To speak for the dead

12

The city swallowed up the Salisbury verdict just as it did everything else. A tiny morsel for the carnivorous media machines. Two paragraphs in the "Courthouse Roundup" section of the newspaper, no television or radio coverage at all. 60 Minutes did not call me for an interview; young lawyers did not stop me on Flagler Street and ask for words of wisdom; my partners did not toast me with champagne or vote me a bonus.

If the jury had hit Salisbury with a ten-million-dollar verdict, headlines would have screamed the news from here to Tallahassee. But a defense verdict sinks into the muck of the day's events, a fallen twig barely stirring a ripple in the malevolent swamp.

I did receive a memo from Morris McGonigal, the senior partner, a guy with a gray flannel personality in a seersucker town. Or rather my secretary Cindy received a memo from his secretary. It said, "Please advise Mr. Lassiter that Mr. McGonigal congratulates him on his recent verdict."

The personal touch.

I wasn't complaining about the lack of notoriety. It probably was better for Salisbury. A doctor gets hit with a big verdict, the public thinks he's a butcher. The doctor gets off, the public thinks the jury fouled up. Besides, it was a heavy news day, even by Miami standards. Police arrested two Nic-araguans who had a dozen TOW missiles and an antitank rocket in their truck, the Miami version of a traffic violation. The Nicaraguans were planning to fight the Sandinistas, a holy mission hereabouts, and would probably get probation, if not a key to the city.

A few hours later, most Miami police were busy pumping bullets into the van of a 63-year-old Cuban plumber. They had good reason. He had fired five shots at an undercover cop. But then the plumber had good reason. The cop, dressed like a thug, was stuck in a monstrous traffic jam on Calle Ocho. The cop waved his gun at the plumber to get him to move his van. His motherfucking Cuban van, witnesses would later recall the officer screaming. There was a convenience store robbery coming down a block away, and the cop, his Firebird socked in by the van, was hollering in English, a language as foreign to the plumber as Sanskrit.

The plumber figured he was being robbed and opened fire. That drew seven police cars, a number of shotguns, and forty-seven holes in the van, three in the plumber, and one in his colostomy bag. The plumber survived, and the convenience store robbers got away with seventy-three dollars and a box of DoveBars.

I was mired in my typical psychological letdown after a trial, just puttering around the office, shuffling stacks of mail, trying to figure out where to go from here. I tried calling Susan Corrigan, but a bored voice on the copy desk said she was on the west coast, headed out early for pregame stories on the Dolphins' next opponent, their old nemesis, the Raiders. I wanted to see her, and not just to talk about digging up dear old Dad. I had a little buzz about Ms. Susan Corrigan. That happens sometimes when I get stiff-armed. Don't know why, maybe my ego needs bruising. Maybe too much easy flesh in the early years. Or maybe I had matured a notch or two until I finally appreciated a strong, savvy lady more than a lusty, dim one. Whatever the reason, the image of the suntanned and sharp-tongued sportswriter was hovering just below the surface of my consciousness.

I had just hung up with the newspaper when Cindy slipped me a note:

Widow Not Merry,

Do Not Tarry;

Commotion, Line Two.

I punched the flashing button and heard shouting in the background, a man's voice and a woman's voice. I couldn't make out the words. I said hello a bunch of times. The phone must have been put down. Some women need two hands to argue. The voices came closer. "You owe me," the man's voice said, booming over the wire. Then the sound of a woman laughing. More yelling, then a woman's loud voice telling the man to get out. I thought I heard a door slam. Then silence.

"Hello." The woman's voice, under perfect control. "Mr. Lassiter?"

I told her it was.

She told me it was Mrs. Corrigan calling. I knew that.

She said there was trouble. I knew that, too.

Could you come over?

"If you have trouble, why not call the police?" I suggested.

"You wouldn't like that," she said, evenly. "Neither would your client."

It was coming into focus. "Is Roger there?"

"He is, and he's making quite a scene."

"Put him on."

"At the moment, he's pacing on the patio by the Jacuzzi. If it's just the same to you, I'd rather not have him in the house. He hit me. And I don't think he'll leave my property unless you come talk to him. Or should I just call the police and charge him with trespassing and assault?"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

She didn't ask if I knew the address and I didn't tell her I did. I just headed to the parking garage, and like a knight errant, saddled my steed and galloped south on Miami Avenue toward Coconut Grove and Gables Estates beyond. At the same time I wondered what Roger Salisbury was doing, screwing everything up. Why wasn't he sawing bones and scraping kneecaps? What was it he'd said? That he was still under her spell. Didn't he know she was poison?

The water still tumbled through its man-made waterfall and the house still sat, silent as a tomb, atop its man-made hill. But no cars in the driveway, no voices to break the gentle roar of the waterfall, and no Roger Salisbury. The winter sun, low in the afternoon sky, slanted narrow shadows from the royal palms, like jailhouse bars, across the Corrigan house. A chill was in the air, a cold front from the Midwest rustling the palm fronds with a crisp northwest breeze. I parked by the waterfall, patted the 442 on the rump and told it to stay put. Then, I walked up the front steps and rang the bell.

"He threatened to kill me," Melanie Corrigan said.

She had thrown open the double doors, a good trick in itself. Fifteen feet high, six inches thick, crossed-hatched by thick beams, a circus elephant could slip in sideways.

"Where is he?"

"He threatened to kill me," she repeated. There was a red splotch just below her left eye. A right-handed guy who doesn't know how to punch might have glanced one off there. "He left. Drove away like a madman. Cursing at me."

She led me into the foyer and closed the door. An electric bolt clicked into place like a bullet shoved into the chamber. The foyer had a marble floor and a cathedral ceiling. Not as big as Madison Square Garden, but you still could play basketball there. Full court. Between the foyer and the living room was a pond stocked with fat orange fish. A fountain poured water over an island where bronze flamingoes and alligators eyed each other between rocks and ferns. We walked past the pond and around a glass-enclosed elevator, crossing no more than two county lines. We tiptoed down three marble steps without disturbing an eight-foot Zulu warrior carved from teak, and we landed in an octagonal, sunken living room.

The living room was black and white, black furniture that looked plastic to me but must have cost a bundle when selected by a trendy designer, white tile that wouldn't stay clean a minute if I lived there, white walls covered with paintings of women's heads floating away from their bodies, an ebony grand piano that was probably for show. All in all, a starter home for the nouveau riche who want to make a personal statement: We have more money than we know what to do with.

Melanie Corrigan fit right in-she wore black. I knew it was silk, but I didn't know if it was a slip or a dress. I did know there was nothing between the silk and her satin skin. The silk thing was held up by two thin straps, was cut low at the breasts and high on the thighs and was sheer as a shadow. If it was a dress you wouldn't wear it to church. If it was a slip, where was her dress?

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Lassiter. May I call you Jake?"

"Of course, Melanie." I nodded in the direction of her decolletage. "Are you auditioning for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?"

It only took her a second. "Do you think I'd be a good Maggie?"

"From what I hear, you'd get an Oscar, a Tony, and a Super Bowl ring."

"Your client talks too much." She narrowed her eyes. "He also made the mistake of underestimating me."

"And I'll bet he wasn't the first."

She looked at me straight on, sizing me up. Then a little smile like we shared some secret. "Would you like a drink?" she asked.

I said yes but she didn't ask what I wanted. She slid behind a bar, and I took a seat on a Lucite barstool that would throw your back into spasms if you stayed for more than two drinks. The designer obviously had not been in many bars where men sit and talk and drink. Melanie Corrigan bent down to get a bottle and let me see the tops of very white, very firm breasts.

I would have liked a beer. She reached for tequila and orange juice and poured some of each in a glass you could have used to put out a three-alarm fire. She dropped in some ice cubes and shook a dash of bitters on top. I don't care for a drink that needs ice and fruit juice.

"Tijuana Sunrise," she said.

"Buenos cttas," I said.

She poured herself one, and we each took a sip. She didn't seem to be in a hurry. Her russet hair was tumbling free today, lightly brushing her shoulders where the tiny silk straps did their best to slide downhill.

"Roger is getting to be a problem," she said finally, touching her cheekbone where the bruise was already beginning to darken. She had long, graceful fingers, nails expensively done with lots of color. "He can't accept the fact that it's over."

She tugged at one of the slippery straps. I kept quiet.

"He apparently told you about us," she continued, fishing to find out what I knew.

"Every dirty little detail, the twosomes, the threesomes."

She didn't blink, just gave a little shrug that sent the strap slithering off one shoulder. The black silk fell open, exposing a cinnamon nipple that acted like it enjoyed being watched.

"He thinks he still owns me, thinks I'm still a kid. You've got to keep him away from me or he's going to get hurt."

"That sounds like a threat."

"I could say things that wouldn't be good for his health."

"Such as?"

She studied me a moment, deciding how much to say. "He wanted to kill Philip, wanted me to do it. That's all he talked about for months. I refused, of course."

"Of course," I said with just a dash of sarcasm like the bitters in the silly drink.

"Screw you, Lassiter," she said. What happened to Jake?

She gave me a look with a below-zero wind chill and said, "I might not have been the world's greatest wife by your standards, but I did a lot for Philip. Whatever he asked. We had an arrangement. He got what he wanted from me, and I got what I wanted from him."

"His bank accounts and stock portfolio."

She wouldn't let me rile her. "The freedom that came with those things. Philip didn't care if I saw other men, maybe even liked it. For me things were great. I didn't depend on men's handouts anymore. Why would I kill him? There was no reason to."

"So why did you keep your mouth shut when your darling husband planned to go under the knife of the doctor who wanted him dead?"

"I was scared to death when Philip went in the hospital, but I thought, with all the nurses and other doctors around, Roger just couldn't…"

She let it hang there.

"He didn't," I said. "The jury found that Roger wasn't even negligent, much less a killer. Your husband died of a spontaneous aneurysm."

"He was poisoned," she said without a trace of emotion. "In his hospital room."

I took a long hit on the drink to think that one over. This conversation sounded familiar.

She kept going. "Roger had this liquid in a bottle, an anesthetic. He wanted me to use it on Philip. Get him drunk or stoned, then inject him in the buttocks. Said it couldn't be traced."

"He gave you the bottle?"

"No. I wouldn't take it then. After Philip died, I was at Roger's house. I was still seeing him until I filed the lawsuit. I knew he kept the bottle in a small refrigerator, so I took it. I wanted to turn it over to the authorities."

"Did you?"

She looked away. "No. I know I should have, but then everything would have come out in the newspapers. I've worked hard to earn respectability, and it would all be gone."

"But you sued him for malpractice."

"I didn't want to. I didn't want the attention. But I was afraid if I didn't sue Roger, it would raise suspicions. Philip's daughter, that tomboy bitch, would have thought Roger and I killed him."

Lights were flashing like a pinball machine. Susan Corrigan may have been right about Roger Salisbury but wrong about Melanie Corrigan. Melanie had to be telling the truth,

I thought. She couldn't risk telling me about the drug if she had been in on it.

"What was Roger doing here today?"

"I never really told him it was over. I didn't want to hurt him. When I filed the suit, I told him we'd get back together after the trial. Today I told him to stay away and he freaked."

"Show me the drug," I said, already knowing the response.

She gave me a helpless look that I hadn't seen on her before. "I can't," she said. "It's gone, stolen."

I decided there was nothing to be gained in telling Melanie Corrigan that her beloved stepdaughter had been poking around in her underwear drawer. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

She half smiled and half sighed. Her eyes seemed to widen, to change from business to bedroom, a neat trick. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was setting, and inside, the room was bathed in pink. Melanie Corrigan's skin took on a soft glow, and it hadn't looked bad in the light. She glided around the bar to where I was planted on the hard-as-granite barstool. She pulled up the silky strap one more time and now her perky nipples poked at the flimsy fabric. Maybe they were standing at attention because of the cool evening air or maybe it had something to do with the full moon coming up over the bay. Or maybe it was the proximity of me. Or maybe, just maybe, I should have my head examined. Ready to drink that pretty poison, as big a fool as Roger Salisbury.

At that moment what I wanted most was knowledge of self. I would have liked to figure out that urge that started halfway between my knees and chest and threatened to spread northward until it flooded whatever brain cells still worked without a jump start. I would have liked to, but I didn't have time because she looked me right in the eyes, smiled, and then slapped me.

There are slaps that ring your ears and slaps that bring tears to your eyes. This one could do neither. Less sting than my aftershave. I smiled at her and stood up. She had on a funny look, watching me with pouting lips. She had a good pout.

Then she slapped me again. Harder. Not enough to take an eight-count, but probably enough to bring some color to my cheeks, as well as to hers. Especially hers. She was enjoying this, warming up around the eyes. A hot little smile now. And crack, another slap. I was getting used to it.

She threw her arms around my neck, pressed herself up against me, then rocked up and down on her tiptoes as if stretching her calves. What she was doing was rubbing parts of her against parts of me like a very friendly, very slinky cat. My hands slid down her back to her round, tight bottom. She was firm where a woman ought to be firm and soft where a woman ought to be soft.

I looked at her close up. She had tiny golden freckles across the bridge of her nose, and little smile lines creased the corners of her mouth. A look of innocence and mirth. But the eyes were something else, wet and wild. And her neck was fragrant with the sweetness of the tropical night. A provocative blend of the pure and the wanton.

"When your face gets red, your eyes are even bluer," she said.

"Wait'll I start bleeding. I'll be another Paul Newman." 145

"You like being slapped," she said. Telling me, not asking me.

"Not as much as some other things," I said.

"You could learn." She pulled me toward her, looking into my eyes from under long lashes, still standing on her toes, straining against me. "You're a big man," she said, running her hands across my back. "More man than Roger or Philip."

Then she decided to see if I could swallow her tongue.

I could.

