changed directions two or three times, and kept flying. I looked at my watch. Noon already. We would never make it.

  At one point, he seemed to be lost. We flew in a circle, then reversed field and did it the other way around. Finally, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed wordlessly ahead. I squinted into the sun. It was a hardwood hammock like hundreds of others. He dipped the helicopter a little quicker than I thought was absolutely necessary and headed for a clearing on the beach.

  I saw the truck when the sun glinted off its window. It was pulled halfway into a strand of mahogany trees, gleaming white as we drew closer. By the time we touched down, sending up swirls of sand, two men in white coveralls and rubberized boots were walking out of the woods toward us.

  I was out of the copter first, ducking under the rotor, wincing against the noise of the engine. I remembered another chopper blade, and how it ended the life of Matsuo Yagamata and saved mine. One of the men, the larger of the two, carried a clipboard. The other had a pair of calipers in his right hand. Both were clean shaven, short-haired, and respectable-looking. Neither seemed alarmed or particularly surprised to see us. I was wearing my suit, carrying a briefcase, and doing my best to look like a working lawyer instead of a fleeing felon.

  When the engine roar died, the larger man pointed to my briefcase. “Unless they Ye making ’em smaller than I remember, you’re not carrying a seismograph in there.”

  “Afraid not,” I told him.

  “Shee-it.” Texas dripped from his voice. “Twenty-four hours we’ve been waiting. Our graph’s deader than communism.” He studied me a moment. “So why’d they send you out here?”

  I opened the briefcase and pulled out a file. “Which one of you is in charge?”

  The other man stepped forward. Close up, he had a receding hairline and narrow shoulders, the slightly nerdy look of the grad student who never escaped from the lab or library. I had seen him before, climbing out of the cab of the truck on a narrow dirt road. “I am,” he said.

  I looked at my file as if something important were there. “Let’s see, you’re Mr….”

  “Wakefield. Tucker Wakefield.”

  “Yes, of course.” I pulled out a pen and took the subpoena that had been issued two hours earlier in the name of John Doe, Geologist. I wrote in “Tucker Wakefield.”

  “You a geologist?”

  “Of course. What else would I—”

  I handed him the subpoena.

  “What’s this?”

  The larger man looked over his shoulder and scowled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  I ignored him and put on my formal, grown-up voice. “Mr. Wakefield, I’m taking your deposition this afternoon at two o’clock in Belle Glade. Your testimony is needed in the lawsuit of Granny Lassiter—that is, Jane Lassiter—versus Environmental Systems, Inc., et al. We’ll take you there.” I pointed toward the helicopter. “Now, if you’ll just climb aboard.”

  Wakefield took a step backward. “I’ll have to consult with the company lawyers, of course. And a deposition today is just out of the question. I’ve been deposed many times as an expert witness, and I’ve always been provided ample notice. Really, this is quite unprecedented….”

  The big guy glared at me. “This is bullshit!”

  Wakefield thumbed quickly through the lawsuit, stopping at the signature block on the last page. “I assume you’re Mr. Lassiter.”

  “Guilty,” I said.

  “According to this, your office is in Miami. Why would you want to take my testimony in Belle Glade?”

  “I like an audience when I perform.”

  That puzzled him. Meanwhile, the big guy started walking toward their truck. “I’m gonna radio in, find out what the fuck’s going on.”

  “Hold on, cowboy.” It was Hank Scourby, and he pointed a .44 Magnum in the general direction of the big guy’s kneecaps. “I blow a hole in your leg, you’ll bleed to death before we get to the hospital.”

  I’ve had aggressive process servers before, but this was ridiculous. “Hey, Hank, let me handle this, okay?”

  “You’re not doing so well, Jake.” He turned toward Wakefield. “Okay, egghead, we’re going for a ride. Your pal can stay here, but let me have a look at that radio first. I think it may need a new part.”

  Wakefield did as he was told, and Hank Scourby added two pieces of steel-jacketed lead to the radio.

  It was 1:15. We flew north and then east, and soon the saw grass gave way to sugarcane. Endless fields of brown stalks, poking toward the sky. Below us, huge mechanical harvesters rolled between rows of cane, invisible blades chopping the stalks. In other fields, cutters from Jamaica, bent at the waist, swung machetes in a rhythmic motion, doing the same job. On the horizon, black smoke rose from other fields as the leaves were burned away prior to harvesting. A huge mill on the edge of the fields exhaled white puffs of steam into the blue sky.

