by Paul Levine
In the beginning, Janice called every few weeks, usually to wheedle money out of him. Steve always spoke to Bobby, who seemed to be growing more withdrawn with each call. Steve was worried. Not about his sister, who, like a cockroach, could survive a nuclear blast. But there was Bobby, ten years old, shy and defenseless. Janice's mothering instincts, Steve knew, were on a par with rattlesnakes, and they eat their young.
Steve remembered the chill he felt the first time Janice refused to put Bobby on the phone. Doing chores, she claimed. The next time, Bobby had supposedly gone to town with her scuzzy friends. A week later, she said the boy just didn't feel like talking.
Steve had exploded at her: “Put him on the phone, goddammit!”
“Fuck you, little brother.”
“Are you stoned?”
“What are you, a cop?”
“C'mon, Janice. Where is he?”
“He's my kid. Mind your own fucking business.”
“I'm calling Child Welfare.”
“Lots of luck. They're scared shitless to come out here.”
“Then I'm coming up.”
“Try it. We got a barbed-wire fence and some speed freaks with shotguns.”
His imagination worked up one horrific image after another. Bobby lost or injured. Bobby sold for half-a-dozen rocks of crack. The next day, Steve flew to Tallahassee, rented a car, and drove west through the Apalachicola Forest, then down along the Ochlockonee River. It was January, and a cold front had roared south from Canada, dusting the Panhandle with snowflakes. He'd spent a day huddled in a blanket on a rise above the commune, where he watched through binoculars, looking for Bobby. Looking, but not seeing him.
He saw a barn with a sagging silo, a shed with a corrugated metal roof, and a farmhouse where black smoke curled from a chimney. A dozen scraggly-bearded men in filthy clothes worked the smudge pots in the marijuana patch. Scrawny women in sweaters and long dresses brought them steaming cups of coffee. New Age music played on a boom box.
After several hours, his feet were as cold as gravestones. Finally, just before dark, he caught sight of Janice, wearing army boots and a tattered orange University of Miami sweatshirt she'd swiped from him years earlier. She was carrying a soup bowl from the farmhouse to the shed. Thinking back, he's not sure how he knew, but he did. She was taking food to her son, feeding him the way most people feed their dogs. Looking through the binoculars, Steve saw something he was sure he would remember until there were no more memories to be had.
There was no steam rising from the bowl.
On the year's coldest day, whatever slop Janice was delivering to her son was as cold as her own shriveled heart.
She disappeared into the shed, and he counted-one one thousand, two one thousand-until she reappeared without the bowl.
Twelve seconds.
Janice had spent twelve seconds with her son before returning to the farmhouse, where smoke puffed from the chimney. There was no smokestack on the shed, no power lines running in.
As a lawyer, there were only two categories of criminals Steve Solomon would not represent. Pedophiles and men who brutalize women. But at that moment if his own sister were within reach, he would have done her grievous harm. At that moment, it didn't matter that Janice was a lost soul herself, who'd gone seemingly overnight from her Bat Mitzvah to Jews for Jesus to pilfering money and drugs.
Steve waited until after midnight, watching the farmhouse, hearing laughter and music, catching sight of figures passing the windows, men urinating off the porch. He drifted into a restless, frozen sleep, awakened to the hooting of an owl in an icy rain. It was just after three A.M. The farmhouse was dark and silent as he made his way down the ridge to the shed, slipping on wet rocks, illuminated by a three-quarter moon. From somewhere in the compound, a dog howled.
The shed door was locked with a simple peg through a latch. The door creaked as Steve went inside, clicking on a flashlight. Pale and malnourished, Bobby lay curled in a metal dog cage, a bucket of urine and the empty soup bowl at his side. He wore only underpants and a sweatshirt. He was barefoot. His feet were filthy and covered with sores.
“Bobby, it's your uncle Steve.”
The boy scuttled to the far corner of the cage, eyes wide with fear.
“Don't be scared.”
Bobby rocked back and forth.
“Do you remember me?”
The rocking grew faster.
