Solomon versus Lord

Thirty-five
THE RUNNING MAN

Saturday morning the weather guys and gals were all atwitter about the arctic blast that was working its way south. “Freeze Watch!” the announcers screamed.

Steve watched the histrionics while standing at his kitchen counter, slicing a carambola, the yellow star fruit that grew on neighborhood trees. On the screen, Ricardo Sanchez, the Channel 4 weather guru, was garbed in a parka. Standing in front of an irrigation canal, Sanchez held his microphone in a gloved hand and interviewed a handsome, blond man in a bombardier jacket, a white silk scarf tied at his neck. Bruce Bigby, looking like a World War I aviator. The Green Baron, maybe?

In the background, Steve could see farmworkers wrapping palm fronds around the trunks of avocado trees. They wore jeans and T-shirts and didn't seem to be suffering hypothermia, even though most would have been natives of frost-free Caribbean islands.

“Could be the coldest night since the freeze of December 1894,” Sanchez said.

“We can battle Mother Nature a lot better now,” Bigby assured him. “Sprinklers, heaters, wind machines. Plus, I've got an army of two hundred workers.”

Not one with a green card, Steve felt certain.

Bigby droned on, explaining the difference between radiation frost and advective frost, then smoothly moving to his favorite topic. “Let me remind your viewers that no matter the weather, the Bigby Resort and Villas' sales office will be open tomorrow, regular hours. Affordable vacation units for a lifetime of enjoyment.”

It was only eight A.M., but he'd already had his fill of Bigby. He turned off the TV, and five minutes later, Victoria called.

“‘The woman is perfected,'” she said. “I fell asleep thinking about it.”

With Bigby alongside, no doubt.

“Me, too,” Steve said. “It's a lot different than saying, “‘The woman is perfect.' But what's it mean?”

“Can we work on it Monday? I'm gonna be stuck on the farm all weekend.”

“I saw your guy on the weather forecast. He looked dashing.”

“I'm so worried,” she whispered. “Bruce is trying to act brave, but inside he's terrified about what might happen.”

In the background, Steve heard someone shouting. “Smudge pots, pronto! Comprende?”

“You're coming down here tonight, aren't you, Steve?”

“Not if I have to watch the two of you smooching around a campfire.”

“We'll be working to save the farm. You know that.”

“Look, I wouldn't be much use. Even my weeds die.”

“Bruce likes you, Steve.”

“Bruce is a lousy judge of character.”

“Please, do this for me, Steve.”

After that, what choice did he have? He told her he'd be there by sundown to shovel shit or whatever Bigby wanted. She said to dress Bobby in several layers, and for a moment, it sounded very domestic to him, like she was his wife and Bobby their son. But that thought passed when Victoria said she had to go. Bruce was calling her, something about sandwiches and soup for two hundred men.

It was sunny and windy, the temperature plunging when Steve, in cotton sweats, took his run. He followed the usual route through South Grove, across the Gables Waterway bridge, to the end of Cocoplum Circle. Bobby rode his bicycle twenty yards ahead. Bribed with the promise of a papaya smoothie, the kid had pulled a windbreaker over his Marlins jersey.

Steve was hoping to get into the zone, that relaxed place where the body goes on autopilot and the mind relaxes in the La-Z-Boy. Sometimes, zoned out, ideas would pop into his head-new sandwich recipes or trial strategies-and he'd race home and write them down. But today he had only questions.

What did Charles mean? “The woman is perfected.”

Steve's gut told him it was the key to the case.

Questions in Bobby's case, too.

How do we discredit Kranchick and Thigpen? Who's the mystery rebuttal witness? And how the hell do we win?

A question about Victoria, too.

If we'd met before she hooked up with Bigby, would things have turned out differently?

All questions, no answers.

Passing the halfway point, Steve concentrated on his form. Arms relaxed, head still. There wasn't much traffic, just a few real estate brokers chauffeuring clients past waterfront homes. He saw Bobby half a block ahead, carving figure eights on his bike, then swerving back on course.

Steve called out: “Hey, kiddo, wait up!”

The boy turned, waved, then pedaled faster, heading away from him, toward LeJeune Circle.

Where does he get that rebellious streak?

Standing upright on the pedals, Bobby turned right at the circle and disappeared from view.

“Dammit.” Steve picked up his pace.

