by Paul Levine
I made love to Steve Solomon in a chickee hut …on Bruce's farm. Wearing Bruce's engagement ring! What a slut!
She had lived a life of rigid propriety, had never even cheated on a boyfriend, much less her fiance. But what a red-hot connection, her feelings crackling with electricity. Of course, the relationship couldn't sustain the heat of those first encounters. Every affaire d'amour has its peaks and valleys, she reminded herself.
And ditches and gulleys and sinkholes and deep, deep canyons.
She asked herself: When would she feel that sizzle with Steve again?
When it snows again in Miami?
Then, an even more depressing thought: Had her first impression of Steve been correct? That he was just wrong for her. That any relationship with him would be a ludicrous mistake. From the start Victoria knew she shared little in common with Steve. She was country club, Chardonnay, and pate. He was tavern, burgers, and beer. She had book smarts, winning awards, making law review. He had street smarts, passing the Bar after three tries. Maybe their different backgrounds and talents combined to make them better lawyers and more complete people. That was Steve's pitch, anyway. And true enough, they had a magnificent synergy, as long as they didn't exhaust each other sparring on the way to the courthouse.
Complicating her analysis, enter Junior Griffin, swimming back into her life. Whatever she now felt for Junior was surely wrapped in the mists of nostalgia, a dangerous and misleading emotion. She vowed to keep the relationship with Junior strictly professional. She hadn't kissed another man since that first night with Steve, and she wasn't about to now. She would get through this case, then reevaluate everything. Her professional life. Her personal life. Hell, even her hairstyle.
She shot a look at Steve. He was on the cell phone with Cece Santiago, their assistant. Setting up a deposition in his father's Florida Bar lawsuit. So typical. Plunging ahead even though his father had ordered him to drop the case. Not listening, always thinking he knew more than anyone else.
She glanced out the windshield and said: "You missed the turn."
He clicked off the phone. "I'm taking Card Sound Road."
"It's longer that way," Bobby piped up from the backseat.
"Few minutes, is all."
"So why go that way?" Victoria asked.
"I want to stop at Alabama Jack's. Stretch my legs. Get a brewski."
Brewski, she thought. Like some college frat boy.
"You didn't even ask me," she scolded.
"You don't like beer."
He was either playing dumb or was truly clueless, she thought. "You just plowed ahead. Unilaterally changed the itinerary."
"What's the big deal? We're not visiting the great museums of Europe. We're driving home from the Keys."
"Just typical you," she said.
"Hold on, Vic. Listen to this." He turned up the volume. On the radio, a local talk-show host named Billy Wahoo was interviewing Willis Rask.
"Sheriff, what can you tell us about the homicide investigation of that fellow from Washington?"
"Unless you're on the Grand Jury, Billy, that's none of your beeswax."
"C'mon now, Sheriff. You can tell our listeners if that multimillionaire Harold Griffin is an interesting person."
"You mean a person of interest, Billy?"
"Whatever."
"Gotta go now. Couple deer stuck in traffic on the Seven Mile Bridge."
"That was enlightening." Steve punched a button on the radio, searching through the stations. "Now, where were we? What were you busting my chops about?"
"Nothing."
"I remember. You're upset because we're stopping for a beer. Or because I didn't ask if you wanted to stop. One of the two."
"I'm not upset." Thinking it wasn't the beer.
It's just you, Steve being Steve.
"Hey, Vic. You wanted the top up, I put the top up. You didn't want to listen to the Marlins game, I didn't put it on. Now, is it okay if I have one cool one before we hit the turnpike?"
"Are you two gonna fight all the way home?" Bobby said, putting down his book.
"We're not fighting," Steve said.
"We're working on our issues," Victoria said.
"What issues?" Steve said. Flummoxed.
He quit changing stations when the radio picked up Jimmy Buffett wailing "Coastal Confessions." Steve tried to sing along, just another tropical troubadour.
What was the point, she wondered, of glorifying beaches and bimbos and lazy days in an alcoholic haze? The Surgeon General ought to put out warning labels: "These songs could turn your children into slackers."
The tires were singing, too, buzzing across the bridge over Crocodile Lake when Steve turned to her and said: "Anyway, this road's more scenic."
