Solomon versus Lord

Twenty
A PURPOSE FOR RUNNING

The setting had to be right. The mood had to be right. The moment had to be right. After all, he was going to ask Victoria to marry him.

Rather than do it in the office, with its eye-stinging smell of ammonia and the clamor of the steel band, Steve suggested they take a ride. Now, top down on the old Caddy, crossing the causeway, he considered just what to say. On the radio, Gloria Estefan was promising that the rhythm was gonna get them. He took it as a good sign that, a moment later, they passed the white and pink mansions of Star Island, where Gloria lived.

“How about a pineapple smoothie?” Steve said.

“What's the big favor you want?” Sounding suspicious.

“I'll tell you all about it when we get there.”

“Where?”

“You'll see.”

“Why so mysterious? Usually, you just plow ahead, go after whatever you want.”

“It's about Bobby.”

“So tell me.”

“Soon.”

He pulled the car into the parking lot on Watson Island, and Victoria said: “Parrot Jungle? Why here?”

He parked in the shade beneath a sign that pointed different directions to the Parrot Bowl, Serpentarium, Flamingo Lake, and Everglades Habitat. “There's something I want you to see.”

They got out of the car and headed into the park, wending their way through a throng of Japanese tourists. Steve bought two pineapple smoothies at a refreshment stand and led her past a lagoon dappled with white water lilies. He pointed out the herons with S-shaped necks and showed her the pink flamingos and the ruby-eyed roseate spoonbills that are sometimes mistaken for them. They passed snowy white egrets and long-legged storks. Walking through the make-believe rain forest, they were enveloped by a cacophony of birds, a philharmonic orchestra of caws and coos.

“Okay, what about Bobby?” she asked.

“Bear with me.” He was still working up his courage, formulating his plan.

Staying in the shade of the banyan trees, they took a path bordered by blooming birds of paradise, passed an alligator pond and an outdoor theater where a parrot show was under way, a bird grabbing dollar bills from a performer's pocket to polite applause.

“Here we are.” Steve nodded toward a sausage tree. Its cylindrical fruit hung down like Hebrew National salamis in a deli.

Perched on a branch, a citron-crested cockatoo eyed them warily.

“Is that who I think it is?” Victoria asked.

“Hello, hot stuff,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“Hello, birdbrain.” She turned to Steve. “You still gloating over the Pedrosa trial?”

“Absolutely not. You're missing the point.”

“Crime pays?”

“Justice was served. My client's not taking up a jail cell. Mr. Ruffles has a good home. And everybody's happy.”

“Everybody's happy,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“You can rationalize anything.”

“The point I'm making, sometimes the ends do justify the means.”

“Okay, I get it. This favor you want is illegal, but in your tortuous reasoning, somehow just.”

“Do you know how much I love Bobby?”

She stirred her smoothie with the straw. “It's your one redeeming quality.”

“I'd do anything for him, the law be damned.”

“So where do I fit in?”

“There's this battle-axe named Doris Kranchick, a doctor who says I'm not fit to care for him. She's Zinkavich's star witness.”

“I'll testify for you if that's what you want.”

“It is, sort of.”

“What's the problem, then?”

“I told Kranchick I'm engaged, and she wants to meet my fiancee.”

“Why would you say something like that?”

“I was winging it.”

“Winging it,” Mr. Ruffles said.

“So who's the lucky…” Victoria's face paled. “No. You didn't.

…”

“Just pretend for a couple hours. Drinks, dinner, and dessert, that's it.”

“That's unethical…”

Of course that's her first reaction.

“Blatantly illegal…”

Second reaction, too.

“A fraud on the court…”

Okay, already.

“Maybe grounds for disbarment.”

“So you'll do it?” he asked.

“No!” She stomped away from him, heading down a shaded path.

He took off after her. “Victoria, you're my only hope.”

“Why me?”

“Catherine Zeta-Jones is taken.”

“So am I.” She waved her engagement ring in his face. “Anyway, nobody would believe we're engaged.”

“I'm not sure, but I think you just insulted me.”

“I'm a terrible liar.”

“Don't you ever fake orgasms?”

“Maybe the women in your life do.”

“They fake it when they're alone. Please, Victoria. I really need you on this.”

She wrinkled her forehead the same way she did in court when puzzling through a problem. “Even if I could convince this doctor that I'm your fiancee, I wouldn't do it.”

Above them, birds circled the trees and cried to one another in a babel of cheeps and peeps, titters and trills.

“Do you know the main difference between us?” he asked.

“I'm going to end up a judge, and you're going to end up in jail.”

“You refuse to question authority.”

“I question plenty. I just don't flout.”

“Do you think the state should take Bobby from me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then help me.”

“I cannot and will not break the law.”

“Haven't I taught you anything? The law doesn't work. That's why you have to work the law.”

