by Paul Levine
It had been my first stop in Miami. I rented a room from Emilia Crespo, Francisco’s mother, in what had been her garage. I had arrived in town—undrafted and unheralded—after a steady but unspectacular college football career. I wanted to live close to the Orange Bowl, not realizing the team practiced and virtually lived at the other end of town. Only game days were spent in the stadium in Little Havana.
It didn’t matter. I never figured to make the Dolphins, and when I did, earning the league minimum, and hanging on a few years because of a willingness to sacrifice my body on kickoffs, I stayed put in Emilia’s garage apartment.
Emilia Crespo was a sturdy widow who always seemed to wear an apron. She cooked picadillo and plátanos and taught me a smidgen of Spanish. She also asked me to look after Francisco, who refused to live with her, saying he wanted solitude. He rented a first-floor apartment on Fonseca, just east of Ponce de Leon Boulevard, and kept to himself.
I got Francisco a job in the Dolphins’ locker room, tossing jockstraps and towels into washing machines with ample quantities of bleach and disinfectant. Just as often, he was brawling. I remember him flailing away at the assistant strength coach—a two-hundred-forty-five-pound weightlifter—who had insulted Crespo one way or another. Francisco got in a few punches before being tossed into the Jacuzzi.
Crespo was reassigned to the grounds keeping crew. He got in less trouble outdoors and soon knew the vagaries of Kentucky bluegrass, fine fescue, and perennial ryegrass, as well as everything worth knowing about aeration, seeding, sodding, and mulching. Ignoring the automatic sprinkler system, Crespo hosed the field by hand, watering dry spots and patching the divots with patience and care. He seemed to like grass more than people, but then, most people he’d known the last ten years had worn boots and kicked him around.
I kept an eye on Crespo, slipping him some sweat socks when I saw his bare ankles sticking out of second-hand shoes. He returned the favor by giving me mangoes he filched from a South Dade farm. Then I gave him some old jerseys that could be turned into cash at swap meets. He sold Griese’s, Csonka’s, and Warfield’s, but kept mine, hanging it in the front window of his apartment. It was not so valuable as to provoke a burglary or a call from the Smithsonian.
Once, in a close game against the Jets, I was in my usual position on the bench and Crespo was handing out Gatorade and towels.
“Ves al numero setenta y nueve?” he asked me.
“I been watching him all day. Their weak-side tackle, a Pro Bowler.”
“Why does he rock back on his heels when they’re going to pass the ball?”
“What!”
“When he is crouching down in cómo sé llame …”
“The three-point stance.”
“Sí, he leans forward when they are going to run and rocks back when they are going to pass.”
“Holy shit, Francisco, you oughta be a coach. We got fifty hours of game films plus still shots of every snap of the ball and nobody noticed that.”
He shrugged and ambled down the sideline, carrying a tray of drinks to some guys who deserved them more than I did. “When you fight, must watch your enemigo’s every move,” he called back at me.
Two plays later, we lost a starting outside linebacker to a hip-pointer, and I had a chance to get my uniform dirty. Two sacks and three tackles for losses in the fourth quarter. The only game ball of my career.
The year I retired—which is a nice way of saying I was placed on waivers every other team failed to notice—Crespo left, too. I spent the next year engulfed in booze and blondes, and by the time I started night law school, I had lost track of him. I figured he was either in jail or contending for the welterweight championship.
Then, a few years later, Emilia Crespo called me. I was in my last days as a public defender, copping pleas for guys too poor to buy a decent defense. Did I want to stop by for some picadillo con frijoles negros? Did I ever! The years had added a few white streaks to her hair, but the apron was still crisply starched and her greeting was the same. A hug that could knock the wind out of Dick Butkus.
I ate heartily, and she watched in silence, nibbling at a plantain. I sipped a mojito, the rum and soda drink with fresh mint leaves from her garden. I asked Emilia about Francisco, and her dark eyes filled with pain.
“I don’t know what that asesino, Castro, did to him in prison, but he has never been the same. Angry all the time. Violento. It is as if my son cares about nothing.”
