by Paul Levine
“Thanks, but I feel great,” I lied.
He looked across Ocean Drive toward the bustling cafes and shops. “I love this neighborhood. Such life it’s got! Wouldn’t Meyer have loved to see the changes?” Perlow gestured with his cane toward the canyons along Collins Avenue. “Meyer lived just north of the Eden Roc. Modest little condo. I used to keep him company while he walked his dog.” Perlow grinned at the memory. “Yappy little bastard he called ‘Bruzzer.’ ”
I didn’t invite him, but Perlow sat down next to me on the coral wall, doffing his fedora in a polite, outdated way. The hat had a jaunty orange feather, and I wondered if a nearsighted heron might try to mate with it.
“Alex tells me you’re gonna ask the Attorney General to open an investigation.”
“His relationship with Ziegler compromises his impartiality,” I said. “So, yeah, I’m gonna rattle some cages in Tallahassee, see if I can get a team of FDLE agents down here. Turn over some rocks, maybe find some scorpions underneath.”
“Innuendos about Alex would be damaging to his career.”
“Not my concern.”
He gave me a look through those drooping eyelids, but the eyes themselves burned hot.
“Walk with me, Mr. Lassiter. I need the exercise.”
I followed him, tossing the rest of the sandwich into a trash can. In the street, a creamy white Bentley crept alongside us.
Perlow waved at the driver, a Hispanic man who filled a considerable portion of the front seat. “Go on, Nestor. Leave us.” The car pulled away, quiet as diamonds dropping on velvet.
“Your bodyguard?”
“Feh! Why would I need protection? I’m an honest businessman.” He gave me a little smile. “Of course, Nestor is excellent with a handgun. As good as Lucky Luciano’s boys, and they could shoot.”
A BMW convertible drove by, top down, C.D. player cranked up, as if the entire neighborhood was dying to listen to Bob Marley admit he’d shot the sheriff but spared the deputy.
“Where’s your client?” Perlow asked.
“I don’t know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Are you not concerned, Mr. Lassiter? A neurotic woman threatened you with a gun.”
“And you care because …?”
“She also threatened my partner. That makes it my business.”
“I’ll find her, and I’ll deal with her. I don’t want you or your pistol-packing driver anywhere near her.”
“If she comes after Charlie, you can’t protect her. Do you take my meaning?”
“I take it as a threat.”
“It’s simple advice. I’ve spoken to Alejandro. He won’t charge her for that incident at the gun range if you can get her to leave town.”
I shook my head and laughed.
“What?” he said.
“From walking Meyer Lansky’s dog to delivering messages for the State Attorney. I can’t figure out if you’ve come up or down in the world.”
“Such a smart mouth you have.”
We’d walked less than a block when Perlow stopped and said, “I’m bushed. Let’s sit.”
I followed him through a gate in the coral rock wall, and we found a bench in the shade of a palm on the beach, the fronds swaying in the ocean breeze. Thirty yards away, a shirtless, leathery-skinned man of maybe ninety worked a metal detector across the sand.
“I have no wife, Mr. Lassiter,” Perlow said, somberly. “No children or grandchildren or blood relatives I give a shit about. Alex means everything to me.”
“I know. His old man gave you a job at the casino. You stood in for him the day they snipped Alex’s foreskin.”
“Alex is the son I never had,” Perlow said. “I would do anything for him.”
I believed him. The godfather was a real Godfather.
“Years ago, when Charlie Ziegler was schtupping that underage girl, I told Alex to stay away from him.”
“But Alex didn’t listen.”
“He was young. He couldn’t see Ziegler for what he was. A weak man. A man of the flesh.”
I thought of one of Granny’s old cracker expressions. If you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas. Or at Ziegler’s house, chlamydia.
“If the Attorney General investigates,” Perlow said, “there’ll be a flood of publicity. Even though he’s done nothing wrong, Alex will be linked to a man who seduced underage girls.”
“Like I said before, not my concern.”
“You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Lassiter. Surely it is not necessary for me to underscore how precarious your position is.”
“I think I got the point when you mentioned how good a shot your pistolero is.”
