Played!

by Michael A. Kahn

  “So where does our client fit in?” Armstrong asks.

  “Mid-Continent Casualty is the third-largest insurer of automobiles in metropolitan St. Louis. It settles seventy to a hundred of Leonard Pitt’s fender-benders a year. Comes to about five hundred thousand dollars annually. They think Pitt has defrauded them out of more than two million dollars over the last ten years.”

  “What about the criminal authorities?” Armstrong asks.

  “They tried. The U.S. Attorney wasn’t interested. The state prosecutor seemed interested at first, but that investigation fizzled out under mysterious circumstances.”

  Janet asks, “What kind of mysterious circumstances?”

  Milton smiles. “Let’s just say that the influence Leonard Pitt wields within the state judicial system is not insubstantial.”

  “What do you have so far?” Armstrong asks.

  “Ah, yes.” Milton gives him a smile that looks more like a grimace. He turns toward his credenza, sorts through a pile of documents, pulls out two, and spins back toward Armstrong and Janet with the documents held high.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announces, “I present the smoking guns. Plaintiff’s Exhibits One and Two.”

  Chapter Three

  Hal is a devotee of Mrs. Pitt’s derriere. From his perch on the lifeguard stand he has admired it since she began coming to the pool three weeks ago. Not that the rest of her isn’t awesome. Her perky boobs are sexy, her dancer’s legs are hot, and the occasional hint of a camel toe, especially when she comes out of the water, has become a staple of his masturbation fantasies.

  But her tush is to die for. Especially in the white one-piece she’s wearing today. He loves the way it cups those round cheeks as she walks across the deck, the way the bottom rides up as she swims her laps so that when she climbs the ladder to the deck she pauses to reach back and snap the bottom back in place. Moments like that make him glad he is wearing his orange lifeguard swim trunks over his snug red Speedo.

  “Hal?”

  He looks down.

  Gina is at the foot of the lifeguard platform gazing up at him. She points to her wristwatch. “Break time.”

  “Dude.”

  He climbs down and stands facing the water as Gina climbs up the ladder.

  “Okay,” she says.

  He nods, staring at the water. The Old Chatham pool is huge, with four lifeguard stands at twelve, three, six, and nine on the clock. Cherry is out there now, in the adult section near the center of the pool. She is on her back on an inflatable blue raft.

  Decision time.

  Hal has given this moment, this opportunity, a great deal of thought since Mrs. Pitt began coming to the pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The lounge chair option seems too intrusive, since she’s usually reading a book or talking on her cell phone. And her lap sessions aren’t an option. People swimming laps don’t talk. But these raft times—well, no book, no phone.

  Go for it.

  Hal slides off his lifeguard trunks, sets his aviator sunglasses on top of them, dives into the water, and swims toward her raft.

  “Hey, Mrs. Pitt.”

  She turns her head toward him.

  He smiles. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  She stares at him.

  “One of the girls in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the one last February—she had on the same swimsuit you’re wearing, and you look even better than she did.”

  She stares at him.

  Hal forces a bigger smile.

  After a moment, she says, “You’re right.”

  “You saw the issue?”

  “No.”

  Hal frowns. “Huh?”

  “You said I wouldn’t believe it. I don’t.”

  She starts to turn away.

  “Wait. How ’bout this? Sit on my face and I’ll guess your weight.”

  She lowers her sunglasses and stares at him, unsmiling. “You’d drown.”

  Hal gives her a lame smile. “I can float.”

  She puts her sunglasses back in place. “So can Ivory Soap.”

  She paddles away from him toward the far side of the pool.

  Hal watches her for a moment and then shakes his head. “Nicely played, schmuck.”

  Chapter Four

  Milton hands one of the documents to Armstrong. “This is Exhibit One.”

  Armstrong studies it. “A check for eighteen thousand dollars.”

  He tilts it toward Janet so that she can see.

  “Payable to Manuel Ortega and Leonard Pitt & Associates,” he reads.