A padlock secured the cage, and Steve began working at the hinges with his bare hands, trying to lift the pin. Just then, the door to the shed flew open and a broad-shouldered man with a tangled beard stepped inside. The man could have been thirty or sixty or anywhere in between. He wore a dirty red Mackinaw and a winter hat with fur earflaps, and his face was smudged with black splotches that looked like charcoal dust. He gripped a stick as thick as a man's forearm. Probably carved from an oak tree, the stick was curved at the top like a shepherd's staff.
“I'm the boy's uncle,” Steve said. “He's coming with me.”
“He ain't going nowhere,” the man said.
Bobby continued rocking.
The man closed the distance between them and drew back the curved stick. His voice rumbled, “‘Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.' Matthew, Chapter Ten, Verse Eight.”
“Get the fuck out of my way. Solomon. Chapter One. You don't want to hear Chapter Two.”
“Be gone!” The man swung the stick, and Steve took the impact on the shoulder and staggered backward. The man swung again and Steve stopped the stick with both hands and shoved back, hard. He slammed the man against the shed wall and pushed the stick to his neck. Steve's face was buried in the collar of the soggy Mackinaw, and a mangy smell like a wet dog made him gag. The man squirmed and gasped for air and tried to knee Steve in the groin. Steve kept up the pressure, jamming the stick hard into the man's Adam's apple. When his attacker's face turned crimson, a gurgle coming from his throat, Steve released him, and the man dropped to the floor.
Still holding the stick, Steve turned to Bobby. “The padlock. Where's the key?”
The boy stopped rocking, but he still hadn't said a word.
“Bobby, do you understand what I'm saying?”
“Uncle Steve, look out!”
Steve pivoted and swung the stick like a baseball bat even before he saw the man coming up from the floor, a hunting knife in his hand. Head down, hips turning, it was a compact but powerful swing.
The stick caught the man squarely above the temple with a crunch of bone: he dropped like a mallard felled by a hunter. Steve stood over him, breathing hard, aware of his own pounding heart. Frozen in place, filled with fear. Had he killed him?
“We better go, Uncle Steve.”
The voice was so close it startled him. Bobby was outside the cage, the back panel removed. “Mom doesn't know I can do this.”
The man on the floor was moaning, trying to get to his feet. Thank God he wasn't dead. Steve grabbed Bobby and swung him into his arms, stunned by how light he was. All elbows and knees, no meat on his bones.
They ducked out of the shed. Dogs barked. Lights flicked on in the farmhouse. Steve could make out a shadowy figure on the porch and the silhouette of what looked like a rifle or a shotgun.
“You! Stop!”
Carrying Bobby, Steve took off. He headed for the tree line, heard shouts from behind, looked back over his shoulder, caught glimpses of men with torches. A shotgun roared. Then another blast, echoing across the valley. He ran through the woods, leaping over fallen trees, slipping on wet rocks, crossing a stream, chugging hard up a hill and down the other side, through a strand of mahogany trees, running hard and not stopping until there were no more torches, no more gunshots, and no more men.
They were in the car headed toward Tallahassee before Steve spoke again. “I didn't think you remembered me.”
“You took me snorkeling,” Bobby said.
“That's right. I did. You must have been about five or six.”
“Angelfish.”
“Holacanthus ciliaris. I gave one a name.”
“Really?”
“You told me not to touch the coral because it'll break and it takes hundreds of years to grow back. I liked the sea fans best because they wave at you like they're friendly. And the parrotfish. Sparisoma viride. They look like parrots but they don't talk.”
“How do you remember all that? How do you know their Latin names?”
The boy's thin shoulders shrugged.
“Do you want to go to my house?”
“Eleven white stones from the driveway to the front door.”
“I guess there are. Would you like to go there?”
“I named the angelfish ‘Steve,'” Bobby said.
Now, ten months later, Bobby was putting on weight-thanks to the paninis-and becoming more comfortable around people. He said good-bye to his grandfather, hung up the phone, and came over to the counter just as Steve opened the lid of the grill.