“Sorry. Can't do it.”

His frustration turned to anger. “I can't fucking believe it. You're still a robot, still an automaton. By now you gotta know Lady Justice takes it doggy style. The law gets bent over a chair like a girl in Kobe Bryant's hotel room.”

“And they say you're not a charmer.”

They emerged from the path, silence engulfing the space between them, driving them apart. Alongside a pond, a mother was snapping photos of her two little girls, scarlet macaws perched on their shoulders.

They neared the edge of the bay. Crabs no larger than a fingernail scuttled along the wet sand. Feathery terns scoured the beach for snacks. Just across the water, a bell was ringing, and a barrier arm came down. Traffic stopped on the Venetian Causeway drawbridge.

“I need to tell you something about Bobby,” he said.

“Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

They stopped beneath a gumbo-limbo tree, its small red fruits bunched in clusters. Victoria's face was half in the sun, half in the shade.

“When Bobby was nine,” Steve said, “his mother, Janice, moved to this commune up in the Panhandle. The Universal Friends of something-or-other. Freaks and druggies. When Janice was straight, she'd slap Bobby around and scream biblical quotations at him. When she was stoned, she'd lock him in a dog cage. Then she'd go into town for a few hours or a few days.”

“Bobby told me about the dog cage. It sounded terrible. Honestly, Steve, I'd love to help, but-”

“He's making progress every day. And once I get him some specialized treatment, he'll do even better. But this creepy doctor wants to take him away and put him in a hospital.”

“How can they do that if you're his guardian?”

The drawbridge was up now, and a sloop with its sails furled putt-putted through, cars backing up on the mainland to the west and on Biscayne Island to the east.

“Janice never exactly consented to my taking Bobby, so he's in sort of a legal limbo.”

She thought about it for a moment. “You kidnapped him?”

“Rescued him,” he corrected. “But I've never told anyone how. Until now.”

He told her then. Told her about the night of freezing rain, about Janice delivering cold soup to Bobby in the shed, about his breaking in and finding the boy in the cage. Told her, too, about the mangy man with the heavy stick and how they fought, the crack of the man's skull, his blood pooling on the floor. Told her about the gunshots and how he ran through the woods, carrying Bobby, chased by barking dogs and men with guns.

When he was finished, Victoria studied him, her lips slightly parted, words trying to form. She felt fragile enough to shatter like white china. “I never could have imagined any of this.”

“When I was running, Bobby's arms around my neck, I knew they'd never catch me as long as I didn't fall. All my life, I could run. Really run. But it had no purpose. Then it came to me. Like it was all meant to be. I could run like this so that someday, that day, I could carry this poor kid out of hell and give him a life.

“Sometimes, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I hear the floorboards squeak, and I think they're here. Men with torches and sticks, and they're going to kill me and snatch Bobby. Then I wake up and think, if those are my nightmares, what must Bobby's be?”

Eyes welling, he turned away. “So you think I'm gonna let some fat-assed bureaucrats take him away?”

“Look at me,” she commanded.

He turned back. With a fingertip, she caught a tear just as it neared the corner of his mouth, then let her finger track across his lips, as if gently shushing him.

Across the bay, the bell rang again, and the causeway bridge jerked down in fits and starts like an old man dropping into his chair.

“Who knew?” she said, removing the finger from his lips.

“Knew what?”

“That you were capable of such love.”

He shrugged. “That other stuff. The courtroom. Just a game. This is life.”

Her eyes were soft and watery. “So where are we going?”

“Going?”

“On our honeymoon.”

It took a second to register. Then Steve smiled broadly. “You're gonna do it? You're gonna be my fiancee?”

“One night only.”

“Ye-s-s-s!” Tomorrow night. He laughed, a big pealing laugh like rolling thunder. “You're terrific. If there's ever anything you need. Anything.”

“If I'm arrested, get me a good lawyer.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I was supposed to play tennis with Jackie at Grove Isle tomorrow, have dinner with Bruce at his club. I'll cancel.”

“No. Bring them along. In fact, we'll go to Bruce's club.”

“Are you serious?”

“I'll ask Bruce to be my best man.”

“You really want him there?”

“He'll make a great impression on Kranchick, maybe even pick up the tab. And Jackie can be your bridesmaid or whatever.”

“She's my maid of honor.”

“Perfect. Is she like you?”

Her tone was playful. “You mean a robot and automaton?”

“That stuff, I take back. I mean, proper, dignified, principled.” He swallowed hard and his voice went soft. “And beautiful and smart and sexy and-”

She put her finger back to his lips. “Don't, Solomon.”

“But there are things I want to say.”

“Please, don't.” Her smile was soft and sweet. “But we'll always have Parrot Jungle.”

7. I will never bribe a cop, lie to a judge, or sleep with my partner… hasta que ella diga que si.