Flesh and bones

15

The policeman knocked on the door and waited. So did I.

Water dripped from my clothing onto the dark wood of the hallway. Blood trickled from a dozen scratches on my forehead, legacy of the thorns. Even worse, my nose itched, and with my hands cuffed behind my back, I couldn't scratch it.

Through a window at the end of the hall, I could see the orange glow of the sun rising over the ocean. It had been a long night.

The cop knocked again, louder. A muffled voice came from the other side of the door. A moment later, Chrissy Bernhardt, dressed in a black-and-red silk kimono, cracked open the door, the chain still attached. She didn't seem surprised to see a cop at her door at dawn.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am," the Miami Beach cop said. Yeah, he actually said "ma'am," just like in the movies. The cop was in his fifties, probably a year or so away from a retirement watch and juicy pension. He pushed me toward the door. "Do you know the subject?"

"Subject?" I asked, offended. "I always thought of myself as more of a verb."

"Let me get a good look at him," Chrissy suggested. She pursed her lips and studied me through sleepy eyes. "He has a certain animalistic charm, don't you think, officer?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Could we strip-search him?"

"Chrissy!" I protested.

"So you do know him," the cop said.

"Intimately," she said, pursing her lips.

"Can you state with certainty whether he's an American citizen?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

" Si, jefe," I answered in a really bad imitation of the Frito Bandito. "I love thees country very much."

" 'Cause he floated up the beach this morning, landed near South Pointe, just like one of those Cuban rafters. I was ready to turn him over to Immigration, get him a deportation hearing."

"I was sort of hoping for France," I broke in, "though I'm told the Costa del Sol is nice this time of year."

The cop shook his head. "He claimed he was swimming, then was picked up by a shrimper who dropped him just offshore. Says he was on his way to see you, but he's got no ID, no money… and just look at him."

I was standing in a puddle of water. My face felt swollen, and my back ached.

"He is a mess," Chrissy agreed.

"A warm bath ought to help," I suggested.

"Maybe you should leave those cuffs on, officer," Chrissy said.

The cop was already fishing for his key. "No can do. City property."

The hot water trickled down my chest as Chrissy squeezed the sponge, a real one that used to float in the gulf off Tarpon Springs. She leaned forward and I leaned back. She was behind me in the big old tub with the claw feet, her legs wrapped around my waist, her soapy breasts pressed against my back.

Chrissy had already dabbed my cuts with hydrogen peroxide and scrubbed seaweed from various crevices and orifices. Now she was letting the warm water lull me into a fuzzy state of sleepiness and semi-arousal.

Which was when her breasts began pressing against me, and her nipples hardened.

And so did I.

She was moving the sponge lower now. Down my chest, down the washboard abs, not quite as tight as they used to be, down, down, down. And then back up again.

"Tease," I complained.

"Just relax, Jake. We have all day."

I leaned back against her again. I closed my eyes and sank lower into the water, inhaling the sweet, soapy fragrance of her wet hair. She hugged me tight and said, "It feels good to take care of you. You've done so much for me."

"I haven't done anything yet, and I'm worried about-"

"Shhh. Not now."

I let myself drift, still feeling the ocean swells rising beneath me. A feeling of calm. But not peace. The nagging questions hung over me. I would ask Chrissy. Later.

A little plop in the water, and Chrissy said, "Whoops, dropped the soap."

Her hands moved down my chest again, and lower still. Once underwater, she latched onto me. "Whoa, Jake. Did you bring an oar with you?"

"Yeah. I thought I might row your boat."

"Precisely what I had in mind."

She gracefully slid out from behind me, swung around, and sat down facing me, her legs spread. We slid closer, and her long legs wrapped around my hips. Warmed by the water and the wet friction of body parts, we kissed-a long, sweet, soft kiss. The second kiss was harder, more urgent. The third kiss, or maybe it was an extension of the second, was filled with gasps and the biting of teeth on lips. I opened my eyes to see Chrissy open hers, a startled look on her face. In that moment, as she wriggled closer, lifting her hips and lowering herself onto me, I looked into her eyes and saw something I wanted to believe no other man had ever seen. She had felt something, something new, I was sure.

A man's conceit.

Making love to a woman.

Believing it had never been like that for her before.

