Bum Rap

by Paul Levine

  “You said you had two questions.”

  “Right. I subpoenaed the city for all police records on Nadia Delova, and I haven’t gotten a document of any kind. Not even a parking ticket or a reply that you don’t have anything.”

  “City’s written reply is being vetted by Pincher’s office.”

  “Bad sign. C’mon, George. You can’t stonewall on discovery.”

  He reached into a slim briefcase and took out a single piece of paper, which he slid across the table.

  A booking photo of Nadia Delova.

  Date of birth, January 16, 1986, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

  Charge: grand larceny, to wit, one Rolex Submariner, black matte limited edition. The photo showed a very attractive, very pouty brunette. Lots of hair and lots of lips. No smile, but for a mug shot, it was striking. The date of the arrest was five weeks before the shooting.

  “Another charge you can immunize her for,” I said. “So where’s the rest of the file?”

  “That’s the thing.”

  “Oh, boy. Let’s hear it.”

  “There’s no file. It’s missing.”

  “On the computer, then?”

  “Nada.”

  “George, this stinks, and you know it. You talk to the arresting officer?”

  Barrios motioned for another espresso, which he took straight. The only Cuban-American in Miami not to pour a cup of sugar into his morning brew.

  “Scott Kornspan. One year out of the Academy. Clean record. Took a complaint from a middle-aged guy staying at the Delano. The Russian girl picked him up at the bar in the lobby, took him to Club Anastasia, got him drunk, and had him sign for a few thousand in champagne on his AmEx card. Then when he passed out, she took his Rolex. Kornspan arrested the girl, who claimed the guy gave her the watch as a gift. She bailed herself out with a cash bond. Four thousand dollars.”

  “And Kornspan’s written report?”

  “Says he filed it. No explanation for what happened.”

  “It’s gotta be on the computer. Everything’s on the computer.”

  “Not there. Apparently deleted in a slick way that can’t be undone.”

  “I’m guessing you have an idea what happened to it, George.”

  He shrugged his old cop shoulders. “I start with the proposition that Solomon claims Gorev accused Nadia Delova of wearing a wire.”

  “And you know for sure she wasn’t an informant for the City of Miami Beach?”

  Barrios nodded. “I checked. No investigations she’s involved in.”

  “And I’m guessing Pincher says the state wasn’t handling her.”

  “So he says.”

  “And the language Nadia used that spooked Gorev. ‘Wire fraud.’ ‘Money laundering.’ ‘Racketeering.’ ”

  “Fed talk. FBI US Attorney. Justice Department.”

  “But the feds can’t just walk into your building and expunge a file. You have a liaison with the US Attorney?”

  “I have a chief of police.”

  “So? What’s he say?”

  “Says he was advised by the powers that be that he can’t talk about it.”

  “The ‘powers that be?’ That’s all he said?”

  “That. And, ‘the Patriot Act is a bitch.’ ”

  “You ever read the so-called Patriot Act, George?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “I tried. It’s nearly four hundred pages. Basically, it gives the feds the right to come into my house and perform a rectal exam if they don’t like the cut of my jib.”

  “You haven’t become one of those antigovernment nut jobs, have you Jake?”

  “No way. I love the military. I love the government inspecting slaughterhouses so I don’t get poisoned by my rib eye. I don’t even mind paying taxes for your salary. I just wonder what’s left of the Bill of Rights.”

  “Everyone’s got their pet peeves,” Barrios said. “With me, it’s murder.”

  That shut me up a second.

  “So what do you glean from the chief’s comment, Jake?”

  “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist. The feds were handling Nadia Delova. Someone in the US Attorney’s office was running an investigation of Gorev’s operation.” I tapped a finger on Nadia Delova’s mug shot. “And that someone sends this naive waif of a B-girl into harm’s way, wearing a wire.”

  “The feds would never have given her a gun,” Barrios said. “Meaning Solomon brought it and used it.”