  “You are correct, sir. You will note that it is drawn on the account of Mid-Continent Casualty Insurance Company. The memo line indicates that it is in settlement of Mr. Ortega’s lawsuit against one Ralph Cantwell, whom Mid-Continent insured.”

  Armstrong looks up. “Okay?”

  “And now—” Milton presents the other document to Janet. “—I present Exhibit Two.”

  Armstrong comes around behind Janet so that he can see the document as well:

  Armstrong looks up at Milton. “And the punch line?”

  Milton leans forward, his eyes bright behind the thick lenses. “Ortega received that closing statement from Pitt when he came in to pick up his settlement money. It states that the case settled for thirteen grand! But the sole check Mid-Continent ever issued in settlement of that case is the one I just handed you.”

  Armstrong looks down at the copy of the eighteen-thousand-dollar check and then at the closing statement in Janet’s hand. He raises his eyes toward Milton and nods.

  Milton leans back, grinning. “Not bad, eh? We find a couple more like that and we’ve got old Leonard Pitt by the short hairs! Short hairs? Hmmm. What a superb idea.”

  Milton lurches forward and starts typing a search request into the computer.

  “I don’t get it,” Janet says.

  “If this is part of pattern” Armstrong explains, “then Leonard Pitt is defrauding his clients and the insurance company. He settles this case with the insurance company for eighteen thousand dollars. They issue him a check for eighteen thousand. Then he calls his client and tells him the great news: he was able to settle the case for thirteen thousand. The kind of people Pitt represents—to them the whole legal system is an intimidating mystery. They’re happy to get any money, especially after they’ve waited so long. If Pitt tells them that thirteen thousand is a good settlement, they’ll believe him.”

  Milton looks up from the computer. “Precisely! The insurance company gets screwed out of the extra five grand, the client gets screwed out of his share of the two grand, and Pitt pockets it all.”

  Janet mulls that over. “So if Pitt settles one hundred cases a year with our client and skims that kind of money out of each settlement—” She frowns as she tries to do the calculation in her head.”

  Milton says, “You’re talking a half million, Ms. Perry. That’s fraud with a capital F. And if my investigators come up with two more witnesses like Mr. Ortega, we are going to have Leonard Pitt right—”

  The computer BEEPS.

  Milton leans forward to squint at the screen and then lurches back with a groan. “Another Posner opinion? Lord have mercy!”

  Chapter Five

  Hal steps out of the bathroom, pauses to check his reflection in the hall mirror, points an index finger at that reflection, winks, and then walks down the hall to the den, where his older brother is frowning as he taps out an e-mail on his iPhone.

  “Like I was saying,” Hal says, “it’s simple. A summer of sun and romance on the pool deck at Old Chatham. What could beat that?”

  Milton looks up from his iPhone, looks down again, presses SEND, looks up, and shrugs. “I suppose that sounds better than three months in a warehouse reviewing documents.”

  Hal grins. “I sure
hope so, Bro. This is my last chance. I’m getting old. Next summer I’ll be stuck in that warehouse or doing whatever the heck it is that paralegals do. Stuck in some law office staring out a window that doesn’t open. Wearing a suit and lugging a briefcase.” He shakes his head. “For the rest of my life. Jeez.”

  “Are you head lifeguard?”

  “For another week or so. When the outdoor pool closes for the season, they’ll have me working the indoor pool. But for now, I’m on outdoor duty.”

  “How is it?”

  “Not bad. There must be a dozen mommies at the pool each day. Sometimes more. Some are real foxes, too. Way I figure, most of them are married to big-shot bankers and MBAs and corporate lawyers. You know the type. Guys just like you, Bro. Twelve hours a day, six days a week, lots of travel. Just think of those poor women. Stuck at home with the kids all day, climbing the walls, maybe looking for a little excitement.”

  Milton raises his eyebrows. “Have you identified any prospects?”

  “A few. It’s just like the song.”

  “What song?”

  Hal hums a few bars from Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City.”

  Hal gives his older brother a wink. “They got some pretty little women there and I’m going to get me some.”

  “Crazy, not pretty.”

  Hal turns to see Peggy Bernstein standing in the doorway.

  “Crazy?” Hal repeats.

  Peggy nods. “Not pretty little women, you bozo. Crazy little women. That’s how the song goes. Crazy little women.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Hal grins. “Crazy. Right. Crazier the better.”

  Peggy shakes her head. “You’re not referring to those poor young mothers at Old Chatham Country Club, are you? Or rather, those rich young mothers?”

  Hal shrugs. “I’m just trying to bring a ray of sunshine into their lives, Peggy.”

  Peggy places her hand over her heart. “I am deeply moved by your noblesse oblige.” She turns to Milton. “The girls are upstairs waiting for a goodnight kiss from their daddy.

  Hal and Milton get up together.

  “Gotta go,” Hal says.

  “Oh?” Milton says.

  Hal shrugs. “Lost a hundred forty dollars in a poker game last night. Guy drew an inside straight on the last hand. Gotta get back there tonight and win some back.”

  He turns to Peggy. “Thanks for dinner, Sis. It was totally super.”

  Peggy smiles and shakes her head. “Next time I’ll fix you a bucket of oysters, Stud. We have to keep you in shape for all those mommies.”

  Hal laughs. “Sounds good, Dr. Peg.”

  He leans over and gives her kiss. “See ya, kiddo.”

  “Thanks for those beautiful flowers,” she says. “And the girls loved those princess outfits. You’re a wonderful uncle, Harold.”

  He shrugs. “That’s ’cause they’re wonderful nieces.”

  She watches her husband and his younger brother walk to the front door, where Hal gives Milton a playful punch on the shoulder. Peggy marvels again at how those two could be siblings. While Milton’s bloodline looks as if it traces directly back to the butcher or rebbe in a nineteenth-century Russian shtetl, Hal’s appearance suggests a DNA link to some Cossack marauder who inserted himself, literally, into the Bernstein bloodline. Hal stands a head taller than Milton. Hal has straight blond hair, chiseled features, blue eyes, and a jock’s build, while his older brother has kinky black hair, a bulbous nose, thick glasses, and a body type that even Peggy had to admit could sympathetically be described as solid.

  But love is mysterious. Peggy’s girlfriends unanimously agree that Hal is a hunk, and by the People Magazine standards for Sexiest Man, he certainly is. But not for Peggy. She’s had the hots for Milton since that first day in chem lab freshman year at M.I.T., when they were paired as lab partners. She dragged him back to her dorm room after their fifth lab session and seduced him right there. And even now, twelve years later and twenty pounds heavier than that first time on that dorm-room bed, she still has the hots for Milton and, by all signs, he still has the hots for her.

  ***

  Having kissed his daughters goodnight and tucked them into bed, Milton bends at the landing to scoop up Cleo the cat. He sets the cat down at the bottom of the stairs and pauses at the entrance to the kitchen. Peggy is washing the dishes with her back to him.

  Milton smiles as he approaches her. He hugs her from behind.

  “Excellent dinner,” he says

  Peggy looks back at him. “Thanks, sweetie.”

  Milton takes a dish towel and starts drying dishes.

  Peggy says, “I feel bad for your little brother.”

  “Sounds to me like he’s having a satisfactory experience. I can think of worse jobs.”

  “It’s a job for a high school kid, Milton. Your brother is almost twenty-four. He couldn’t get into law school, so now he’s going to get a paralegal degree.” She shakes her head. “He’s always been in your shadow.”

  “Not in my family.”

  “Your mom is an idiot. Same with your aunts and your uncle.”

  “They worship him. Everyone did. Even my grandmothers.”

  Peggy shakes her head. “For no reason.”

  “He certainly was a better baseball player than me.”

  “Big deal.”

  “He was a big deal, Peggy. Remember, he was the only guy from St. Louis named a Parade Magazine High School Baseball All-American. That article said his pitches were as accurate as an Army Ranger sharpshooter.”

  “Then he should have enlisted.”

  Milton sighs. “I’ll always feel bad for my dad. He loved baseball so much. He’d have been so proud of Hal. He never even got to see him pitch in high school.”

  Milton picks up a pot from the rack and starts drying it. “Hal may not have been the brightest kid in class, Peggy, but he was a remarkable pitcher. I used to catch for him in the backyard after Dad died. Hal was still little back then. Maybe ten, eleven. Even so, he could hit any target I gave him. Heck, I was such a klutz it was even a challenge for me to get the ball back to him on the fly, and I was in high school. The kid was amazing. That arm earned him a full ride to Mizzou.”

  “And how long did that last?” She shakes her head. “His career ends before his junior year with that motorcycle accident.”

  “Most people never get that far.”

  “Most people aren’t your brother, Milton. He’s put himself in a no-win situation. It’s sad, I’ll admit. He’ll always compare himself to you. He’ll be lucky to land a job with some sleazy personal injury firm.”

  “He could make a career out of it.”

  “That’s not my point. Look at you. Law degree with honors from University of Chicago, clerkship with a federal judge, now a partner in a big law firm.”

  “Non-equity partner.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Your little brother could never compete with that. He should have done something else. He’d be a great high school coach. Or he could go into sales. Everyone loves the guy. He could sell ice to Eskimos. But he’s not you, and he shouldn’t try to be.”

  “He’ll do fine. He might surprise you.”

  Peggy looks over at him and raises her eyebrows. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Milton smiles. “Meanwhile, he’ll have a unique summer.”

  Milton puts down the dish towel and takes Peggy in his arms. “He told me some of those country club mothers are real foxes.”

  Peggy rolls her eyes. “Oh he did, did he?”

  “He said they aren’t teeny boppers but mature women.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Guess what else he told me?”

  “I can’t even imagine.”

  “He said they lose all their inhibitions after going through labor.”

  “O
h, my.”

  Milton gives her a kiss on the nose. “Do you think that’s true?”

  Peggy tries to look serious. “That sounds like an untested hypothesis.”

  “Maybe we should test it. After all, you were the chemistry major. Isn’t that what you scientists do?”

  She raises her eyebrows. “My laboratory is upstairs.”

  “Excellent.”

  As Milton leads her out of the kitchen toward the stairs, Peggy laughs and says, “Isn’t science wonderful?”

  Chapter Six

  Primo Dog Tuesday.

  That’s Hal’s name for it. During the year he worked as a fitness trainer at the East Bank Club in Chicago he became addicted to Chicago-style hot dogs—those Vienna Beef marvels on poppy seed buns with yellow mustard, neon relish, and green sport peppers. When he moved back to St. Louis, he scouted out places to satisfy that passion, and Primo Dog was one that made the cut. Although Woofies is still Hal’s numero uno in St. Louis, Primo Dog is the closest one to Old Chatham Country Club, and that’s where Hal heads at twelve-fifteen each Tuesday on his lunch break.

  Primo Dog Tuesday.

  Ray mans the grill. He nods as Hal walks up to the counter. “The usual, big guy?”

  “You got it, dude.”

  A few minutes later, the tray of food in hand, Hal uses his foot to push open the screen door to the tables outside. That’s when he sees her. He stares, and the door swings back against him. Seated alone at a table facing him is Mrs. Pitt. She’s wearing skinny jeans, a red tank top, and sunglasses.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asks.

  Hal waits for her answer. She is holding the hot dog—not the bun, just the dog—between her thumb and forefinger. Long nails, red polish. She glances up, shrugs as if to say suit yourself, and bites off the end of the hot dog.

  With a nervous smile, Hal sits down. He unwraps his hot dog and takes a big bite.

  “Didn’t see you at the pool today,” he says as he chews.