“Turn them a hundred eighty degrees,” Bobby said.
“That's what I'm doing.” Steve slid the sandwiches around to cross-hatch the bread with grill marks.
“Not a hundred ninety,” Bobby ordered. “The marks won't be even.”
“Got it.”
The melting cheese sizzled seductively, and an aroma of salty sweetness filled the kitchen. “How come you and Pop always argue?” Bobby asked.
“I guess because we've each done things that disappoint the other.”
Bobby used his tongue to snap a rubber band on his braces. “Do I disappoint you?”
“Never. Not once.”
The boy's smile was all orthodonture. “Don't burn the sandwiches, Uncle Steve.”
“Have I told you today how much I love you, kiddo?”
“You tell me every day, Uncle Steve.”
“Well, today, I'm telling you twice.”
Five
MONEY, SEX, AND MURDER
Inside the Justice Building, Steve was feeling as gray as the weather outside. The morning session ended with a Customs Officer testifying that Amancio Pedrosa was harboring a menagerie of smuggled birds, including a foulmouthed cockatoo.
A beaming Victoria then crowed: “Having established a prima facie case, we rest, Your Honor.”
Steve made his obligatory motion for a directed verdict. Judge Gridley called a sidebar conference and asked his advice: Should he take the over or the under on the Michigan State-Penn State game? The under, Steve said. The weather forecast for central Pennsylvania was wind and rain. The judge agreed, then denied Steve's motion.
With no pyrotechnics to ignite, Steve had spent considerable time studying his opponent. Today Victoria wore a dark, tweedy jacket with a matching skirt. She looked professional and businesslike-and, given the conservative wool, unaccountably sexy. Next to her at the prosecution table, Ray Pincher whispered to a variety of aides, who brought him messages and kneeled at his feet like supplicants to a king.
Now, returning from lunch, Steve hurried along the crowded corridor, weaving past sheriff's deputies, touring schoolchildren, and lawyers soliciting clients. A courtroom door opened and an elderly man toddled out; Steve braked but still bumped the man. “Whoops. Sorry, Marvin,” he apologized.
“Watch out, boychik, or I'll sue you for whiplash,” Marvin Mendelsohn said.
Marvin the Maven was the unofficial chief of the Courthouse Gang, a posse of retirees who moseyed from courtroom to courtroom, observing the juiciest trials. The Maven was a dapper little man, almost eighty, with a pencil mustache, oversize black-framed glasses, and a bald head that shone under the fluorescent lights. Today he wore gray wool slacks and a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons. A paisley cravat of shimmering silk blossomed like a colorful bouquet at his neck.
“Looking good, Marvin.”
“Horseshit. My sciatica's killing me. You wanna sue my chiropractor?”
To most lawyers, Marvin and his Gang were either invisible or bothersome. Alter kockers. Old farts who clogged the cafeteria line and kibitzed in the corridors. Steve enjoyed their company. He lunched with them, listened to their stories, took their advice. Marvin the Maven had uncanny instincts about jury selection, particularly with women, where Steve needed the most help. Marvin had owned a women's shoe store in Buffalo for forty years before fleeing the winters. Maybe it was selling thousands of pumps and slingbacks, stilettos and sandals over the years that gave Marvin insights most men lack. Or maybe it was just listening to the women themselves.
“So what you got going besides your farshtinkener bird trial?” Marvin asked, as they made their way down the corridor.
“I'm trying to hustle Katrina Barksdale.”
“The woman who shtupped her husband to death?”
“Can you imagine the trial? Money, sex, and murder.”
“Save me a seat in the front row.”
“If I got that case, I could pay my bills, get a new car, hire a tutor for Bobby.”
“I love you like a grandson, Steve, but why would this woman hire a low-rent lawyer like you?”
“Because Victoria Lord's going to recommend me.”
“You romancing that fancy lady prosecutor? That your way in?”
“All business, Marvin.”
“What happened to that nice Jewish girl you were going out with?”
“Sally Panther? She's a Miccosukee.”
“So? Indians are the lost tribes of Israel.”
