by Paul Levine
“He couldn’t guarantee the result, but he agreed to play a role. World’s most obnoxious zillionaire, which, frankly, was typecasting. Hey, did you like ‘brain-dead shyster?’ That was my line.”
“Jeez, Ray. This taints my victory.”
“How? There’s no way to know if Fisher turned the jury. He was a minor witness, and Gilberto said you were outstanding. As good as ever. I wish I could have seen you. Here I thought you had one foot in the grave. But you come off the bench like Michael Jordan with the flu, dropping thirty-eight on the Jazz in the finals. You’re a champ.”
Suddenly, I was exhausted. “I feel old, Ray. And behind the times and . . . I don’t know . . . like the merry-go-round keeps spinning faster, and I’m hanging on for dear life.”
“You’ll get over it. Your adrenaline’s spent, and you’ve got the post-trial blues.”
“This seems different.”
“C’mon, you’re the Jakester. You may be the lion in winter. Your fur may be matted, your gait unsteady. But Jake, you are still the lion.”
We were quiet a moment, and I heard a police siren in the distance. From somewhere in the trees, an unseen bird trilled.
He picked up his briefcase. “Are we good, Jake?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Give me some time.”
He clopped me on the shoulder and headed toward his car.
Moments later, when I opened the bedroom door, I saw Melissa, wearing a black negligee, sitting up in bed, reading a book. She looked at my face and said, “Oh, if you’re too tired . . .”
“No! Never too tired.”
She cocked her head coquettishly, if that word is still used in an era where colleges give scholarships to play eGames. “Did I hear Ray Pincher’s voice at the front door?”
I undressed as I told her the details of our conversation. She seemed astonished, but who wouldn’t be? “What about Ray’s question? Are you okay with him?”
I slid into bed next to her, moved close, felt the warmth of her thigh against mine. “Basically, he’s asking for forgiveness.”
“Do you have it in your heart?”
“If not today, when would I? And given what I do for a living, believing in redemption, how could I not?”
“So, you and Ray are friends again?”
“Our friendship has always been like one of those hanging bridges made of bamboo. It shakes and shimmies in the slightest breeze, but it can withstand an earthquake.”
I thought about the ebb and flow of friendship and the challenges of loyalty. I had told Pincher that I wouldn’t have double-crossed him as he did to me. Regardless of my love for Kip, I wouldn’t have turned against him or his daughter. But how do I know? I’d never been faced with the choice.
“Mel, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to invite Ray to our wedding.”
She smiled and nuzzled her cheek against mine. “I always knew there were a thousand reasons I loved you. Now, there are a thousand and one.”
We kissed, and she said, “A thousand and two.”
We kissed some more, and she purred, and my hand slid the strap of her negligee off her shoulder, and she continued, “One thousand and three.”
My kisses descended from her lips to her neck to her breasts, and she said, “Keep going, big guy. I’m really good at math.”
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EXCERPT FROM “BUM LUCK”
Author’s Note: If you enjoyed “Cheater’s Game,” you’ll want to read “Bum Luck.” Here’s the opening line: “Thirty seconds after the jury announced its verdict, I decided to kill my client.” That’s Jake Lassiter, vowing to seek vigilante justice against his own guilty client, who was just acquitted of murder. Fearing their friend has suffered one too many concussions on the football field, Solomon and Lord try to stop Lassiter from becoming a killer. “Bum Luck” also introduces Dr. Melissa Gold. We meet her as Lassiter prepares to take her deposition on a hotel balcony overlooking a California beach. Here’s a short excerpt:
***
In our little alcove, the court reporter administered the oath, and Dr. Melissa Gold promised to tell the truth. I believed her, but then I am a sucker for women who are smart, confident, and did I mention smashing? Yes, I did.
Below us, on the beach, a dog barked happily. Three long-necked gray herons waddled along in formation, then took off, one after the other, like planes on a bombing mission.
