Trial and Error

Eleven

Steve wanted to punch out the fat guy in the yarmulke but figured that wouldn’t help Bobby make the team.

“We don’t steal bases,” Yarmulke Guy said.

“What do you mean, ‘we,’ Rabbi?” Steve replied.

“I’m not a rabbi, Mr. Solomon, and you know that. Are you ridiculing my spirituality?”

“Heaven forbid,” Steve said with as much irony as he could muster.

The Beth Am Bobcats were practicing at Sunniland Park, and Steve was desperately trying to make his point without pissing off Yarmulke Guy, the team’s coach, whose real name was Ira Kreindler.

“There’s no league rule against stealing bases,” Steve said.

“I adhere to a Higher Authority.” Kreindler looked skyward, either toward heaven or the overhead rail tracks, Steve couldn’t tell which.

“God doesn’t want my nephew stealing second base?”

“We’re talking ethics. Robert can advance to second if a subsequent batter earns a hit or if the defense makes an error. But stealing?” Kreindler made a cluck-clucking sound.

Kreindler ran a wholesale meat business when he wasn’t fouling up the synagogue’s youth baseball team. His blue-and-white trucks, Kreindler Means Kosher, could be seen double-parked in front of glatt delicatessens in North Miami Beach. Around his neck he wore a golden chai that must have been chiseled from the mother lode, heavy enough to hunch his shoulders. He had a major-league paunch hanging over his plaid Bermuda shorts, and while he might have been able to slice brisket with speed and precision, Steve doubted he could run from first to third without a pit stop.

“You know I played some college ball, Kreindler?” Steve gestured toward Dixie Highway. The University of Miami was less than five miles straight up the road.

“Of course I know. You’re Last Out Solomon. You were picked off third base to end the College World Series.”

Which is when Steve considered punching the guy out, before concluding it wouldn’t set a good example for Bobby. “I was a lousy hitter. But I could run, and once I learned how to study the pitchers, I led the team in stolen bases.”

“You stole bases because you could?” Kreindler asked.

“Of course.”

“So you believe kol de’alim gevar. ‘Might makes right.’”

“I believe in maximizing every kid’s potential. I also believe in winning, and I’m not gonna apologize for it.”

“Do you really think Robert’s up to this sort of thing?” Kreindler said.

“Stealing bases? Sure, once I teach him.”

“Playing ball. I mean, with his problems…”

“So that’s it!”

“The other boys can be so cruel. Calling Robert a ‘spaz.’ That sort of thing.”

“Then it’s your job to straighten out the little punks.”

“How?”

“Shake ’em by the throat. Make ’em run laps. Teach them a sense of decency.”

“Surely, Mr. Solomon, you know it’s more complicated than that.”

“Not for a real coach. You’ve gotta kick some kosher ass, Kreindler.”

They were standing on the clipped green grass of the outfield. The Bobcats were practicing their fielding, resulting in numerous ground balls trickling between spindly Jewish legs. Deep in right field, as far from harm’s way as possible, Bobby picked dandelions. The boy had been moping all day. It hadn’t sunk in at first, Steve thought. But when Bobby realized that Spunky and Misty were gone, that there was no way to find them, the pain tugged at his heart. Steve had hoped baseball would take Bobby’s mind off his lost pals.

Ten minutes earlier, Steve had been teaching his nephew the fine points of base stealing. With a right-handed pitcher, watch his heels. If he lifts his right heel before the left, he’s throwing to first. If the left heel leaves the ground first, he’s throwing to the plate.

That’s when the Kreindler, bald spot covered by his yarmulke, his nose smeared with sunblock, shades clipped onto his glasses, waddled over to instruct Steve on ethics.

If Steve hadn’t missed the league organizational meeting, maybe he’d be the Beth Am coach. Unfortunately, he’d spent that night behind bars, in a holding cell, a little matter of ordering pizza and two six-packs of beer for a jury deliberating a DUI case. Not that Steve minded an occasional contempt citation. One of the first things he’d told Victoria was that a lawyer who’s afraid of jail is like a surgeon who’s afraid of blood.

Just then, as Steve was thinking about Victoria, he caught sight of her, walking toward him along the first-base line. Long strides with those tennis player legs. She wore a green silk blouse and a white skirt and Versace shoes of white, green, and red, sort of like the Italian flag. Steve had been there when Victoria bought the shoes. She’d nearly gone for a brand called “United Nude,” which the salesclerk boasted was “a sculpture, not a shoe.” Both pairs looked as comfortable as walking on broken glass.

She carried a red leather handbag, a Hermes Birkin. Steve wouldn’t have known a Hermes Birkin from a kosher gherkin, but Victoria seemed overjoyed when her mother gave her the bag. He didn’t understand what the fuss was about until Irene Lord said it had been a gift from a French gazillionaire she’d met on the Riviera, and that the damn thing had cost fifteen thousand dollars. Steve could understand spending that much on a flat-screen, high-def TV with surround sound, but a handbag? There was so much about women that completely bewildered him.

Victoria waved at Bobby, who now sat, cross-legged, talking to an egret that had landed in the outfield. Steve told Kreindler they’d discuss baseball ethics later and trotted toward the woman he loved, intercepting her at the first-base bag. She tossed both arms around his neck, and they kissed. Not a howdy, how are you kiss. Deeper. A wanna jump your bones kiss.

“Wow,” he said.

“I have great news.”

“Hey, me, too, Vic.”

“Got a new case. A big one.”

“Likewise.”

“That shooting at Cetacean Park,” she said. “I’m going to prosecute.”

“What?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly.

She couldn’t have said “prosecute.”

