Bum Rap (6 page)

-12-

Reporting for Duty

I
open
ed the front door and stepped onto the porch, scattering several green lizards. It was a hot, moist night with the scent of jasmine in the air. The jacaranda tree in the driveway was shedding th
e last of its purple flowers, succumbing to the summer heat.

And there was Manuel Dominguez sitting in Granny’s rocking chair on the porch. Buzz cut, square jaw, just the beginning of a double chin. He wore a US Army dress blue uniform. A brass disk with crossed rifles on his collar identified him as a member of the infantry. Gold-braided chevrons on each shoulder marked him as a sergeant. Four gold overseas service bars on his right sleeve indicated he’d served in several combat zones. A fruit salad of colorful ribbons was pinned to his chest. If I had to guess, I’d say they were for various acts of distinguished service and valor. Perhaps in Desert Storm or Afghanistan or maybe the Battle of Gettysburg, for all I knew.

Because none of it was real.

Manuel Dominguez wasn’t really a sergeant. Had never been in the Boy Scouts, much less the army.

He was a former client. A small-time grifter and con man I’d walked out of the courthouse a couple of times and left behind once or twice, too. But his crimes were always nonviolent and his sentences always short. Most recently, I’d gotten him probation for a lottery scam called advance fee fraud.

“Hey, Manuel,” I said. “What’s the charge this time?”

“Nada, jefe.”

“So why you here? You want some chicken-fried steak?”

“Already ate.”

“Lemme guess, The Forge.”

He snapped off a crisp salute. “Scallops ceviche, the bone-in porterhouse with a side of Parmesan truffle fries. Rose Marie went for the caviar and Dover sole. We split a butterscotch soufflé for dessert.”

“You get the Johnnie Walker sauce with that?”

“Is there any other way to go?”

“And who paid?”

“An orthodontist from Topeka. Here on a convention. I limped in, using my cane. And of course Rose Marie had her pregnancy pack under her dress. Looks about eight months, I’d say. The orthodontist sent us a bottle of Cristal, then came over to the table to shake my hand and give me the ‘thanks for your service’ speech. I told him how I dismantled IEDs in Iraq, and about the one I didn’t quite dismantle. Of course, he insisted on paying the dinner tab. Then his wife took a selfie with us to show the folks back home.”

“No photos, Manuel. I’ve told you about creating evidence.”

“Hey, what’s the harm?”

“Actually, wearing those medals is a federal crime.”

“Tell that to John Wayne. I got a standing ovation when I limped out of there.”

Dominguez was basically a professional moocher, running his hungry soldier scam all over town. Tuesday night was The Forge,
Thursday was Joe’s Stone Crab during the season, and Katsuya for sushi during the summer. I couldn’t remember the rest of his schedule.

“And how is the lovely Rose Marie?” I asked.

“Great. Due any year now.”

“So if you haven’t been busted, why the hell are you lurking on my porch?”

He wrinkled his forehead and scrunched up his mouth. Looked embarrassed, if that’s possible for a career con artist. “When I was on probation, I had to take some classes.”

“If you took cooking, you wouldn’t have to prey on unsuspecting orthodontists.”

“Actually, I studied for the PI exam. Passed and got my license.”

“Congratulations. I guess they did away with the good character requirement.”

“I used an alias, but I got the badge just the same. I’m a private dick now.”

“So you lied to get some semihonest work. I’m proud of you.”

“Well here’s the thing, Jake. I got a client who knows me and you are tight.”

“
Thick as thieves,” I agreed. “You’re my favorite lowlife. So who’s your client?”

“Call him Mr. X.”

“Okay, that’s creative.”

“Mr. X hires me to find this Russian girl. Natasha . . . something.”

“Nadia Delova.”

“That’s her.”

Now we were getting somewhere
, I thought. You pick up leads anywhere you can, even from a phony sergeant. “Why’s Mr. X want to find her?”

“Ah, jeez, Jake. I can’t tell you that. Ethics and all.”

“Let me take a wild guess. Mr. X has a proposal for me.”

“How’d you know?”

“Because, Manuel, you couldn’t find a beet in a cup of borscht.”

“Huh?”

“Mr. X didn’t hire you to find Nadia. He hired you to bribe me.”

“Bribe? No way, José. He wants to do a joint adventure.”

“Joint venture?”

“
Exactamente.
And if you find her, there’s fifty large in it for you.”

Manuel grinned at me and rocked back and forth in Granny’s chair. From somewhere down the block came a screeching sound weirdly like a woman’s scream, but I knew it was just a peacock in mating mode.

