The Deep Blue Alibi

Fourteen

The next morning was warm and sticky, with fat gray clouds hanging over the Everglades. A sure sign of afternoon thunderstorms. Steve pointed the old Cadillac east and headed across the MacArthur Causeway toward the beach and the offices of Solomon amp; Lord. The canvas top was down, the only benefit, as far as he knew, of traveling solo.

Victoria had declined his generous invitation to share his bed the night before. He'd dropped her off at her Brickell Avenue condo before doubling back to Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove. Bobby had gathered up the Miami Heralds, stained red from the squishy berries of a Brazilian pepper tree, and they'd spent the night by themselves. After Bobby had gone to sleep, Steve sat at the kitchen table, drinking beer-not four-hundred-dollar tequila, Junior-pondering just what the hell was going on. It was a three-beer ponder. First, Victoria wanted to split up the firm. Then, the obvious attraction between her and Junior Griffin, aka The Guy He'd Most Like to Pin a Murder Rap On.

Victoria was wrong about one thing.

I'm not jealous of Junior.

Jealousy was a cheap, tawdry emotion, filled with adolescent overtones and boy-girl gamesmanship. Jealousy implied mere infatuation. Victoria meant so much more to him. If he were a house, Steve thought, Bobby would be his foundation and Victoria his walls. Lose either one, his roof would cave in. For the truth was, he loved them both and could not imagine life without either one.

He pulled up to the building just after nine a.m. There was no sign with fancy lettering proclaiming "Law Offices." No brass plate emblazoned: "Solomon amp; Lord." Instead, the squat, two-story, faded seafoam green stucco pillbox was decorated with a hand-painted Les Mannequins. Hurrying inside, Steve decided to do whatever it took to get to his second-floor office unimpeded. Broken-field running, a buttonhook pattern, even stiff-arm a runway model if necessary.

He kept his head down and moved past the reception desk, where an attractive young woman with a headset was speaking in a clipped British accent, telling a caller not to send her daughter's school yearbook photos, even if she was captain of the Archbishop Curley cheerleading squad. The receptionist looked up: "Stephen! Lexy and Rexy need you."

He grimaced and plowed ahead, sailing through an interior door, passing a photographer's studio and a makeup room with lights bright enough to blanch almonds. The stairs were in sight when he heard: "Steve!" Followed by an echoing rifle shot: "Steve, wait!"

He didn't stop. Even the wildebeest knew better than to pause for a chat with the lions. He quickened his pace, hearing the click-clack of Jimmy Choos, or some other flimsy but outrageously costly shoes. A six-foot tall blonde cut him off at the foot of the stairs. Her identical twin was a half step behind.

Lexy and Rexy.

Lexy wore spandex hot pants festooned with pink stars and a canary-yellow tank top pocketed with stylish holes, revealing ample portions of bare skin underneath. Her Sunday church outfit, no doubt. Rexy wore a clinging piece of floral silk that might have been a dressing gown or a swimsuit cover-up, Steve couldn't tell. It was slit from ankle to hip and held up by nothing more than Rexy's enhanced breasts, which, now that he thought about it, could doubtless cantilever a load considerably heavier than the wafery dress. Best Steve could tell, Rexy wore nothing underneath, except what God and Dr. Irwin Rudnick had given her.

The twins had blue sapphire cat's eyes and perfect, expensive smiles. Steve noticed they had recently cropped their long flaxen hair very short. It looked like someone had plopped bowls on their heads and put the shears to work, but this was probably some chic new Parisian style that had passed him by. They looked like twin blond Joans of Arc…if Joan had been an anorexic hooker.

Lexy and Rexy were on the far side of twenty-five- though they claimed to be nineteen-and probably realized they would never achieve the success of their hero, Linda Evangelista, who long ago said she didn't wake up in the morning for less than ten thousand dollars. Lexy and Rexy earned ten thousand dollars one weekend, but that was thanks to a blond-worshipping Saudi prince who maintained a permanent suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Key Biscayne. Modeling had nothing to do with it, of course, unless the prince brought his own camera.

"We need you," Lexy said.

"A bunch," Rexy said.

"Not now." Steve tried to edge past the twins but was blocked by Lexy's bony elbows. "I'm busy."

"You owe us," Lexy said.

Damn. He was about to be roped into work that was both nonpaying and mind-numbing.

Les Mannequins provided Solomon amp; Lord with office space in return for legal services for a bevy of lithe young women who frequently sued their plastic surgeons and occasionally their hairdressers. Lexy and Rexy also sometimes ran afoul of the law for forging diet pill prescriptions, parking in handicapped spaces- neither low IQs nor bulimia being recognized by the State of Florida as legitimate handicaps-and once assaulting a TV meteorologist who predicted sun on a day in which thunderstorms ruined an outdoor photo shoot. In the three days that Steve had been away, who knows what legal calamities had befallen these stork-legged, lazy-yet-rapaciously-avaricious young women?

