by Paul Levine
Ten
EVEN MURDERERS NEED PALS
Steve stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the ink off his fingertips. He'd been booked and processed, fingerprinted and photographed, and generally ridiculed by cops and corrections officers who knew him from court. He had spent two hours in a holding cell where the walls were covered with yellowish-brown graffiti. Generations of inmates had used mustard from their state-issued bologna sandwiches to leave their misspelled profanities to posterity. Perhaps not as impressive as Paleolithic cave drawings, the graffiti nonetheless provided a sociological snapshot of our underclass, as well as an indictment of our public schools.
Judge Alvin Elias Schwartz released Steve without bail on the grounds that His Honor used to play pinochle with the defendant's father. Steve would be required to show up in a week to be arraigned on charges of assault and battery and obstructing a state official, to wit: Mr. Arnold G. Freskin, in the performance of his duties. According to the criminal complaint, Freskin's duties included an "on-site interview with a probationer," which Steve figured sounded better than an "erotic wrestling match with an undressed secretary."
Steve had taken a sweaty taxi ride home, the Jamaican driver explaining the A/C was on the blink, but Steve figured the guy was just saving gas. Steve's pants and shirt stuck to the vinyl seats, though the heat didn't seem to bother the driver, who was sitting on one of those beaded back supports.
"You sounded like a horse's ass on the radio today." Herbert Solomon sat at the kitchen table, sipping kosher red wine and eviscerating his son. "A real putz."
"Thanks for the support, Dad." Steve was not up for his father's abuse. It had been a shitty day, and it wasn't over yet. In an hour, he would have to put on a smiley face and brush-kiss Irene Lord. The Queen. Victoria's mother. A woman so cold and imperious she made Martha Stewart seem warm and cuddly.
"Ah bailed you out, didn't ah?"
"I was released on my own recognizance. All you did was call the judge."
"That's a helluva lot."
"You could have driven downtown and picked me up from the jail."
"Not after sundown, boychik."
"Why, you got night blindness?"
"Shabbos, you shmoe!"
"What is it, open-bar night at temple?"
"Wouldn't hurt you to come along. Say a Sh'ma or two."
So that explained his father's outfit. A double-breasted blue blazer, rep tie with khaki walking shorts and sneakers. Ever since the old man went ortho, he began adhering to the rule of not driving between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. Now, looking like a demented Englishman in the midday sun, he was ready for the three-mile trek to Temple Judea.
"It's Irene's birthday," Steve said. "Otherwise, I'd be right there with you in the front row."
"Hah. You don't even know where the shul is."
"On Granada, right across Dixie Highway from the ball field." The ball field being Mark Light Stadium at the University of Miami, where Steve couldn't hit a lick but semi-starred as a pinch runner and base stealer. He also occasionally attended class, majoring in theater and minoring in the swimming pool. Herbert had wanted Steve to study political science or pre-law, something that might lead to the legal profession. But the word in the dorm was that the hottest girls were in theater. Enough said. Steve brushed up his Shakespeare and headed for the Ring Theater, which was conveniently located next to the campus Rathskellar.
Only later did Steve realize that the acting skills he accidentally learned would be useful in court. As an undergrad, he played the cynical reporter E. K. Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind, a role that came easily. Then he was Teach in American Buffalo, a part he enjoyed mainly because he got to say a lot of fuck you's. His senior year, Steve played the older brother, Biff, in Death of a Salesman. A jock with early promise, Biff's life crumbled when he discovered that his father was a fraud.
"Pop's going to kill himself! Don't you know that?"
At virtually the same time Steve cried out that line, his own father-Herbert Solomon, not Willy Loman-was being hauled before the Grand Jury. Looking back, Steve knew his onstage tears were real.
For much the same reason he studied theater-hot coeds-Steve joined the campus chapter of the ACLU. The prevailing wisdom then was that liberal chicks were easier to bag than, say, the Young Republican Women for Chastity. The ACLU meetings gave him a feel for the underdog. All considered, the acting lessons and liberal politics provided solid, if unintentional, training for the life of a solo practitioner in the mystical art of the Law.
"So what's your plan?" Herbert asked.