“He cares about you. And so do I. What can I do?”
Her answer was a tender plea. “Will you be his friend?”
“I tried in the old days. He isn’t easy to get close to.”
“Will you try again, Jake? For me?”
She knew I would. In my life, I have Granny Lassiter, who raised me, Doc Charlie Riggs, who taught me, and Emilia Crespo, who put a roof over my head and meat on my bones. There was something else, too, a path of obligation that ran straight from Jake Lassiter, ex-football player, to Francisco Crespo, ex-prisoner, and it was something neither of us would ever tell his mother.
Two days later, I tracked Crespo down at the Jai Alai fronton where he sat in the back row, his feet draped over the seat in front of him, a program balled up in one hand. He was alone and seemed to like it that way. I sat to one side, watching him through the first three games, listening to the plonk of the pelota against the front wall. Nobody talked to him, and he reciprocated. Finally, I went up and said hello, how about a drink and a sandwich later. He said, fine, but if he was pleased to see me, it didn’t show.
“What are you up to?” I asked him that evening, over a beer at a Calle Ocho taberna.
“This and that.”
I took a sip of a Brooklyn Lager, which goes well with spicy Spanish food. “Do you need work?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
Maybe I wasn’t any good at reaching out. Maybe he thought I was there only because his mother asked me to be. Or maybe it was just hard for him to accept friendship, especially friendship sparked by obligation.
“Francisco, you’re making this difficult. I owe you. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
He dismissed the notion with a shrug. “It has been many years.”
“Some things don’t go away, even when you want them to. Particularly when you want them to. I still have nightmares about it.”
“Dreams are dreams,” he said. “Life is life.”
I wanted to reach out to him, give him a brotherly hug, but I didn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted me to. Or was that just my excuse? Maybe I’d been stiff-arming him because he reminded me of that night and my eternal obligation. “It’s our secret, Francisco, something only the two of us share.”
He sipped at his beer, his expression never betraying the hint of emotion. “Dos minutos. Two minutes. That’s all it was out of your life and mine.”
“That’s a lot,” I said, “if it lets someone keep on living.”
“You think about it too much.”
“Don’t you ever wake up, remembering?”
“My nightmares are different,” Francisco Crespo said.
We polished off a couple of Cuban sandwiches with black bean soup. I promised to stay in touch the same way Hollywood producers promise to call for lunch. He gave me his phone number, and I tucked it in my pocket, then taped it on the refrigerator door. When I finally tried to reach him, the phone had been disconnected. I could have called his mother. I could have tracked him down. I could have done a lot of things. But I didn’t.
Then came the call from the county jail. Crespo was booked on a homicide charge in the death of Vladimir Smorodinsky.
***
My canary yellow Olds 442 convertible, vintage 1968, was still in the parking lot when I left the warehouse. That beat the odds in a county where a hundred cars are stolen every day. The radio was untouched, too, probably because it’s older than most car thi
eves. It has no CD player, not even an FM band. It does pick up Radio Havana, though, plus a big band station near the top of the AM dial.
I got in the car and drove seven minutes to the Gaslight Lounge downtown. Once inside, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then made my way to the bar. I needed a drink, and I needed an expert consultation. I had come to the right place for both.
The Gaslight is fine for booze and bacon cheeseburgers. The red imitation-leather banquettes and matching bar stools are right out of the Fifties, and so is the clientele. Usually I drink Grolsch. For my money, the Dutch brewmasters are the best. But if the yuppies want to jam a lime into a watery Mexican beer, let them. I stay out of the Misty Fern, and they stay out of the Gaslight, a place with no hanging plants, no pickled-wood latticework, and no nachos with salsa. Just a long, scarred teak bar with a brass foot rail, smoked mirrors, and barely enough light to read your check without striking a match.
I needed something stronger than a beer, so I pointed to a bottle on the mirrored shelf, and bartender Mickey Cumello poured two and a half ounces of Plymouth gin into a mixing glass without using the jigger to measure. Why should he? Does Pavarotti need sheet music?