Why did he always have to have the last word? "It's been a long weekend," she said. "Just take me home."
"Other than being thirsty, did I do something wrong here? Because if I did, tell me now instead of next month. I'd like to have a decent enough recollection to defend myself."
"You didn't do anything wrong. You were just you. Stephen Michael Solomon."
"Stephen Michael Solomon," Bobby said, wrinkling his forehead, unscrambling the words in his brain. "COMPLETE MANLINESS. HO. HO."
"Thanks, Bobby," Steve said, then shot a sideways look at Victoria. "Tell me the truth. What'd I do?"
On the berm, a turkey buzzard was hunched over the remains of a possum, picking at its bones. The buzzard, brazen as a trial lawyer, didn't even move as the Caddy blasted past, Jimmy Buffett confessing his misspent youth.
"I don't want to start anything," Victoria said, "but you acted unprofessionally with Junior."
"Did not."
"You practically accused him of murder."
"You guys are fighting," Bobby said.
"Pardon me, partner," Steve said, "but I thought a defense lawyer's job was to suggest to the jury that someone other than his client might have committed the crime."
"Not when the someone is the client's only son."
"Is that it? Or is the problem that the client's only son can't possibly be guilty because you get dreamy-eyed around him."
Dammit, she thought. I was giving off vibes. "I don't get dreamy-eyed around anybody."
"Ouch. Somebody pull the knife from my heart."
"Don't play the wounded lover, Steve. It doesn't become you."
"I'm just making an observation. The way you were gawking at Junior, you were practically secreting hormones."
"Estrogen or progesterone?" Bobby asked.
Just when you think Steve's not paying attention, Victoria thought, when he seems to be daydreaming about the Dolphins or a plate of stone crabs or some game where he stole a base-and maybe the petty cash, too-he surprises you.
She would not be defensive. Like a good trial lawyer, she would attack when challenged. "Face it, Steve. You're jealous of Junior."
"That's ridiculous. What's he have that I don't?"
Bobby leaned over the front seat. "He's rich. He's buff and ripped and totally jacked."
"Hey, Bobby," Steve said. "How'd you like to go back to the orphanage?"
"I was never in an orphanage."
"Never too late, kiddo," Steve said.
They rode in a silence a few minutes. Then, Bobby yelled: "Hey, look at that!"
Over the water, an osprey, its talons wrapped around a fish almost too big to handle, struggled to stay airborne. A second, larger osprey, hovering like a helicopter, tried to tear the fish away with its own talons.
"Put your money on the smaller, quicker bird," Steve said. "The one that grew up hungry."
"You have this preconception about people," Victoria told him as they passed the entrance to the Ocean Reef Club, home to rich snowbirds. "You think everyone who grew up with privilege is spoiled or lazy or degenerate. So it really bothers you that Junior is a good guy, that he cares about people and the environment."
"You can't be objective about him."
"And
what about you and Delia-Big-Boobs Bustamante?" She dipped her voice into a pretty fair imitation of Steve's supercilious tone: " 'I don't see Delia killing anyone.' "
"I know Delia better than you know Junior. You haven't even seen the guy since he hurled chunks of chili dogs in his old man's Bentley."
"What difference does that make? You saw the video. Junior dived off the boat before it left the dock."
"Right. Then where'd he go?"
"For a swim."
"Did you see him doggy-paddling away from the boat?"
She shook her head. "Once he went over the side, he was out of camera range."
"Exactly. And we never saw him come back."
"Because he swam to the beach, not the dock."
"Convenient, wasn't it? Think about it, Vic. The others, Delia, Robinson, Fowles. We clearly see them leave the boat. No way they can get back on without the camera picking them up. But Junior, who knows he's being filmed, makes a big point of diving off and disappearing."
On the radio, the Monotones demanded to know,
"Who wrote the book of love?"
"What are you saying?" Victoria asked. "That he climbed back on board?"
"So far, it's the only scenario I know that clears our client. Junior's a champion swimmer. He free dives to four hundred feet. He's like that comic book character. ."
"Aquaman," Bobby helped out.
"Right. How hard would it be for him to climb up the swim ladder or hang on to the dive platform and hitch a ride?" Steve asked. "When Stubbs goes into the cabin to pee, Junior climbs into the cockpit and goes down the rear hatch into the engine room. He comes up through the salon hatch and shoots Stubbs."
"And I suppose Junior clobbered his father, too?"
"Don't know. He may have. Or he may have just figured his father would be arrested for the murder when they docked at Sunset Key. In which case, the story about Griffin falling down the ladder is true."
"And how did Junior get off the boat?"
"Easy. They were never more than a few miles offshore the whole trip down from Paradise Key. Junior swims to shore just like that stowaway in that Conrad book I never read. He picks up a car he's hidden and drives home."
"And his motive for all this? For framing his father for murder?"
Steve shrugged. "To take over the company, probably."
"Junior seem like a corporate type to you?"
"Okay, how's this? Junior's a 'coral kisser.' His term, not mine. He loves the reef. He's wondering if maybe Delia's right. Oceania will be a disaster. When Junior can't talk his father out of it, he goes radical, becomes an environmental terrorist."
"Conjecture piled on speculation and topped by guesswork."
"That's called lawyering, Vic. Which, I might remind you, requires an open mind. Creative thinking. Fresh ideas. Not being rigid."
"Who's rigid?" she fired back.
"No-o-o-o-body I know."
God, how she despised that sarcastic tone.
"I'm not going to let you do this," she announced, firmly. "You're not going to screw up Uncle Grif's case just because you're jealous of Junior."
"The beach boy drooling all over you has nothing to do with it. Your lighting up like a slot machine when he's around does piss me off, though."
"Steve, listen. The only interest I have in Junior is helping win the case."
"Really?"
"That and learning more about my own father. The reasons he committed suicide. The reasons my mother won't ever talk about it."
"And that's all it is for you?" he asked.
"That's all," she said, not quite knowing if it was true.
Fourteen
LEXY, REXY. . AND PINKY
The next morning was warm and sticky, with fat gray clouds hanging over the Everglades. A sure sign of afternoon thunderstorms. Steve pointed the old Cadillac east and headed across the MacArthur Causeway toward the beach and the offices of Solomon amp; Lord. The canvas top was down, the only benefit, as far as he knew, of traveling solo.
Victoria had declined his generous invitation to share his bed the night before. He'd dropped her off at her Brickell Avenue condo before doubling back to Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove. Bobby had gathered up the Miami Heralds, stained red from the squishy berries of a Brazilian pepper tree, and they'd spent the night by themselves. After Bobby had gone to sleep, Steve sat at the kitchen table, drinking beer-not four-hundred-dollar tequila, Junior-pondering just what the hell was going on. It was a three-beer ponder. First, Victoria wanted to split up the firm. Then, the obvious attraction between her and Junior Griffin, aka The Guy He'd Most Like to Pin a Murder Rap On.
Victoria was wrong about one thing.
I'm not jealous of Junior.
Jealousy was a cheap, tawdry emotion, filled with adolescent overtones and boy-girl gamesmanship. Jealousy implied mere infatuation. Victoria meant so much more to him. If he were a house, Steve thought, Bobby would be his foundation and Victoria his walls. Lose either one, his roof would cave in. For the truth was, he loved them both and could not imagine life without either one.
He pulled up to the building just after nine a.m. There was no sign with fancy lettering proclaiming "Law Offices." No brass plate emblazoned: "Solomon amp; Lord." Instead, the squat, two-story, faded seafoam green stucco pillbox was decorated with a hand-painted Les Mannequins. Hurrying inside, Steve decided to do whatever it took to get to his second-floor office unimpeded. Broken-field running, a buttonhook pattern, even stiff-arm a runway model if necessary.
He kept his head down and moved past the reception desk, where an attractive young woman with a headset was speaking in a clipped British accent, telling a caller not to send her daughter's school yearbook photos, even if she was captain of the Archbishop Curley cheerleading squad. The receptionist looked up: "Stephen! Lexy and Rexy need you."
He grimaced and plowed ahead, sailing through an interior door, passing a photographer's studio and a makeup room with lights bright enough to blanch almonds. The stairs were in sight when he heard: "Steve!" Followed by an echoing rifle shot: "Steve, wait!"
He didn't stop. Even the wildebeest knew better than to pause for a chat with the lions. He quickened his pace, hearing the click-clack of Jimmy Choos, or some other flimsy but outrageously costly shoes. A six-foot tall blonde cut him off at the foot of the stairs. Her identical twin was a half step behind.
Lexy and Rexy.
Lexy wore spandex hot pants festooned with pink stars and a canary-yellow tank top pocketed with stylish holes, revealing ample portions of bare skin underneath. Her Sunday church outfit, no doubt. Rexy wore a clinging piece of floral silk that might have been a dressing gown or a swimsuit cover-up, Steve couldn't tell. It was slit from ankle to hip and held up by nothing more than Rexy's enhanced breasts, which, now that he thought about it, could doubtless cantilever a load considerably heavier than the wafery dress. Best Steve could tell, Rexy wore nothing underneath, except what God and Dr. Irwin Rudnick had given her.
The twins had blue sapphire cat's eyes and perfect, expensive smiles. Steve noticed they had recently cropped their long flaxen hair very short. It looked like someone had plopped bowls on their heads and put the shears to work, but this was probably some chic new Parisian style that had passed him by. They looked like twin blond Joans of Arc…if Joan had been an anorexic hooker.
Lexy and Rexy were on the far side of twenty-five- though they claimed to be nineteen-and probably realized they would never achieve the success of their hero, Linda Evangelista, who long ago said she didn't wake up in the morning for less than ten thousand dollars. Lexy and Rexy earned ten thousand dollars one weekend, but that was thanks to a blond-worshipping Saudi prince who maintained a permanent suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Key Biscayne. Modeling had nothing to do with it, of course, unless the prince brought his own camera.
"We need you," Lexy said.
"A bunch," Rexy said.
"Not now." Steve tried to edge past the twins but was blocked by Lexy's bo
ny elbows. "I'm busy."
"You owe us," Lexy said.
Damn. He was about to be roped into work that was both nonpaying and mind-numbing.
Les Mannequins provided Solomon amp; Lord with office space in return for legal services for a bevy of lithe young women who frequently sued their plastic surgeons and occasionally their hairdressers. Lexy and Rexy also sometimes ran afoul of the law for forging diet pill prescriptions, parking in handicapped spaces- neither low IQs nor bulimia being recognized by the State of Florida as legitimate handicaps-and once assaulting a TV meteorologist who predicted sun on a day in which thunderstorms ruined an outdoor photo shoot. In the three days that Steve had been away, who knows what legal calamities had befallen these stork-legged, lazy-yet-rapaciously-avaricious young women?
"Lex, Rex, it's gotta wait. Really. I've got a murder case going."
Lexy pouted and lodged an elbow on a shot hip, her skinny upper arm, forearm, and angular pelvis forming a triangle.
"You gotta sue Paranoia for us," Lexy said.
"Paranoia? The club? Why?"
"Our names weren't on the list, and this new bouncer didn't recognize us," Rexy pouted.
"The big stoop," Lexy said.
"So you couldn't get in," Steve said. "What's the big deal?"
"We got in," Lexy said. "But the jerk made us wait, like fifteen minutes, and it was so hot, our mascara melted." She fanned herself to convey just how Hades-like it had been, standing on Ocean Drive, queued up outside a noisy, trendy club where horny young men crawled over one another like scorpions to buy them drinks.
"Matt Damon was there." Rexy picked up her sister's fanning motion, so now they seemed to be performing a Kabuki duet. "I'll bet he'd have cast us in his new movie if we hadn't looked so shitty."
Steve saw an opportunity, and while the twins pantomined, he slipped past them on the stairs. "I'll research the law," he called out.
"Mental anguish!" Lexy blared. "Gotta be worth six figures."
"Sure, Lexy. Sure. A hundred thousand dollars of anguish for a fifty-dollar mind."
"Whadaya mean by that?" Lexy demanded.
There was the clang of metal on metal as Steve opened the door to his reception room. Once inside, he heard a grunt, a guttural growl, and an exhaled "Maldito! That's heavy." Cecilia Santiago, a thickset young woman in black tights and a muscle tee, was lying on her back on a bench press. She had a cafe au lait complexion, and three metal studs pierced one wavy eyebrow, which was shaped like the tilde in "manana."