Kill All the Lawyers

Nine

"You gotta look out for numero uno. You gotta do what gives you pleasure, not what others want you to do. Hedonism is good. Selfishness is good. Greed is good. No, I take that back. Greed is great!"

The voice was deep, rhythmic, and spellbinding. Wearing a headset and a beige silk guayabera, Dr. Bill Kreeger crooned into a ceiling-mounted microphone. Steve stood in the control room, looking over the shoulder of the board operator, watching through the window. So far, Kreeger, his mouth close enough to the microphone to kiss the cold metal, hadn't seen him. Steve had come here to deliver the message that would get Kreeger off his back.

"Self-interest is the highest morality," Kreeger prattled on, "and selflessness is the deepest immorality. You can't make another person happy, so don't even try. Give a hundred bucks to a charity at Thanksgiving, they'll hit you for two hundred at Christmas. Bake a tuna casserole for the neighborhood shut-in, next week she'll expect filet mignon. The people you sacrifice for won't appreciate it, so forget them. Wait, you say. That's cruel, Dr. Bill. Wrong!

Don't be a sucker. The moral life is one of self-interest. If everyone pursued his or her own happiness, there wouldn't be a bunch of losers who always need help. And what a beau-ti-ful world it would be."

Putting a tune to it. Then laughing, a deep rumble. Kreeger had gone a little gray around the temples since Steve had seen him last. But he looked remarkably healthy and fit. Wavy hair combed straight back revealed a widow's peak. A firm jawline that never even sagged when he looked down at his notes. No more than five-nine, he had a square, blocky build and seemed to have put meat on his chest and shoulders. Prison weight lifting, maybe.

"After a short break," Kreeger said into the microphone, "my seven tips for living the life of self-fulfillment. Tip number one. The word 'invincible' starts with 'I.' And I'll be right back."

Kreeger hoisted his coffee cup and turned toward the window. He spotted Steve on the other side of the glass and smiled broadly. For an instant, the smile seemed genuine, a look of pleasant surprise at seeing an old friend. Then the corners of his mouth dropped a bit, as if Kreeger just remembered the old friend owed him money. A second after that, the smile turned chilly, a frozen mask.

"To what do I owe this honor?" Kreeger asked, waving Steve into the seat next to him.

"I came here to tell you just one thing: I'm not scared of you."

"Why would you be?"

"If you come after me, I'll land on you like a ton of concrete."

"That's two things, actually. You're not scared and you're a ton of concrete."

"I'm not some stoned woman in a hot tub."

"Not sure I know where you're going with that, Counselor. Are you saying you'd like to be a stoned woman in a hot tub? Some gender confusion issues?"

"What I'm saying, Kreeger, is I can handle myself."

"Interesting choice of words. 'Handle myself.' Did you masturbate excessively as a child? Or do you now?"

"Fuck you, Kreeger."

A mechanical beep came from the speaker mounted on the wall.

"Whoa, Nellie," Kreeger laughed. "Good thing we're on a seven-second delay."

Confused, Steve looked toward the control room. A red light illuminated the words: "On Air."

Oh, shit. Is this going out on the airwaves?

Kreeger leaned close to the microphone. "You're listening to Dr. Bill on WPYG, broadcasting live from South Miami, with our special guest, Steve-the-Shyster Solomon. Phone lines are open from Palm Beach to the Keys, from Marco Island to Bimini."

Steve was halfway out of his seat when Kreeger punched a flashing button on his telephone. "Jerry in Pinecrest, you're on the air."

"Gotta question for the lawyer."

"Shoot, Jerry," Kreeger said. "But don't make it too tough. It took Solomon four times to pass the bar exam."

"Three," Steve corrected him.

"What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?" Jerry asked.

"Aw, c'mon," Steve said.

"One is a scum-sucking bottom feeder," Jerry answered. "The other is a fish."

Kreeger bellowed as if Jerry in Pinecrest were the new Robin Williams.

"I said what I had to say." Steve headed for the door.

Kreeger hit the cough button, silencing the mike. "Stick around, Solomon. At the break, I got something good to tell you."

Steve stood in place a second. Kreeger looked at a monitor and punched another button on the phone. "Lou in Miramar, you're on with Dr. Bill."

"I'm a big Hurricane baseball fan and I remember when Solomon played."

"Hear that, Solomon?" Kreeger asked, motioning Steve back into his seat. "You got a fan here. Obviously, he's never been a client."

"What I remember best," Lou in Miramar said, "was Solomon getting picked off third base in the College World Series."

Steve groaned.

Why did I come here, anyway? To show some toughness. To warn Kreeger off. And what do I get? Ridicule on talk radio, the cesspool of broadcasting.

"I was safe," Steve protested, moving toward the microphone. "Ump blew the call."

"No surprise, Lou. When Solomon loses a case, he always blames the judge." Kreeger punched another button. "Lexy, on South Beach, you're on the line."

Lexy? No. It can't be.

"Why don't you get off Stevie's case, anyway?" A young woman's whiny voice. Yep, Lexy.

Whatever you do, Lex, don't try to help.

"He's a terrific lawyer and he's cute, too."

Kreeger flashed Steve a smile. It was the same smile a barracuda shows to a porkfish. "So Solomon has represented you, has he?"

"He got me out of like a zillion dollars in parking tickets."

"Traffic court. Now, that's Solomon's speed."

"You don't understand, Doc. The tickets were all for parking in a handicapped zone. But Stevie found a chiropractor who said I had bulimia, so I got off."

"Fabulous," Kreeger enthused. "With Solomon, the guilty go free and the innocent do six years in prison." The psychiatrist lowered his voice, as if letting his listeners in on a secret. "Now, friends, you won't believe this, but Steve-the-Shyster Solomon once sued a surfer for stealing another surfer's wave. And who says we don't need tort reform?"

"Surfers consider waves their property," Steve said. But music was already coming up, and the board operator was pointing an index finger at Kreeger from the other side of the window.

"We'll be right back after this news update," Kreeger said. The On Air sign went dark, and he slipped off his headset. "That was great. We should take this on the road. The Shrink and the Shyster. Maybe get a syndication deal. Satellite radio within a year."

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."