"Lex, Rex, it's gotta wait. Really. I've got a murder case going."

Lexy pouted and lodged an elbow on a shot hip, her skinny upper arm, forearm, and angular pelvis forming a triangle.

"You gotta sue Paranoia for us," Lexy said.

"Paranoia? The club? Why?"

"Our names weren't on the list, and this new bouncer didn't recognize us," Rexy pouted.

"The big stoop," Lexy said.

"So you couldn't get in," Steve said. "What's the big deal?"

"We got in," Lexy said. "But the jerk made us wait, like fifteen minutes, and it was so hot, our mascara melted." She fanned herself to convey just how Hades-like it had been, standing on Ocean Drive, queued up outside a noisy, trendy club where horny young men crawled over one another like scorpions to buy them drinks.

"Matt Damon was there." Rexy picked up her sister's fanning motion, so now they seemed to be performing a Kabuki duet. "I'll bet he'd have cast us in his new movie if we hadn't looked so shitty."

Steve saw an opportunity, and while the twins pantomined, he slipped past them on the stairs. "I'll research the law," he called out.

"Mental anguish!" Lexy blared. "Gotta be worth six figures."

"Sure, Lexy. Sure. A hundred thousand dollars of anguish for a fifty-dollar mind."

"Whadaya mean by that?" Lexy demanded.

There was the clang of metal on metal as Steve opened the door to his reception room. Once inside, he heard a grunt, a guttural growl, and an exhaled "Maldito! That's heavy." Cecilia Santiago, a thickset young woman in black tights and a muscle tee, was lying on her back on a bench press. She had a cafe au lait complexion, and three metal studs pierced one wavy eyebrow, which was shaped like the tilde in "manana."

"Morning, Cece."

"Wanna spot for me, jefe?" She hoisted the bar and a cobra tattoo curled upward from rippled triceps.

"I'll make a deal with you, Cece. Type up the overdue pleadings and correspondence, and I'll spot for you."

"Slave driver."

"Anybody call?"

"The usual. Xerox says you're three months behind on the copy machine lease. Bobby's teacher called, something about truancy. A couple bimbos from downstairs. They wanna sue Ben and Jerry's. Just discovered there's fat in ice cream."

"What about Vic? Where is she?"

"Queen Victoria? How should I know?"

"Vic's a princess. It's her mother who's The Queen."

"Whatever, jefe. She ain't here and she ain't called."

He wanted to see her, wanted to talk to her. Why is it, he wondered, when a relationship feels shaky, you crave the connection even more?

Cece started another set, exhaling on the thrust upward, inhaling on the negative downward motion, the bar clanging into the metal brackets. Steve had hired her not from a paralegal school, but from the Women's Detention Center. He considered her crime a mere peccadillo. Beating the stuffing out of her boyfriend, then driving his Toyota into the bay after catching him fooling around with her cousin, Lourdes. Cece was a decent enough assistant, even though she screwed up Steve's pleadings by typing every word phonetically, when she bothered to type at all. She was particularly adept at keeping the models away, mostly by threatening to break their spindly limbs.

Steve walked to her desk and riffled through the mail. Bills, solicitations, and Cece's muscle mags. Maybe he should lift weights, grow some stingray lats like Mr. Deep Diver. He opened a magazine called Big and Brawny, turned to a photo of a guy in a G-string, his granite torso oiled up, his arms bursting with veins like writhing snakes. The headline: "Do Steroids Really Shrink Your Testicles?" Steve tossed the magazine aside.

"Guy's waiting," Cece huffed.

"Who? Where?"

"In your office. Some old geezer. Said he was a friend of your papi's."

Steve shot a look at the door to his office. Closed. He had no appointments today. Who the hell was in there, and why?

"Dammit, you can't let somebody you don't even know into my inner sanctum."

She looked up from the bench. "You afraid they're gonna steal your great works of art?"

"If you're talking about my Florida Marlins posters. ."

"Ain't talking about your briefs."

The premises of Solomon amp; Lord consisted of Cece's reception room/gym and a single office overlooking a narrow alley and a rusting green Dumpster. On warm days, meaning nearly every day, the pungent perfume of rotting vegetables, decomposing ham croquettes, melting tar, stale beer, and fresh piss wafted through the open window. Across the alley, on an apartment balcony within spitting distance, a Jamaican steel band could be counted on for migraine-inducing rehearsals, the musicians smoking giant doobies and occasionally cooking jerk chicken on a hibachi.