Usually, I only drink gin after being drop-kicked by a judge, a jury, or a lady friend. Come to think of it, I’ve had more than my share of martinis lately.
Mickey gently dropped in four ice cubes—the large square ones, so they won’t melt the instant they hit the alcohol—and dribbled a splash or two of dry vermouth into the mixture. He stirred with a glass swizzle, but not out of fear of bruising the gin. Drinks don’t bruise; only drinkers do, but shaking clouds a martini. Finally, he strained the drink into a chilled glass, sliced a sliver of lemon peel, and lit a match. He squeezed the rind above the burning match until oil dropped into the flame, shooting off little sparks, which settled into the martini, giving it a hint of burnt lemon.
Mickey Cumello is a bartender from the old school. No ponytail, earring, or track shoes. His gray hair was combed straight back, revealing a handsome widow’s peak. Short-sleeve white shirt, black bow-tie, dark gray pants, and polished black leather shoes. In the dim light, he looked forty-five and had for twenty years.
I sipped at the cool poison and let it slide down the throat. “Mickey, you know every client I ever had is a liar.”
He bunched his bushy eyebrows. Maybe he felt the same way about his customers. “They either lie to the jury or to me, or both,” I continued.
Mickey allowed me a small smile while he polished an old-fashioned glass that was dry and spotless.
“But they always swear they weren’t there, or the other guy started it, or the full moon made them do it.”
A man in a dark suit sat down a polite three bar stools away and, without being asked, Mickey hit a long-handled tap and drew a glass of Canadian ale. Just as silently, he resumed his position in front of me.
“But until now, I never had a client claim he iced a guy when it’s clear somebody else did it. Now why would he do that?”
Mickey wiped his hands on the towel and neatly folded it on a drying rack. “That’s easy, Jake. To protect someone else.”
“Right, but why?”
An older man in a white guayabera slid onto the bar stool next to me. Mickey turned his body to shield our conversation. Is there such a thing as the bartender-client privilege?
“Because whatever he’s involved in, Jake, is a lot bigger than he is.”
My look told him to continue. He said, “And whatever a judge could do to him. . .”
“Twenty-five years to life.”
“. . . Is nothing compared to what’ll happen if he spills what he knows. So, not to tell you your business, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be so anxious to hear this guy’s story.”
I drained the rest of the martini, tasting the sharpness of the gin against the smokiness of the burnt lemon. “Since when are you concerned about the health of my clients?”
Mickey Cumello shook his head. “Not his health, Jake. Yours.”
3
SHAME, DISHONOR, PAIN AND RUIN
Sure, I would have liked to follow Mickey Cumello’s advice. Stay out of trouble. But Mickey didn’t know about my obligation to Francisco Crespo. He also didn’t know that Matsuo Yagamata, the owner of the warehouse and therefore Crespo’s employer, was a client of the law firm that paid my salary and my bar tab at the Banker’s Club.
Tonight, I hoped Yagamata might give me some information that would help his employee and my client. I slipped into a party he was throwing on the broad expanse of red Spanish tile behind his Mediterranean mansion on Palm Island, one of the luxury landfills between Miami and Miami Beach. Years ago, Al Capone was an island resident. The current neighbors—lawyers, investment bankers, bond traders—aren’t as law-abiding.
Looking for Yagamata, I spotted, instead, a waiter serving hors d’oeuvres on a silver tray.
I turned down the phyllo triangles stuffed with curried chicken and headed for the table stocked with iced-down stone crabs. Nearby, bartenders poured Cristal champagne into fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a light ocean breeze stirred the palms.
I gathered a beer and a plate of crabs and parked myself in front of an ice sculpture that towered over a bowl of shrimp. At parties, you can always find me within a fourth-and-one of the food. Then I heard a familiar voice.
“There are four manners of death—accident, suicide, natural, and homicide—and the coroner’s first job is to ascertain one from the other.”