“Just
find
her?” I said.

“Well, bring her to Mr. X before the police get to her. Otherwise, no deal.”

“Aw, Sergeant Dominguez. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Mr. Y has already offered me a hundred thousand.”

“Who the hell is Mr. Y?”

It took less than a second to come up with the answer. If I’d hesitated, Manuel would have seen the indecision. It’s tough to con a con man. “Didn’t he tell you, Sarge? Mr. Y is Mr. X’s brother.”

“Benny has a brother?”

Benny.
One horse had crossed the line. Let’s go for the perfecta. All I needed was the last name. But I couldn’t ask for it without tipping Dominguez that I was just fishing for information.

“Benny’s brother Max,” I said.

Benny
and
Max
sounded good together, I thought.

“Benny never mentioned him. Is he in the same racket?”

“Well,” I said, “they’re into so much.”

Manuel seemed to think about it before a scowl crossed his face. “Wait a second, Jake! You’re pulling one over on me.”

I yanked the rocking chair backward, then shoved it hard forward. Manuel scrambled to stand up, wobbling unsteadily as he got his feet under him. Too much butterscotch soufflé. “Give Benny my regards, Manuel. And get the hell off my porch.”

-13-

What a Hunk

V
ictoria was in bed reading her notes, which she had already begun color coding. She wore her pajamas. A present from Steve. Victoria’s Secret pj’s, because, as he put it, with Solomonic wisdom, “What the hell else would I buy you?”

The phone rang, and she sat up in bed.

“Sorry for calling so late,” Lassiter said when she answered.

“I’m still awake, so don’t worry about it.”

He told her about the visit from Manuel Dominguez and asked if she was going to see Steve in the morning. Sure, she’d ask if the name Benny meant anything to him. Maybe Nadia or Gorev mentioned the name. And if not, did Steve have any idea who Benny might be?

She wanted to ask Lassiter something, but it was difficult, and she hesitated a moment before blurting it out. “You believe Steve, don’t you, Jake? That he didn’t shoot Gorev.”

“I do.”

“
Great. Steve always says he presumes his clients are guilty because it saves time.”

Lassiter laughed. “I like that. I just might steal it.”

“Like I said, you guys are more alike than either one of you wants to admit.”

“Nah. He’s luckier than I am.”

“How do you mean?”

T
here was a pause, just the electrical hum of the line. “Well, Steve has you.”

She froze a second and didn’t respond. Then Lassiter added, “In his corner, I mean.”

But that’s not what she thought he meant. He had not complimented her lawyering, but rather her womanhood. Lying there in her pink daisy tank pajamas, she was sure of it. Then he’d become embarrassed and tried to backpedal. Maybe that’s what gave her the courage to ask a question of her own.

“Jake, what about the rest of what Steve said?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you believe in your heart he wasn’t involved with Nadia?”

“That again? Jeez, Victoria, I already told you. Barrios is stuck for a motive and that’s all he could come up with. I’m not even sure he believes it.”

“What if it were you?”

“How do you mean?”

“This beautiful young woman comes to your office and asks you to have a sit-down with a gangster who’s allegedly holding her property. You don’t know the territory. You haven’t checked her out. Or him. Would you just hop in your car and go?”

“How beautiful did you say she was?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m serious, Jake. What did you call it the other day? ‘Wandering clueless into the cave of the Russian bear.’ Would you have done it?”

“A beautiful woman in distress is a powerful intoxicant.”

“So men are basically weak. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Actually, the opposite. There’s something deep in men that makes us the protectors. It’s probably been engraved in our DNA since the time we were still swinging on vines. We’re the hunters and the rescuers. It’s even part of our mythology. We rescue damsels in distress from the dragons . . . or the Russian
Bratva
.”

“In order to get laid,” she said.

“Not necessarily. A man doesn’t have to be sleeping with the damsel or even want to. He just saddles up and rides into danger because that’s what a man does. So to answer your question, yeah, I probably would have done the same thing as Solomon. At least, I would have when I was his age. These days, I might have done some research, popped a couple anti-inflammatories for my knees, and taken along backup.”

“You’re not that creaky, Jake. You know what my secretary said when I told her we were hiring you?”

“Nope.”

“She’s seen you in the gym. And she said, ‘Ay, Lassiter.
¡Qué bueno está!
’ Roughly translated, ‘What a hunk!’ ”

“Ex-hunk is more like it. But all those years pumping iron. It’s a habit I can’t break. And every year, I do less weight and fewer reps. Not because I want to, but because of the aging process and my fear of tearing some tendons I didn’t know I had.”

