Criminal Justice

by Parker, Barbara

  Alva kept her half-rim glasses pointed toward a steno pad, and the ball of an old IBM Selectric clattered across the page. She had a puffy bleach-blond hairdo and dangly gold earrings that bounced with the staccato movement of her fingers. Her long nails clacked on the keys. A few decades ago, she had been a hot number, as they used to say. Charlie had showed him a 1962 edition of Playboy. Girls of Miami Beach, posed around a pool at the Castaways. There was Alva by the waterfall, her hair in a platinum-blond pageboy with bangs straight across her forehead. Big smile, nothing on but red high heels and a beach ball.

  Dan spotted a Miami Herald in the trash can next to the copier table and retrieved the classified section. He turned back the page advertising boats for sale. 1971 25′ Bertram Bahia Mar, $39,000. Probably leaked. 1988 Sea Ray Express, 34′, $47,500. Good price. Dan circled that one, wondering if a bank existed in Miami that would front him the down payment.

  Hearing a low burble of Spanish, Dan walked over to slide back the frosted glass window a few inches. Three people sat in the small waiting room—a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy.

  Alva pulled the finished letter out of the typewriter. “Well. Mr. Punctuality.”

  “Hi. Where’s Charlie?” Dan walked back to her desk.

  “He’s not here.”

  “I noticed.”

  She relented, smiling a little. “He’s at a real estate closing. He’ll be here soon.”

  “Who are those people in the waiting room? Not mine, are they?”

  “No, they came in about ten minutes ago. They asked to speak to a lawyer, and I said Mr. Dunavoy was expected momentarily.” She added, “You wouldn’t be interested. They’re walk-in’s.”

  “Well, what do they want?”

  “They bought a used car from a neighbor, but the title was bad, and the police came and towed it. Now the neighbor says he can’t pay them back.”

  “Oh, great.”

  Alva dabbed some correction fluid at the letter she had just typed. “So do you want them?”

  “Let Charlie do it. I have some paperwork to catch up on.” He held up the messages from Rick Robbins. “Alva, did Rick say what he wanted to talk to me about?”

  “No, he just said call.”

  “Didn’t give you a hint?”

  “Honey, if they don’t tell me, I don’t ask.” She pulled a file from the bottom drawer of her desk and stiffly straightened her back. Her radio was on at low volume. Frank Sinatra finished singing “My Way.” Then an ad came on for pre-need arrangements from Levitt-Weinstein Memorial Gardens.

  Dan said, “Why do you assume that I never want to see walk-in’s?”

  She glanced at him as she cranked an envelope into the typewriter. “Because you told me, ‘Alva, I don’t want to see any walkin’s, unless they just got run over by a drunken doctor in a heavily insured Cadillac.’”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She shrugged.

  Dan looked at the waiting room door, then went over and opened it. “Hi. I’m Dan Galindo. You folks want to come in?”

  It was exactly what he had expected: The case wasn’t worth the time a lawyer would need to put into it.

  The teenager translated for his parents. The father drove a truck; the mother was a maid in a Miami Beach hotel. They had saved for months to buy a car, then the police said it belonged to someone else. How could this happen? Dan told them all they could do was file a claim against the neighbor who had sold it to them. No, don’t hire a lawyer, it would cost more than the car was worth. They could file the case themselves in small-claims court, get a judgment, put a lien on the neighbor’s property. Dan went through the steps with them. The statement of claim, the summons, what to take to the clerk’s office. He gave them directions to the courthouse. Next time see me first. The father wanted to know how much he owed for the consultation. Dan almost told him nada, no charge, but saw the pride in the man’s face.

  After they were gone, he counted out the bills on Alva’s desk. She looked up at him. “Thirty bucks?”

  “Just put it on my rent account, okay?”

  She pursed her lips, lines appearing in her coral pink lipstick, which extended past the natural line of her mouth.

  The back door slammed. A few seconds later, Charlie Dunavoy came in, suit coat over his arm, briefcase in his hand. He was a big white-haired man with a red face and broken veins in his cheeks.

  Dan said, “Charlie, got a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He picked up his messages from his wife’s desk and rattled off some instructions to call one of the probate judges about resetting a hearing. In his office, he tossed his briefcase onto a brown vinyl sofa.