“Whatever she is, she dumped me.”
“Okay, so sniff around after Miss Lord. But if you ask me, she'll buy her pumps at Wal-Mart before she brings you a case.”
As they walked, Steve told Marvin his game plan. He was about to put on the defense case in the Pedrosa trial. He'd dazzle Victoria with his footwork and hypnotize her with his words. He'd win, but he'd win nice.
Marvin gave him a skeptical look. “You're playing by the rules?”
“Strictly Marquis of Queensberry.”
“This I gotta see.”
“You don't think I can do it?”
Marvin shrugged. “Why do you think the Gang watches your trials?”
“Because I'm the only lawyer who'll talk to you.”
“Because you're Barnum and Bailey. You try a case, there's always a dozen clowns crawling out of a little car.”
“Not today.”
Marvin was quiet a moment. Then he said: “Sometimes a woman who needs a size nine will lie to herself. Try to squeeze into an eight-and-a-half.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you don't know it, boychik, but getting the Barksdale case is your alibi. It's the girl you're after.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good, because this one's not your type.”
“Meaning what?”
“She's classy, is all. No offense.”
“Jeez, Marvin. I thought you loved me like one of your grandsons.”
“They never visit,” the old man said.
The corridor was jammed with the usual flotsam and jetsam. Sheriff's deputies herded shackled prisoners from holding cells to courtrooms, bail bondsmen trailing in their wake like rudderfish after sharks. The prisoners' girlfriends and wives lined the walls, yelling encouragement or insults at their men, depending on the current state of their relationships.
The elevator door opened, and an attractive, trim woman in her seventies walked out. “Hola, Marvin. Stephen.”
Teresa Torano wore a stylish two-button herringbone jacket with a matching camel skirt. Her dark hair was tied back in a bun with what looked like ivory chopsticks.
“Teresa,” the men said in unison.
Teresa's husband, Oscar, had owned a chain of funeral homes in Havana but lost the business-and his life-when he opposed Fidel Castro. In the early 1960's, Teresa brought their children to Miami and w
orked for minimum wage as a mortician's assistant. Within five years, she had her own license and opened Funeraria Torano on Calle Ocho. By the time she turned the businesses over to her children, Teresa owned seven funeral homes, a jai-alai fronton, and a Chevrolet dealership.
In Steve's accounting ledger-a ragged notebook where he recorded his income, when he had any-Teresa Torano was listed as Client 001. Looking back, he wondered if he could have made it that first year if she hadn't hired him to represent her companies. Since then, they had grown close. Teresa adored Bobby, taking him to the Seaquarium and baking him pastelitos de guayaba. It was almost time for her homemade crema de vie, the anise Christmas drink that makes eggnog seem like Slim-Fast.
At about the time Teresa became Steve's client numero uno, she became Marvin's second love-the only woman he'd been with since the death of his beloved Bess. Now Marvin spent every Friday night at Teresa's Coral Gables villa. Neither ever acknowledged the relationship, not even when Steve ran into them holding hands and drinking mimosas at brunch one recent Saturday morning.
“Stephen, what did you do to Jack Zinkavich?” Teresa demanded as they approached Judge Gridley's courtroom.
“Nothing. Why?”
“I hear things.”
“Yeah?”
“The receptionist in Family Services is a cousin of my late Oscar's grandniece,” Teresa said, “and she eats lunch with an investigator who works with Zinkavich.”
“What's that gotta do with me?” Steve asked.
“Zinkavich told his investigator he's gonna kick your culo.”
“The momzer,” Marvin said.
“Zinkavich wants to take Bobby away from me,” Steve said.
“That's not it,” Teresa said. “He's talking about criminal charges.”
Steve stopped dead. “For what?”
“All I know, he took a trip to Blountstown to look into it.”
Calhoun County, Steve thought. In the Panhandle. Where he'd busted Bobby out of the commune. And busted the bearded guy's skull.
A feeling of dread swept over him. Criminal charges?
Why's the Fink coming after me? All I want is to protect Bobby, give him a life.