There was something in his voice that troubled her. In their first phone call, all that angst about losing cases and now the talk about aging. Was Lassiter over-the-hill?

“Jake, I have to ask you something else, and I hope you won’t be offended.”

“Shoot.”

“Back in the jail, Steve called you a burnout.”

“Actually, he called me a ‘deaf, punch-drunk burnout.’ ”

She smiled to herself. At least Lassiter’s memory still worked. “Well, what about it? Are you going through some personal crisis? Have you lost that swagger, the legendary Lassiter cockiness? Is there anything bothering you we should know about?”

“Have no fear, Victoria. Once we’re in trial, the adrenaline starts pumping, and I come out swinging from the opening bell.”

She hoped it was true. That was, after all, the Jake Lassiter everyone talked about.

“I’ve just become more thoughtful as I’ve matured. I’m more open about my feelings. And maybe I just talk too much.”

“No! It’s good. I wish Steve did that.”

“Like I say about a lot of things, give him time.”

With that, she said good night and hung up.

Victoria spent the next twenty minutes trying to will herself to sleep. But her mind was too active. Thoughts of Steve, locked in that jail cell. They’d come so far together since they met as opponents in criminal court. A rookie prosecutor, she had been hoodwinked by Steve in that stupid talking bird case. Well, technically, an illegal importation of wildlife case. Defending the smuggler, Steve tried to call a white cockatoo named Mr. Ruffles to testify. As precedent, he cited
The Case of the Perjured Parrot
, a Perry Mason novel involving a bird that had witnessed a murder.

Of course, the judge denied Steve’s motion. But then Solomon the Sneak tricked
her
into getting the bird to talk. The judge declared a mistrial and held them both in contempt for bickering.

“When I checked my calendar this morning,” the judge said, “the case was
State versus Pedrosa
, not
Solomon versus Lord
.”

To make matters worse, Mr. Ruffles pooped on her Armani jacket, and State Attorney Ray Pincher fired her. The same guy who would now be prosecuting Steve.

She and Steve then spent a couple of hours in adjacent holding cells behind the courtroom. She was furious. He was flirting. What was it he had said that was so damn infuriating? Oh, yeah . . .

“Cell mates today, soul mates tomorrow.”

How did he know?

As she became drowsy, her thoughts surprisingly drifted to Lassiter. A good man. A complicated man. And something else.
¡Qué bueno está!

-14-

Fed Talk

I
hung up the phone with Victoria and realized,
I do talk too much!

And what about the rest of it?

“Steve’s luckier than I am. He has you.”

How ass-puckeringly embarrassing. I blame the Jack Daniel’s. Three fingers after shooing Manuel Dominguez off the porch, and another three fingers before calling Victoria. Let’s see: three plus three equals . . . hammered.

Jeez, I should listen to Granny.
“Don’t be sniffing after a client’s woman.”

At least I was proud of myself for telling the truth. She’d fed me this lob: Was Steve screwing Nadia? I had every chance in the world to toss a grenade into their relationship. But I did the right thing. I told the truth.

Then, at the end, she’d said she wished Steve were more like me. Okay, not exactly. But she wished he opened up a little more. Showed his pain. Like me. The wounded boar.

Just then, the phone rang.

Holy shit!
It had to be Victoria calling back.

She must not be able to sleep. Wanted to talk some more. Or maybe needed me to come over and share my Jack Daniel’s. I was on Poinciana. She was on Kumquat. I could jog up Solana and be there in three minutes.

I picked up the phone, calmed my voice, and said, “Hello again.”

“Again?” A man’s voice.

“Who’s this?”

“George Barrios.”

Just why was the Miami Beach chief of homicide calling me after midnight?

“Who’d you think was calling, Jake?” Detectives have an insatiable curiosity.

“One of your ex-wives, George.”

“Better you than me.”

“Whoever got killed tonight, I assure you I have an alibi.”

“You always do. Listen, Jake, we gotta talk.”

“Now?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Okay, how about a preview?”

“There are some things I gotta tell you about Nadia Delova.”

I didn’t sleep well. Up at sunrise, I found a tiny frog hopping across the Mexican tile in the kitchen. A cockroach—we euphemistically call them palmetto bugs—was flat on its back, its legs wiggling helplessly. Nearby, a green lizard—call him Mr. Gecko—watched, deciding what part to eat first. Hey, it’s not my fault. Or Granny’s. We keep a clean house. It’s just summer in Miami.