Perlow used a knuckle to scratch at his Errol Flynn mustache. “So, why so damned stubborn?”
“Because I don’t like being pushed around. When I am, I push back. So, no, I’m not gonna abandon my plans. In fact, I’ll expand them. If Castiel is involved in a cover-up, the feds ought to be interested, too. I’ll ask the Justice Department to take a look at all three of you. I’ll bet there are files on you going back so far, J. Edgar Hoover hadn’t started wearing dresses.”
The old man shook his head and sighed. On the beach, two copper-toned young women were playing Frisbee. They wore micro-thongs and nothing on top. I didn’t pay attention to their Frisbee skills.
“How’s your knowledge of history, Mr. Lassiter?”
“I know who bombed Pearl Harbor.”
“Do you know about Meyer Lansky ordering the hit on Ben Siegel?”
“I saw the movie Bugsy, if that counts.”
“They’d grown up together, and Meyer loved Ben like a brother. But Ben was stealing, and after a warning, Meyer felt he had no choice. Do you take my meaning, Mr. Lassiter?”
“Lansky had Bugsy killed, even though he didn’t want to.”
“Think how it pained Meyer. And consider that I have no feelings whatsoever toward you.”
Perlow nudged the fedora back on his head, got to his feet, and waved his cane in the air. It must have been a magic cane, because the Bentley immediately appeared, easing up to the curb.
Nestor, the husky driver and crack shot, came out and held the door open. Tats up and down both arms, a five-pointed crown on the back of his shaved head. Latin Kings gangbanger.
“Will you answer a question, Perlow?” I said.
“What?”
“That party that Krista Larkin didn’t go to …”
“What about it?” Perlow ducked into the car.
“Were you there?”
“Of course, Mr. Lassiter” came the voice from the darkened backseat. “Everyone was there.”
36 Three Mysterious Cars
Hoofing it back to the office along Espanola Way, I was especially alert. Head swiveling this way and that, I was on the lookout for anything or anyone out of the ordinary.
Like one of Nestor’s Latin King hermanos.
When I got upstairs, I told my assistant, Cindy, about Perlow’s threat, trying to make it sound funny, an old guy shaking his cane at me. Pretending I wasn’t even a teensy bit scared.
Cindy immediately expressed concern.
“How about two months’ severance?”
“But you’re still working.”
“Talking about if they sever your head. How about writing a check now?”
“Relax, Cindy. Nothing’s gonna happen.”
“Maybe not if you bail. Forget about Krista Larkin.”
“Can’t do it. I’m getting close or Ziegler and Perlow wouldn’t be going bat shit.”
“Really? You’re getting close?” Cindy cocked a pierced eyebrow. “First Alex Castiel says there’s nothing his office can do, he thinks Charlie Ziegler is a great guy. Then Ziegler sends a little honey to your house. Against all odds, you turn her down, and Ziegler has two thugs grab you. This Perlow guy tells you to back off or he’ll wreck your law practice. Then Ziegler says Krista ran off with some biker. But to make everyone feel better, he offers Amy a hund
red grand and thirty for you. When that doesn’t work, an ex-cop who works for Ziegler beats you up.”
“I think that was personal.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Your client flips out, shoots the car you love, which? — just guessing here-means she fired you. It doesn’t sound like you’re getting close to anything except erased. Which is why I’m asking for two months’ pay in advance, plus medical.”
“Forget it.” Before shooing her out of my office, I asked what she’d found on the old purple Impala that followed me to the shooting range.
“Registered to a Terence Connor of Boca Raton.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Pension planner who owns about a dozen vintage cars.”
“Get me a phone number.”
“Doubt he’s gonna answer. He looted his clients’ accounts, got indicted, and skipped town. He’s a fugitive.”
It made no sense. The owner of the Escalade was in prison, and this guy was on the run. I failed to get the plate number of the Hummer, so no telling who might own that vehicle, but I wasn’t ruling out Bernie Madoff.