Sometimes Steve thought he was overprotective. When he considered his own childhood, he was sure of it. When he was just a little older than Bobby, he would ride his bike from Miami Beach across the Julia Tuttle Causeway, cars whizzing by, horns blowing. He'd look for pickup baseball games in a park near the Liberty City projects. He was usually the only white kid in the game, but he couldn't remember anyone ever hassling him. At least, not until he started betting five bucks he could beat anyone in a race.

Any race. Around the bases, straight down the foul line, from home plate to deepest center field. They'd laughed at him, skinny Jewish kid from the Beach who thought he was a brother. But he'd won six races in a row, pocketed the cash, then dashed off on his bicycle, a couple of sore losers chasing him with baseball bats.

Now Steve crossed the bridge over the waterway, turned on Edgewater, and headed toward the bay.

Bobby was not in sight.

He'd probably turned up Douglas Road, the quickest route home, Steve figured. Not to worry, right? Still, he sped up.

Edgewater was quiet on a Saturday morning. No cars, no pedestrians, just a chorus line of wood storks. He turned left on Douglas, heading up a slight incline, a hill by Miami standards.

Still no Bobby.

He tried to calculate how far the boy could have gone, pedaling with those legs, as spindly as the wood storks'. He didn't like the answer.

Bobby should be here. He should be in sight.

Then, just past Battersea Road, Steve saw it. Bobby's red Schwinn, on its side, its front wheel poking out of an azalea bush.

“Bobby! Bobby, where are you?”

The only sound was the caw of an unseen bird.

“Bobby! C'mon, no screwing around.”

He forced himself to remain calm. The boy could have walked down Battersea to the seawall. He could be skipping stones across the flat water of the bay. He's on the rocks at the shoreline, Steve told himself. He had to be.

Halfway down the street, Steve could see all the way to the bay.

“Bobby!”

No answer.

He turned around, got back to Douglas, started running north. Cars were backed up at the Ingraham intersection, an arts festival in the Grove jamming the traffic all the way to Old Cutler Road. He picked up speed, running along the berm in the shade of palmetto trees, looking into each gridlocked car as he passed. Families in sedans, teens in Jeeps, hotshot guys in convertibles. Horns honked; drivers craned out windows; a man cursed.

Breathing hard, Steve willed himself to stay loose. He knew that tensing up would drain his energy. He had to make a quick decision. Douglas Road split in two. Bear right, you head up Main Highway into the downtown Grove and even worse traffic. Stay straight, and you hit South Dixie Highway. If Bobby had been snatched, the car would head for South Dixie. Once there, it could turn north toward I-95, go straight into the Gables, or turn south and head for Kendall. It could go anywhere.

If the car gets to South Dixie, Bobby's gone.

Steve stayed straight, running full bore. He was at De Garmo when he heard the screech of burning rubber. Ahead of him, one of the cars pulled out of the pack. But it wasn't a car.

A muddy green pickup with oversize tires.

It peeled into the oncoming lane and tore left across traffic onto Leafy Way. Steve was too far away to see into the truck.

Was it Janice?

Or Zinkavich's thugs?

Or some freaking pedophile?

No way to see if Bobby was inside. But there are some things you sense. He felt Bobby's presence. His heart raced now, not from the exertion of running but from the fear boiling through his veins.

Steve headed toward Leafy Way, a block ahead. A strange choice if they were looking for a shortcut. The street dead-ended three blocks from the intersection.

He figured he had one minute, at most, before the truck pulled a U-turn at the end of the street and came back out to the intersection. The only sounds now were the pounding of his own heart and the slap of his running shoes against the pavement. For the first time, he was aware of his aching legs.

He pictured Bobby at the park, tossing the ball. Herky-jerky movements, no natural coordination, but the kid loved to play. They would pretend Bobby was a Marlins pitcher; Steve would get in the catcher's crouch and call balls and strikes. “Stee-rike three! Bobby Solomon, the rookie sensation from Miami, strikes out Barry Bonds to end the Giants' threat.”

That someone could hurt this boy filled Steve with a hot, murderous rage.

Then the spigots opened, the adrenaline poured, and Steve flew. Alongside him, the gridlocked cars were a blur, the faces of motorists featureless smudges. He jumped on the hood of a blue BMW and leapt off on the other side, the driver yelling, “Ay, cabron!” as Steve crossed Douglas and spun into Leafy Way.