The office furnishings were Salvation Army Moderne. Two desks, purchased at police auctions of stolen property; a Jupiter Hammerheads baseball-bat rack, a gift from a grateful client, a minor-league outfielder Steve helped beat a steroids rap; and a fish tank usually stocked with Florida lobster, courtesy of a poacher client. On the wall, instead of diplomas or plaques from the Kiwanis, were posters celebrating the Marlins' two World Series Championships.

The fermenting stench from the Dumpster hit Steve as he stepped inside. Another scent, too, bay rum cologne. Steve knew only one man who used the stuff, and the son-of-a-bitch was here, round and pink, sinking into the sagging client chair.

"Some shit hole you got here, Stevie," Peter Luber said, gesturing with a small pink hand. In his late sixties, Pinky Luber-no one ever called him "Peter" or "Pete"-had a rotund torso with short pudgy legs and a round, bald head with a thin, hooked nose. His face and his scalp were the same carnation pink, as if he were mildly feverish. His cheeks were so chubby that his eyes were reduced to slits of indeterminate color. He wore a jet-black suit, a white shirt with rough-hewn gold nugget cuff links, and a red silk tie as gaudy as fresh blood. On his lap was a black felt hat with a maroon feather and a narrow, upturned brim. The bowler, Steve remembered, was a Luber trademark, as distinctive as an eye patch or a cane, and highly useful for keeping the sun off his already pink scalp. An unlit Cuban cigar, the short, fat Robusto, was clenched in his teeth. On the little finger of his left hand-yeah, the pinky finger-was a black onyx ring set with a glistening diamond.

What's the perjurious pink bastard doing here?

"If I'd known you were coming, I'd have fumigated for vermin," Steve said. "Now I'll just do it after you leave."

A hard look flickered in Luber's tiny eyes, then passed quickly. In that instant, Steve saw the toughness the man tried to hide behind his cherubic pinkness, his bowling ball physique, and his silly English hat.

"If I were you, I'd burn this joint down," Luber said, gravel in his voice.

"If you were me, I'd kill myself."

"Nothing like your old man in the old days. Herb always went for mahogany. When he was first elected judge, he spent his own money to panel his office in the Justice Building."

His father's name coming out of Luber's mouth made Steve want to toss the son-of-a-bitch into the Dumpster.

"Herbert T. Solomon," Luber mused. "Now, there was a lawyer."

" 'Was' being the operative word. Just what the hell are you doing here, Luber?"

"C'mon, Stevie. Call me 'Pinky.' Everybody does."

"Wouldn't feel right. But I got some other names that might."

"You got some attitude, kid. As for your old man, he's better off fishing in the Keys. I wouldn't want to be in that rat race downtown now."

"You don't have a choice. They pulled your ticket when they sent you away."

Luber took the Robusto out of his mouth and waved it like a wand. "Eighteen months in Eglin. No big deal. I worked on my tennis game, got my life master's in contract bridge."

"Didn't know you can cheat in bridge."

"Mind if I smoke?" Luber licked the tip of his cigar with a pink tongue. "Might improve the smell in here."

"I mind."

"Aw, hell, Stevie. Your old man's let it go. Why can't you?"

"I'm not my old man."

"I remember when you'd come to the courthouse and play with your baseball cards in the holding cells." Luber's unlit cigar bobbed up and down as he spoke. "I was Chief of Capital Crimes, your old man Chief Criminal Judge."

Suddenly, Steve felt the room get warmer. Pinky Luber's cologne had turned the air sticky sweet. "You were chief of sleaze. Dad was a public servant. I can't fucking believe what you did to him."

"You blame me for your father's tsuris." Giving Steve some Yiddish for old-times' sake.

"You're the momzer who lied under oath." Adding his own Yinglish to the yin and yang of the sparring match.

"Kid, there are things you don't know, and that's all I'm gonna say."

Steve walked to the corner of the room and pulled a Barry Bonds bat from the rack. Gorgeous maple, only twenty-eight ounces, with a thin, whippy handle. Steve took a swing. Wishing he could take batting practice, tee off on Pinky Luber's round, pink head. What did he want, anyway? The bastard still hadn't said.

Pinky was fingering the hatband on his bowler, his look inscrutable. His face was remarkably unlined for a man his age. He appeared much the same as he had twenty years earlier, when he was trying murder cases in front of Judge Solomon. A smooth if ruthless prosecutor, Luber won seventeen capital cases without a loss. Not even a hung jury. Just like the 1972 Miami Dolphins, 17-0, with a sizable number being sentenced to death. About halfway through that Super Bowl run of convictions, the newspapers began calling Luber "the Electrician" and Herbert Solomon "the Frying Judge." In those days, Florida still used the electric chair, affectionately known as Old Sparky in law enforcement circles. The name, Steve knew, was not entirely fantastical, as the condemned would occasionally burst into flame, much to the chagrin of prison authorities.

