Solomon versus Lord svl-1

by Paul Levine

  And a dog.

  The dog was trying to get its balance, its tail tucked beneath its hindquarters. A big, mangy brown mutt with matted hair, a mix of Rottweiler and German shepherd, he guessed. The dog growled at him as if he had just swiped its pork chops.

  “Hey, fellow,” Steve said, extending a hand, showing how friendly he was.

  The dog crouched on its haunches. The hair stood up on its neck.

  Keeping one eye on the dog, Steve opened the lockbox lid. Hammers. Screwdrivers. A drill. A box wrench maybe two feet long. He would have preferred a baseball bat, but the wrench would do. Behind him, the dog's growl deepened ominously.

  There was oncoming traffic now, and the truck had stopped swerving. Turning his back to the dog, Steve leaned over the driver's side of the cab, reaching as far as he could, the wrench in his left hand. Just as his backswing hit its apogee, he heard the sound of claws scratching metal. A second later, he brought the wrench down with all his might, and he felt the dog's teeth sink into his butt.

  “Shit!” Steve screamed as the window shattered.

  “Shit!” yelled the driver from inside the cab.

  The truck swerved right, jumped the curb, flattened a mailbox, and slammed into a jacaranda tree. Steve felt himself flying over the side rail. He landed face-first in a honeysuckle shrub. For a moment, all went black. In the next moment, he was aware of several things at once:

  His eyes refused to focus, his butt ached, and his nose was bleeding.

  The mangy dog was yelping, running down the street.

  A man with glass shards stuck in his forehead was getting out of the driver's side of the pickup, blood streaming down in his face.

  Bobby ran to Steve, crying.

  An overweight woman in granny glasses hustled after Bobby, yelling his name. She had greasy, dark hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. As she ran, her breasts jiggled under a Grateful Dead T-shirt. Her voice brought back vaguely unpleasant memories. “Jan?”

  “It's me, Stevie,” Janice Solomon said.

  “Then I must have died and gone to hell.”

  “Not yet,” the man said. He was standing ten feet away, a jack handle in his hand. Rufus Thigpen. Shaved head, scarred skull, and a face as mean as a hungry weasel.

  “I thought you were in jail, Thigpen.”

  “They let me out, shithead. Gave me three hundred dollars and a motel room.”

  “They teach you how to use indoor plumbing?” Steve struggled to his feet, scooping up a handful of dirt from the honeysuckle bed. He didn't think Thigpen saw him do it; the guy was wiping blood from his eyes. Steve was afraid, but not for himself. He could survive being beaten up; Bobby could not survive being taken away.

  Thigpen gestured with the jack handle. “I owe you some major pain, fucker.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That's the second time you said that to me.” What had he said at their meeting in the Fink's office? “I owe you, fucker.” There was something about the phrase… And the voice… And the way he gripped the jack handle… And then it came to him. From some deep, dark place, like a chilly waterway.

  “It was you, Thigpen. That's what you said to me on the dock. ‘I owe you, fucker.' You're the guy with the winch handle and the potty mouth.”

  “I should have drowned you when I had the chance,” Thigpen said.

  “I don't get it. Why break into my house? What did you want?”

  “Ask your dumb-ass sister. If you can still talk when I'm through with you.”

  “Don't hurt him, Rufe,” Janice wailed.

  “Fuck that. He scrambled my brains.”

  “How can you tell the difference?” Steve said.

  Thigpen took a step toward him. Steve knew he'd have one chance, that's all. His eyes were starting to focus, but the throbbing in his head had worsened. A hundred pounds of sand shifted inside his skull with every movement.

  Thigpen took another step and brought the jack handle back.

  Almost there. One more step.

  Bobby dived for Thigpen's legs.

  “No!” Steve yelled.

  Thigpen swatted Bobby across the face and knocked him to the ground.

  “Touch him again, I'll rip out your throat,” Steve said.

  “Try it,” Thigpen sneered.

  Bobby crouched on his haunches in the dirt, a hand over one eye.

  “It's gonna be okay, kiddo,” Steve promised. “We'll go home in a minute.”

