Kill All the Lawyers: A Solomon vs. Lord Novel, page 7
part #3 of Solomon Vs. Lord Series
Maybe his father was right, Steve thought. Maybe Kreeger just wanted a sidekick.
“I’m vox populi,” Kreeger continued. “The voice of an aggrieved populace that hates lawyers. You keep playing the dunce.”
“I wasn’t playing.”
A newsman’s baritone voice came over a speaker. The stock market was up. The water table was down.
City fathers were shocked, shocked to discover that prostitution was rampant along Biscayne Boulevard. Kreeger turned a dial and lowered the volume a notch. “You know, I really admire you, Solomon. What you did to me took balls.”
Steve stayed quiet.
“You’re not curious how I found out?” Kreeger asked.
Steve took a long breath, said nothing. On the speakers, the news anchor was giving the fishing report. Mackerel were running. Snapper, on the other hand, were merely swimming.
“Right in the middle of my trial,” Kreeger continued, “the State Attorney files a notice about a so-called similar incident. What’s it called?”
“Williams Rule material,” Steve said. “The state can introduce similar incidents from a defendant’s past to show a pattern of conduct.”
“Yeah. Poor Jim Beshears drowns down in the Keys. And years later, wretched Nancy Lamm drowns in my hot tub. Kind of a stretch tying those two together, don’t you think, Counselor?”
“Not when each person got hit on the head with a pole you happened to be holding. The judge thought the first incident was similar enough to be admissible.”
“My quibble’s not with the judge, Solomon.”
In the background, Steve could hear a commercial for a local dating service for overworked and horny executives.
“One day, when the appeal was pending,” Kreeger went on, “I looked through every piece of paper in the file. You know what I found? Two copies of the police report of the boat accident. One attached to the State Attorney’s brief and one in your file.”
“So what? Pincher was required to give me a copy when he filed his Williams Rule notice.”
“Right. Except your copy had an earlier time stamp. You had the police report first and you gave Pincher a photocopy. You dropped the dime on your own client.”
Steve didn’t say a word. There could be a tape recorder rolling. They were, after all, in a recording studio.
The damn time stamps. He’d been sloppy, Steve realized. Well, what could you expect? He’d never sold out a client before.
“At first,” Kreeger said, “I was mad enough to kill you. And you, of all people, know I’m capable, right? Then I realized you do whatever it takes. You live by your own code. You violated your attorney’s oath in order to put your own client away.” Kreeger rumbled a laugh. It sounded like coal pouring down a chute. “I get goose bumps just thinking about it. You put my theories into practice, Solomon. We’re like long-lost brothers, you and I.”
“I don’t kill people.”
“Not yet.” Another laugh. Then, with what seemed like dead-earnest sincerity, Kreeger said, “We’re gonna be great friends. We’re gonna spend some quality time together.”
“The hell we are.”
“C’mon, Solomon. You owe me that much. In fact, you owe me six years. There I was, eating all that starchy food, living in a cell with a metal toilet, and you were out here enjoying the good life. You’ve got yourself a lady. What’s her name? Victoria, right? I look forward to meeting her. And you have your nephew with you. Robert. Has some medical problems, doesn’t he?
And you had a bit of a dustup with the state over custody. Well, you’d better keep your record clean. Wouldn’t want to upset those hard-asses at Family Services. And how’s your father, by the way? Judge Solomon drinking too much these days?”
There are lots of ways to threaten someone, Steve thought. At one end of the spectrum, your lawyer can send a letter, advising that you intend to use all lawful means to enforce your legal rights. At the other end, you can jam the barrel of a gun into someone’s mouth, breaking off teeth and yelling you’re going to blow their brains all over the wall. Or you can take a middle ground. You can mention everyone in the world the person loves and just leave it at that. Steve felt his face heat up, and his stomach clenched itself into a fist.
“Stay away from them, Kreeger. Stay the hell away or I’ll cut you into little pieces and feed you to the sharks.”
“Doubt it. Like you said, Steve, you’re not a killer.”
