Flesh and bones

11

"Let's see if I got this straight," Roberto Condom said. "You got some babe who's charged with murder out on bond, but me- who maybe was in the vicinity of a larceny involving some fruit- me, I got to sit in this shithole."

"If you're convicted, it's three first-degree felonies," I said, "and they'll have you under the habitual offender law. Life in prison."

" Carajo! "

"My sentiments exactly."

"It's 'cause I'm Cuban, isn't it, Jake? I'm an oppressed minority."

"Sorry, Roberto. In Miami, you're the majority."

We were sitting a tiny lawyers' visiting room in the Dade County Jail. I had elbowed my way past throngs of relatives on the sidewalk, a polyglot of mothers, wives, girlfriends, and screaming babies. Overhead, men leaned out through barred windows, their women yelling up at them, screaming they'd like to suck them or shoot them, howling about unpaid rent, forgotten birthdays, and a variety of domestic ills not usually aired at mega-decibels on public streets.

From inside the visitors' room, I could her men shouting and steel doors clanging. I am always claustrophobic inside a jail, even when I have a pass that gets me out the door. With the incessant racket and the metallic disinfectant smell, I imagine myself crunched inside a fifty-five-gallon barrel as someone bangs on the lid with a baseball bat.

"Maybe you can give the judge a little present," Roberto said.

"I don't bribe judges."

"Not a bribe. I got a friend who'll send him a human skull with red and black beads and fourteen pennies. Give the judge leprosy."

"C'mon, Roberto. You should have more faith in your lawyer."

"I'll put my faith in brujeria and palo mayombe."

"The judge could come down with Ebola virus, but you'd still be in the can. Let me work on it, okay?"

"Yeah, but it ain't fair. First of all, they got nothing on me. Nada. Maybe trespassing, which is what, a misdemeanor? How they gonna prove I took the mangoes? Maybe they fell into my truck. Maybe it's not even a crime to pick the fruit of the earth, which belongs to all of God's creatures, right?"

I just love it when clients devise my strategy.

"They wouldn't prosecute a possum for stealing mangoes, would they, Jake?"

"No, they'd shoot it, which is what Guy Bernhardt wanted to do to you."

"That puerco! Stealing from Guy Bernhardt ain't stealing at all," Roberto said.

From somewhere above us, one inmate yelled at another to turn down his radio. "What do you mean by that?"

"The hijo de puta steals water from half the farmers in South Dade. My cousin Xavier has thirty acres two miles from the Bernhardt farm, and his wells have gone dry."

"Bernhardt told me about the battle over water down there."

"Bet he didn't tell you everything."

"It's an old story, Roberto. The rich get richer. The poor die of thirst."

"Yeah, but did you know Bernhardt dumps most of the water he's pumping?"

"What do you mean?"

"His irrigation ditches flow into a canal that goes straight into Biscayne Bay. When his trees have had enough, Bernhardt's wells keep pumping, but he dumps the water. I seen it with my own eyes. Three nights in a row, before we did the mango heist, I cased the place, crawled all over that property on my belly. Water was five feet deep in the irrigation ditch, flowing like a river, due east."

"That doesn't make any sense. He sells the water. Why waste it?"

"How should I know?"

Outside the room a buzz, and a security door clicked open, then clanged shut. "You're pulling a scam on me, aren't you, Roberto? You're cooking up some defense. You weren't out there to steal mangoes. You were working undercover for the Water Management District."

"Jake, mi amigo, you gotta believe me." Sounding hurt, which a con man can do to make you feel guilty for mistrusting him. "Guy Bernhardt's dumping water into the bay. I swear it. Have you ever known me to lie?"

"Only under oath," I said, thinking of Roy Cohn.

"Well, I'm telling you I seen it with my own eyes."

But why? I kept wondering. I thought about it but didn't come up with any bright ideas. Mango-loving, sister-helping, trigger-happy Guy Bernhardt was getting more mysterious by the moment.

"So, like I was saying, Jake. They shouldn't arrest me for stealing mangoes from that cabron. They should-"

"I know. I know, Roberto. They should give you a medal."