At 6:00 a.m., wearing my Penn State boxers—tasteful little Nittany Lions on a blue background—and nothing else, I picked up the
Miami Herald
from under the jacaranda tree in the driveway. I intended to skim the paper and have one cup of coffee before meeting Detective Barrios.

It was already hot and humid enough to give a guy jock itch. By the time I got back to my front door, several mosquitoes had dive-bombed my ankles for breakfast.

The
Herald
’s lead story reported that the pink flamingos at Hialeah Park had begun laying eggs again. This may not seem like front-page news, but the flamingos had gone five years without sex before a recent orgy. This gave me hope.

Thirty minutes later, I was dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt from the Quarterdeck Lounge, a favorite watering hole and fish joint. Twenty minutes after that, I was aiming my old Caddy across the MacArthur Causeway toward Miami Beach. The car is a cream-colored 1984 Biarritz Eldorado with red velour upholstery and a personalized license plate: “JUSTICE?” Yeah, I think it’s a good question.

In its day, the car would have been considered a pimpmobile, but it was actually owned by Strings Hendricks, a Key West piano tuner and occasional marijuana smuggler. I walked him out of criminal court because of a faulty search, and the car was my fee. I saw no reason to upgrade to a Lexus or Mercedes or any of the other showy wheels my fellow trial lawyers seem to favor.

Traffic was its usual mess on Dixie Highway. It hadn’t started raining yet. Of course, at 3:17 p.m., give or take ten minutes, it would pour. It does nearly every day in the summer.

Once on the causeway, I passed the mansions of Palm and Star Islands on my left and admired the gleaming cruise ships lined up in Government Cut to my right. The ships were poised for their Friday departures to the Caribbean. Fun-filled, prepackaged, all-you-can-eat floating hotels, complete with evening entertainment from bands and comedians too lame to make it in Vegas.

Detective Barrios had told me to meet him at a Cuban café on Sixth Street between Meridian and Washington on South Beach.
He didn’t want me in the city cop shop. Maybe he was afraid I would spread my defense lawyer cooties. Or maybe he was just more comfortable not having his colleagues see him consorting with the enemy.

Of course, I’d get to question him under oath, both at a pretrial deposition and at trial. But then, he’d have the state attorney protecting him from my insidiously clever questions, which usually start: “Then what happened?”

Barrios and I had a decent relationship both before and after I’d been wrongfully accused of killing Pamela Baylins, a serial seductress and looter of my trust accounts. This was something I intended to teach Solomon. Make friends with cops, or at least try not to give them the burning desire to shoot you in the kneecap.

Solomon. So damn brash. So much like my earlier self.

I found Barrios sitting at a two-person table in a corner of the café drinking an espresso and nibbling a guava pastelito. His back was to the wall so he could see all the patrons enter and, if necessary, plug anyone who jumped the café con leche line. He was a burly man nearing retirement age, with suntanned, muscular arms poking out of an orange polo shirt. His shaved head looked as if it had been stained a dark walnut. I eased into the chair facing him and ordered an American coffee.

“
Que pasa
, George? Why’d you drag me over here?”

“In my opinion, we both want the same thing.”

“Justice in an imperfect world. Not to mention the love of a fine woman.”

“We both want to find Nadia Delova.”

“Ah, yes.”

“If the state finds her, she’ll testify that your guy pulled the trigger, and it’s lights out for Solomon.”

“That’s one possibility. Or maybe she’ll testify she pulled the trigger standing her ground, then hightailed it with Gorev’s gun. As my guy says.”

“Why should she do that? She’ll risk being prosecuted for the robbery.”

I laughed my big-time know-it-all trial lawyer laugh. “Meaning that if she testifies for the prosecution, it’s only because the state gives her immunity for both the shooting
and
the robbery. Which is fine with me. I love cross-examining immunized witnesses. ‘Isn’t it true you robbed the safe, Ms. Delova, and that the state agreed to drop those charges if you would identify my client as the gunman?’ ”

“What I really called you for is this. State Attorney Pincher wants you to know there’s a rumor around town that someone’s put out a hit on Nadia.”

“Why tell me?”

Barrios was silent.

“You saying Pincher thinks I’m behind it? What bullshit!”

Barrios shrugged. “I told him that was crap. But he thinks you don’t want to find her and you
really
don’t want us to find her. That you’re afraid she’ll torpedo your defense . . . if she’s alive to do it. He wanted to warn you to keep clear of that sort of thing.”

