Solomon versus Lord

Thirty-six
THE MEASURE OF A MAN

A cold wind whistled through the avocado trees, chilling Victoria. She was shivering, even though she wore an ankle-length black leather swing coat over a cashmere sweater and jeans. She hoped Bruce wouldn't say anything about the leather. He should just be happy she hadn't pulled out one of her mother's fox boas or mink hats.

Now, where was he?

She was standing in the farm's staging area, a cleared five-acre parcel between two avocado groves. Tractors growled by, kicking up dust. Trucks filled with straw churned between rows of trees, workers with shovels and pitchforks following, chattering in Spanish. Generators roared as men set up portable lights and heaters. In the adjacent grove, sprinklers with rotating arms fifty feet long turned endless circles. Black smoke from the smudge pots curled into the air, and the whir of giant fans blew hot air into the groves. The sun had set an hour earlier, and the low, scudding clouds were lit a surreal orange from the fires in the smudge pots.

Where are they?

Bruce would be busy all night, and she was looking forward to spending time with the Solomon Boys. Maybe Bobby could work with them on the source gram: “The woman is perfected.”

What did Charles Barksdale mean?

Was there something he was saying about Katrina they could pick up?

Over speakers mounted on poles, a song played, something with an upbeat Afro-Cuban beat. It took her a second to remember the name: “Maracaibo Oriental.” She was swaying to the music, mostly to keep warm, when she saw Steve and Bobby walking toward her, emerging from the black haze.

“Omigod, Steve, what happened?”

He tried to smile through a swollen lip. Bloody scrapes tracked down his face as if an angry lover had dragged her fingernails from forehead to mouth. Victoria looked at Bobby, saw the welt-the hue of a ripe plum-under his right eye, and abandoned Steve.

“Bobby!”

“We kicked some major ass,” the boy said.

Victoria gently cradled his chin, examining the shiner. “Does it hurt?”

“A little.” He added hastily: “Nothing I can't handle.”

She kissed a fingertip and gently ran it under Bobby's eye. “Better?”

“What about me?” Steve asked. “I've got teeth marks on my butt.”

“And not for the first time, I bet.” She brushed Bobby's hair out of his eyes. “Now, what major ass did you kick?”

With each one interrupting the other, uncle and nephew gave her the short version of the snatch, the chase, the wreck, and the combat.

“Nobody ever ran as fast as Uncle Steve,” the boy said. “Like a world record.”

“Bobby was very brave,” Steve said. “If he hadn't tackled Thigpen-”

“I smashed him. Then, ka-pow! Uncle Steve kicked him in the nuts.”

“Wow,” Victoria said.

“When I grow up, I'm gonna be just like Uncle Steve.”

With the story winding down, Victoria said: “So it was Thigpen who broke into your house. It had nothing to do with the Barksdale murder or the security video.”

“Correct,” Steve said.

“Meaning you might have been right all along about Katrina being innocent. Manko, too.”

“Don't sound so surprised.”

“But we still don't have the proof.”

“Last time I checked, the burden of proof was on the prosecution.”

She laughed. “When did you start believing the letter of the law? An adulterous wife is in the room when her rich old hubby strangles to death. That pretty much shifts the burden.”

“‘The woman is perfected,'” Steve said. “The answer's gotta be there.”

“Maybe.” Her mind drifted back to Steve's account of chasing down Janice and Thigpen. “So that's all your sister wanted, to see Bobby for a few hours?”

“And to tell me she's Zinkavich's rebuttal witness.”

“Did you ask what she's going to say?”

“She's going to bad-mouth me. What more do we need to know?”

Odd that he brushed it off that way, she thought. Something wasn't ringing true. She glanced at Bobby, who turned away. What was going on? What wasn't Steve telling her?

Steve wanted to tell her the truth.

But could she handle the truth?

If he told Victoria about Janice's illegal proposal and his equally illegal response, she'd quit Bobby's case. Probably even report him to the Florida Bar. Was that a look of suspicion a moment ago? Or just his guilty conscience playing tricks?

What he planned to do could cost him his license, if it didn't land him in prison. Not the kind of risk he'd take for just anyone.

Still, this went far beyond trampling legal niceties. He'd never bribed a witness before. But then, he'd never been this desperate. Winning custody of Bobby wasn't a legal skirmish; it was his life.

“So tell me what you want,” he had said to his sister as they stood by the smashed truck.

“I hate helping that fuck Zinkavich,” she said. “He treats me like I'm some low-life criminal.”

“Imagine that.”

“So I figured I could screw him over instead of you.”

“I'm listening.”

“He got me and Rufe out of prison, but we're on parole, so he still could violate us and send us back.”

“Not unless you do something stupid.”

“They find one joint in our truck, we're back in the can. Hang out with known felons, same thing. Parole's a bitch. That's why we gotta get away, Rufe and me.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“You gotta give us a hundred thousand dollars.”

“I don't have that kind of money. In fact, I don't have any kind.”

“What about your big murder trial?”

“My client's money is tied up. I don't get a dime unless we win.”

That was the truth. Katrina had agreed to pay them two hundred fifty thousand dollars, but it would be collectible only if she was acquitted. An unfortunate technicality in the law doesn't let homicidal wives inherit their husbands' estates.

“You could hit up Dad.”

“Mom's medical bills drained him. He's tapped out, living on his pension.”

“There's got to be someone else. Someone who'll lend you the bread.”

Who would he ask? He didn't have a clue. “What do I get for my money?”

“Me and Rufe disappear and never testify.”

It won't work, Steve thought. Kranchick's testimony would still bury him. “Your leaving town's not good enough. If I pay you, you've got to stay and testify.”

“How's that gonna help you?”