Doc Charlie Riggs was surrounded by a gaggle of young women. Most were taller than the bandy-legged and bearded wizard. The women wore cocktail dresses and jewelry that sparkled in the flickering reflection of the patio torches.
“Right before I retired,” Doc Riggs said, “we had a hanging death that baffled the detectives. They couldn’t determine if it was suicide or homicide. A thirty-year-old man was found in a hotel room. Bound, gagged, and dead. He was wearing a black brassiere and matching panties. His ankles were bound with a clothesline fastened to a dog collar around his neck. The body was positioned so that the man could see himself in the mirror, at least while he was alive. The panties were stained with seminal fluid. His own.”
“A ritualistic torture murder?” one of the women guessed. She was a platinum blonde who squirmed with delight inside a skintight red leather mini.
“Colombian cowboys?” another offered, licking her glossy lips. “A revenge killing in a drug war.”
“A cross-dresser’s suicide?” said a third, a willowy model in a bare-shouldered silk dress patterned with cheetahs.
While the women were cooing and fluttering, Doc Riggs scratched his bushy beard. He pulled off his old eyeglasses, still mended with a fishhook where they had tossed a screw. “No, no, no, just like the police, you’ve come to a consensus audacium, a rash agreement. You’ve all assumed it was a homicide or a suicide.”
“But what else could it be?” asked the one in red leather, somewhat petulantly.
“Non semper ea sunt quae videntur. Things are not always what they appear to be. Or as Gilbert and Sullivan put it in song—”
“‘Things are seldom what they seem,’” I chimed in. “‘Skim milk masquerades as cream.’”
Charlie whirled toward me. “Eureka! My favorite downtown mouthpiece. Ladies, say hello to Jake Lassiter, shyster to the stars. So, Jake, what was the cause of death?”
“Got me, Charlie. And not for the first time.”
“Accident!” Charlie thundered. “Sexual asphyxia. A botched attempt at a rather elaborate masturbation. The deceased intended to heighten sexual pleasure by increasing pressure on his neck. Just as Eskimos often choke each other during sex.”
“My bedmates usually wait till afterwards,” I said.
“This poor soul used too much pressure with his legs and strangled himself. Just an accident, that’s all.”
The young woman cooed their approval. Pleasant party noises were growing, the tinkling of g
lasses, animated chatter, and an occasional laugh. People just delighted with their own socially prominent selves.
Just then, I saw our host, Matsuo Yagamata, approaching. He was short and stocky and wore his custom-made English suit a tad on the tight side. His eyes were dark and bright, and he had the air of unquestioned authority that successful men acquire if they are not born with it.
I stepped away from Charlie and his fans, and Yagamata gave me his corporate smile and a handshake that could crack walnuts. “And how are my legal eagles at Harman and Fox?”
“Fine and dandy, as long as Yagamata Imports has us on retainer,” I replied.
He let my hand go and smiled. “Did you solve that duties problem on the European art, or do I have to bribe a customs inspector?”
You can never tell when some people are joking. “Better to pay your lawyers and let them sweet-talk the customs people,” I responded.
“Right. Bribes aren’t deductible.”
Okay, so he wasn’t joking. There had been a scandal in Japan, some government ministers on a secret payroll of his electronics exporting firm. With the investigation pending, Yagamata moved to Miami, a more forgiving place. Businessmen here don’t earn their bones until they’ve been subpoenaed by a grand jury. Local politicians courting publicity gain greater name recognition once they’ve beaten an indictment for bribery or tax evasion.
“And what of our hotheaded Latino friend?” he asked. “Will it cost me a fortune to tidy up that little mess?”
That little mess.
The rich have quaint ways of dealing with other people’s tragedies.
“I’m not doing Francisco Crespo much good right now,” I said. “He’s covering for someone, and he’s going to get hit with major league time unless he opens up.”
Yagamata stared at me with those dark, impenetrable eyes. “He told you this?”
Ordinarily, I would never repeat what a client told me, not even to his boss, the guy paying the fee. But Francisco told me to share everything with Yagamata: