The Deep Blue Alibi

Eighteen

"Please state your name for the record," Steve said.

"Peter Luber." The pudgeball in pinstripes turned toward Sofia Hernandez, the raven-haired court stenographer whose tricolored nails were click-clacking the keys of her machine. "But you can call me Pinky, hon."

Sofia rolled her eyes, but like every good court reporter kept blessedly silent. She was used to men flirting with her, including one Stephen M. Solomon, Esq., with whom-BV, before Victoria-Sofia used to dally.

"Where do you live, Mr. Luber?" Steve asked.

"Penthouse One-A, Belvedere Condos, Bal Harbour."

"And your office address?"

"Front seat of my Lincoln, boychik."

"You have no office?"

"Least my Town Car don't smell like a garbage dump."

Pinky sniffed and made a face. They were in the Solomon amp; Lord suite, if that's what you could call their second-floor hovel, the air ripe with rotting papaya from the Dumpster below the window. Steve was taking Luber's deposition in the lawsuit to get back Herbert's Bar license.

"Try to keep your answers responsive to the questions," Steve instructed.

Pinky Luber chomped his cold cigar and glared at Steve. Unhappy at being served with a subpoena, unhappy swearing to tell the truth, unhappy giving any deposition, much less one that poked around in his past. "Then let's move this charade along. I gotta get to the track in time for the daily double."

"What's your occupation, Mr. Luber?"

"Consultant."

Luber had tried enough cases himself to know that a smart witness answers as concisely as possible. A sentence is better than a paragraph, one word far better than two.

"Could you be a little more descriptive?" Steve asked.

"No."

Steve got the message. This wouldn't be like pulling teeth. Pulling teeth would be too easy. This would be like passing gallstones.

"Tell me the names of your clients."

Luber shook his head. "Confidential."

Steve was trying to send a message of his own. If he could, he would mess up Luber's business. Lacking a Bar license, Pinky could no longer ply his trade inside the courtroom. But he found life even more lucrative in the chambers of municipal commissions and the myriad agencies of city, county, and state government. If you needed retail space at the seaport-for a rental car company or a gift shop or a pretzel stand-and wanted to avoid pesky complications like competitive bidding, you hired Pinky Luber, influence peddler extraordinaire.

"Fact of the matter, Mr. Luber, you're a fixer, right?"

"Already told you. Consultant."

"You know a lot of people in government?"

"I been around a long time."

"You're pals with county commissioners? Agency heads? Judges?"

"Yeah. Some of 'em even send me Chanukah cards."

"You're too modest, Mr. Luber. Let's say I wanted to put up billboards along I-95. Would I come to you for help?"

"If you're smart. Which you ain't."

"And just what would you do to get me my billboards?"

"I'd introduce you to some people downtown and hope everyone falls in love."

"So, you're a matchmaker?"

"I grease the skids, kid."

"You ever grease the skids in Circuit Court?"

"That's old news. I did my time. What's that gotta do with the price of borscht?"

Just then the door opened and Herbert Solomon barged in, his flip-flops smacking the floor with each step.

"Cessante causa cessat et effectus!" Herbert sounded like a Roman senator but looked like a beach bum in paint-splattered denim cutoffs and an aloha shirt festooned with bougainvillea flowers. "Cease and desist, son."

"Are you drunk, Dad?" Steve asked.

"Ah'm removing you as counsel." Herbert turned to Luber and nodded. "Pinky, you're looking good."

"You look like Hawaii Five-O," Luber said.

"You hear me, son?" Herbert said. "Ah'm firing you and dismissing the case."

"You can't fire me," Steve retorted. "You don't have standing."

"In mah own damn case, ah sure as hell do."

"I filed under the private attorney general statute. You're not the real-party-in-interest. The people of Florida are."

"You slippery bastard," his father said. "You think you can get away with that?"

"You did when you sued those phony muffler repair shops."

"Ah should have known you wouldn't have an original thought." Herbert turned back to Luber. "So how the hell are you, Pinky?"

"Jesus, Dad. This is the guy who butt-fucked you."

"Is 'butt-fucked' hyphenated?" Sofia Hernandez asked, typing away.

"Go off the record, sweetie," Herbert ordered, and Sofia's hands flew up like a pianist finishing a concerto.

"I say when we go off the record," Steve protested.

"So, on or off?" Sofia asked.