I've had women say it. Once in a while even scream it. But I never believed it. Hell, no one's that good. Chrissy didn't say a word. But her look, as if she were in an altered state; her sounds, the guttural urgency that rose from within her; and the movement of her body against mine-finally led to an explosion that rocked us both and settled me deeper into her.

After a moment she said, "I love you, Jake. God, how I love you."

Chrissy was looking for something to wear.

One hand fanned through her closet; the other clutched a liter bottle of French water. Four bottles a day, she told me. For the complexion. A cigarette dangled from her mouth. For the lungs.

The closet was filled with clothing. Packed tight. Disorganized. Tasteful suits that Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly might have worn, jammed next to beaded, see-through bodysuits that could get you arrested in Tupelo, Mississippi. Skirts that stopped just below the knee, just above the knee, way above the knee, and some so short they were hardly there at all. Sculpted stiletto-thin dresses, shapeless tentlike dresses, ribboned dresses, embroidered dresses, chained dresses, one held together with a dozen brass safety pins, all for show.

When she couldn't find anything in the closet, Chrissy swung open a six-foot-high cardboard closet, the kind movers use. There were two of these boxes in the bedroom, another three in the corridor. Inside, structured jackets, destructured jackets, crepe trousers, leather trousers, dresses with tie-up corsets and others that looked like bustiers, and lots of black and red.

"This is going to take a while, isn't it?" I said.

"Sorry, Jake, but I just don't have a thing to wear."

"Hey, we're just getting a burger at the News Cafe. Gianni Versace isn't going to be there."

"He was last week."

"Oh."

My sweatpants and Raiders jersey had just finished tumbling in her dryer. I was wearing Chrissy's kimono, but it looked a hell of a lot better on her. She was scattering assorted articles of clothing across her bed but seemed on the verge of selecting some Levi's with holes in the knees when I brought it up. "What is it you're not telling me?"

"About what?"

"Water. What do you know about Guy's water wells?"

She exhaled a puff of smoke and looked puzzled. "Nothing. He's a farmer, he's got wells. So what?"

"What about an industrial building under construction on the eastern edge of the tree farm?"

"I don't know. What does it have to do with me?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Tell me about you and your brother and Dr. Schein. What secrets does Guy have in his past?"

"How should I know? I was in Europe modeling. I barely even know Guy."

"What about Schein? There's a gap on the tape in the session where you recovered the memories."

"A gap?"

"Yeah, like the recorder was turned off and then back on."

"I don't remember that. Maybe Larry took a phone call. Maybe he gave me another injection."

"When the tape was off, did he tell you what to remember, what to say?"

"Jake, I just said I don't remember the recorder being turned off, so how would I remember what-"

"I thought when you're hypnotized, you remember everything."

"Well, maybe I don't!"

Rattled now. I do that to clients sometimes. Challenge them. Anger them. Push them into telling the truth. It comes with the territory, and usually it's easy. But usually I don't share a bathtub with my murder clients.

"What about the last session, June fourteenth?" I asked. "You told Schein you'd made a decision he wasn't going to like. Then he turned off the recorder and never turned it back on. Two days later, you shot your father."

She waited, though my next question had to be obvious.

"What had you decided?"

She seemed to think about it before answering. "To stop therapy. That's all right, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't hurt the case."

"No, it's fine."

It's a helluva lot better than having decided to be judge, jury, and executioner, I thought. And it made sense, didn't it? Quitting therapy, a decision Dr. Schein wouldn't like. But who knows what she really told the shrink behind the closed blinds of his office? I wanted to believe her. But could I? With clients and lovers, either you trust them or you don't.

I studied her for a moment, then asked, "How did you get to me in the first place?"

She stopped fiddling with the clothes and turned around to face me. "Why are you cross-examining me?"

"It's my job."

"Really? And in the bathtub just now, was that your job, too? Will Guy get billed for the time?"

"I told you it would be a problem if we got involved."

"No, you're the problem."

"Just bear with me, please. Why did you choose me as a lawyer?"

"You know why." Exasperated with me. "Rusty MacLean recommended you."

"I've known Rusty a long time, and he never sent me legal work before, other than his own miscues, which I handled for free. Why now? Why you?"

"I don't know!"

"Does Rusty know your brother?"

"How should I… Wait, yes, Rusty told me that Guy agreed to pay your fees."

"When? Before the bond hearing?"

"Yes. Right after you visited me in jail the first time."