Cindy returned to her cubicle and I looked over my calendar of appointments. It was New Customers day, and pickings were slim. A lawyer pal faced disciplinary action for dressing as a priest and rushing over to a downtown building that had just collapsed. While giving last rites, he whipped out contingency fee contracts. I made a note to look into getting a seminary degree online-backdated, if possible.
The phone rang, as it does once in a while. I was hoping it was Amy. Cindy answered and buzzed me. “There’s trouble at Kip’s school, boss. Get over there, ASAP.”
37 The Old Instep Stomp
I drove across the MacArthur Causeway on new steel-belt radials and looped onto I-95, which dropped me off on Miami Avenue. The top was down, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was going full throttle, singing “The Sky Above, the Mud Below,” a tale of horse rustling and kangaroo court justice.
“Someone go and dig a ditch, there may well be a hanging.”
The old Eldo rolled through the business section of Coconut Grove, then under a canopy of Japanese banyan trees, and into the gated entrance of Tuttle-Biscayne, the ritzy bayfront school where Motor Boating is an elective.
A moment later, I was in the reception room of Winston Perkins, Director of Student Affairs. His assistant said “The Commodore” would see me now.
Commodore Perkins was in his fifties and wore a blue blazer with gold buttons, a blinding white shirt, and a red silk ascot. Yeah, an ascot like the Duke of fucking Windsor, or Don Knotts on Three’s Company. My nephew sat in a chair in his regulation khaki pants, long-sleeve shirt, and a mossy green tie. I was the only one without neckware. Today’s T-shirt read: “I Would Kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.”
“Tell me, Mr. Lassiter,” the Commodore said, “does violence run in your family?”
I didn’t get it. Then he made a small gesture toward my face. Aha. The bruises and scrapes.
“Oh, this? I got stomped by an ex-cop I’d kicked around a few days before.”
He looked as if he’d just tasted curdled milk, so I added, “But I’ve always taught Kip that violence is wrong.”
My nephew stifled a semi-snicker.
“Then how can you explain his assaulting Carl Kountz?”
“You kidding? Carl’s a horse, your star fullback and first baseman and whatever you call it in lacrosse.”
“Mid-fielder,” the Commodore said.
They played a lot of fancy sports at Tuttle. Squash. Golf. Sailing. Four-oar shells. Plus some varsity teams that didn’t seem like sports at all. Paintball. Chess. And my personal favorite, the Green Technology Team.
“Carl is an outstanding scholar-athlete, and your nephew sent him to the hospital.”
“That sounds serious.” I tried not to sound pleased but didn’t quite succeed.
“I hit him with the combination you taught me, Uncle Jake,” Kip said. “A left jab, then a right to the jaw. He didn’t fall, so I stomped on his instep as hard as I could.”
The Commodore made a tsk-tsk sound. “Broke three metatarsals in Carl’s right foot.”
“The prick pissed in my locker, and all his friends laughed,” Kip said.
“Watch your language, lad,” Commodore Perkins said. “Even if Carl did such a thing, there was no reason for violence. We have channels to air grievances.”
In my experience, you air laundry. You handle grievances by yourself.
“I didn’t hit back right away,” Kip said. “But then, at baseball practice, Carl sucker punched me, really hard.”
“Only a bully and a coward does that,” I said.
I hate bullies. Big guys who are puny on the inside. Filled with self-hatred, they take it out on those they think can’t fight back. I’d told Kip to clobber Carl the next time something happened. A fist to the nose is a good start. It will make a man’s eyes tear, and a gusher of blood makes some guys pass out. The instep stomp is a little more creative. I’d bought a dozen bags of potato chips for practice. After a few tries, Kip was able to explode the bag and shoot crushed chips halfway across the backyard.
“Carl denies instigating the event, either physically or verbally,” Perkins said.
“Fine. Bring him in, and I’ll cross-examine.”
The Commodore tilted his chin upward so that I could count his nose hairs, and gave me a tolerant little smile. I hate that look.
“We don’t have trials here, Mr. Lassiter. I personally handle all disciplinary hearings, as outlined in the parent-student handbook, which I assume you have read.”
“Cover to cover.”
“In this case, I will take into account Carl’s stellar record and your nephew’s problematic status.”
