Solomon versus Lord

Twenty-nine
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

“What bullshit! What total bullshit!”

Clutching a copy of Kranchick's report in one hand, an ice bag pressed to his temple with the other, Steve paced his office. Tie at half-mast, face flushed, a doorknob-size lump on his forehead. Purplish bruises circled his eyes. He looked like an angry raccoon. Victoria sat at her desk, watching and worrying. Bobby crouched cross-legged in a chair, his head buried in a book.

“Just wait till I get Kranchick in court,” Steve said.

“I feel terrible,” Victoria said. “Maybe if I hadn't run from the table-”

“Nothing to do with it. She likes you. She says my life's ‘chaotic.' Unless you're in a coma, whose life isn't?”

“Maybe you should calm down before you start planning trial strategy.”

“I'm calm!”

“Shouldn't we talk about the burglary? Do you really think it was Manko?”

He tossed the ice bag onto his desk. “Who else would it be?”

They'd been over this for hours last night after a soggy and bruised Steve had squished back to the house. The intruder had been in the study. Steve's briefcase had been moved, but nothing was taken from the house. The security video was in the VCR, just where he'd left it. What had the burglar been after? So far, nothing made sense. What good would it do to steal the tape when Pincher had a copy?

“Are you going to confront Manko?” she asked.

“Not without proof.”

“Yesterday you accused him of murder even though you thought he was innocent, but today you won't accuse him of a burglary you think he committed?”

“Let's see what happens when the forensics guy goes over the tape.” A fly buzzed into the office from the window above the Dumpster, and Steve swung at it with the report. Strike one. He opened the report again and read aloud: “‘A reputation for bizarre behavior in the courtroom.' Kranchick's hated me from day one.”

“Because you wouldn't do her,” Bobby said, without looking up from his book. “You wouldn't stick your screwdriver in her tool shed.”

“Bobby, that's really inappropriate,” Victoria said.

“Yeah, stow that shit,” Steve said.

“No guy will ride her tunnel of love,” Bobby said. “I'm gonna tell the judge that.”

“The hell you are,” Steve said.

“Dive for a pearl in her bearded clam.”

“Bobby, chill!”

“Chomp her carpet burger.”

“Cut it out, kiddo. And what's that you're reading?”

Holding up a tattered book, Bobby spoke in perfect French: “La Pendaison, la Strangulation, la Suffocation, la Submersion.”

“If that's porno, get rid of it.”

“Coroner's textbook from the nineteenth century,” Bobby said.

“Put it away. It's not suitable for a child.”

“Yes it is.”

“Kranchick wouldn't agree. You want her to take you away?”

“No!” Bobby yelled, then fell into a chant, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no…”

“Aw, jeez, I'm sorry.”

The boy was rocking in his chair. Victoria remembered that first night at Steve's house. Bobby had blasted her with the squirt gun, then dashed inside, where he buried himself in the sofa and swayed back and forth, locked into some dark cellar of his mind.

“No, no, no, no, no, no…”

The boy was a wreck, she thought. If he acted this way in court, Steve wouldn't have a chance. “Bobby, do you want to play the anagram game?” she asked. Anything to calm him down.

“No, no, no, no, no, no…”

Steve walked over to Bobby and tousled his hair. The boy twisted his head so the palm of his uncle's hand caressed his cheek. After a moment Bobby rubbed his face against Steve's hand like a contented kitten. Then he picked up the old French coroner's book and, just like that, started calmly reading again.

Steve resumed pacing, swinging the rolled-up report at an imaginary baseball or an imaginary Kranchick, Victoria didn't know which. She was worried about both Solomon boys. Bobby was regressing, and Steve was far too hair-trigger. Bobby's case required logic and reason, strategy and finesse, but Steve was planning an artillery attack.

“I'll expose that quack,” he said. “What are her credentials, anyway? Does she have an ounce of compassion? Does she understand that love is more important than charts and tests?”

“Steve-”

“I took Bobby to her hospital. They tried to give him an IV drip of Valium for some tests, and I said, no fucking way.”

“Who are your experts? What's your strategy?”

“Do you know what it smells like in that hospital? Ammonia and laundry starch. If I could bring that stink into court, no judge would give Bobby to the state.”

Out of control, she thought. No sense of objectivity. No plan.

“If we lose,” Steve said, “I'm packing our bags.”

“Give up your Bar license, become a fugitive?”

“If that's what it takes.”

“Have you thought about retaining counsel?”

“Who can argue the case better than me?”

“Someone who's not emotionally involved.”

“You been talking to Marvin the Maven?” Steve put a little gravel in his voice. “‘The man who represents himself has a shmendrick for a client.'”