“When Zinkavich puts you on the stand, you won't give his answers. You'll give mine.”

Victoria was watching Steve, kneeling in the dirt, tying Bobby's shoestrings. There's something he's not telling me, she thought.

His sister is going to sandbag him, and he doesn't seem concerned. Zinkavich already has Kranchick and Thigpen, and now this. Steve should be ranting, cursing, pawing the ground, plotting a counterattack. But he seems nonchalant about the whole thing.

What's he hiding?

As she worked on that dilemma, an open Jeep Wrangler skidded to a stop in front of them. The driver wore a Bigby Farms jacket with the avocado logo. The passenger was his boss, Bruce Bigby, standing tall, holding the roll bar for support, blond hair windblown. Wearing an off-white skier's jumpsuit, he had a bullhorn in one hand, a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, a digital thermometer zippered on his sleeve, and a revolver holstered on his hip. In that getup, Bruce looked part astronaut, part general, and-she hated to think it-a total dweeb.

“Get those heaters into the hollow!” Bigby yelled into the bullhorn. “Gosh darn it, I told you, the trees in the low areas freeze first!”

“Hi, hon,” Victoria said.

“Sweetie.” He gave her a brisk salute, then hopped out of the Jeep. The legs of his jumpsuit were bloused over the tops of combat boots. On the speakers, Celia Cruz was singing “Corazon Rebelde,” ode to a rebellious heart.

“Hey, Bruce,” Steve said.

Bigby's eyes went wide. “Jeez, Steve. Another shaving accident?”

“Family reunion.”

“Those are open cuts. Have you taken antibiotics?”

“Does Jack Daniel's count?”

Bigby's walkie-talkie crackled with static. “Senor Bigby, thirty-three degrees in the north quadrant.”

Bigby hit a button. “Get some heaters over there, Foyo.”

“Si, jefe.”

“Nobody sleeps. Hot coffee all night. Rum and Coke at dawn.”

“Si, jefe.”

“And that music. Does it have to be that Cuban crapola?”

“Is what the men like.”

“Whatever.” Bigby clicked off the walkie-talkie. “Bobby, care to ride with me?”

Bobby gripped Steve's hand and shook his head.

“He's a little shaken,” Steve said. “We'll catch up with you later.”

“You got it.”

“What can I do to help?” Steve asked.

“Gonna be a long night,” Bigby said. “Will you look after my sweetie for me?”

“To the best of my limited abilities.”

“What's with the gun, hon?” Victoria asked.

Bigby lowered his voice to a whisper. “The men expect it. El jefe always carries a side arm. It's a Caribbean thing.”

“And what does el jefe shoot?” she persisted.

“Varmints, trespassers…”

Guys sniffing after jefe's fiancee? she wondered.

The violent bleat of a siren interrupted them. Startled, Bobby stumbled into Steve's chest, his glasses falling to the ground. “No noise. No noise. No noise.”

Steve wrapped his arms around the boy. “It's okay, kiddo. It's okay.”

“Not really,” Bigby said, grimly. “It means the temperature's just hit thirty-two. If it goes to twenty-nine and stays there, I'm in deep doo-doo, if you'll pardon my French.”

Did he really say “deep doo-doo”? Victoria wondered.

“I'm taking Bobby inside for a while,” Steve said, picking up the boy's glasses.

“There's hot chocolate in the kitchen,” Bigby said, “and a spare bedroom next to the den. Make yourself at home.”

Steve and Bobby walked toward the house, the boy ferociously gripping his uncle's arm. When they were out of earshot, Bigby said: “With the grace of God, we'll never have to face that.”

“Face what?”

“You know… that.”

She was startled. “If you mean Bobby, he's a wonderful child.”

“I know, sweetie. I know. You're a sucker for the bird with the broken wing.”

“It's more than that. I really love the boy.”

“Sure you do. But would you rather our son be the captain of the football team at Dartmouth or some oddball who scrambles words in his head?”

“Depends who has the bigger heart.”

“Whatever.” He peeled the thermometer off his sleeve, checked the readout, and frowned. “Keep the kid out of trouble for me, sweetie. He falls down a well, Solomon will sue me quicker than he can say ‘shalom.'”

“Don't think I've ever heard him use the word.”

“Figure of speech.”

“I know, Bruce. Just one I never expected to hear from you.”

“Hey, you know me. Not a prejudiced bone in my body. All my doctors and lawyers are Jews. Heck, I wanted you to work with Solomon for a while, remember? Pick up some of his tricks. They're sharper than we are that way.”

“Are they?”

“Oh, come on, don't be so sensitive.”

She blinked involuntarily, as if she'd been slapped.

Don't be so sensitive?

“That's very controlling,” she said.

“What? How?”

“C'mon, Bruce. You're not that clueless. You can't tell another person how to feel.”

Bigby's walkie-talkie squawked again. “Jefe, veintiocho grados in the hollow.”

“Darn! Those lights strung yet?”

“Almost. Ya casi termino, jefe.”

“Gotta go, sweetie.” Bigby straightened the holster on his hip and hopped into the Jeep. John Wayne amid the avocados.

“I could come along,” she said.

“Sends the wrong message to the men. Wouldn't want them to think their jefe's pussy-whipped.”

“Of course not.”

She studied him, smoke swirling around his head, diesel fumes in the air.

“What?” Bruce asked.

“I've never seen you like this.”

“In a time of crisis,” Bigby intoned, “that's when you can take the full measure of a man.”

“So true.”

He motioned for the driver to pull away. Still standing, gripping the roll bar with one hand, he waved to Victoria with the other. “Later, sweetie.”

“Later, jefe,” Victoria said, as the Jeep bumped along the path and disappeared into the black haze of the grove.