  Over the noise of the engine, Tucker Wakefield asked me the subject matter of his testimony.

  The truth, I told him. Just tell the board what you’re doing out there.

  He shrugged as if to say, no big deal.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe no one would care. It might even be humorous to them, the dog-and-pony show I was planning. Maybe they knew the truth and didn’t give a damn. As I listened to the chucka-chucka of the rotor, I closed my eyes, yawned, and envisioned it. The truth spilling out in front of the board, and Nicky Florio guffawing at me. That’s your case, Lassiter? You think you can stop Nicky Florio with that? Then the commissioners, their pockets bursting with De La Torre’s cash, would cackle with laughter. After a town and a casino, what’s one more surprise? The only one not smiling would be Abe Socolow as he fastened the cuffs on me.

  I kept looking at my watch.

  Five minutes before two o’clock. We would be late. But there would be preliminary matters. Other voices to be heard. Below us the fields disappeared, and the town crept into view.

  It took several more minutes to find the school. We made two passes over the football field; then, checking for power lines, Hank Scourby put the copter down on the asphalt parking lot behind the gym.

  Two Micanopy tribal policemen leaned against their car, watching us, as the rotors whined to a halt and we got out. Friends or foes, I didn’t know which. I waved to them, as if we were pals, and one waved back. Maybe they figured we were the environmental boys from Tallahassee. After a moment, they turned back and resumed talking. I didn’t feel like towing Tucker Wakefield past them, so we slipped around the building to a side entrance, where there was another Micanopy police car with its distinctive emblem of alligator, saw grass, and colorful ceremonial jacket. Two more cops loitered there, chatting with a rangy man in sunglasses who wore jeans and a blue windbreaker with FLORIO ENTERPRISES printed on the back.

  What were the cops doing here? I his wasn’t Micanopy territory. It was a small town practically owned by sugarcane baron Carlos de La Torre. Why did I think the tribal police had become Nicky Florio’s private security force?

  We hustled Wakefield past the cops and into the side door that led to a locker room. Signs were plastered on the walls for the young athletes, THE FOURTH QUARTER IS OURS, WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING.

  We took a stairwell to a balcony over the gym, home of the Fighting Sugarcanes, according to a banner. We crossed the empty balcony and took another set of stairs down to the gym floor, working our way to the front row of a section of bleachers pulled down for the hearing.

  “Phosphorus
and mercury levels are already appalling,” a voice said through an amplified sound system.

  Half a dozen tables, doubtless borrowed from the cafeteria, were drawn together at half-court. The chairman of the board sat in the middle, two fellow commissioners on each side. A stenographer took notes. The suits sat at another table, three board lawyers, an assistant attorney general, and Abe Socolow.

  Nicky Florio and Carlos de La Torre were at their own table. Guillermo Diaz sat behind Florio, covering his back, as a good bodyguard should. The model of the Cypress Estates project—museum, casino, and all—was placed on a platform in front of the board. There were perhaps three hundred spectators scattered throughout the bleachers.

  To one side was a press table. I recognized a couple of the reporters. Britt Montero was there from the Miami Daily News. We were supposed to go out for stone crabs once, but she stood me up for a three-alarm fire. Two television reporters were lounging around a table of sodas and coffee. Photographers from both newspapers and television sat cross-legged on the floor.

  “When will this board ever stop the dredging and draining?” Hunched over a microphone at a lectern was a tall, thin man with a white mustache and a creased face. He wore muddy hiking boots, khaki pants, and a bush jacket and looked close to eighty. Harrison Baker, founder of the Everglades Society. He had briefly testified at the Tupton trial.

  “First a town. Now a casino! What next?”

  I knew the answer, but it wasn’t my turn.

  “We request a postponement of all board action until studies can be made,” Baker said. “Why, we don’t even know if it’s legal.”

  “Hold on, Harrison. The state attorney’s here on that point.” Clyde Thornton, the board chairman, was a pudgy, balding, ruddy-faced retired tomato grower from Sarasota. He wore a beige suit with shoulder piping and a string tie.

  Abe Socolow got to his feet and cleared his throat. “In the state’s opinion, the proposal of Florio Enterprises, as endorsed by the Micanopy Tribal Council, conforms to the provisions of the Indian Regulatory Gaming Act of 1988,” Socolow said, in perfect legalese.