"Off," Steve instructed, "but only because I said so."

She shrugged and opened her purse, looking for a nail file.

"On the nitro, that's how I am, Herb." Luber patted his chest. "Plus Nexium for the acid reflux. And a whole drawerful of pills for arthritis. And you?"

"Feeling good, Pinky. No complaints."

"Like I was saying to your boy, you're better off out of the rat race. But the big k'nocker don't listen too good."

Using bastardized Yiddish to brand him a "big shot," Steve knew. "Better a k'nocker than an alter kocker," he fired back. Calling Luber an "old fart."

"Steve's always been a hard case," Herbert allowed.

"Dad. What are you doing?"

"Pinky and ah go back a long way."

Steve couldn't believe it. Here was the guy who'd torpedoed his father's career, and the two of them were acting like old war buddies. Next, they'd be exchanging pictures of their grandchildren.

"I won seventeen capital cases in a row in front of your old man," Luber said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Steve said. "Just like the Dolphins."

"But like Don Shula used to say, you remember the losses more. I'll never forget the last jury before the streak started. They must have come straight from an ACLU meeting." Pinky hacked up a laugh, his body jiggling like a beach ball. "All shvartzers from Liberty City and Yids from Aventura."

"Happens that way sometimes," Herbert said. "Luck of the draw."

"Those folks wouldn't have convicted Ted Bundy of littering." Luber turned to Steve. "See, kid. Jurors will do what they damn well please. I remember one trial, they were all dressed in jeans and sneakers. Gene Miller writes in the Herald that times had changed. Used to be, jurors would wear coats and ties, dresses or nice skirts. Now, your old man had instructed the jury not to read the papers, but the day after the story appeared. ."

"All the men wore suits, all the women dresses." Herbert filled in the rest. "Looked like they were going to church."

"So what's the lesson, kid?" Luber said.

"Don't patronize me," Steve said.

"You can't trust juries. Take it from me."

"You don't believe in the system, that it, Luber?"

"Would you want to be judged by people too stupid to get out of jury duty?"

"You believe that, too, Dad?" Steve challenged.

"I don't think about those things anymore."

"Jesus, we had some cases," Luber said.

"We?" Steve shook his head. "You guys weren't partners."

"The law's stacked against the state, so a good prosecutor always gets the judge on his side. Right, Herb?"

Herbert silently walked to the window and stared across the alley.

"You remember the Butcher of Lovers' Lane?" Luber prodded.

When Herbert didn't respond, Luber kept chattering: "I was at the top of my game. Jury voted in thirty-nine minutes to fry his ass. That still the record, Herb?"

"Ah wouldn't know." Herbert still looked out the window.

Steve was trying to figure out the change that had come over his father. At first, Herbert had seemed genuinely pleased to see this rosy-faced son-of-a-bitch. That was strange enough. But now, with Luber telling war stories, his old man's mood had dipped.

What message is Pinky sending that I'm not getting?

Herbert turned around and faced the two of them. "Son, if you've got some questions for Pinky, why not ask them and get this over with?"

"Fine," Steve said. "Sofia, back on the record."

She stretched her arms over her head, then behind her back, which caused her breasts to strain against the fabric of her silk blouse. All three men-one young k'nocker, two alter kockers-took a gander at Sofia's knockers. Smiling to herself, she curled her fingers over the stenograph keys and waited.

"Did there come a time you testified to the Grand Jury in a corruption probe, Mr. Luber?" Steve asked, reverting to the formal cadence of a trial lawyer.

"Yes."

"Did you testify that Herbert Solomon took bribes to rezone agricultural property to commercial use?"

"Lemme save you some time, kid," Luber said. "If you're asking me to recant what I said about Herb, I ain't gonna do it."

"So your lies stand, is that it?"

"Go pound your pud, bud."

"Son, just get back to your murder case and drop this, okay?" Herbert pleaded.

"I offered to help the kid out," Luber said. "And this is the way he treats me."

"Don't want your help," Steve said.

"I'll give you some, anyway. You oughta be following the green path."

Steve must have looked puzzled.

"The money trail, kid. Hal Griffin's got a hundred thousand cash on his boat, then the cops find forty grand in Stubbs' hotel room after he croaked. But with Oceania, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. So if a hundred forty thousand's floating around, there's gotta be more. Find out who's greasing those skids, kid. Follow the money, sonny."