“Marvin's right.”

“Not this time. See, the theme of my case is love conquers all.”

“Didn't we just try that?” Victoria asked. “‘Katrina Loves Charles'?”

“That was courtroom blather. Love's not about buying watches and diamonds. It's about putting the other person first. What Bobby needs is someone who'll do anything for him, not doctors who want to publish papers about him. What he needs is me.”

“I wonder if that's enough,” she said. “To win the case, I mean.”

“Did you ever see that English movie Love Actually?” he asked.

“Yeah. It put me into glucose overload.”

“First scene, we see all these couples meeting at the airport. Lovers hugging, kissing, reuniting. And Hugh Grant's saying it's wrong to think we live in a world that's filled only with hatred and greed.”

“Yeah, sure. It's a world of milk and honey.”

“What he says is, if you look for it, love actually is all around.”

He had a distant and almost blissful look. In the right time and place, like a Barry Manilow concert or a freshman seminar on Kahlil Gibran, the look might be appropriate, Victoria thought. But in the grungy law office over the Dumpster, faced with the reality of losing his nephew, Solomon's spaciness was alarming.

He's losing it.

“I remember the scene,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘This is gonna be one sugar-glazed donut of a movie.'”

“That's what love is, too. Besides the sacrifice and the caring, I mean. It's a Sinatra song. Moonbeams on the bay. A puppy opening its eyes for the first time.”

“Where's the Solomon I know? The guy who teaches birds to shit on opposing counsel?”

“When I see Bobby sleeping, tears come to my eyes. I'm gonna tell the judge that. I'm gonna translate every emotion into admissible evidence.”

Okay, she thought. Turns out the courtroom shark was a hopeless romantic. And like another romantic, he was preparing to tilt at windmills, riding a spavined steed and carrying a rusty lance.

“I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is going to win your case.”

“That's the beauty of it. It's right in Chapter Thirty-nine of the statutes.” He grabbed a book from his desk. “Look. Section Eight-ten, Subsection Five. The court must consider the ‘love, affection, and other emotional ties between the child and the person seeking custody.' If the judge does that, I win.”

“What about Kranchick's report?”

“Not to worry. I'm gonna wax the floor with it.”

“What about all the other criteria in the statute?”

“I'll deal with them.”

Unwilling to budge, unable to see that he was hot asphalt and his opponents were riding the steamroller. She wondered how she could get through to him. He was always so much in control when handling other people's problems. Now he seemed so lost in his own.

“I just wonder if you should talk to a lawyer who specializes in dependency cases,” she said, diplomatically. “Maybe work together. Turn negatives into positives. Kranchick thinks you're exposing Bobby to improper influences. But you argue that taking Bobby to the office and court is great for his development.”

“I do it mostly because we like to hang together,” Steve said.

“That's good,” she said. “Most boys would love to spend more time with their fathers.”

Steve's face seemed to brighten. “You have a feel for this, Vic. You should represent me.”

“I've never handled a guardianship case.”

“You're a trial lawyer, an all-purpose utility player. You can play any position without being afraid of any case or any lawyer.”

“I'm not afraid,” she said. “It's just…”

“What?”

“Too much responsibility. I know how important this is to you.”

“That's why I need you. I wouldn't trust anyone else the way I trust you.”

“If I screwed it up…”

“You won't.”

“I'm sorry, Steve. I just can't.”

Ten minutes later, Steve was considering the puzzling Ms. Victoria Lord. Most lawyers he knew had inflated egos. They weren't nearly as good as they thought they were. With Victoria, it was the opposite. She didn't know how good she could be. Her humility made her even more effective in the courtroom.

But why wouldn't she help him? That he couldn't figure out. He stole a glance across the room. On this chilly day, with gusts rattling the windowpane, Victoria wore a brown knit skirt fringed at the bottom. A matching hooded cardigan and fleece-lined, high-heeled suede boots completed the outfit, which Steve had never seen before. He wondered if he was starting to memorize her wardrobe, as he had done with her features, her every look. There was the furrowed brow with pursed lips when she studied a law book, the triumphant smile when she pounced on a winning point, the mysterious gaze when she stared into space. And another look, too.

He'd seen it once, and only because he opened his own eyes to find hers closed. When their lips had parted during their one and only kiss, she radiated total rapture.

Now he replayed their conversation of just a few minutes ago. He surely knew Victoria well enough to crack her codes. Suggesting he get counsel, she'd been overly polite, overly delicate. Then he said, Fine, you represent me. And she said no. Why?

There could be only one reason.

He felt his mood plummet. It's not that she lacked confidence in her own abilities.

She thinks I haven't got a chance. She thinks I'm going to lose.