  Dan came in behind him. “Charlie, if I were gone for a week, would you be able to cover my schedule?”

  “Yeah, I guess I could do that.” Charlie hung his jacket on a wooden hanger behind the door. His stomach strained at the buttons of his shirt, and suspenders held up a pair of trousers going baggy in the seat. He asked, “What’ve you got? No trials, I hope.”

  “Routine stuff,” Dan said. “No trials. There might be a motion or two. Most of it can be reset. I want to take my son fishing in the Bahamas.”

  “Oh, now, isn’t that a lucky kid?” Charlie leaned back in his chair.

  “Say, do you still have that Sea Ray twin outboard? You told me you went down to the Keys in it, remember?”

  “Oh, I sold that sucker. Engines were shot anyway. Must’ve been, jeez, five or six years ago. I bought a little flats boat that I keep down there at the condo.”

  Before Charlie could tell him about bonefishing off Islamorada, Dan shook loose and went back to his own office.

  Two years ago he had been making over seventy grand a year as a federal prosecutor, living with his wife and son in a new house in a good neighborhood—before he resigned. The career went, then the marriage, then his concentration. In a city saturated with lawyers he went from job to job, scrabbling not to fall behind on alimony and child support. He worked part-time, a degrading experience. Then a friend, Elaine McHale, gave him the name of a lawyer her family had known for years, a man in his sixties who needed someone younger to help out, preferably someone with trial experience.

  Charlie Dunavoy had never asked Dan why he’d left the U.S. attorney’s office. Elaine had probably filled him in. The answer was, Dan had blown a major prosecution against an Ecuadorian drug trafficker by refusing to use the DEA’s confidential informant. The guy was dirty. True, many of them were. After all, what upstanding citizen would be involved with dopers? But Dan had good reason to believe the guy was flat-out lying. Dan went to the judge. No way can I put this witness on the stand, Your Honor. The defense team was jubilant. The lead DEA agent on the case smelled a payoff, as if Daniel Galindo would ruin his reputation for a murdering slimewad thug. No, Dan’s real sin had been blabbing about it to the media, embarrassing the office. A week later he got the news: he would be handling slip-and-fall cases from V.A. hospitals or claims filed by postal customers run over by mail trucks. He would prosecute picnickers caught with a six-pack at Everglades National Park. Within an hour Dan’s resignation letter was on the U.S. attorney’s desk.

  Coming into this office six months ago, walking out of the blazing August heat into that tiny waiting room, past a man in a gas station uniform and a woman with her hair in dreadlocks, coming in and seeing the rundown furniture and the dusty fan whirling on the filing cabinet, Dan had seriously wondered what Elaine McHale thought of her former colleague, that she would send him to such a place. Or what he had thought of himself, that he had taken Charlie’s offer. But he had survived. He was paying his bills.

  The ten-gallon salt water tank under the window was humming, bubbles coming out of the aerator. Dan kept blue and yellow rock beauties, which he had caught off West Palm Beach. He gave them a few pinches of food.

  Putting the box back on the shelf, he noticed the photograph of Josh—his first-grade picture, a dopey smile, his new front teeth making him
look like a rabbit, glasses halfway down his nose. Dan touched the photograph, sliding his fingers across the silver frame.

  “Hey, bud. We’re going fishing. You and me.”

  CHAPTER 4

  That afternoon Dan drove to Coral Rock Productions, finding his way through tourist-season traffic to the flat-roofed building in Hallandale, just over the county line. He hadn’t seen the place in months. The small lobby had a new collection of music posters on the walls and a different set of tunes on the receptionist’s radio, but otherwise it looked the same.

  The receptionist told him to go on back, Rick was expecting him. Dan remembered the way to Rick’s office, a windowless cave at the end of the hall.

  They had met in college, then went in separate directions, Dan to law school, Rick into the music business. He had become successful at it, booking national tours into local venues, managing acts, and producing shows anywhere from gospel to acid rock. After Dan left the U.S. attorney’s office, Rick had offered him a job as general counsel. Entertainment law? Nothing to it. What he had really wanted was somebody to be the hardass, to rein in musicians who trashed their hotel rooms or ignored their contracts. Dan had said no. The offer had smelled like charity. Last summer, when Dan had sunk about as far as possible financially, Rick started referring cases to him. A booking agent charged with DUI. A country singer caught with a pound of weed. Then a slip-and-fall, a burglary, a sexual battery. Dan didn’t like it, but at the time he was in no position to refuse. As his practice improved, he accepted fewer of them. The last was a spike-haired punk rocker arrested for peeing into a mosh pit.