Sure enough, the muddy pickup with the bug screen was growling back out, coming straight at him. Now he saw it had a reinforced steel bumper mounted with a recovery hook, waist high. There could have been three people in the cab or three hundred; Steve couldn't see past the windshield glare.

He ran straight at the truck. Playing chicken. The hook would be the first thing to hit him, entering the stomach, exiting his back. Steve had several seconds to imagine the autopsy photos.

He kept running; the truck kept coming.

The truck's horn blared, a steady blast.

He had maybe five seconds to dive over the curb and into a flower bed.

Suddenly, the truck braked hard, tires squealing. It fishtailed to a stop ten feet from him. Bouncing over the curb into a yard alongside a one-story stucco house, it smashed through a ficus hedge.

Steve chased after it.

From a neighbor's yard, someone yelled, “Hey! Fuck!”

The truck plowed through the property at the rear of the house. Churned up chunks of grass, sideswiped a pool cabana, crunched through a planter made of railroad ties. An elderly man in a bathrobe watering flowers leapt away, screeching something unintelligible.

Looking for a shortcut, Steve ran through an adjacent yard and headed for the next street, El Prado. He was betting the pickup would turn right and make a run for LeJeune, away from the snarled traffic. He headed on an angle to intercept it.

Turn right. Damn you, turn right.

Engine roaring, wheels tearing through the soft grass, the truck bounced into El Prado just as Steve emerged from the yard of an adjacent home.

The truck turned right. He had the angle. If he timed it perfectly

…

You can do this. You can make it.

Running at full speed, Steve reached out. The rear gate of the truck was inches away. He launched himself, his foot catching on the bumper, his hand grabbing at the gate. He tumbled into the truck bed, sliding on his belly until his head hit the base of a lockbox, jamming his neck into his shoulders.

Shit, that hurts. That really hurts.

Bleary, unable to catch his breath, blood trickling down into his eyes, he scrambled to his feet just as the truck swerved right and tossed him into the left side-rail. Then it swerved hard left, and he was flung into the right side-rail. As he bounced off, he got a fleeting look into the tinted rear window of the cab. A man drove; a woman was in the passenger seat. Sitting between them, looking directly at him, tears streaking his face, eyes wide with fear, was Bobby.

Dizzy, his head throbbing, Steve grabbed the handle of the lockbox and steadied himself. He sensed movement behind him and whirled around. There were two old tires with no tread, a rolled-up tarp, and two cans of paint rolling around.

And a dog.

The dog was trying to get its balance, its tail tucked beneath its hindquarters. A big, mangy brown mutt with matted hair, a mix of Rottweiler and German shepherd, he guessed. The dog growled at him as if he had just swiped its pork chops.

“Hey, fellow,” Steve said, extending a hand, showing how friendly he was.

The dog crouched on its haunches. The hair stood up on its neck.

Keeping one eye on the dog, Steve opened the lockbox lid. Hammers. Screwdrivers. A drill. A box wrench maybe two feet long. He would have preferred a baseball bat, but the wrench would do. Behind him, the dog's growl deepened ominously.

There was oncoming traffic now, and the truck had stopped swerving. Turning his back to the dog, Steve leaned over the driver's side of the cab, reaching as far as he could, the wrench in his left hand. Just as his backswing hit its apogee, he heard the sound of claws scratching metal. A second later, he brought the wrench down with all his might, and he felt the dog's teeth sink into his butt.

“Shit!” Steve screamed as the window shattered.

“Shit!” yelled the driver from inside the cab.

The truck swerved right, jumped the curb, flattened a mailbox, and slammed into a jacaranda tree. Steve felt himself flying over the side rail. He landed face-first in a honeysuckle shrub. For a moment, all went black. In the next moment, he was aware of several things at once:

His eyes refused to focus, his butt ached, and his nose was bleeding.

The mangy dog was yelping, running down the street.

A man with glass shards stuck in his forehead was getting out of the driver's side of the pickup, blood streaming down in his face.

Bobby ran to Steve, crying.

An overweight woman in granny glasses hustled after Bobby, yelling his name. She had greasy, dark hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. As she ran, her breasts jiggled under a Grateful Dead T-shirt. Her voice brought back vaguely unpleasant memories. “Jan?”

“It's me, Stevie,” Janice Solomon said.

“Then I must have died and gone to hell.”