“And like you said: Not yet.”
“Pardon me for not peeing on my socks, but I’ve just spent six years in a rattlesnake nest and never got bit.”
“Maybe your next stay, you won’t be so lucky.”
“Now, why would I go back to prison?”
“It’s just a matter of time before you feel wronged by someone. You’ll use that bullshit philosophy of yours to justify your actions, and before you can say, ‘Man overboard,’ there’s another body floating facedown. So maybe I will stick close to you, Kreeger, because I want to be there the day the cops come knocking on your door.”
No one knocked, but the cushioned door to the control room popped open and two City of Miami Beach cops walked in. Weird, Steve thought. But life is like that sometimes. You think of a woman you haven’t seen in three or four years, and that day she comes knocking on your door, with a little boy at her side who looks alarmingly like you. Not that it had ever happened to him, but he’d heard stories.
So what were the Beach cops doing out of their jurisdiction? Had Kreeger slashed some tourist’s throat while waiting in line at Joe’s Stone Crab?
“Are you Stephen Solomon?” The cop wore sergeant’s stripes and had a mustache. He was in his forties, with a tired look.
“Guilty,” Steve said. “What’s this about?”
He was vaguely aware that Kreeger was leaning close to the microphone, his voice a portentous whisper. “Exclusive report. Breaking news here at WPYG. You’re live with Dr. Bill… .”
“You’re under arrest, Mr. Solomon,” the sergeant said wearily.
“For what! What’d I do, curse on the air?”
“Steve-the-Shyster Solomon arrested, right here in Studio A,” Kreeger rhapsodized.
“Assault and battery.”
“I haven’t hit the bastard yet.” Steve nodded toward Kreeger.
“Not him. A guy named Freskin.”
“Who the hell is that?”
The younger cop took a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Please place your hands behind your back, sir.”
Damn polite, just like they teach them in cop school.
“I don’t know any Freskin.”
“I have to pat you down, sir,” the younger cop persisted.
“The excitement builds,” Kreeger announced, sounding like Joe Buck doing a World Series game. “They’re putting the cuffs on Solomon.”
“Goddammit. Who’s Freskin?” Steve felt a mixture of anger and humiliation.
“State probation officer,” the sergeant answered. “Arnold Freskin. You assaulted him in your law office.”
Oh, him!
“That freak? He was getting off wrestling with my secretary.”
Even as he spoke, Steve knew he was violating the advice he gave to every client he’d ever had.
“Never talk to the cops. You’ll only dig yourself a deeper hole.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” the sergeant reminded him. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney—”
“I know. I know.”
“They’re taking him downtown,” Kreeger sang out cheerfully. “Is Steve Solomon not only a shyster, but a violent thug, too? Stay tuned.”
Ten
EVEN MURDERERS NEED PALS
Steve stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the ink off his fingertips. He’d been booked and processed, fingerprinted and photographed, and generally ridiculed by cops and corrections officers who knew him from court. He had spent two hours in a holding cell where the walls were covered with yellowish-brown graffiti. Generations of inmates had used mustard from their state-issued bologna sandwiches to leave their misspelled profanities to posterity. Perhaps not as impressive as Paleolithic cave drawings, the graffiti nonetheless provided a sociological snapshot of our underclass, as well as an indictment of our public schools.
Judge Alvin Elias Schwartz released Steve without bail on the grounds that His Honor used to play pinochle with the defendant’s father. Steve would be required to show up in a week to be arraigned on charges of assault and battery and obstructing a state official, to wit: Mr. Arnold G. Freskin, in the performance of his duties. According to the criminal complaint, Freskin’s duties included an “on-site interview with a probationer,” which Steve figured sounded better than an “erotic wrestling match with an undressed secretary.”
Steve had taken a sweaty taxi ride home, the Jamaican driver explaining the A/C was on the blink, but Steve figured the guy was just saving gas. Steve’s pants and shirt stuck to the vinyl seats, though the heat didn’t seem to bother the driver, who was sitting on one of those beaded back supports.