  He found Rick on the telephone, leaning back in his chair. His hair was a little thinner, and a bald spot had worked its way through. He turned around when Dan rapped lightly on the open door. He held up a hand, don’t go away.

  “Yeah, I told them we’d fax an offer.… Twenty for her. At least, which is a deal. She’s gettin’ anywhere from twenty to thirty. Like she wants thirty for L.A., plus a limo ride, plus a suite … The venue’s a theater, should be okay.”

  Dan mimed drinking a soda, and Rick nodded.

  In the tiny kitchen, Dan was taking a Coke out of the refrigerator when his peripheral vision caught a Bonnie Raitt tour T-shirt and tight black jeans. He turned his head and looked down. Rick’s wife.

  Sandy Robbins smiled up at him, a petite woman with aggressively frosted hair. She handled publicity for Coral Rock. “Hey, Dan. How you been?”

  “Great. How about yourself, Sandy?”

  She pushed the door shut. “Rick said you were comin’ up. What did he say to you, why he wanted to see you and all?” She had a voice straight out of the Georgia hills, more twang than drawl.

  Dan shrugged. “Rick didn’t say. You don’t know either?”

  “Shoot, he won’t tell me a blessed thing. He says he wants to give you a case, but it’s got to be more’n that. You and Rick ain’t laid eyes on each other in a long time. So why’s he calling you now?”

  Dan popped the tab on the soda can. “What do you think it is, Sandy?”

  “I honest and truly don’t know. It’s a feelin’, like when we got in trouble on the payroll taxes. Lord, you know about that, I guess. What’s the little bonehead done now?” She tapped her long fingernails on her crossed arms. “I think Rick’s into some shit he don’t want me to know about. He don’t give me straight answers about the money. He’s playing cute with the books. I’m scared the IRS is gonna knock on the door and take everthang we own. You gotta make him tell you what’s goin’ on, Dan.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Sandy. I don’t do tax law. Nor do I intend to get involved with Rick’s business. The man makes me crazy. If you have the slightest inkling that Rick is dicking around with the IRS, call somebody who can help you. I could give you some names.”

  Sandy’s temper flared, and she slapped his hand away. “Go on. Turn your back. I know y’all had a fallin’ out, but I’ll tell you one thing, mister. He helped you plenty when you didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”

  “Fine. Jesus.” Dan left the can beside the sink and went to see if Rick was finished. He could hear Sandy’s boots behind him.

  Rick was on another call, phone under his chin, reading from a computer printout. “Tampa on the fourth, travel day on the fifth, Athens on the sixth, and Atlanta on the seventh and eighth.… Well, they’re only playing one date in the north, St. Paul on the fifteenth.… You’re gonna be in touch with the record label, right? Call Sandy, she can give you more information than I can.… Nothing on the tenth, that’s a Monday.… The Civic Auditorium, that’s what I’ve been told.” He noticed Dan, who had come in and dropped into a chair. “Listen, I’ve got to run. Call me later in the week, all right?”

  Sandy had come in as well, standing about five-two in her red leather cowboy boots, glaring at her husband.

  He took a tweed sport jacket off a hook. “Hi, sugar. Dan and I are gonna grab a bite. Then I’m going to the studio. The band is putting a couple of songs on tape tonight.”

  “I’m not invited to dinner?” Her smile was brittle.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’ll follow you in my car, Rick. I swear. Whatever’s going on, I’m not gonna be cut out.”

  “Out of what? I’m talking to him about Martha’s assault and battery. I told you.”

  “You lie to me, I’ll by God make you wish you hadn’t.”

  “Come on, Dan, let’s go. I wish my lovely wife would stick to her own job, and let me do mine.”

  “Rick would sooner run us into bankruptcy than admit he don’t know his pecker from a tire pump.”

