MIAMI ICED

by Susan Sussman

  “If you want,” says Lucille, “a group of us go over to Lulu’s Cafe. Grab a bite before the afternoon session.”

  I am about to say ‘No’ out of habit. Seven months I’ve been saying no to everyone and everything. I open my mouth, astonished to hear a rust-encrusted ‘Yes,” squeak out.

  7

  Lulu’s, a greasy spoon without aspirations, is a short walk from the courthouse. We open the door to the clatter of dishes, energetic conversations and the comfort smells of meatloaf and coffee. I follow Lucille and Nikki to a chipped Formica table where the man who sat next to me in court yesterday reads the paper. We settle into chrome chairs whose orange Naugahyde cushions are criss-crossed with silver duct tape.

  “Joe Farley,” says Lucille, by way of intro, “this is Laura Marks.”

  He looks up. “From yesterday, right?”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Pleasure,” he says, then slaps the paper on the table, jabbing his finger at an article. “See this? Nineteen year old kid climbs up on the roof to take down the old TV antenna. Gets zapped by lightning. Killed, just like that. Not a cloud in the sky.”

  Lucille crosses herself. “It’s called a bolt from the blue,” she says. “My Caesar used to warn me -- if I can hear thunder, I can get hit by lightning.”

  Farley’s shaking his head. “Kid’s nineteen for crissakes.”

  “Not any more,” says Nikki, cool as you please.

  Three more people pull up chairs, their faces vaguely familiar from the courthouse. “There’s a few of us regulars,” Lucille explains. “Judge Rissman calls us his ‘Court Buffs’ and I guess that’s as good a description as any. We like to come listen in on cases when we can.” Lucille, clinks a spoon against her water glass. “Everyone, this is Laura. Laura, everyone.”

  “Glad to meet you,” I say, straining to remember how polite humans act in social situations. No need. My three seconds of spotlight are over. They’re back into it, conversation pinging like a pinball.

  “How’d you like Barbie doll today?”

  “Her skirts getting shorter?”

  “Does she really expect that jury to believe Mel Lucas killed his wife, drove to the airport and flew away to parts unknown?”

  “It’s all she’s got.”

  “Jury’s not buying.”

  “So, where is the husband?”

  “If you ask me,” says Nikki, “Galdino offed him, too.”

  A woman on the far side of the table takes out a bottle of antiseptic gel, squirts some on her hands and passes it around the table. “The prosecution’s not sayin’ Galdino killed the husband,” she says.

  “They’re not sayin’ cause there’s no body,” says Farley. “You got no body, you got no murder.”

  “Come on,” says Nikki. “We all know Galdino did them both.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.” Farley squirts gel on his hands, works it around. “Thing is, prosecution’s gotta go for the sure verdict. They got Brandy folded like a pierogi in the freezer and Galdino fencing her jewels in Jersey. It’s a slam dunk.” He tucks his paper into his pocket. “Problem I got is how a runt like Galdino could lift a load like Brandy Lucas into that freezer. She outweighed him by fifty pounds, easy.”

  “Leverage,” says a basso profundo behind me. I turn, startled by a raggedy man with massive dreadlocks standing behind my chair. No one else at the table seems the least surprised. “Leverage,” he says again.

  “Leverage?” says Nikki. “The hell that supposed to mean?”

  “Have you ever watched those Asian lady golfers?” he asks, making no move to sit with us.

  She rolls her eyes. “This I gotta hear.”

  “They weigh perhaps 90 pounds dripping wet,” he says, “yet they drive a golf ball three hundred yards.”

  “Your point?” asks Nikki, sounding as bratty as the Lucas daughter.

  He fixes her with a watery stare. “It’s all about leverage and timing. Archimedes said-” --Archimedes? – “‘Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.’ You can move anything with proper leverage.”

  “Especially Florida politicians,” says Farley, waggling bushy eyebrows. A collective groan goes up.

  “Won’t you join us Professor?” asks Lucille, passing him the hand sanitizer.

  He works gel around his palms, between each finger, around ridged yellow nails thick as woodchips. He glances at me for the briefest instant. “Not today, thank you,” he says, “I’ll be dining with friends in the park.” He nods then walks out. Lucille catches my look.