  “The fuck you will.” Taking one last step, Thigpen swung the jack handle. Steve slid to the side, the handle just missing his ear. He flicked out a hand and tossed the dirt into Thigpen's face, closing his eyes.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” Thigpen clawed at his eyes, and Steve kicked him squarely in the groin. Thigpen doubled over, and Steve locked both hands together and swung them up, hard, connecting with the man's nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch of cartilage and a spray of blood. Thigpen collapsed, moaning, one hand clutching his face, the other his crotch.

  Steve limped to the truck and leaned on it for support. “Jan, what the hell?”

  “I just wanted to see my Bobby for a little bit. I wouldn't hurt him…”

  Bobby ran to Steve, wrapped his arms around him. “Can we go home, Uncle Steve?” He wouldn't look at his mother.

  “You bet, kiddo.”

  Thigpen got to one knee, mumbled something about the sword of God, collapsed flat in the dirt. In the distance, a police siren wailed.

  “I would have brought Bobby back, honest,” Janice gabbled. “I woulda had to. Rufe didn't want to take him along.”

  “Where you going?”

  Janice pulled at her ponytail. “Away somewhere. After Bobby's case is over. This lawyer, Zinkavich, got us out of jail for helping him.”

  “You're the Fink's rebuttal witness?”

  “If that's what it's called, guess so.”

  “What are you going to say, that I lost your Barbie collection playing poker when we were kids?”

  “That you're violent and unstable and do drugs. That you beat me up when you kidnapped Bobby. That he'd be better off in state custody.”

  “Zinkavich believe that shit?”

  “I told him I knew your dealer. I could set it up so he could bust you for possession right in the courtroom, real dramatic like.”

  “How the hell could you manage that?” But even as the words came out, he knew. “Thigpen didn't break into my house to steal anything, did he? He was planting something.”

  “Crystal meth in the lining of your briefcase. But you came home too early. You fucked it all up.”

  “Jesus, Janice. This is low. Even for you.”

  “Which is why I want to make amends now.”

  The siren grew louder.

  “Make 'em quick,” Steve said.

  She seemed to be trying to form her thoughts. Twenty years of assorted powders, pills, and weeds can play havoc with the brain cells. “I got a deal for you, Stevie. How much is my little Bobby worth to you?”

  “Everything I've got plus everything I can beg, borrow, and steal.”

  “About what I had in mind,” Janice Solomon said.

  9. I will never break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time… unless it's for someone I love.

  Thirty-six

  THE MEASURE OF A MAN

  A cold wind whistled through the avocado trees, chilling Victoria. She was shivering, even though she wore an ankle-length black leather swing coat over a cashmere sweater and jeans. She hoped Bruce wouldn't say anything about the leather. He should just be happy she hadn't pulled out one of her mother's fox boas or mink hats.

  Now, where was he?

  She was standing in the farm's staging area, a cleared five-acre parcel between two avocado groves. Tractors growled by, kicking up dust. Trucks filled with straw churned between rows of trees, workers with shovels and pitchforks following, chattering in Spanish. Generators roared as men set up portable lights and heaters. In the adjacent grove, sprinklers with rotating arms fif
ty feet long turned endless circles. Black smoke from the smudge pots curled into the air, and the whir of giant fans blew hot air into the groves. The sun had set an hour earlier, and the low, scudding clouds were lit a surreal orange from the fires in the smudge pots.

  Where are they?

  Bruce would be busy all night, and she was looking forward to spending time with the Solomon Boys. Maybe Bobby could work with them on the source gram: “The woman is perfected.”

  What did Charles Barksdale mean?

  Was there something he was saying about Katrina they could pick up?

  Over speakers mounted on poles, a song played, something with an upbeat Afro-Cuban beat. It took her a second to remember the name: “Maracaibo Oriental.” She was swaying to the music, mostly to keep warm, when she saw Steve and Bobby walking toward her, emerging from the black haze.

  “Omigod, Steve, what happened?”

  He tried to smile through a swollen lip. Bloody scrapes tracked down his face as if an angry lover had dragged her fingernails from forehead to mouth. Victoria looked at Bobby, saw the welt-the hue of a ripe plum-under his right eye, and abandoned Steve.