“Meaning?”
“On his application, you failed to disclose his juvenile record. Trespassing. Malicious mischief. Destruction of property.”
“A little graffiti tagging.” I felt my face heat up, the scrapes on my forehead burning. “Kip was living in an abusive situation with his mother-that’s my sister-and he acted out.”
“Your sister, I note, also has a criminal record.”
“She’s a tweaker and a crackhead. You gonna hold that against Kip?”
“Only insofar as it affects his actions.”
“Kip finished a counseling program, and the record was expunged.” Then it occurred to me. The juvenile file was sealed. “How the hell did you get Kip’s file?”
The Commodore shifted in his chair and looked out the window. He had a fine view of the campus quadrangle. Overprivileged girls in tartan plaid skirts and knee socks sashayed to class alongside gangly boys in white shirts and loosened ties.
“I have certain connections.” Measuring his words like yeast in a bread pan.
“Where? Only the clerk and the State Attorney’s Office …” I felt a ball of molten lava rising in my gut. “That bastard! Alex Castiel told you.”
The Commodore didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Castiel was a “distinguished alumnus” with his photo in a trophy case in the lobby. He’d helped get Kip into the school. Now he was using that against me.
“That motherfucker,” I said.
“Mr. Lassiter, please. You’re making things worse.”
“Okay, Commodore. Or Admiral. Or swab jockey, second class. Kip’s situation is not ‘problematic.’ You expel him or suspend him or put a pissy little note in his file, and I’ll tie you up in lawsuits for the next ten years.”
“I think not, Mr. Lassiter. We comply with all laws, state and federal.”
“Was that weed I smelled walking across your quad? Let’s get some police dogs in here and open some lockers.”
“I assure you, Mr. Lassiter, we monitor the students quite closely.”
“Do you monitor the teachers, too? I’ll bet there’s some real popular young guy who’s banging a cheerleader. A coach who’s juicing his players. Now that I think of it, Tuttle-Biscayne is probably a racketeering ent
erprise that ought to be shut down.”
“That’s absurd!” The Commodore’s eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed, and his ascot seemed askew. “I run a tight ship, and I yield neither to headwinds nor threats.” The Commodore began flipping through his date book. “I’ll set a date for a disciplinary hearing and we’ll conclude this matter.”
My cell phone rang. Caller I.D. said “Private Number,” which pissed me off. If you’re calling someone, you’re going to say your name in a second, anyway. Why not give a little preview?
“I’m busy,” I answered.
“Jake, it’s Amy. Thank God you’re there.” Her voice rushed and frantic.
“Where are you, Amy? Where’ve you been?”
“They found me, Jake.”
“Who?”
“Ziegler’s people. I moved into a new motel. They broke into my room while I was gone.”
“Try to calm down. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”
“Can I come to your house?”
“Of course.”
“They tore up my things, Jake. Ripped my clothes to shreds like wild animals.”
“Important thing is, you’re okay.”
“My gun, Jake! They stole my gun.”
38 The Rendezvous
Driving north on I-95 on Saturday morning, Charlie Ziegler thought he was being followed by a bright red Cadillac Escalade with spinning wheel covers and chugging lake pipes. A rolling Miami cliche.
Ziegler’s own wheels were a modern classic. A brand-new Ferrari, the California model, practically the first one off the boat.
Ziegler checked the side mirror. The Escalade was two cars behind. He hit the gas, and his Ferrari leapt forward like a feral cat. He eased into the speed lane. Did the Escalade follow him? No, it was stuck in the middle lane.
Who the hell are you and what do you want?
Ziegler had first noticed the car when he took the flyover at Golden Glades Interchange. He’d been thinking about a recent dinner at Bourbon Steak, a fancy joint a couple miles east in Aventura. The Governor had been there, talking about saving the wetlands-boring! — and raising money for a run at the open U.S. Senate seat. Ziegler would not only feed the governor’s face but also his coffers. He’d solicit some downtown friends and bundle the contributions. In return, well, you didn’t just come out and say those things up front. No, the quid pro quo was always ex post facto.