Solomon began the easy task of qualifying Dr. Gold as an expert witness. Columbia University undergrad. M.S. in neuroscience and a PhD in molecular science from Yale. M.D. from Duke, board certified in neurology and neuropathology. A bunch of fellowships and papers and honors and currently Director of the Center for Neuroscience at UCLA In short, brainy about brains.
We paused a moment while a server delivered several three-tiered platters of cold seafood—oysters, clams, lobster tails—and two bottles of Perrier Jouet in silver buckets. Different than the usual coffee and a Danish at my depos in the Harman & Fox conference room.
I glanced at Solomon who grinned back at me. “If you’re looking for your abalone, I sent them to the fish market in the harbor to get the freshest in town,” he said.
Most of the time Solomon drove me nuts. But there were times when he just startled me with his graciousness. Which made me wonder if Victoria had the same reaction.
Solomon slurped down an oyster and returned his attention to Dr. Gold. He kept lobbing questions and she kept hitting winners. She had studied athletes with neurogenerative diseases and military veterans with battlefield brain injuries. She was the lead neuropathologist in the autopsies of twenty-four former NFL players, twenty of whose brains revealed chronic traumatic encephalopathy. She credited Dr. Bennet Omalu of Pittsburgh for discovering and naming CTE and Dr. Ann McKee at Boston University for helping identify the four stages of the disease.
Under Solomon’s prodding, Dr. Gold modestly agreed that she was a “pioneer” in neuroimaging of cognitive dysfunction in former NFL players, using a modified PET scan, something that allowed living persons to be diagnosed, though not with one hundred percent accuracy.
“Unfortunately, autopsies are a better diagnostic tool,” she said.
Dr. Gold was part of the team that battled the NFL, which for years shamefully argued that there was no connection between multiple concussions and traumatic brain injury. Yeah, pretty much like the tobacco companies and lung cancer.
Dr. Gold mentioned how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had, until recently, steadfastly denied the link between the beloved game and death. “There’s risks in life,” Goodell famously said. “There’s risks to sitting on the couch.”
I would like to clothesline Goodell, smash the bastard with a forearm to the throat, then set his damn couch on fire. He could buy a new one with the forty-four million bucks the team owners paid him last year. What excuse could there be for the NFL falsifying its head-injury reporting, omitting hundreds of concussions and paying off physicians who found no link between concussions and dementia? Then, after staking out its indefensible position, the NFL hired tobacco company lawyers and lobbyists to press its case. Basically, the sport that replaced baseball as the national pastime had become a multi-billion dollar racketeering enterprise.
Solomon asked Dr. Gold to name some of the former players who had died from CTE. Her answer sounded like an all-time All-Pro team.
“Frank Gifford. Junior Seau. Earl Morrall. Mike Webster. Ken Stabler. Ollie Matson. Andre Waters. Cookie Gilchrist. Dave Duerson. Terry Long. John Mackey.”
Dr. Gold paused after each name, as if conducting a memorial service for the victims of a mass disaster. She explained the medicine. Essentially, traumatic brain injury leads to a disruption of the scaffolding structures in the neurons. And yes, she’d written several peer-reviewed articles concerning CTE in former NFL players, both dead and alive. Then there was the really scary finding from a study she had just completed. Repeated sub-concussive blows to the head suffered by high school and college football players co
uld cause brain damage later.
I sipped my Champagne and said, “Why don’t I just spare everyone undue time and the court reporter undue effort and stipulate that Dr. Gold is an expert in traumatic brain injury generally and CTE specifically?”
“So stipulated,” Solomon said. “Thank you, Mr. Lassiter. Your collegiality is appreciated. Dr. Gold, I’m now turning you over to my partner, Victoria Lord.”
“What’s with the handoff?” I asked, terminating my collegiality. “Solomon, I thought you were carrying the ball today.”
“Vic knows more medicine than I do,” he said.