  “Bobby!”

  “We kicked some major ass,” the boy said.

  Victoria gently cradled his chin, examining the shiner. “Does it hurt?”

  “A little.” He added hastily: “Nothing I can't handle.”

  She kissed a fingertip and gently ran it under Bobby's eye. “Better?”

  “What about me?” Steve asked. “I've got teeth marks on my butt.”

  “And not for the first time, I bet.” She brushed Bobby's hair out of his eyes. “Now, what major ass did you kick?”

  With each one interrupting the other, uncle and nephew gave her the short version of the snatch, the chase, the wreck, and the combat.

  “Nobody ever ran as fast as Uncle Steve,” the boy said. “Like a world record.”

  “Bobby was very brave,” Steve said. “If he hadn't tackled Thigpen-”

  “I smashed him. Then, ka-pow! Uncle Steve kicked him in the nuts.”

  “Wow,” Victoria said.

  “When I grow up, I'm gonna be just like Uncle Steve.”

  With the story winding down, Victoria said: “So it was Thigpen who broke into your house. It had nothing to do with the Barksdale murder or the security video.”

  “Correct,” Steve said.

  “Meaning you might have been right all along about Katrina being innocent. Manko, too.”

  “Don't sound so surprised.”

  “But we still don't have the proof.”

  “Last time I checked, the burden of proof was on the prosecution.”

  She laughed. “When did you start believing the letter of the law? An adulterous wife is in the room when her rich old hubby strangles to death. That pretty much shifts the burden.”

  “‘The woman is perfected,'” Steve said. “The answer's gotta be there.”

  “Maybe.” Her mind drifted back to Steve's account of chasing down Janice and Thigpen. “So that's all your sister wanted, to see Bobby for a few hours?”

  “And to tell me she's Zinkavich's rebuttal witness.”

  “Did you ask what she's going to say?”

  “She's going to bad-mouth me. What more do we need to know?”

  Odd that he brushed it off that way, she thought. Something wasn't ringing true. She glanced at Bobby, who turned away. What was going on? What wasn't Steve telling her?

  Steve wanted to tell her the truth.

  But could she handle the truth?

  If he told Victoria about Janice's illegal proposal and his equally illegal response, she'd quit Bobby's case. Probably even report him to the Florida Bar. Was that a look of suspicion a moment ago? Or just his guilty conscience playing tricks?

  What he planned to do could cost him his license, if it didn't land him in prison. Not the kind of risk he'd take for just anyone.

  Still, this went far beyond trampling legal niceties. He'd never bribed a witness before. But then, he'd never been this desperate. Winning custody of Bobby wasn't a legal skirmish; it was his life.

  “So tell me what you want,” he had said to his sister as they stood by the smashed truck.

  “I hate helping that fuck Zinkavich,” she said. “He treats me like I'm some low-life criminal.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “So I figured I could screw him over instead of you.”

  “I'm listening.”

  “He got me and Rufe out of prison, but we're on parole, so he still could violate us and send us back.”

  “Not unless you do something stupid.”

  “They find one joint in our truck, we're back in the can. Hang out with known felons, same thing. Parole's a bitch. That's why we gotta get away, Rufe and me.”

  “What's that got to do with me?”

  “You gotta give us a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I don't have that kind of money. In fact, I don't have any kind.”

  “What about your big murder trial?”

  “My client's money is tied up. I don't get a dime unless we win.”

  That was the truth. Katrina had agreed to pay them two hundred fifty thousand dollars, but it would be collectible only if she was acquitted. An unfortunate technicality in the law doesn't let homicidal wives inherit their husbands' estates.

  “You could hit up Dad.”

  “Mom's medical bills drained him. He's tapped out, living on his pension.”

  “There's got to be someone else. Someone who'll lend you the bread.”

  Who would he ask? He didn't have a clue. “What do I get for my money?”

  “Me and Rufe disappear and never testify.”

  It won't work, Steve thought. Kranchick's testimony would still bury him. “Your leaving town's not good enough. If I pay you, you've got to stay and testify.”