Just then an ugly noise from outside filled the room. A shout in Japanese split the air like a police siren. It could have awakened the dead at Guadalcanal, and it nearly cost Melanie Corrigan the tip of her slippery tongue. I let her go, and she straightened her sliding strap and brushed a hand through her hair.

"Must be Sergio," she said, as if there was nothing unusual in a banzai yell interrupting a perfectly fine kiss. We retraced the path to the foyer without pausing for food or water. Then another bellow from outside, and the front door shuddered as if hit by a wrecking ball. "He probably saw your car outside. He's insanely jealous."

Yet another Oriental war whoop and again the door groaned in pain.

"Sergio?" I asked.

"Sergio Machado-Alvarez," she said, serenely. "My chauffeur, boat captain, and… friend. We'd better open the door or he'll just break it down."

She punched the code into the digital alarm and unleashed the deadbolt. The huge door swung open to reveal a swarthy, moustachioed block of concrete. Sneakers, sweat pants, and a sleeveless muscle shirt, a tattoo of a lightning bolt on his tricep. He had plenty of beef to show, huge shoulders and chest, a fireplug of muscle and malice. Recently, I'd seen even more of him on videotape.

Sergio Machado-Alvarez stepped into the foyer and shot me a sideways smile, a mean little smile under the drooping moustache. He had big gray teeth like a double row of gravestones. He needed a shave and always would.

There was only one thing that detracted from his overall appearance as a menace to society. He was short. Like a lot of little guys he probably was working hard on the compensation factor. Building huge muscles, getting tough with karate, having something to show off. Stand at any gas station and study men and their cars in relation to their size. Check out how many short guys drive Sedan de Villes and Lincoln Town Cars. They need pillows to see over the steering wheel. Then come the big guys. They have to unfold a section at a time to get out of their Alfa Romeos and Corvettes.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked. A voice of practiced toughness, a faint Cuban accent.

"Something that escaped from the zoo."

"Hijo de puta," he snarled, "I'll dig you another asshole."

"Why not spare yourself the trouble and just lend me one of yours?" Even I didn't know what that meant, the mouth being quicker than the mind.

He took a few seconds to think it over, then dropped into the half-moon stance with legs spread, left foot forward, hands on hips. I needed this like I needed to be in traction, which I might be if either of us found it necessary to show off for the lady of the house. I had been hitting the heavy bag at home. But the heavy bag doesn't know karate. And this guy looked like he intended to scatter my teeth.

"Hombre, you think you're tough?"

"No, I'm a pansy. You're tough."

He was trying to figure out if I was pulling his chain. He was the kind of guy who needed to take a thought and spread it on the kitchen table with the comics page. "I got cojones grandes, balls the size of grapefruit," he said slowly, as if he had memorized the phrase.

"You can take penicillin for that," I suggested.

His throat released a growl that a Doberman would be proud to own. Melanie shook a long fingernail and said, "Sergio, Mr. Lassiter is my guest. Please mind your manners. And don't you have a class to teach?"

The sinister little hulk looked at his watch, his lips moving slowly.

"Little hand on the six, big hand on the eleven," I said, helpfully. "You can figure it out."

His eyes flicked toward Melanie. "I got to train housewives to kick their husbands in the balls." Then he looked at me and made his face even uglier. He seemed to be all forehead and whiskers. "I'll see you another time, cagado cabron asshole," he said.

"How's Wednesday for lunch? Have your girl call my girl."

This time the growl became a shriek. He bolted through the open doorway and bounded down the steps as fast as his chunky legs could move. "Ushiro-keomi!" His yell nearly drowned out the sound of the electric-powered waterfall tumbling over the landscaping. Then, in the driveway, he spun sideways and put out the left headlight on my 442 with a back-thrust kick. Glass scattered on the cobblestones. What kind of a man hurts an innocent old car?

"Shuto!" He brought his hand down like a sword across the hood, the sickening sound of metal giving way, caving in. Next, I figured, he would bite the tires and give me four flats. Instead, he jumped on his motorcycle, a loud Kawasaki, did a wheelie, and screamed off into the night, shouting unheard insults over his shoulder.

I surveyed the damage to the 442, then sat down on the front steps.

"Do you want to come back in?" Melanie Corrigan said, with a promise as large as a king-size waterbed. But the moment had passed. My brains had taken over. I didn't want her tequila and orange juice and didn't want any part of her. She was too available, too free with herself, but too expensive for her men. Look at the price Philip Corrigan paid, and Roger Salisbury, tangled up with lust and maybe murder. And Sergio, the muscle-bound half-wit, martial arts fueled by jealousy.

I wanted to see Susan Corrigan, wanted to tell her about Melanie's charges against Roger. I wanted some help in figuring it all out. But first, I wanted to go home and pound out the vicious dent in my wounded chariot.