“My bartender knows more medicine than you do. What’s that got to do with it?”
“You want the truth, Jake? I don’t want you objecting and cluttering up the record.”
“So don’t ask objectionable questions.”
“If Victoria handles the depo, you won’t object. Maybe it’s because of chivalry. Maybe it’s something deeper.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s a better lawyer than you are,” I said.
Dr. Gold cleared her throat and looked at Victoria. “Are they always like this?”
“Always,” Victoria replied.
“Men,” the doctor said, with just a hint of a smile.
“I know,” Victoria said, nodding. “They’re like a couple of stags who paw the earth, lock horns, and push each other around. Then they just stop and look for something to eat. Who can figure them out?”
Both women laughed. They seemed to be sharing a moment that excluded Solomon and me. Then I realized it had doubtless been Victoria’s idea to handle the substantive questioning herself. Woman to woman. So much easier to establish common ground. I admired the strategy.
“I nearly became a psychiatrist,” Dr. Gold said. “Sometimes, I wish I had. It would surely help in understanding men.”
“The male animal,” Victoria said. “Eternal puzzlement.”
And they both laughed again.
#
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EXCERPT FROM “BUM RAP”
“Bum Rap,” an Amazon Number One Bestseller, brings together Jake Lassiter with Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. Here’s a preview. For more information or to purchase, please visit the BUM RAP AMAZON PAGE.
-1-
The gunshot hit Nicolai Gorev squarely between the eyes. His head snapped back, then whipped forward, and he toppled face-first onto his desk.
There were two other people in the office of Club Anastasia.
Nadia Delova, the best Bar girl between Moscow and Miami, stared silently at Gorev as blood oozed from his ears. She had seen worse.
Steve Solomon, a South Beach lawyer with a shaky reputation, spoke over the echo still ringing off the walls. “I am in deep shit,” he said.
-2-
ONE WEEK EARLIER…
Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
In Re: Investigation of South Beach Champagne Clubs and one “John Doe”
File No. 2014-73-B
Statement of Nadia Delova
July 7, 2014
(CONFIDENTIAL)
Q: My name is Deborah Scolino, assistant United States attorney. Please state your name.
A: Nadia Delova.
Q: How old are you?
A: Twenty-eight.
Q: Where were you born?
A: Saint Petersburg. Russia. Not Florida.
Q: What is your occupation?
A: What do I look like? Nuclear physicist?
Q: Ms. Delova, please . . .
A: Bar girl. I am Bar girl.
Q: What does that entail?
A: Entails my tail. [Witness laughs]. Is simple job. I get men to buy cheap champagne for expensive price.
Q: How do you do that?
A: We go to nice hotel. Fontainebleau or Delano. Me and Elena on hunting parties.
Q: Do you dress as you have today? For the record, a tight-banded mini in hot pink. I’m guessing Herve Leger.
A: Is knockoff. But shoes are real. Valentino slingbacks with four-inch heels. I dress good on hunting parties.
Q: And just what are you hunting for?
A: Tourists. Men with money. We look for expensive watches. Patek Philippe. Audemars Piguet. Rolex Submariner.
Q: So you approach the men?
A: At the hotel bar. We make small talk. “Oh, you are so handsome. Tell us about Nebraska.” We say we know a private club with good music.
Q: What club is that?
A: Anastasia. On South Beach.
Q: What happens when you get there?
A: Bartender serves free vodka shots, except ours—mine and Elena’s—are water. When the man is drunk, we order champagne. Nicolai buys it for twenty-five dollars at Walmart. Charges a couple thousand a bottle, but the man is so drunk, he signs credit card because Elena has her tongue in his ear, or my hand is in his crotch. Or both.
Q: Just who is Nicolai?
A: Nicolai Gorev. Owner of Club Anastasia.
Q: Ms. Delova, we need you to help the government’s investigation of Nicolai Gorev.
A: Nyet.