  “Not so fast. It’s equally likely that Nadia brought it without either her handler’s knowledge or Solomon’s. And it was the fed’s responsibility. They’re the ones who apparently wired her and sent her on her mission. Meaning that someone in the employ of the United States government screwed the pooch. If Nadia testifies for the state or the defense, that screwup will be on the front page of the Herald.” I took the last bite of my empanada and drained my coffee. “You know what I’m thinking, George?”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “You want Nadia Delova to testify and so do I,” I said. “But the federal government sure as hell doesn’t.”

  -15-

  Nadia and the Feds (Part Three)

  One week before the Gorev shooting . . .

  Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida

  In Re: Investigation of South Beach Champagne Clubs and one “John Doe”

  File No. 2014-73-B

  Statement of Nadia Delova (Continuation)

  July 7, 2014

  (CONFIDENTIAL)

  Q: [By AUSA Deborah Scolino] So it’s agreed then? You will work with us.

  A: [By Nadia Delova] Do I have a choice? You will send me to jail otherwise.

  Q: Can you come up with a reason to meet with Nicolai Gorev in private?

  A: He has been shortchanging my pay. But he does that to everyone, and we talk about it all the time.

  Q: Anything else, then?

  A: He is holding my passport. I will say I need to go home. Mother is sick.

  Q: Will he believe that?

  A: Maybe not. He knows I hate my mother. I will think of something.

  Q: Can you get him to discuss the business?

  A: Yes. Business is all he ever discusses.

  Q: Do you have any questions for me?

  A: When this is done, can you keep me from being deported?

  Q: I promise to use my best efforts. But I have to be honest. It won’t be easy.

  A: What if I was married to an American?

  Q: A sham marriage won’t help.

  A: No sham. A man has asked me to marry him.

  Q: Congratulations.

  A: Spasibo.

  Q: Just play your role, Ms. Delova, and I’ll do everything possible to help you.

  A: I am afraid of Gorev.

  Q: Just act naturally. Give him no reason to suspect you.

  A: He has instincts. Like a rat. Maybe I should take a gun.

  Q: No. We cannot approve that. Do you understand?

  A: [No response]

  Q: Ms. Delova. I’m serious. No gun.

  A: I understand. Now, show me this wire you want me to wear.

  -16-

  Giving Men Hope

  Three days after my breakfast with Detective Barrios, I was headed back to Miami Beach. It was just after 9:00 p.m. as the old Eldo rumbled east on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the high-arcing bridge that connects midtown Miami with the Beach. I had a dandy view of the mansions of Sunset Islands as I reached the Beach side; then I swung onto Arthur Godfrey Road and headed toward the ocean.

  Since my investigator Sam Pressler had failed, the job of getting into Club Anastasia had fallen to me. A cleaned-up, dressed-up version of me. With luck, I’d get in. With skill, I might strike up a conversation with a B-girl who was a friend of Nadia’s. With both luck and skill, maybe I could get a clue to her whereabouts.

  I was tuned to the sports radio station, where callers wailed and moaned over LeBron James’s decision to leave th
e Miami Heat for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Honestly, some of these people sounded positively suicidal. Then about ten minutes of commercials for a nudie bar they called a “gentleman’s club,” a shooting range that featured machine guns, and a mail-order firm selling male enhancement pills. The station clearly knew its demographics.

  I know I should listen to NPR and get a twenty-minute feature about a Rumanian viola player who performs Hoffmeister’s etudes backward . . . and, by the way, send us some money. But I’ve been listening to sports talk radio—the septic tank of broadcasting—since my playing days.

  Now the radio callers were complaining about the Dolphins, and my thoughts drifted back to broiling Sunday afternoons in what I still call Joe Robbie Stadium. As a pro, I made up for my lack of skill and speed with effort and sweat. I was never late for a meeting, I worked harder than the guy next to me, and I played hurt. Same thing at the University of Miami Law School, night division. I never cut class. I studied harder than the guy next to me, and I played poker with the smart scholarship kids.

  As a lawyer, I break as few rules as possible, and just as in football, I play the game without fear. My college coach, Joe Paterno at Penn State, once told me to stop thinking so much. “Buckle your chin strap and hit somebody. Play fast and hard, and something good will happen. Don’t be afraid to lose.”

