Solomon and Lord Drop Anchor (solomon versus lord)

by Paul Levine

  What she was feeling now was every bit as hokey as the old Frank Capra tearjerker. A vague disquiet settled over her as she considered notions of justice and honor and the young Scrap Truitt sweating on the football field in a noble but losing effort.

  How could I do it? How could I sit there and smile and wow him with my intellect, all the time planning to sabotage his treasured work? How low can I go?

  She crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge and headed to the national cemetery, parking the car and sitting there in the enveloping darkness. Scattershot thoughts raced through her mind, but one kept returning, kept nagging at her.

  “ Tell me about Lisa Fremont, the person.”

  No. You wouldn’t like Lisa Fremont, the person. But I can change. I want to believe all the flowery phrases about duty and justice and principle. Sam, I want to be like you!

  She didn’t want to be like Max. She was angry with him for manipulating her.

  “ After all I’ve done for you, don’t you think you owe me this?”

  No! Not this.

  She believed there was a time in a person’s life when one decision affects everything else. You head down that crooked side road one mile too far, and you’ll never get back on the highway. But it wasn’t too late to play it straight, and this time, there was nothing Max could say that would change her mind. When she got back to the apartment, she’d tell him. Not only wouldn’t she try to sway Justice Truitt’s vote on the Atlantica case, she’d recuse herself from even preparing the bench memo.

  Her cellular phone rang, startling her. It was Max, wondering when she’d get home. She told him she’d gotten the job; she left for later the rest of the day’s news.

  Max didn’t congratulate her, just mumbled uh-huh, like it was no big deal.

  Like every day a poor girl from Bodega Bay, a teenage runaway, an underage stripper with no future, gets to be a law clerk on the Supreme Court of the United States.

  Now, she had prospects. Entree into the biggest and best law firms. Before taking the clerking job on the D.C. Circuit, she’d been interviewed by a Chicago firm with offices in London, Paris, Moscow, and Rome. Hadn’t the managing partner told her to keep in touch, to call him when her clerkship was over? Well, a year from now, she could waltz right in there. Law firms fall all over one another competing for young lawyers who have sat at the foot of the throne.

  Hey, Max, guess what. A leopard can change her spots.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said on the cellular. “We have to talk.”

  “Yeah, we do,” he said.

  ***

  Two men in suits were waiting inside Lisa’s apartment. Max Wanaker was sleek in his jet black Armani with a thin pinstripe. Theodore Shakanian wore a baggy charcoal gray Wal-Mart special and brown shoes. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and Lisa shot him an angry look. She didn’t let Max or anyone else smoke in her apartment. Lisa knew little about Shakanian, other than the fact that his office was adjacent to Max’s in Atlantica’s Miami headquarters and he was an ex-cop from New York. Ever since the crash in the Everglades, the two men seemed to be spending a lot of time together.

  Max looked grim, his face drawn. “I think you know Shank,” he said, gesturing toward Atlantica’s head of security, a lanky man with three days of black stubble sprouting from an acne-scarred face.

  “I do,” she said. “I just don’t recall inviting him over.”

  Max forced a laugh and smiled apologetically at Shank. “Lisa’s always been territorial. Like a cat.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Put your briefcase down and relax,” Max said. “Shank will explain it.”

  She tossed the briefcase at Max, who caught it just before it clipped him in the forehead. He gently placed it on a sofa of white Haitian cotton.

  “Congratulations on getting your new job,” Shank said, his voice gravelly, like tires crunching loose stones.

  “Thank you,” she said without enthusiasm. “What’s going on?”

  Why the hell was Max spreading the news?