  “How's that gonna help you?”

  “When Zinkavich puts you on the stand, you won't give his answers. You'll give mine.”

  Victoria was watching Steve, kneeling in the dirt, tying Bobby's shoestrings. There's something he's not telling me, she thought.

  His sister is going to sandbag him, and he doesn't seem concerned. Zinkavich already has Kranchick and Thigpen, and now this. Steve should be ranting, cursing, pawing the ground, plotting a counterattack. But he seems nonchalant about the whole thing.

  What's he hiding?

  As she worked on that dilemma, an open Jeep Wrangler skidded to a stop in front of them. The driver wore a Bigby Farms jacket with the avocado logo. The passenger was his boss, Bruce Bigby, standing tall, holding the roll bar for support, blond hair windblown. Wearing an off-white skier's jumpsuit, he had a bullhorn in one hand, a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, a digital thermometer zippered on his sleeve, and a revolver holstered on his hip. In that getup, Bruce looked part astronaut, part general, and-she hated to think it-a total dweeb.

  “Get those heaters into the hollow!” Bigby yelled into the bullhorn. “Gosh darn it, I told you, the trees in the low areas freeze first!”

  “Hi, hon,” Victoria said.

  “Sweetie.” He gave her a brisk salute, then hopped out of the Jeep. The legs of his jumpsuit were bloused over the tops of combat boots. On the speakers, Celia Cruz was singing “Corazon Rebelde,” ode to a rebellious heart.

  “Hey, Bruce,” Steve said.

  Bigby's eyes went wide. “Jeez, Steve. Another shaving accident?”

  “Family reunion.”

  “Those are open cuts. Have you taken antibiotics?”

  “Does Jack Daniel's count?”

  Bigby's walkie-talkie crackled with static. “Senor Bigby, thirty-three degrees in the north quadrant.”

  Bigby hit a button. “Get some heaters over there, Foyo.”

  “Si, jefe.”

  “Nobody sleeps. Hot coffee all night. Rum and Coke at dawn.”

  “Si, jefe.”

  “And that music. Does it have to be that Cuban crapola?”

&
nbsp; “Is what the men like.”

  “Whatever.” Bigby clicked off the walkie-talkie. “Bobby, care to ride with me?”

  Bobby gripped Steve's hand and shook his head.

  “He's a little shaken,” Steve said. “We'll catch up with you later.”

  “You got it.”

  “What can I do to help?” Steve asked.

  “Gonna be a long night,” Bigby said. “Will you look after my sweetie for me?”

  “To the best of my limited abilities.”

  “What's with the gun, hon?” Victoria asked.

  Bigby lowered his voice to a whisper. “The men expect it. El jefe always carries a side arm. It's a Caribbean thing.”

  “And what does el jefe shoot?” she persisted.

  “Varmints, trespassers…”

  Guys sniffing after jefe's fiancee? she wondered.

  The violent bleat of a siren interrupted them. Startled, Bobby stumbled into Steve's chest, his glasses falling to the ground. “No noise. No noise. No noise.”

  Steve wrapped his arms around the boy. “It's okay, kiddo. It's okay.”

  “Not really,” Bigby said, grimly. “It means the temperature's just hit thirty-two. If it goes to twenty-nine and stays there, I'm in deep doo-doo, if you'll pardon my French.”

  Did he really say “deep doo-doo”? Victoria wondered.

  “I'm taking Bobby inside for a while,” Steve said, picking up the boy's glasses.

  “There's hot chocolate in the kitchen,” Bigby said, “and a spare bedroom next to the den. Make yourself at home.”

  Steve and Bobby walked toward the house, the boy ferociously gripping his uncle's arm. When they were out of earshot, Bigby said: “With the grace of God, we'll never have to face that.”

  “Face what?”

  “You know… that.”

  She was startled. “If you mean Bobby, he's a wonderful child.”

  “I know, sweetie. I know. You're a sucker for the bird with the broken wing.”

  “It's more than that. I really love the boy.”

  “Sure you do. But would you rather our son be the captain of the football team at Dartmouth or some oddball who scrambles words in his head?”