They were defense lawyers. They represented the persecuted, the downtrodden, the occasionally innocent.

Prosecute? She might as well have said, “I’m going to become a prostitute.”

“Pincher’s conflicted out,” Victoria babbled on. “I’ve been appointed.” She reached into her ridiculously expensive handbag and flipped out a badge, embossed with a gold star. Special Assistant State Attorney. “The guy you caught. Gerald Nash. He’s being charged with-”

“Felony murder. I know. I’m defending him.”

That stopped her. But only for a second. She blinked and said, “No way, Steve.”

“He retained me this morning. Without a retainer. But still, he hired me.”

Victoria chewed at her lower lip. “So what are we going to do?”

“Easy. You’ve got to withdraw.”

“Why me?”

“Because it’s my case, Vic. I got there first.”

At home plate, Ira Kreindler was hitting fungoes to the outfielders, or trying to, but mostly he dribbled soft grounders down the foul line.

“You’re a witness,” she said. “You can’t represent the defendant.”

“Two cops saw me grab the guy and arrested him on the spot. My testimony’s not needed.”

“Did you hear Nash make any statements against interest?”

“If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.”

In the outfield, a pop fly headed toward Bobby, who staggered under it, waving his arms like a drunk chasing a butterfly. The ball plopped into and out of his glove, bounced off the top of his head, and dropped to the ground. Bobby rubbed his head and spun around 360 degrees, looking for the ball.

“Nice catch, spaz!” Rich Shactman yelled from center field. He was the best player on the team, a powerfully built slugger, a kid who looked like he’d been shaving since kindergarten. Steve itched to tell the punk to lay off Bobby, but part of growing up is learning how to handle bullies, so he kept quiet.

Turning back to Victoria, Steve said, “I’m gonna have to pull rank here.”

“Rank?”

“I’m the senior partner.”

“We’re equal partners.”

“But I’ve got seniority. Rank and grade. If this were the army, I’d be the general.”

“If this were the army, you’d be court-martialed.”

“So, tell me this: When you opened that fancy bag of yours just now, was that a gun I saw?”

“What about it?”

“Are you going all Thelma and Louise on me?”

“Every prosecutor gets a gun.”

“You’re talking like this isn’t a one-case deal. Like you’re planning on some permanent changes.”

“Would you just relax, Steve? I’ll be back as soon as the case is over. Think of the publicity I’ll get. This gives us a chance to upgrade our clientele.”

“Nothing wrong with the cases I bring in.”

“Really? What about Needlemeyer versus Needlemeyer? The kid suing his parents for being ugly.”

“Not just being ugly. Passing on the genes.”

“That’s what I mean. Junk cases, when I can win a murder trial.”

“You mean lose a murder trial, because if I’m defending, it’s gonna be talking cockatoos all over again.”

“You planning to take a dump on my sleeve?”

“Anyone who steps into court against me risks utter and total humiliation. You know that.”

“Now you’re threatening me?”

“Just telling it like it is, cupcake.”

“Cupcake? You’re really trying to piss me off, aren’t you?”

“Why would I do that, sweetie?”

“Because you think I’ll lose my cool. You think I’ll say nasty things about what a bastard you are. Then I’ll feel guilty and apologize. After that, I’ll have no choice but to withdraw from the case and let you have your way.”

“You think I’m that clever?”

“I think you’re that devious. But it’s not going to work.”

Steve didn’t reply. He grinned at her, as if he’d just filled a straight on Fifth Street, and she held nothing but a pair of cracked aces.

Love the man, hate the grin.

I do love him, Victoria reminded herself.

But I hate that lopsided, wiseass, gotcha! grin.

Daring her to try a case against him. Hauling out the memory of birdshit on her jacket, thinking he could intimidate her. But she saw right through him.

“You’re scared, aren’t you, Steve?”

“What?”

“You’re scared of a powerful woman. So you’ve got to swing your club like some caveman.”

“You’ve been reading Maureen Dowd again, haven’t you?”

“When we go out to dinner, why do you always pay?”

“I don’t. I put it on the firm credit card. You’re paying half.”

“But you insist on using your card. Why can’t I put it on mine?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Are you playing dumb or are you really that obtuse?”

“Is there a third choice?”

“You maintain control by whipping out that card. MasterCard becomes your penis.”

“That’s your second dick metaphor in the last minute. Are you horny?”

“Ha!”

“Because you’re a little flushed. Or is it that time of month?”

She took a deep breath and reminded herself, yet again, that she loved this man, no matter how aggravating he could be. “Last bastion of male chauvinism, attacking our reproductive system, as if it makes us weak. When, in fact, it’s your Y chromosome that makes you the weaker sex.”

“You have been reading Maureen Dowd.”

“It’s an evolutionary fact. The male chromosome is losing genes. Men are losing their potency, but you still try to act like Genghis Khan.”

“What are you saying? You want to go off the pill?”

She smiled sweetly. Then she said, “You can’t stop me, Steve. I’m going to prosecute this case. And I’m going to win.”

“Hit me with your best shot, Vic.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll chop you into little pieces and use you for bait.”

“Ouch.”

“But if I feed you to the sharks, they’ll never touch you.”

“Professional courtesy,” Steve acknowledged, nodding.

“So I’ll just annihilate you in the courtroom.”

“How? Bore me to death?”

“I’ll file memos of law on every motion, briefs on every legal issue, make you work for a change.”

“Great. Death by a thousand paper cuts.”

“I’ll beat you in front of the jury, too. In opening. In cross. In closing. I’ll tie you in knots. And I’m gonna do it in a way you never could. I’m gonna win fair and square.”