  She’d seen Shank several times in the last few years but had never exchanged more than a casual greeting. A sullen, homely man, he stood perhaps an inch above six feet and had a Sergeant Joe Friday flattop that was so out-of-date it had come back into style. He looked to be between forty and fifty, there was no way to tell. Either he owned only one suit, or he had a closet full of the gray ones, which he always wore with a white shirt and a gray and black tie. She had only seen him once without the suit, in Max’s hotel suite in Paris at the annual air show. He was speaking on the phone in a combination of English and what sounded like Japanese and was wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Lisa had been surprised at the size of his arms. In a suit, he looked rangy, even underweight. In the snug, short-sleeve shirt, she could see thick wrists and powerful, cabled forearms. On one forearm was the tattoo of a knife slicing a heart down the middle.

  “Right now, you’ve got the most important job of anybody at the airline,” Shank said, exhaling a plume of smoke, “and your enterprise falls under my jurisdiction.”

  Lisa wheeled toward Max, the anger building. This was supposed to be between the two of them. Now it was an enterprise. A phrase came back to her from criminal law class: the RICO statute and “racketeering enterprises.” She pictured the FBI, the U.S. attorney task force, and a grand jury all probing into their little enterprise.

  “Damnit, Max, I thought I was doing a personal favor for you. Now, it’s a corporate job? Who else knows? Did you put it in the shareholders’ report?”

  “Calm down, Lisa,” Max said. “Let me fix you a drink.” He walked to the liquor cabinet and tossed some vodka over ice, pouring in bottled orange juice from the minirefrigerator below the wet bar. Then he poured another for himself, his hands trembling. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

  “I don’t want a drink,” she said angrily. “I want you out of my apartment.”

  Max shrugged, chugged one of the screwdrivers, and appropriated the other, carrying it to the sofa where he sat down, apparently content to sit out the dance.

  “ Your apartment is paid for by Atlantica,” Shank said with a sneer, “so I tend to look at it as corporate property and you, Ms. Fremont, as a corporate asset.”

  Lisa fought to control her rage. She had worked so hard to be independent, to be free of anyone else’s control, that she felt violated by the man’s presence in her home. “You can’t invade my privacy like this! You can’t take over my life.”

  Shank didn’t move. He looked amused, watching her as a fleck of ash fell from his cigarette to the red and gold Persian rug.

  Lisa wheeled toward Max, waiting for an explanation, for something that would make sense. After a long pull of the screwdriver, he said, “A matter as sensitive as this, I had to bring in Shank.”

  “And who else?”

  “The general counsel, but no one else.”

  “You told Flaherty! Why not just take an ad in the Post?”

  “Flaherty had to know. He’s the one who ran the projections. All the judges’ opinions were run through the computer and stacked up against the facts of our case. The vote came out four-four. Truitt’s new. He’s the swing vote. If we get him, we win. If we don’t, we lose.”

  She walked toward the faux fireplace, turning away from both men to gather her thoughts. “Then you’re in a lot of trouble. Has Flaherty read Truitt’s law review articles, his speeches? Does he know Truitt was a card-carrying member of the ACLU when he was a young professor? That he did a stint in the Peace Corps? Does he know that every Thanksgiving he still dishes out sweet potatoes at a homeless shelter? In a dispute between corporate executives and widows and orphans, which way do you think he’ll vote?”

  “Everyone has his price!’ Max said.

  “Wrong! Everyone you know has his price, but you don’t know Sam Truitt. He really believes the stuff that’s carved into the marble, the basic decency of people, the rule of law. Trust me. He’s
not the kind of man you can buy.”

  Shank cleared his throat. “That’s exactly why you’re so important, Lisa.”

  It was the first time he’d ever called her by her given name, and for a reason she couldn’t articulate, she didn’t like the familiarity.

  “We’re counting on you to persuade your boss that Atlantica should win,” Shank said. “Simple as that.”

  “When two hundred eighty-eight people die in a plane crash, it’s not so simple.” She was growing even more furious.

  “The trial court ruled for us,” Shank said, smirking, “and so did the appeals court. It’s not Atlantica’s fault if some crazy Cubans bombed the plane.”

  “Shank’s right,” Max piped up. “The trial judge found we weren’t negligent.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? You don’t need my help.”