  “That’s the Professor.” She opens a napkin on her lap. “Most times you’ll see him over in the park or at the library. But sometimes he comes to court, listens in when the summer heat gets too much or a case catches his interest.”

  “Is he homeless?” I ask

  “That’d be my guess.”

  “Do any of you seriously believe,” asks Nikki, “that Mel Lucas killed his wife and hacked his own safe out of the wall to make it look like a robbery?” Silence.

  A waitress brings a basket of rolls and pours hot coffee. She does a double-take my way. “Need a menu, Hon?” leaving before I can answer, topping off coffee at six tables on her way. I haven’t seen someone work that speed since Ashkenaz on Morse Avenue. A pain stabs my stomach. Hunger. I’m hungry. I’d forgotten the feeling. For seven months I’ve had no appetite. Why now in this dive with its torn chairs and wobbly tables and lively talk of murders? And what are the rules down this particular rabbit hole?

  “Tuna fish is pretty good,” says Lucille. “But they give you way too much. I get the half-tuna on wheat toast.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I say.

  “Though, it’s cheaper to split a whole one.”

  “Done,” I say.

  “They make some mighty fine fries,” she says.

  “Fries it is,” says our waitress, not bothering to give me the menu she’s brought. She glances at the others. “The usual?” And she’s gone.

  The conversation starts up again. I open my purse for a tissue and see the lunch Bitsy packed. “I’ll be right back,” I say, slinging my purse over my shoulder, going out across the street to the library park. The Professor sits on the lawn among a group of people seeking relief from the heat in the shade of a sprawling banyon. I set the lunch on the bench next to him and go back to the restaurant.

  “Galdino’s wife’s going to alibi him,” says Farley. “No question.”

  Lucille sighs. “Sure do hope they call her to the stand this afternoon. I have something I need to tend to tomorrow and I’m hoping to hear that woman testify. Her sister murdered like that, husband on trial. I’m thinking she’ll have something interesting to say.”

  “I bet the mother is like the daughter,” says Nikki. “Prissy little bitch dresses like a nun-in-waiting.”

  It’s chilling, the way Nikki mimics the Lucas girl’s attitude and mannerisms.

  “Wound tight, that one,” agrees Lucille. “Acts too old for such a young girl.”

  “I get the feeling she and her aunt and uncle were real close,” says Farley, “that maybe Brandy and Mel liked Caprice more than they liked their own kids.”

  Nikki grabs a sesame roll from the basket. “You can just tell,” she says, slathering on butter, “she thinks she’s better than everyone.”

  Our orders arrive and the waitress rips separate checks from her pad, sparing us the need to figure who had the tuna melt. She’s split my order halvsies with Lucille. I squirt ketchup on my plate and pick up a crispy fry, take a tentative bite. My taste buds snap to attention. This is no wimpy heat-lamped faux spud. I risk another bite. This potato has substance, resistance to the teeth, tastes of rich Idaho soil and clean cooking oil. I take another bite, time warp to Big Herm’s, a hole-in-the-wall hot dog shop across from Nettlehorst grammar school, where twenty-five cents bought a wax paper bag of greasy fries pulled fresh from the cooker. And suddenly I’m ravenous the way I used to be and, while my tab
lemates talk about murders and thefts and judges and attorneys and cases past/present/future, I finish the whole half-sandwich and all of my fries.

  Walking back to the courthouse, we cut through the library park. The bag with my Bitsy gourmet lunch has disappeared from the bench.

  8

  Galdino’s wife doesn’t take the stand. Instead, the prosecution calls Brett “Lucky” Baker, one of those independent characters who hang around marinas doing odd jobs for boat owners -- scrubbing hulls, hosing furniture, detailing boats. Stringy as beef jerky, Lucky’s sun-blackened skin is a wonder of wrinkles -- no slave to Botox, he. And his white-blond hair seems no stranger to peroxide. The attorney asks the last time Lucky saw Joseph Galdino.

  “I was working at the Tradewinds Marina.”

  Tradewinds? I know that name.

  “In Palm Beach?” asks the attorney.

  “Yeah.”