"For Irene's birthday? We're going to Joe's for stone crabs."
"For Kreeger!"
"I'm working on it, Dad. He claims he wants to hang out with me."
"What'd Ah tell you? Murderers need pals, too."
"Except it sounded more like a threat. Be my pal- or else."
"So what's your plan?" Herbert pressed him.
Steve didn't know how much to tell his father. His father's parenting had swung between benign neglect and caustic criticism. And now, that old fear resurfaced. Ridicule and rejection. Not measuring up.
"I need to get down to the Keys. Find a witness."
"What for?"
Steve decided to go for it. His ego had pretty much survived all the welts and bruises his father could dish out. "That fishing trip I told you about. Kreeger and his classmate Jim Beshears."
"Old news. You think Kreeger pushed the guy overboard and clobbered him with a gaff."
"It's all I've got. I can't nail Kreeger for killing Nancy Lamm."
"Double jeopardy. They already convicted him of manslaughter."
"Exactly. But Kreeger was never charged with murdering Beshears. I need someone who was there. A witness. Beshears' girlfriend is too vague about what happened. But there was one more person on the boat."
"The charter captain."
"Oscar De la Fuente. He was on the fly bridge, holding the boat steady, yelling instructions. He had the angle to see everything. But I never found him."
"Shouldn't be hard. The state would have his charter license."
"The computer records only go back ten years. The incident was nineteen years ago. If De la Fuente had a license then, he doesn't anymore."
"County property records?"
"Doesn't own anything in Miami-Dade, Monroe, or Collier. No business license. No fictitious-name license. No phone, listed or unlisted."
"At least you've done your homework."
The compliment sounded grudging, but Steve took it just the same. "Now I'm gonna pound the pavement. Or maybe the sand."
"What? Wear some lawyer's suit down in the Keys, poke around asking questions?"
Actually, he'd been planning on wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that read: "Practice Safe Sex. Go Screw Yourself." But his father was on a roll, so Steve let him go.
"The Conchs will think you're DEA," Herbert warned him. "No one will talk to you. And if anyone knows this De la Fuente character, they'll warn him to stay away from you. Problem is, you don't know the territory, son."
There it was, Steve thought, his old man hauling out the knives to carve him up. "What choice do I have?"
"You got me, you shmoe! Who knows the bars and marinas better than me?"
True. When Herbert wasn't crashing on a sofa in Steve's spare bedroom, he was fishing off his leaky houseboat on Sugarloaf Key. "You'd do that for me?"
"I'm your father. You gotta ask?" Pleased with himself, Herbert grabbed a white straw hat he would wear over his yarmulke for the walk to the synagogue. The hat had a small, upturned brim. Steve thought it was called a porkpie, but maybe not. That didn't sound kosher.
"Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it."
"Don't mention it. By the way, how much are P.I.'s charging these days?"
"Good Shabbos, Dad."
Herbert started for the door. "Bobby's dinner is in the fridge."
"Where is the Bobster?"
"In his room with
that gypsy girl."
"What? Who?"
"That harlot-in-training with the jewelry in her belly button. The Juban girl from a block over."
"Not polite, Dad. We don't describe people by their religion or ethnicity."
"That so, matzoh boy?"
"Very old-school, Dad."
"Well, kiss my kosher tuches. Ain't my fault the girl's both a Yid and a Cubana. Tell her to change her name if she's so ashamed of it. Like some of our chickenshit landsmen. Cohen becomes Kane, Levine becomes Landers. Schmendricks." Herbert gave a snort of disapproval.
"Her name's Maria Munoz-Goldberg, and I doubt she's ashamed of it," Steve said.
"Fine by me, but if I were you, I'd go peek in Robert's bedroom. Or next thing you know, there'll be a little tyke named Munoz-Solomon running around the house."
Eleven
THAT JUBAN GIRL
Steve finished off the glass of kosher wine his father had left on the table. It tasted like liquified grape jelly. Bobby was in the bedroom with Maria, and Steve needed to fortify himself before moseying down the hall. He planned to knock on the door before entering. If it was locked, he'd batter it down like a SWAT team at a meth lab.