Q: Ms. Delova . . .
A: I am not as stupid as you might think.
-3-
“I didn’t shoot the bastard,” Steve Solomon said.
“Tell me the truth, Steve.”
“Jeez, Vic, I am.” Sounding frustrated. Telling the story over and over. He spread his arms and held his palms upward, the gesture intended to show he wasn’t hiding anything.
Victoria studied him. She’d been studying Solomon for several years now. He was her law partner and lover. Solomon & Lord.
Victoria Lord. Princeton undergrad, Yale Law.
Steve Solomon. University of Miami undergrad. Key West School of Law.
Victoria graduated summa cum laude. Steve graduated summa cum luck.
She practiced law by the book. He burned the book. But in court . . . well in court, they were a powerful team.
Solomon & Lord.
Steve had street smarts and was a master of persuasion. Victoria knew the law, which helped with judges. Plus, she was likable, a necessity with juries. Steve also had one talent Victoria lacked: he could lie with a calm certainty no polygraph could ever discover.
She loved Steve. And hated him. Sometimes they argued over “good morning.” But life sizzled when they were together and fizzled when they were apart. Right now, one wrong move, and they could be apart forever.
“Tell me again,” she said. “Everything.”
“Why?”
“I want to see if you tell the same story two times in a row.”
“Aw, c’mon, Vic.”
They were sitting in a lawyers’ visitation room at the Miami-Dade County jail. The metal desk and two chairs were bolted to the concrete floor. Victoria hated the place. It smelled of sweat and disinfectant and something vaguely like cat piss. Her ankle-strap Gucci pumps had slipped on something wet—and yellow—when she had walked down the corridor. She always felt nauseous visiting a client here. Now that the accused was Steve, she also felt a throat-constricting fear.
To get into the jail, she had shown her Florida Bar card. To get out, Steve would need a very good lawyer. She had tried—and won—several murder trials. But with all the emotional baggage, she felt incapable of representing Steve. A surgeon didn’t operate on a loved one.
“If you didn’t kill Gorev, who did?” she asked.
“Like I said, Nadia Delova, our client.”
“Our client?”
“Okay, you were at a hearing in Broward. Nadia was a walk-in. She had five thousand in cash and said she just needed me for a one-hour meeting.”
“Where’s the money?”
“In an envelope in my desk drawer.”
“When were you going to tell me about it?”
“That reminds me of a law
yer joke.”
“Not now, Steve.”
“A lawyer sends out a bill for five thousand dollars, and the client mistakenly sends him ten thousand dollars. What’s the ethical question?”
“Obviously, should he return the money?”
“No! Should he tell his partner?”
Steve laughed at his own joke. He had a habit of doing that. A lot of his old habits were starting to irritate her. Accepting new clients without her approval was one. Straddling the border between ethical and sleazy conduct was another. Getting charged with murder was a new one.
“Where’s Nadia now?”
“That’s what I need to find out. Or you do.”
“You understand your predicament?”
“The cops found me in a locked room with a dead man and a smoking gun. Yeah, I have a pretty good idea.”
“Tell me everything from the top.”
“Nadia was waiting when I unlocked the door to our office at about eight fifteen a.m. She said she was a Bar girl. Very up front about it.”
“How admirable.”
Steve ignored her sarcasm and plowed ahead. “She must have come straight from work, because she was all dolled up. Minidress. Heels. Jewelry. Gloves.”
“Gloves in Miami. In July.”
“Dressy black gloves. Up to the elbows. Like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“Wasn’t Holly a prostitute?”
“Only in the book. In the movie, she was more like a fun date.”
Just outside the door, a baby wailed. It was a weirdly discordant sound in this dreadful place. The common visitation area, a dismal space with rows of benches for families, was adjacent to the lawyers’ room. The baby’s keening reached an impossibly high pitch, and Victoria felt a headache coming on.
“Physical description of this Nadia?” she asked.