“You sounded like a horse’s ass on the radio today.” Herbert Solomon sat at the kitchen table, sipping kosher red wine and eviscerating his son. “A real putz.”
“Thanks for the support, Dad.” Steve was not up for his father’s abuse. It had been a shitty day, and it wasn’t over yet. In an hour, he would have to put on a smiley face and brush-kiss Irene Lord. The Queen. Victoria’s mother. A woman so cold and imperious she made Martha Stewart seem warm and cuddly.
“Ah bailed you out, didn’t ah?”
“I was released on my own recognizance. All you did was call the judge.”
“That’s a helluva lot.”
“You could have driven downtown and picked me up from the jail.”
“Not after sundown, boychik.”
“Why, you got night blindness?”
“Shabbos, you shmoe!”
“What is it, open-bar night at temple?”
“Wouldn’t hurt you to come along. Say a Sh’ma or two.”
So that explained his father’s outfit. A double-breasted blue blazer, rep tie with khaki walking shorts and sneakers. Ever since the old man went ortho, he began adhering to the rule of not driving between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. Now, looking like a demented Englishman in the midday sun, he was ready for the three-mile trek to Temple Judea.
“It’s Irene’s birthday,” Steve said. “Otherwise, I’d be right there with you in the front row.”
“Hah. You don’t even know where the shul is.”
“On Granada, right across Dixie Highway from the ball field.” The ball field being Mark Light Stadium at the University of Miami, where Steve couldn’t hit a lick but semi-starred as a pinch runner and base stealer. He also occasionally attended class, majoring in theater and minoring in the swimming pool. Herbert had wanted Steve to study political science or pre-law, something that might lead to the legal profession. But the word in the dorm was that the hottest girls were in theater. Enough said. Steve brushed up his Shakespeare and headed for the Ring Theater, which was conveniently located next to the campus Rathskellar.
Only later did Steve realize that the acting skills he accidentally learned would be useful in court. As an undergrad, he played the cynical reporter E. K. Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind, a role that came easily. Then he was Teach in American Buffalo, a part he enjoyed mainly because he got to say a lot of fuck you’s. His senior year, Steve played the older brother, Biff, in Death of a Salesman. A jock with early promise, Biff’s life crumbled when he discovered that his father was a fraud.
“Pop’s going to kill himself! Don’t you know that?”
At virtually the same time Steve cried out that line, his own father—Herbert Solomon, not Willy Loman—was being hauled before the Grand Jury. Looking back, Steve knew his onstage tears were real.
For much the same reason he studied theater—hot coeds—Steve joined the campus chapter of the ACLU. The prevailing wisdom then was that liberal chicks were easier to bag than, say, the Young Republican Women for Chastity. The ACLU meetings gave him a feel for the underdog. All considered, the acting lessons and liberal politics provided solid, if unintentional, training for the life of a solo practitioner in the mystical art of the Law.
“So what’s your plan?” Herbert asked.
“For Irene’s birthday? We’re going to Joe’s for stone crabs.”
“For Kreeger!”
“I’m working on it, Dad. He claims he wants to hang out with me.”
“What’d Ah tell you? Murderers need pals, too.”
“Except it sounded more like a threat. Be my pal— or else.”
“So what’s your plan?” Herbert pressed him.
Steve didn’t know how much to tell his father. His father’s parenting had swung between benign neglect and caustic criticism. And now, that old fear resurfaced. Ridicule and rejection. Not measuring up.
“I need to get down to the Keys. Find a witness.”
“What for?”
Steve decided to go for it. His ego had pretty much survived all the welts and bruises his father could dish out. “That fishing trip I told you about. Kreeger and his classmate Jim Beshears.”
“Old news. You think Kreeger pushed the guy overboard and clobbered him with a gaff.”
“It’s all I’ve got. I can’t nail Kreeger for killing Nancy Lamm.”
“Double jeopardy. They already convicted him of manslaughter.”