  Michael and I never sailed up to Palm Beach, were too busy exploring the Keys and Bahamas. Still, Tradewinds sounds familiar.

  “I was hired to clean a boat real early one morning,” says Lucky. “It’s berthed a little way down from the Dandy Brandy.”

  “Brandy and Mel Lucas’ boat.”

  “Yeah. I saw Mr. Galdino walking down the pier—”

  “Toward the Lucas boat?”

  “No. Away from it.”

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  Lucky glances at Joseph Galdino then quickly looks away. It’s one thing to agree to testify against someone – but a whole ‘nother kettle o’ fish to actually do it. He clears his throat. “Pretty sure. Like I said, it was early. The sun wasn’t up yet and I was working on the aft deck. But I’d seen him lots of times and it sure looked like him. Small guy. Long pants, short-sleeved white shirt that kinda glowed under the dock lights. Most people around the boats don’t dress like that.”

  “Did you think it odd he was leaving the Dandy Brandy before sun-up?”

  “In my experience, a lot of things rich people do seem odd.” Titters ripple through the court. Judge Kossoff quiets it with the arch of an eyebrow.

  “I repeat. Did you think it odd to see him around that early?”

  “Yeah. Most people at the Tradewinds don’t roll out until the crack of noon.”

  The name clicks. The Tradewinds and my marina are part of the same chain. I’ve read articles about the Tradewinds in my Seaview Newsletter – social events, sailing news -- nary a mention of Murder. I wonder if the Dandy Brandy ever sailed into my marina. Does Quincy know Mel and Brandy Lucas, their children, the Galdinos? Suddenly, I can’t wait to get to my phone and call Quincy.

  Judge Kossoff gavels the end of this day and I’m gathering my things when Lucille stops me. “Would you mind terribly doing me a favor?” she asks. “Could you take notes for me tomorrow?”

  -Tomorrow? Am I coming tomorrow?

  -Of course you are.

  “I…I have a doctor wanting to poke around for this and that,” she says, hesitant, not a woman used to asking favors. “I’m hoping to make it back here in time to hear Mrs. Galdino’s testimony. I can’t begin to imagine what the poor woman is going to say. But, just in case I don’t…”

  “Not a problem,” I say, “although the last time I took notes I was wearing grunge.”

  “Oh, honey, you’ll do fine.”

  I follow the crowd out thinking penandpaper, penandpaper, penandpaper. When Michael died, I lost the ability to remember. It was as if grief cauterized my neurons, killed the synapse of connective thought. Penandpaper. I can do this. I will do this. This is a small thing that really matters to this nice woman. Penandpaper, penandpaper, penandpaper. If worse comes to worse and I forget to bring them, I can ask Nikki for a few sheets from her yellow legal pad. I’d rather not. Her current incarnation doesn’t strike me as the sharing kind. Penandpaper, penandpaper, penandpaper.

  Our courtroom is the first one adjourned for the day and I hurry across the empty courtyard toward the elevators. As I pass the other courtroom doors, I feel the power of the dramas going on inside, people battling for their freedom, fighting for their lives. At this exact same moment, across the street in the library park, people relax in the summer shade, talking, laughing, dozing. The juxtaposition of lives in these two places seems eerily surreal.

  My cell phone is beeping when I open the car door. I retrieve it from under the seat, tossing it hand-to-hand hot potato style until it’s cool enough to handle. Quincy left a message twenty minutes ago. “I’ve got a guy interested in renting, maybe buying your boat. He has a few questions. He’s only in town a week or so. Call me.”

  I call Quincy. “The guy says he’ll come whenever you can make it,” he says.

  “I can make it now,” I say. “Call him. If he gets there before me, tackle him and lash him to the yardarm.” My fingers sizzle on the steering wheel. “Oh, and Quincy, do you know —” But he’s already hung up. I’ll talk to him at the marina, ask him if he knows anything about the Dandy Brandy et al.

  9

  Quincy and the man-who-will-buy-my-boat lean against the railing looking out over the marina. From the back, they look like brothers – each resting a foot on the lower rail, bracing tattooed arms against the upper. Even from a distance I recognize the man I’d seen here yesterday. I throw back my shoulders and lift my chin, trying to look as if I’m not desperate to sell.