  “Yes, dear. Bankruptcy is exactly what I have in mind.” Rick zipped his cellular phone into its leather pouch. “Sandy got her MBA from Yee-Haw State, did you know that, Dan?”

  Dan said, “For the love of God, will you two shut up?”

  Rick left black marks coming out of the parking lot, then headed his lemon yellow Mustang north on U.S. 1 past strip shopping centers, a car dealership, mom-and-pop motels flying the Canadian flag. Nous parlons français. The sun was dropping behind the trees.

  “She’s a piece of work. Tell me why I stay with her, I can’t fuckin’ figure it out.”

  Neither could Dan. He had seen battles in the halls of Coral Rock Productions. Screaming. Throwing things. Pushing and shoving. But it hadn’t taken the heat out of their romance, apparently.

  Dan grabbed the handle over the passenger window as Rick’s car hurtled down the road. “So. Martha Cruz. The keyboard player in Kelly’s band. Arrested for battery on a Miami Beach cop.”

  “Yeah, about three weeks ago. I told her to go to South Beach to catch this rave band out of New York, and she winds up sitting in on the last set. After that, outside the club, some fan gets hassled and Martha opens her mouth. The cop pulls an attitude, tells her to butt out, yadda yadda, you heard it before. Arrests her for interfering, battery on a police officer, assault, whatever he can get her on, just to be a prick.” Steering one-handed, Rick opened a roll of Tums with his teeth. “What I want is, get this cleared up for her. The band doesn’t need this shit. The record labels don’t like it. An arrest, a trial—it’s bad news, Dan.”

  “I can’t make it go away.”

  “Maybe some kind of probation. If it would help, tell Martha to apologize to the officer—although with Martha that would be a stretch.” Chewing on his antacid, Rick said, “But she’s smart. She’ll do what she has to. All she cares about is her career.”

  “Is she any good?”

  “Oh, yeah. Martha’s so good it’s scary. Don’t get me wrong. So is Kelly. Kelly’s a terrific guitarist, and the bassist and drummer aren’t half bad either. But Martha’s the musician in the bunch. She’s the engine. I don’t say that to the others, of course.” Rick lifted the console and pawed through a disorderly pile of tapes and CD’s. “I don’t have anything current. Wait. This is Martha before she joined Mayhem. She was in this g
roup called Two-Tailed Lizard.” He slid the tape into the tape deck. “Yeah, the name sucks. Before that it was Electric Iguana. And overlook the sound quality. It was mixed in somebody’s bedroom.”

  A bass drum thudded out of the speakers, followed by the crash of guitar chords. “All right, the keyboard’s coming in. A step beyond techno, hear it? That’s Martha. Okay, the guy’s gonna sing, ignore that part. Wait. Here it comes.”

  Dan heard a wail, a scream. A female voice coming from a place he couldn’t imagine. The words were impossible to make out. He finally said, “That’s … pretty bad, Rick.” He hid a grin under a knuckle, elbow on the windowsill.

  Rick flipped the power off, leaving only road noise and the growl of the Mustang’s big engine. He turned his sunglasses toward Dan. “You know your problem? You’re still stuck in that eighties New Wave crap. Duran Duran. The Cars. I bet you knew all the words to ‘Candy-O.’”

  “No way. I listened to Bad Company and Zeppelin.”

  “Did you or did you not have a poster of Flock of Seagulls in your dorm room?”

  “Yeah, for the girls,” Dan said.

  “Oh, man, you too?” Rick laughed. “I had the Police. I’d take that down and put up David Lee Roth for the metal chicks.” He put on his right blinker signal. “The Lobster Shack is over here. You feel like seafood?”

  Brake lights ahead of them went on. A Lincoln sedan with a Quebec tag began a slow turn into the parking lot. Rick said, “Come on, puddin’!” He swerved around the car. “Another fuckin’ Canadian. Jesus, I’ll be glad when it stops snowing up there.”

  A fifty-gallon salt water tank was built into an inside wall of the restaurant. Through the tank Dan could see another section of dining room, distorted by the glass. Fish swam in and out among fake sea grass planted in neon orange rocks. A clam shell opened and shut, releasing bubbles. A miniature shipwreck had spilled gold plastic coins and strings of pearls. The fish were the usual fish-tank variety: angels, a clownfish, a butterfly.