“Exactly. But Kreeger was never charged with murdering Beshears. I need someone who was there. A witness. Beshears’ girlfriend is too vague about what happened. But there was one more person on the boat.”
“The charter captain.”
“Oscar De la Fuente. He was on the fly bridge, holding the boat steady, yelling instructions. He had the angle to see everything. But I never found him.”
“Shouldn’t be hard. The state would have his charter license.”
“The computer records only go back ten years. The incident was nineteen years ago. If De la Fuente had a license then, he doesn’t anymore.”
“County property records?”
“Doesn’t own anything in Miami-Dade, Monroe, or Collier. No business license. No fictitious-name license. No phone, listed or unlisted.”
“At least you’ve done your homework.”
The compliment sounded grudging, but Steve took it just the same. “Now I’m gonna pound the pavement. Or maybe the sand.”
“What? Wear some lawyer’s suit down in the Keys, poke around asking questions?”
Actually, he’d been planning on wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that read: “Practice Safe Sex. Go Screw Yourself.” But his father was on a roll, so Steve let him go.
“The Conchs will think you’re DEA,” Herbert warned him. “No one will talk to you. And if anyone knows this De la Fuente character, they’ll warn him to stay away from you. Problem is, you don’t know the territory, son.”
There it was, Steve thought, his old man hauling out the knives to carve him up. “What choice do I have?”
“You got me, you shmoe! Who knows the bars and marinas better than me?”
True. When Herbert wasn’t crashing on a sofa in Steve’s spare bedroom, he was fishing off his leaky houseboat on Sugarloaf Key. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’m your father. You gotta ask?” Pleased with himself, Herbert grabbed a white straw hat he would wear over his yarmulke for the walk to the synagogue. The hat had a small, upturned brim. Steve thought it was called a porkpie, but maybe not. That didn’t sound kosher.
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it. By the way, how much are P.I.‘s charging these days?”
“Good Shabbos, Dad.”
Herbert started for the door. “Bobby’s dinner is in the fridge.”
“Where is the Bobster?”
“In his room with that gypsy girl.”
“What? Who?”
“That harlot-in-training with the jewelry in her belly button. The Juban girl from a block over.”
“Not polite, Dad. We don’t describe people by their religion or ethnicity.”
“That so, matzoh boy?”
“Very old-school, Dad.”
“Well, kiss my kosher tuches. Ain’t my fault the girl’s both a Yid and a Cubana. Tell her to change her name if she’s so ashamed of it. Like some of our chickenshit landsmen. Cohen becomes Kane, Levine becomes Landers. Schmendricks.” Herbert gave a snort of disapproval.
“Her name’s Maria Munoz-Goldberg, and I doubt she’s ashamed of it,” Steve said.
“Fine by me, but if I were you, I’d go peek in Robert’s bedroom. Or next thing you know, there’ll be a little tyke named Munoz-Solomon running around the house.”
Eleven
THAT JUBAN GIRL
Steve finished off the glass of kosher wine his father had left on the table. It tasted like liquified grape jelly. Bobby was in the bedroom with Maria, and Steve needed to fortify himself before moseying down the hall. He planned to knock on the door before entering. If it was locked, he’d batter it down like a SWAT team at a meth lab.
Just what were the rules with pubescent kids these days, anyway? Only recently had it occurred to him that Bobby, on the hazardous precipice of puberty, might need a fatherly lecture on the birds and bees. When he talked to his nephew about it, the boy said he knew all about STDs and condoms and even told Steve about a girl at Ponce de León Middle School who got pregnant.
“After that, none of the girls would, you know, do it, but there were a lot more rainbow parties, not that I’ve ever been invited.”
“Rainbow parties?”
“C’mon, Uncle Steve. Where the chicks all put on a different color lipstick and the guys drop their pants, and the idea is to get as many different colors on
your—”
“Jesus!”
Now Steve paused outside Bobby’s door, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. No tobacco, no pot. But something odd. A citrus scent. Oranges or tangerines.