“Not yet,” the man said. He was standing ten feet away, a jack handle in his hand. Rufus Thigpen. Shaved head, scarred skull, and a face as mean as a hungry weasel.

“I thought you were in jail, Thigpen.”

“They let me out, shithead. Gave me three hundred dollars and a motel room.”

“They teach you how to use indoor plumbing?” Steve struggled to his feet, scooping up a handful of dirt from the honeysuckle bed. He didn't think Thigpen saw him do it; the guy was wiping blood from his eyes. Steve was afraid, but not for himself. He could survive being beaten up; Bobby could not survive being taken away.

Thigpen gestured with the jack handle. “I owe you some major pain, fucker.”

“Yeah, yeah. That's the second time you said that to me.” What had he said at their meeting in the Fink's office? “I owe you, fucker.” There was something about the phrase… And the voice… And the way he gripped the jack handle… And then it came to him. From some deep, dark place, like a chilly waterway.

“It was you, Thigpen. That's what you said to me on the dock. ‘I owe you, fucker.' You're the guy with the winch handle and the potty mouth.”

“I should have drowned you when I had the chance,” Thigpen said.

“I don't get it. Why break into my house? What did you want?”

“Ask your dumb-ass sister. If you can still talk when I'm through with you.”

“Don't hurt him, Rufe,” Janice wailed.

“Fuck that. He scrambled my brains.”

“How can you tell the difference?” Steve said.

Thigpen took a step toward him. Steve knew he'd have one chance, that's all. His eyes were starting to focus, but the throbbing in his head had worsened. A hundred pounds of sand shifted inside his skull with every movement.

Thigpen took another step and brought the jack handle back.

Almost there. One more step.

Bobby dived for Thigpen's legs.

“No!” Steve yelled.

Thigpen swatted Bobby across the face and knocked him to the ground.

“Touch him again, I'll rip out your throat,” Steve said.

“Try it,” Thigpen sneered.

Bobby crouched on his haunches in the dirt, a hand over one eye.

“It's gonna be okay, kiddo,” Steve promised. “We'll go home in a minute.”

“The fuck you will.” Taking one last step, Thigpen swung the jack handle. Steve slid to the side, the handle just missing his ear. He flicked out a hand and tossed the dirt into Thigpen's face, closing his eyes.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Thigpen clawed at his eyes, and Steve kicked him squarely in the groin. Thigpen doubled over, and Steve locked both hands together and swung them up, hard, connecting with the man's nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch of cartilage and a spray of blood. Thigpen collapsed, moaning, one hand clutching his face, the other his crotch.

Steve limped to the truck and leaned on it for support. “Jan, what the hell?”

“I just wanted to see my Bobby for a little bit. I wouldn't hurt him…”

Bobby ran to Steve, wrapped his arms around him. “Can we go home, Uncle Steve?” He wouldn't look at his mother.

“You bet, kiddo.”

Thigpen got to one knee, mumbled something about the sword of God, collapsed flat in the dirt. In the distance, a police siren wailed.

“I would have brought Bobby back, honest,” Janice gabbled. “I woulda had to. Rufe didn't want to take him along.”

“Where you going?”

Janice pulled at her ponytail. “Away somewhere. After Bobby's case is over. This lawyer, Zinkavich, got us out of jail for helping him.”

“You're the Fink's rebuttal witness?”

“If that's what it's called, guess so.”

“What are you going to say, that I lost your Barbie collection playing poker when we were kids?”

“That you're violent and unstable and do drugs. That you beat me up when you kidnapped Bobby. That he'd be better off in state custody.”

“Zinkavich believe that shit?”

“I told him I knew your dealer. I could set it up so he could bust you for possession right in the courtroom, real dramatic like.”

“How the hell could you manage that?” But even as the words came out, he knew. “Thigpen didn't break into my house to steal anything, did he? He was planting something.”

“Crystal meth in the lining of your briefcase. But you came home too early. You fucked it all up.”

“Jesus, Janice. This is low. Even for you.”

“Which is why I want to make amends now.”

The siren grew louder.

“Make 'em quick,” Steve said.

She seemed to be trying to form her thoughts. Twenty years of assorted powders, pills, and weeds can play havoc with the brain cells. “I got a deal for you, Stevie. How much is my little Bobby worth to you?”

“Everything I've got plus everything I can beg, borrow, and steal.”

“About what I had in mind,” Janice Solomon said.

9. I will never break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time… unless it's for someone I love.