Just what were the rules with pubescent kids these days, anyway? Only recently had it occurred to him that Bobby, on the hazardous precipice of puberty, might need a fatherly lecture on the birds and bees. When he talked to his nephew about it, the boy said he knew all about STDs and condoms and even told Steve about a girl at Ponce de Leon Middle School who got pregnant.
"After that, none of the girls would, you know, do it, but there were a lot more rainbow parties, not that I've ever been invited."
"Rainbow parties?"
"C'mon, Uncle Steve. Where the chicks all put on a different color lipstick and the guys drop their pants, and the idea is to get as many different colors on
your-"
"Jesus!"
Now Steve paused outside Bobby's door, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. No tobacco, no pot. But something odd. A citrus scent. Oranges or tangerines.
Steve knocked once and headed inside.
Both kids had textbooks open. Wearing baggy shorts and a Hurricanes football jersey, Bobby was slouched in his beanbag chair. Maria was sprawled across Bobby's bed. She wore low-riding jeans with enough holes and shreds to give the impression she'd stepped on a land mine. A sleeveless mesh T-shirt revealed a lacy bra underneath. Her complexion was a rich caramel, and her bright red lipstick was as slick as fresh paint. A shiny rhinestone peeked out of her twelve-year-old navel.
Bobby waved at Steve but kept talking to Maria, sounding like a little professor. "The Battle of Gettysburg was a big-time accident. Lee and Meade never said, 'C'mon, let's meet in this little town in Pennsylvania and have a big battle.' That's just where the Union decided to stop the Confederate advance. I mean, if they hadn't, Lee's army could have taken Philadelphia, and then maybe Washington, and the South would have won the war."
"That'd suck," Maria said. "Hey, Mr. Solomon."
"Hi, Maria. So what are you guys studying?"
"Duh. Like calculus," Bobby said. Showing some spunk for his little hottie.
"American history, Mr. Solomon. Bobby knows everything that ever happened."
"It's no big deal," Bobby said.
"It is to me." Maria smiled at Bobby. An inviting come-hither smile. The citrus aroma was stronger
here.
"What's that smell?" Steve asked.
"Oh, probably my perfume, Mr. Solomon."
Perfume! Bobby doesn't have a chance.
"Boucheron," Maria continued. "My mom's."
First they take their mothers' perfume. Then their birth control pills.
Steve knew Maria's parents from a Neighborhood Watch committee. Eva Munoz-Goldberg, the proud daughter of an anti-Castro militant, frequently roamed the neighborhood, passing out flyers that called for bombing Venezuela and assassinating Hugo Chavez. As a child, Eva spent weekends with her father and a pack of cousins, trekking through the Everglades, shooting Uzis at cardboard cutouts of Fidel Castro. Later, they would all head home to grill burgers, drink Cuba Libres, and watch the Dolphins on TV. Recently, Steve had seen Eva piloting her black Hummer through Coconut Grove, an NRA bumper sticker pasted on the rear bumper.
Maria's father, Myron Goldberg, was a periodontist with an office on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Myron's hybrid Prius sported bumper stickers for Greenpeace and Save the Manatees, and the most dangerous weapon he owned was a titanium root-canal shaft. The Munoz-Goldbergs were Exhibit A in South Florida's paella-filled melting pot of cross-cultural multiethnicity.
Looking at the two kids lounging in the bedroom, Steve was certain he should lecture his nephew about exercising self-control in a time of raging hormones. Another thought, too. A contrary one. Could this little vixen be just using Bobby to pass her courses? As much as Steve adored his nephew, he had to admit the kid was not exactly a candidate for the Abercrombie amp; Fitch catalog. Basically, Bobby was a skinny, love-able loner in thick glasses who didn't fit into any of the cliques.
"What's this about the high-water mark?" Maria asked, thumbing through the textbook. "It sounds like something that'll be on the test."
"The High-Water Mark of the Confederacy," Bobby said, confidently. "It's where the tide turned the Union's way at Gettysburg."
"Ooh, right." She scribbled a note.