  Shank smiled, or at least, he bared his teeth, small and jagged like eroded slivers of rock. “Maybe not, but we like to think we’ve bought some insurance.”

  “Sorry, I’m not for sale.”

  Shank’s teeth vanished, and little vertical furrows appeared on his sloping forehead. “Max led me to believe you’d already been paid for.”

  Damn him!

  “Max,” she said, casting him a murderous glance, “is behind the times. Here’s a news flash. I didn’t go to law school to join some conspiracy that could put me in jail. I don’t work for Atlantica, and I don’t work for Max. As of today, I’m an employee of the United States government, and I’m not going to prostitute myself for you or anyone else.”

  “What!” Max was staring at her, wide-eyed. “Lisa. Lisa, darling, I thought we had a deal.”

  “There are no more deals, and there never will be. Now, you two are conspiring to obstruct justice, and I want you out of here.”

  Shank’s laugh crackled like dead leaves underfoot. “Hey, Max. Call a cop. We’re obstructing justice here.”

  Looking worried, not laughing at all, Max hurriedly stood and walked toward Lisa, who stiffened and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Lisa, just hear Shank out,” Max said, agitated. “Please. For me.”

  She’d never seen him this way, so nervous and unsure. There was i a shift of power going on here, but why?

  Jesus, Max. You’re his boss. Why are you deferring to this glorified security guard?

  “You’ve got five minutes,” she said, “and then the two of you can get out of here.”

  Max nodded thankfully and returned to the sofa and his drink.

  Shank ground out his cigarette in a crystal bowl on the coffee! table and said, “We need you to use whatever legal mumbo jumbo you can come up with to win the case.”

  Mumbo jumbo? Oh, that’s clever. Try to fool the guy who’s maybe the smartest legal mind in America.

  “But if you can’t persuade him with the law,” Shank continued, “we have a backup plan.”

  “Really? And what would that be?”

  His smile was a leer. “Max showed me your bedroom, all frilly and smelling of powders and perfumes.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Lisa exploded. “What do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” Shank said. “What do you think you are?”

  She was so astonished by his tone, by the insinuation, that she was momentarily speechless. Who was this thug to insult the boss’s girlfriend, to throw his weight around with Max standing right there? Jesus, she didn’t have to take this. Incensed, she turned to Max. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

  Max looked as if he might have a stroke. “Lisa, please-”

  “It’s not enough that you’re planting an agent on the Court you want me to seduce Truitt, too.”

  “We’re just counting on you to do what you do best Lisa,” Shank said.

  “And what would that be?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “Say it!”

  Shank moved closer, drilling her with his dark eyes. His face was just above hers, invading her space, making her skin crawl, as if she’d just walked into a cobweb. She fought the urge to flinch and turn away.

  Max, how could you let this lowlife bully me?

  When Shank was close enough for Lisa to see every acne crater and smell his sour breath, when he filled her entire range of vision,. when she felt both a distinct revulsion and a palpable fear, he spoke in a snarl, “You’ll fuck him, Lisa. You’ll fuck him real good.”

  “Bastard!” She whirled toward Max. “Did you hear that? This has gotten way out of hand. Since when am I taking orders from your rent-a-cop flunky?”

  Shank laughed again, the sound of a rottweiler barking. “Is that what you told her, Max, that I’m your flunky?”

  “Now see here, Shank…,” Max said, making a jerky gesture with his arm and spilling his drink, his voice trailing off.

  Lisa looked at Max in astonishment.

  “ Now see here?” Like some effete character in a tux straight out of Noel Fucking Coward.

  “Get the hell out of my apartment, both of you!” Lisa shouted.

  Seemingly amused again, Shank turned to Max. “How ‘bout it, boss man, should we leave? Should we vacate the premises?”

  Max started to say something, but nothing came out. He seemed to be nailed to the sofa and to have lost the power of speech. He meekly turned his palms upward in a gesture of surrender.