  My pro coach, Don Shula, had lots of advice, too. One August scorcher during two-a-days, I was on my knees puking up my guts after wind sprints, and Shula shouted, “Lassiter, get off my field! Go die somewhere else.”

  I twirled the dial and caught a bit of the Foggy Bottom Boys singing “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.” That’s when my cell rang.

  “Why are you doing this without me?” Victoria Lord asked.

  “Because a B-girl is unlikely to pick me up when I’m with a woman more beautiful than she is.”

  “Don’t try to flatter your way out of this. I should be there. Maybe not sitting with you, but somewhere in the bar. As backup.”

  I laughed. “You gonna protect my chastity?”

  “Oh, damn it, Jake. I’m feeling useless.”

  “You’re not. When we get to court, I’ll be leaning on you a lot. But in the street, you gotta trust me.”

  “The Fontainebleau is not exactly the street. Did you remember what Steve said?”

  “Dress nicely and wear an expensive watch. Just like Nadia told him. Catnip for the B-girls.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “My suit is my one and only Armani. Linen and silk, a dark blue.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Birthday present from my granny. Forty-six long, and they had to let out the butt and thighs. Those Italians got legs like spaghetti.”

  “And the watch?”

  “Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.”

  “Oh, my God. In eighteen-karat gold?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “Exquisite. Where’d you get it?”

  “A client.”

  “Fee or a present?”

  “As I recall, I put him in a headlock and ripped it off his wrist. Must have been a fee.”

  She laughed, told me to be careful, and hung up.

  I hadn’t exactly lied to my cocounsel. The watch said eighteen-karat gold, and it sure as hell looked like the Royal Oak. And I did get it from a client, José Villalobos, a guy who sold knockoff goods out of a warehouse on Bird Road near the turnpike. But instead of a $25,000 Piguet, it was a ninety-dollar Villalobos. In the dark, I didn’t think a Bar girl could tell the difference.

  Victoria and I had talked several times in the last couple days. She had told me that Steve had no idea who Benny was. The name had never come up with Nadia and wasn’t mentioned in the confrontation with Gorev. I told Victoria about my conversation with Detective Barrios and how we were both convinced that Nadia had been working with the feds. Yesterday, my process server had delivered subpoenas to both the FBI’s and the US Attorney’s offices downtown, demanding all documents related to “Russian nationals named Nadia Delova and Nicolai Gorev, regarding any and all investigations of wire fraud, money laundering, racketeering, and any other federal crimes.”

  It only took twenty-four hours for the responses. Identical boilerplate motions to quash the subpoenas on grounds that “said documents would compromise an ongoing investigation and endanger national security, and that further, production of said documents would violate Public Law 107-56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001), commonly referred to as the Patriot Act. This is not to be construed as an admission that any such documents exist or ever existed.”

  I just love bureaucratic jibber-jabber.

  The government’s response pretty much confirmed that Nadia had been working with the feds, and it did something else, too. It corroborated Solomon’s story about Gorev accusing Nadia of wearing a wire. Every little tidbit of Solomon’s account that proved true was helpful to our case. His other, more important claims—that Gorev pulled a gun and Nadia shot him—were bolstered by his veracity on the wire accusation.

  I turned my Caddy over to the valet in the driveway of the Fontainebleau. The hotel has been renovated a couple of times since James Bond and Goldfinger played gin rummy there in the 1960s. As I recall, Goldfinger cheated.

  There’s no more Boom-Boom Room. No Sinatra or Hope or Gleason playing one of the lounges. It’s now a “luxury resort” with a swimming pool the size of Massachusetts and several bars where conventioneers are likely to gather, the bait to attract the Russian sharks.

  On Miami Beach these days, you’ve got Mansion and Cameo and Mynt and a dozen other clubs where party animals—yeah, I know the term is as dated as I am—go to, well . . . party. I’m long gone from that scene. In my playing days, like a lot of jocks, I hung out at places like the Booby Trap and Cheetah and other strip joints. Booze and breasts and wasted nights. Maybe getting older and presumably wiser ain’t such a bad deal.