"Pickett's Charge," Bobby continued. "Fifteen thousand Confederate soldiers. Some made it to the Union line, but they were cut to ribbons. A frontal assault moving uphill never works. When the enemy's holding the high ground, you gotta outflank him. Fake an attack on one flank." Bobby threw an imaginary left hook. "But really attack the other flank." With a whoosh, he tossed a roundhouse right. "When your enemy zigs, you zag."
"You're so smart." Maria rewarded the boy with another twinkling smile, then turned toward Steve. "We heard you on the radio today, Mr. Solomon."
"Yeah," Bobby added. "Never thought that shrink could school you like that."
"Are you going to jail?" Maria asked Steve.
"Uncle Steve's been to jail lots of times," Bobby declared, a touch of pride in his voice. "Judges make him stay overnight because he gets rowdy."
"Everything's gonna be okay," Steve said. "What I did was only technically illegal."
Bobby snorted. "Yeah, you technically beat the shit out of some guy."
"Watch the lingo, kiddo."
"Are you gonna let that shrink keep cracking on you?"
"Nope. I've got a plan to shut him up."
"Ph-a-a-t! How you gonna do it?"
Steve shook his head. What could he say? "Your uncle and grandfather are trying to nail a killer, but don't worry about it." No. He wouldn't spook the boy.
"Highly confidential," Steve said.
"Just so you're not doing what that woman in the hot tub did. Because if Dr. Bill killed her. ."
Bobby let the words hang there, then turned back to his book.
Half an hour later, Bobby scooted deeper into the beanbag chair. Maria was still sprawled on his bed, leafing through the pages of the history book. Moments earlier, Bobby did a trick with his brain, purposely dividing his conscious thoughts in two. Going split screen, he called it, something that let him think two unrelated thoughts at once.
I want to kiss Maria. And. .
Why does Uncle Steve treat me like a baby?
It was really Bobby's only complaint.
Most of the time Uncle Steve was really cool. Always spending time with him. Tossing the ball, teaching him to dig in at home plate and not bail out even when the pitch was inside. Taking him to court and even to a couple of autopsies, which was way cool, except for the smell.
But he hides stuff from me, afraid I can't handle it.
Uncle Steve was planning to go after Dr. Bill. Which was scary.
But why can't he tell me?
Above him, on the bed, Maria draped a leg over his shoulder. She wiggled her toes, the
nails painted some color that looked like flames.
The brain waves carrying thoughts of Dr. Bill suddenly flatlined. Bobby felt a pleasant buzz in his undershorts. But this was awkward. His butt was sunk into the beanbag chair, his back was toward the bed, and he couldn't even see her. To kiss her, he'd have to scoot around, get to his knees, and crawl onto the bed, and then what? It would take several seconds and would seem premeditated and dorky, instead of casual and cool.
Another problem: to tongue or not to tongue?
He heard more pages rustling. She couldn't be reading that fast. Could she be getting bored? Was she waiting for him to make a move? He wished he could ask Uncle Steve for advice right now.
Or Mom. Yesterday, she told me she first had sex at twelve. My age!
Now his brain opened another screen. There was Maria on the bed, her flame-toed foot dangling in his face. And there was Mom, talking about sex.
Bobby could never tell Uncle Steve what Mom said. Or even that he'd seen her. Uncle Steve thought Mom was still in prison.
She had shown up at the park, picked him up, just like a regular mother, not an ex-con. They'd gone to Whip 'N Dip for pistachio ice cream. She started talking about her life, the stuff just spilling out, and a lot was pretty icky. The guys-sometimes, she didn't even know their names. The drugs-they'd messed her up bad, and that's why she stole and got in trouble, but now she'd kicked the habit. She thanked Jesus for his help, the Son of God being the true messiah and all, and maybe it was time for Bobby to be baptized.
Sure, Mom. Right after my bar mitzvah.
Bobby had told her about Maria and how much he liked her. She seemed interested, especially in Maria's family, the mother being Catholic and the father Jewish.
"She sounds like a good candidate for Jews for Jesus," his mother had said.
Now Maria draped a second leg over his other shoulder. She pressed her thighs together, squeezing his ears, knocking his glasses sideways. He could smell her perfume, orange and vanilla, like a Creamsicle. He wanted to lick her face.
"I'm tired of studying," she whispered.