  “Max is plumb out of ideas,” Shank said, “so I’ll do the talking. In case you missed it the first time, you’ll fuck the judge till he’s blue in the face. You’ll fuck him till he’s cross-eyed. You’ll fuck him till he’s deaf, dumb, and blind. You’ll turn him upside down and inside out and suck him dry. And when he’s so dizzy he doesn’t know his own name, you’ll get his vote because he’ll do any damn thing you ask.”

  Stunned, a flood of bitter memories swept over her: her father telling her that she’d always be able to make a living on her back, the guys at the Tiki offering her wads of bills to meet them in the parking lot after closing, Crockett trying to pimp for her, then beating her up when she wouldn’t go through with it. Max had protected her then; now, he was pushing her into it. The realization came to her with sickening clarity. After all these years, Max had become her pimp!

  “In short, Lisa,” Shank went on, seeming to enjoy every moment, licking each word with his tongue, “you’ll do the judge just like you did old Max here, though frankly, jailbait pussy was probably sweeter. That so, Max? Was it better in the old days?”

  “Now Shank, there’s no need for that,” Max said, standing up but not moving toward the other man. Not leaping across the room and decking the foul-mouthed pig, which is what Lisa imagined Scrap Truitt would have done. She pictured Truitt slugging the swine, breaking his jaw, citing some principle of natural law that empowers a man to defend his woman’s honor.

  “Oh, ex-cuse me,” Shank said, dragging out the words, taunting them both. “You two were in love. The horny executive whose wife didn’t understand him and the stripper with the genius IQ who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.”

  She slapped him, the cr-aack of hand on skin seeming to echo in the apartment. Finally, Max moved, dancing around the coffee table, coming up to Shank, apologizing, begging forgiveness, the girl doesn’t get it yet, it’s not her fault, Jeez Shank, it’ll be okay.

  “Shut up, Max,” Shank said with a certainty that his order would be followed.

  It suddenly occurred to Lisa that if Max was afraid of Shank, she probably should be, too. Who was he, anyway?

  Shank turned back to Lisa and lowered his voice to a frightening whisper. “You’re not fully aware of the situation here, Lisa, and I’m taking that into account. Max has protected you, and I let him. I didn’t want to embarrass him, to cut off his balls in public, so I always walked two steps behind him, like the wife of the Japanese emperor. Except now, I’m a little tired of getting fucked up the ass. It’s important for you to know exactly how it is, to appreciate Max’s position and your own.”

  He
’s talking about Max as if he weren’t here. But then, he really isn’t.

  Shank smiled at her, but it was the smile of the wolf contemplating the hen. Then his right hand shot out, quick as a snake, and seized her by the. wrist. His left hand grabbed her above the right elbow, and he twisted hard, spinning her around, bending the arm painfully until the back of her hand pressed against her shoulder blade. She couldn’t see his face as he spat out the words, “You’re nothing but a little slut who’s forgotten where she belongs. You think you’re smart, but if you were, you would have sized up the situation long ago. You would have shown respect. You would have had fear.”

  He cranked her arm higher, and a searing pain shot through her shoulder. She thought of a chicken’s wishbone snapping in two.

  He leaned even closer to her, brushing his lips through her hair, exhaling foul breath. “Do you know why they call me Shank?”

  “It’s… it’s your name,” she said, confused.

  “No! My name is Shakanian. A shank is a blade that cuts fast and deep. I’m a knife, and I’ll cut right to the meat of you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” But she didn’t understand. It was beyond comprehension.

  “What do you know about me, Lisa?”

  “Nothing,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “So let me tell you. I live alone. I don’t have a wife or a friend or a parakeet. What I’ve got is a lot of time to think. Lately, I’ve been thinking about you and how much you owe Max here, which really means how much you owe Atlantica. Do you follow me, Lisa?”

  Wordlessly, fighting the pain, she nodded.

  “Good.” He released the pressure on her arm slightly but did not let go. “Do you like the movies, Lisa?”

  Whether it was the pain or the fear, or the utter inanity of the question-for a second, she thought he was asking her out-Lisa couldn’t answer.