  I wandered into the lobby’s Bleau Bar, whose primary characteristics are blue lighting, blue seating, and blue cocktails. It was crowded, and I made my way toward the window that overlooks the pool. You can reserve a table there for 350 bucks . . . drinks not included. There were well-dressed couples that had Midwest written all over them. I mean that as a compliment. Well groomed, well dressed, a little starry-eyed. Not the tattooed, lip- and eyelid-pierced young crowd you find south of Lincoln Road.

  There were a few single women in the place. A business suit here, a nice dress there, a convention badge yonder. The women gave me the once-over and didn’t faint from overheating. A woman once told me I was damn sexy if you like overstuffed upholstery. Now that I think about it, she might have said “garage sale overstuffed upholstery.” I don’t know what she meant, except I’m a little on the large side. Another woman said I wasn’t bad-looking if you like craggy-faced men with broken noses. Well, some women do, damn it. And hadn’t Victoria called me a hunk? That was still floating around in my mind.

  I don’t pay a lot of attention to my looks. I don’t go for body lotions or self-tanners or manscaping. Back in Miami Vice days, I didn’t wear pastel linen jackets with the sleeves pushed up to my elbows. With my oak tree forearms, I couldn’t roll up the sleeves if I wanted to.

  Basically, I’m a throwback. I have old habits, old friends, and old values. I’m so unhip that I could soon become trendy, like skinny ties and suit pants that stop at the ankles.

  From the Bleau Bar, I walked over to LIV, the nightclub where Miami Heat players like to guzzle champagne and sing off-key after winning a championship. The place was closed for a private event. It could have been a real estate developer celebrating a new skyscraper that might topple in a category-five hurricane. Or a fancy bar mitzvah or quinceañera party. Or Donald Trump throwing a party for himself, since no one else would do it. Whatever it was, I couldn’t get in.

  I strolled downstairs to the pool where the Glow Bar was just getting ready to close. Nonetheless, the handsome young bartender offered me a Glow Cocktail, which he described as a
mixture of soda, elderflower liqueur, passion fruit puree, fresh pear, and some vodka. I was guessing not much vodka, but you get to keep the souvenir glass. Twenty bucks if you’re interested, which I wasn’t. There were a few people hanging around in swim and resort wear, but this clearly wasn’t the place to get picked up by a Russian B-girl.

  I took an elevator to the conference room level. A convention of insurance salesmen seemed to be the big event. The panels and speeches were over for the day, but the registration desk was still there, and a few name badges lay on the table in alphabetical order. No-shows.

  I chose Gus J. Gustafson of Duluth, Minnesota. There was a gold star on the badge, which may have meant Gus sold more whole life insurance than the guys with the silver stars, but not as much as the platinum stars. A stretchy lanyard of bright-red fabric was attached to the badge, so I hung the thing around my neck. Now, I thought, the evening was ready to begin.

  I paid a hefty ransom to the valet for my Eldo, which was far older than the kid who drove it from the garage. He gave me a smile intended to extract a ten-buck tip. I handed him a five and headed south down Collins Avenue toward the next stop.

  My cell phone rang. Victoria again.

  “Anything happening?” she asked.

  “Let it go, Victoria. It’s my party tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. I just left the jail. Steve’s pretty excited. Says you’re doing exactly what he would do.”

  “Then maybe I should rethink it.”

  “Oh, stop! You two are going to be great friends when this is over.”

  Not if I’m visiting him at Raiford, I thought.

  “You bet,” I said. “We’ll play squash every Tuesday.”

  “So what’s happening?”

  “Fontainebleau was dead. I’m headed to a couple more places.”

  “If you need me . . .”

  “Good night, Victoria. You’re a great partner, and when we get to court—”

  “I know, I know. You’ll lean on me.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Good luck, Jake, and call me whatever happens.”

  Sailing down Collins, I could have stopped at the Soho Beach House or the Palms. The Setai or the Shore Club, the Raleigh or the SLS Hotel. But instead, I followed a hunch and headed for the still-trendy Delano, turning into its almost hidden driveway at Seventeenth Street.