  “Hey,” I call.

  The men turn. “Here’s our girl,” says Quincy. “Darlin’, this here’s Sam Parker. Sam, Laura Marks.”

  “We’ve met,” he says, his voice pure country-western.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” says Quincy, heading back, “be in my office if you need me.”

  That silence again. What is it with this man? I blink first. “Quincy says you’re buying my boat.”

  “Well, let’s not jump the broom just yet,” he says. “Might be prudent for me to give her a look first.”

  Prudent? Not your usual cowboy word. “This way,” I say, leading Parker along the dock toward the Go Bears. It’s been seven months since I’ve walked this particular walk. Back then, all tan and toned, I was half a sea-faring couple. The Go Bears. smiles at me from her slip. My heart fists at the familiar blend of sea air, diesel fuel and boat wax.

  “I’ll wait here,” I say. “You go ahead, look her over, let me know if you have any questions.”

  Parker jumps on board and I turn my back, raising my face to the sun. A man works on a nearby boat. Michael loved the Zen of boat maintenance but most Seaview owners hire someone like today’s witness, Lucky, to do the grunt work. As soon as Parker leaves I’ll talk to Quincy, see if he knows Lucky from the Tradewinds Marina, or the Lucas family or any of the other players in my trial.

  “How many hours on the engine?” calls Parker.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He ducks back below. Comes up. “Where do you keep the maintenance records?”

  “Sorry. My husband did all that,” tearing up. Shake it off.

  It goes on like this a while, him bobbing in and out asking questions I can’t answer, me trying to inhale-exhale-inhale, pushing away memories of my life on this boat. The smell of diesel fuel makes me nauseous. My mouth goes cotton. Parker comes out again asking about bottom paint.

  “Look,” I say, “Quincy can tell you more than I can. I’m going up to his office. Take all the time you need. You can meet me there when you’re through.”

  Sheets of newspaper cover his desk. Quincy is disassembling a toaster-sized motor, neatly setting the pieces down the rows of stocks on the financial page. His hands are black with grease and his shirt won’t get clean again in this lifetime. “What do you think?” he asks.

  “Lava soap,” I say.

  “About your boat, wise ass.”

  “I think I don’t know a thing about anything. I think you’re going to have to talk to this guy when he’s done poking around.”

  “Happy to.”

  I nudge an oily screw with my fingerna
il, lining it up with the one next to it. “Do you know a guy named ‘Lucky’?” I ask. “Works at the Tradewinds Marina up in Palm Beach?”

  “Sure. Known Lucky for years. He works all the marinas up and down the coast. There’s a bunch of guys like him, good with boats, allergic to anything nine-to-five. Why?”

  Why? Because I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. I push four tiny washers into a neat circle. “I heard him talking about the marina. About a boat named the Dandy Brandy.”

  Quincy goes still. “Terrible what happened. Terrible. Couldn’t believe when I read about it in the papers.”

  “Did you know the owners, Brandy and Mel Lucas?”

  “I sort of remember them,” he says, “but could be I think I do. There’s something about knowing someone who’s been murdered. Like knowing a celebrity. It’s weird.” He works his pliers around a rusted bolt and bears down. His neck veins bulge with the effort. “Those two kids of theirs,” he says, his voice strained, “now them I know. They’ll pull in here with a boatload of friends, tie up while the girls run over to pick up pizzas at Sarah’s Tent. A few times our members complained about their music blaring and I’d have to go ask them to tone it down.” He bears down on the bolt again. “They…don’t take kindly…to authority,” he says. “Damn, this thing is stubborn.” He fires up a small propane torch, heats the bolt until it glows red, then sets a candle on top. The wax melts, flowing along the hot metal into the threads of the bolt.

  From the window I watch Parker climb around the outside of the Go Bears. “Have you heard any scuttlebutt about the murder?” I ask.

  “Not a lot.” Quincy blows on the bolt to cool it. “My buddy Deke Hawkins is harbormaster up at the Tradewinds. When I read about them finding Brandy Lucas’ body, I tried calling Deke. That man loves gossip, knows everything about everyone. A real old lady.”