Then, inexplicably, the Electrician and the Frying Judge parted. Herbert transferred to the Civil Division and Luber, hungry for dollars instead of headlines, left for private practice. He publicly vowed never to "go over to the dark side," as prosecutors called criminal defense. But Luber's foray into plaintiff's work-medical malpractice, auto accidents, products liability-didn't work out. He spent a fortune working up contingency fee cases that he lost at trial. Luber was nearly bankrupt when he returned to the corridors of the Justice Building, a Prince of Darkness working the shadows of the law. He developed a reputation as a fixer, both in court and in City Hall. He turned out to be a master briber and extortionist. A life master, just like his contract bridge, Steve thought.

When the U.S. Attorney's public corruption unit pulled a sting operation, it swept up Luber, some zoning inspectors, and two public works employees in a kickback and bribery scheme. Luber flipped quicker than you could say "minimum mandatory sentence." He signed affidavits implicating several other public officials, including Circuit Judge Herbert T. Solomon.

Steve pleaded with his father to fight the accusations, but the old man caved, quitting the bench and the Bar, even while protesting his innocence. Luber pled guilty to reduced charges, spent his eighteen months at a country club prison in the Florida Panhandle, then came back to Miami. Stripped of his Bar license, he set up shop as a lobbyist. From talk around City Hall, Pinky was making more money than ever, securing lucrative concessions at the airport, rezoning agricultural land for shopping centers, and selling fleets of not-quite-wholesale sedans to the county-all under cover of darkness. It never hurt Pinky's clients in such matters to make substantial, unreported contributions to local public officials. The contributions were always in cash, and usually delivered by Pinky Luber. In Miami politics, the term "lobbyist" was a pleasant euphemism for "bagman."

The sight of Luber, fat and prosperous, stinking of treacly cologne, gave Steve the creepy-crawlies. He took a swing with the Barry Bonds. And then another. Closed his eyes. Visualized a ball on its upward arc leaving the bat, soaring toward the fence, nearing the warning track, then plop, into the outfielder's glove. The outfielder's face appeared: round and pink and chomping a cigar. Damn! The bastard even screwed up Steve's daydreams.

"I was there the day you stole home to beat Florida State," Luber said.

Steve opened his eyes. "Who gives a shit?"

"Won five thousand bucks."

"You bet on college baseball?"

"Stevie, I bet whether the next gal to get on the elevator is a blonde or brunette." He smiled ruefully. "Then I lost ten grand on the College World Series when you got picked off third in the bottom of the ninth."

"Ump blew the call."

"Yeah, a tough break." Luber took a moment to size him up. When he spoke, it was softly and with a touch of sadness. "You were an arrogant little shit. That dancing off third base, that big lead you took in the series. Why the hell do it? You woulda scored on any hit."

"I was trying to draw a bad throw. If the pitcher puts it in the dugout, I score and we tie it up."

"You put the whole team at risk so you could be the hero. Now you're doing the same thing with Herb." Luber rocked forward in the chair and got to his feet. He brushed off his pants, as if he'd just hopped off a particularly dusty horse instead of a relatively clean, secondhand chair. "I gotta get going. Ponies are running at Calder."

Luber had always seemed short, but now, aged and a tad stooped, he was truly pint-size.

Luber started for the door, stopped, and turned. "Getting picked off. There's a lesson in that you never learned. You can't depend on umpires. Same for judges. Same for the whole damn system. That's why it's better to resolve matters informally. Between people."

Steve put the head of the bat on the floor, leaned on the handle. "What are you getting at?"

"That cockamamie suit you filed to get Herb's license back. You drop it, I could give you some help."

"What kind of help?"

Pinky's cheeks crinkled with a chubby smile. "Let's say you had a murder case that's got you stumped."

That caught Steve by surprise. "What do you know about it?"

"C'mon, Stevie. I got friends who say Hal Griffin's been pulling some pretty cute permits down in Monroe County. New docks, hydrofoil service, liquor license for a gulfside terminal. Then a guy from Washington gets whacked on his boat. If I were defending Griffin, I'd be asking myself one mighty big question."

"What's that? Who could you bribe to get the case dropped?"

"The one the ancient Romans asked, wise guy. Cui bono? Who stands to gain?"

"Already doing that. Looking for who profits if Griffin takes a fall."

"So let me help you. I know people. I hear things."

"So whadaya know? Whadaya hear?"

"Oy! I should give it away, you gonif?" Pinky Luber sniggered and waddled toward the door. "Got another Roman expression for you. Quid pro quo." He opened the door to the reception room and slipped the bowler onto his head. "Without some quid, kid, there ain't no quo."