Solomon versus Lord

Five
MONEY, SEX, AND MURDER

Inside the Justice Building, Steve was feeling as gray as the weather outside. The morning session ended with a Customs Officer testifying that Amancio Pedrosa was harboring a menagerie of smuggled birds, including a foulmouthed cockatoo.

A beaming Victoria then crowed: “Having established a prima facie case, we rest, Your Honor.”

Steve made his obligatory motion for a directed verdict. Judge Gridley called a sidebar conference and asked his advice: Should he take the over or the under on the Michigan State-Penn State game? The under, Steve said. The weather forecast for central Pennsylvania was wind and rain. The judge agreed, then denied Steve's motion.

With no pyrotechnics to ignite, Steve had spent considerable time studying his opponent. Today Victoria wore a dark, tweedy jacket with a matching skirt. She looked professional and businesslike-and, given the conservative wool, unaccountably sexy. Next to her at the prosecution table, Ray Pincher whispered to a variety of aides, who brought him messages and kneeled at his feet like supplicants to a king.

Now, returning from lunch, Steve hurried along the crowded corridor, weaving past sheriff's deputies, touring schoolchildren, and lawyers soliciting clients. A courtroom door opened and an elderly man toddled out; Steve braked but still bumped the man. “Whoops. Sorry, Marvin,” he apologized.

“Watch out, boychik, or I'll sue you for whiplash,” Marvin Mendelsohn said.

Marvin the Maven was the unofficial chief of the Courthouse Gang, a posse of retirees who moseyed from courtroom to courtroom, observing the juiciest trials. The Maven was a dapper little man, almost eighty, with a pencil mustache, oversize black-framed glasses, and a bald head that shone under the fluorescent lights. Today he wore gray wool slacks and a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons. A paisley cravat of shimmering silk blossomed like a colorful bouquet at his neck.

“Looking good, Marvin.”

“Horseshit. My sciatica's killing me. You wanna sue my chiropractor?”

To most lawyers, Marvin and his Gang were either invisible or bothersome. Alter kockers. Old farts who clogged the cafeteria line and kibitzed in the corridors. Steve enjoyed their company. He lunched with them, listened to their stories, took their advice. Marvin the Maven had uncanny instincts about jury selection, particularly with women, where Steve needed the most help. Marvin had owned a women's shoe store in Buffalo for forty years before fleeing the winters. Maybe it was selling thousands of pumps and slingbacks, stilettos and sandals over the years that gave Marvin insights most men lack. Or maybe it was just listening to the women themselves.

“So what you got going besides your farshtinkener bird trial?” Marvin asked, as they made their way down the corridor.

“I'm trying to hustle Katrina Barksdale.”

“The woman who shtupped her husband to death?”

“Can you imagine the trial? Money, sex, and murder.”

“Save me a seat in the front row.”

“If I got that case, I could pay my bills, get a new car, hire a tutor for Bobby.”

“I love you like a grandson, Steve, but why would this woman hire a low-rent lawyer like you?”

“Because Victoria Lord's going to recommend me.”

“You romancing that fancy lady prosecutor? That your way in?”

“All business, Marvin.”

“What happened to that nice Jewish girl you were going out with?”

“Sally Panther? She's a Miccosukee.”

“So? Indians are the lost tribes of Israel.”

“Whatever she is, she dumped me.”

“Okay, so sniff around after Miss Lord. But if you ask me, she'll buy her pumps at Wal-Mart before she brings you a case.”

As they walked, Steve told Marvin his game plan. He was about to put on the defense case in the Pedrosa trial. He'd dazzle Victoria with his footwork and hypnotize her with his words. He'd win, but he'd win nice.

Marvin gave him a skeptical look. “You're playing by the rules?”

“Strictly Marquis of Queensberry.”

“This I gotta see.”

“You don't think I can do it?”

Marvin shrugged. “Why do you think the Gang watches your trials?”

“Because I'm the only lawyer who'll talk to you.”

“Because you're Barnum and Bailey. You try a case, there's always a dozen clowns crawling out of a little car.”

“Not today.”

Marvin was quiet a moment. Then he said: “Sometimes a woman who needs a size nine will lie to herself. Try to squeeze into an eight-and-a-half.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe you don't know it, boychik, but getting the Barksdale case is your alibi. It's the girl you're after.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good, because this one's not your type.”

“Meaning what?”

“She's classy, is all. No offense.”

“Jeez, Marvin. I thought you loved me like one of your grandsons.”

“They never visit,” the old man said.

The corridor was jammed with the usual flotsam and jetsam. Sheriff's deputies herded shackled prisoners from holding cells to courtrooms, bail bondsmen trailing in their wake like rudderfish after sharks. The prisoners' girlfriends and wives lined the walls, yelling encouragement or insults at their men, depending on the current state of their relationships.

The elevator door opened, and an attractive, trim woman in her seventies walked out. “Hola, Marvin. Stephen.”

Teresa Torano wore a stylish two-button herringbone jacket with a matching camel skirt. Her dark hair was tied back in a bun with what looked like ivory chopsticks.

“Teresa,” the men said in unison.

Teresa's husband, Oscar, had owned a chain of funeral homes in Havana but lost the business-and his life-when he opposed Fidel Castro. In the early 1960's, Teresa brought their children to Miami and worked for minimum wage as a mortician's assistant. Within five years, she had her own license and opened Funeraria Torano on Calle Ocho. By the time she turned the businesses over to her children, Teresa owned seven funeral homes, a jai-alai fronton, and a Chevrolet dealership.

In Steve's accounting ledger-a ragged notebook where he recorded his income, when he had any-Teresa Torano was listed as Client 001. Looking back, he wondered if he could have made it that first year if she hadn't hired him to represent her companies. Since then, they had grown close. Teresa adored Bobby, taking him to the Seaquarium and baking him pastelitos de guayaba. It was almost time for her homemade crema de vie, the anise Christmas drink that makes eggnog seem like Slim-Fast.

At about the time Teresa became Steve's client numero uno, she became Marvin's second love-the only woman he'd been with since the death of his beloved Bess. Now Marvin spent every Friday night at Teresa's Coral Gables villa. Neither ever acknowledged the relationship, not even when Steve ran into them holding hands and drinking mimosas at brunch one recent Saturday morning.

“Stephen, what did you do to Jack Zinkavich?” Teresa demanded as they approached Judge Gridley's courtroom.

“Nothing. Why?”

“I hear things.”

“Yeah?”

“The receptionist in Family Services is a cousin of my late Oscar's grandniece,” Teresa said, “and she eats lunch with an investigator who works with Zinkavich.”

“What's that gotta do with me?” Steve asked.

“Zinkavich told his investigator he's gonna kick your culo.”

“The momzer,” Marvin said.

“Zinkavich wants to take Bobby away from me,” Steve said.

“That's not it,” Teresa said. “He's talking about criminal charges.”

Steve stopped dead. “For what?”

“All I know, he took a trip to Blountstown to look into it.”

Calhoun County, Steve thought. In the Panhandle. Where he'd busted Bobby out of the commune. And busted the bearded guy's skull.

A feeling of dread swept over him. Criminal charges?

Why's the Fink coming after me? All I want is to protect Bobby, give him a life.

“You watch out for Zinkavich,” Marvin warned. “He may look like a schlub, but he's mean as a Cossack.”

“Even worse,” Teresa said. “Mean as a comunista.”