"So Rusty knew about it before I did." I turned to her, anger rising in my voice. I was angry at Guy Bernhardt and Lawrence Schein and Rusty MacLean, and angry at myself, too, but it probably sounded as if I were angry at Chrissy. "What else does Rusty know that I don't?"

"Jake, why are you doing this? What's going on?" She seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"I don't know! That's what's going on! I'm about to defend you in a murder trial, and I don't know the truth. I know that Schein and your brother have something cooked up, but I don't know what."

She walked over, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. She stood just out of reach. "And you think I do?"

"No. I think they're keeping something from you, something they don't want you to find out. But you may know a bit of it. You may have picked up some clues."

"If I had, I'd tell you. Jake, after getting this close to you, do you think I could lie to you?"

My heart said no, but my head wasn't sure. "I don't know."

She slapped me. Hard. "You bastard! I just told you I loved you. Do you think that's something that comes easy to me? It's not just the case you don't know about. You don't know me."

"Then tell me. Chrissy, God knows I care about you… deeply. I want to be with you, but I can't let that interfere with the case. Tell me everything!"

"I have. My father had sex with me when I was eleven. I repressed the memories. When the memories came back in therapy, the hatred just overcame me. I killed him, Jake. I killed him because of what he did to me, and that's the truth."

"Then we're going to lose," I said.

Rusty MacLean didn't see me coming toward his sidewalk table at the Booking Table Cafe. If I'd had a little gun in a beaded purse, I might have plugged him just to get his attention. Instead, I ran a Z-pattern around a ponytailed, earringed waiter and approached Rusty head on. He was sitting with two young women, one a freckled redhead, the other a blue-eyed blonde. Their books were spread open in front of them, eight-by-ten glossies spilling out. They were tall and young and freshly scrubbed, and their Caesar salads were barely picked over.

When Rusty finally saw me, he smiled broadly, winked, and nodded his head, first toward one of the women, then the other. "Jake, c'mon. Make it a foursome."

I didn't take the empty chair. Instead, I grabbed Rusty by the lapels of his aloha shirt and yanked him to his feet. I am blessed with strong wrists and forearms, the legacy of fighting big fish on little lines, and I lifted my old teammate cleanly into the air. Wide receivers can run with the wildebeests, but they have no iron in their bones.

"Jake!" His smile was frozen into place. "I love you, but I don't want to kiss you."

I pushed him backward into the open restaurant until he was pressed against the bar. Then I leaned him over, putting some pressure on his lower spine.

"I'm feeling very loved, Rusty. You and Chrissy on the same day."

"Hey, you're hurting me. I got a bad disk. Remember, I missed a play-off game in Pittsburgh."

"You sat out the game because it was ten below zero and you had a hangover."

"Look, Jake, I don't know what you're so mad about. Are you nailing one of these honeys? Which one, Tracy? 'Cause it's just business with me. You say the word, and I'll keep it in my pants."

"Shut up, Rusty."

He shut up.

"Tell me about Guy Bernhardt," I ordered.

"What do you mean?"

"Was it his idea or yours to hire me?"

He didn't answer, so I bent him farther across the bar. His arms flailed and he knocked over an empty margarita glass, which shattered on the tile floor. Two waiters eyed me but didn't move in my direction.

"His idea. So what?"

"When did he call you?"

"The night it happened. Maybe two A.M. Said his old man croaked in the hospital. He knew I was Chrissy's agent, knew I was a witness. He's got some friends who are Miami Beach cops. Saw their reports before the homicide chief did. Anyway, he asked me if I knew you, the guy on barstool number three on the police reports. I told him we were like brothers."

I released my grip a little.

"He asked if you were a good lawyer," Rusty continued, "and I told him you were the best lawyer to ever play linebacker for the Dolphins, better than Buoniconti, though he was a helluva lot better on the field. So he said, 'Hire him.' He'd pay the tab, and that was it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Guy said it would be better to keep it quiet for business and personal reasons. Like his wife wouldn't understand him helping his half sister or something."

I looked at my old teammate and let him go.

Like brothers?

No. Rusty was too self-absorbed to be anyone's brother. On the team, opinion had been divided. Half the guys disliked him; the other half hated him. Sure, Rusty and I had gotten drunk together and chased women together. We'd celebrated wins and bitched about losses, but we weren't really friends, much less brothers. We had been thrown into the same pit, like foxhole buddies. That war was over. This one was just beginning.