“If Ray Pincher wasn’t such an asshole, I’d be insulted.”

“I told him that wasn’t your style, Jake. But you know . . .”

Yeah, I did. Pincher had that disease prevalent among prosecutors. He thought defense lawyers were pond scum.

“Appreciate the warning, George, and I got something for you in return.”

“I’m listening.”

“Some guy named Benny is looking for Nadia. Maybe he’s your man.”

“Benny? That’s all you’ve got.”

“Hey, this ain’t
NCIS
. In real life, evidence comes in dribs and drabs. Whoever he is, Benny’s offering fifty thousand to whoever can deliver Nadia.”

That raised Barrios’s eyebrows. He took out his little cop notebook and wrote,
BENNY
. Then he polished off his guava pastelito, which made me hungry, so I ordered one of my own, along with a beef empanada that had just come out of the oven; the aroma of the pastry filled the small café. Pastry and meat. Breakfast of champions.

“In return, George, I got a couple questions for you.”

“Ah, what you shysters call a quid pro quo.”

“What can you tell me about the gun used to shoot Gorev?”

“File your discovery papers with Pincher’s office. He’ll tell you all about it.”

“You just did, George. If the gun had any connection to Solomon, you’d be dancing on the table.”

He shrugged. “It’s a Glock 17, older-model nine-millimeter semiautomatic. Solomon could have concealed it inside his suit coat.”

“Or his purse,” I said. “Oh, wait. That would be Nadia’s purse.”

“The Glock was purchased lawfully from a shop in Houston by a guy from South Orange, New Jersey. Name of Littlejohn. Guy owns a courier business. No criminal record. Told us one of his drivers lost the gun on a trip to Kentucky.”

“Like I said, you can’t tie the gun to Solomon.”

“Solomon had it in his hand when the cops broke in, and he admits shooting into the door with it. His prints are on it. I’m pretty happy with the connection.”

“We’ll fight about that in court.”

“You said you had two questions.”

“Right. I subpoenaed the city for all police records on Nadia Delova, and I haven’t gotten a document of any kind. Not even a parking ticket or a reply that you don’t have anything.”

“City’s written reply is being vetted by Pincher’s office.”

“Bad sign. C’mon, George. You can’t stonewall on discovery.”

He reached into a slim briefcase and took out a single piece of paper, which he slid across the table.

A booking photo of Nadia Delova.

Date of birth, January 16, 1986, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Charge: grand larceny, to wit, one Rolex Submariner, black matte limited edition. The photo showed a very attractive, very pouty brunette. Lots of hair and lots of lips. No smile, but for a mug shot, it was striking. The date of the arrest was five weeks before the shooting.

“Another charge you can immunize her for,” I said. “So where’s the rest of the file?”

“That’s the thing.”

“Oh, boy. Let’s hear it.”

“There’s no file. It’s missing.”

“On the computer, then?”

“Nada.”

“George, this stinks, and you know it. You talk to the arresting officer?”

Barrios motioned for another espresso, which he took straight. The only Cuban-American in Miami not to pour a cup of sugar into his morning brew.

“Scott Kornspan. One year out of the Academy. Clean record. Took a complaint from a middle-aged guy staying at the Delano. The Russian girl picked him up at the bar in the lobby, took him to Club Anastasia, got him drunk, and had him sign for a few thousand in champagne on his AmEx card. Then when he passed out, she took his Rolex. Kornspan arrested the girl, who claimed the guy
gave her the watch as a gift. She bailed herself out with a cash bond. Four thousand dollars.”

“And Kornspan’s written report?”

“Says he filed it. No explanation for what happened.”

“It’s gotta be on the computer. Everything’s on the computer.”

“Not there. Apparently deleted in a slick way that can’t be undone.”

“I’m guessing you have an idea what happened to it, George.”

He shrugged his old cop shoulders. “I start with the proposition that Solomon claims Gorev accused Nadia Delova of wearing a wire.”

“And you know for sure she wasn’t an informant for the City of Miami Beach?”

Barrios nodded. “I checked. No investigations she’s involved in.”

“And I’m guessing Pincher says the state wasn’t handling her.”

“So he says.”

“And the language Nadia used that spooked Gorev. ‘Wire fraud.’ ‘Money laundering.’ ‘Racketeering.’ ”

“Fed talk. FBI US Attorney. Justice Department.”

“But the feds can’t just walk into your building and expunge a file. You have a liaison with the US Attorney?”

“I have a chief of police.”

“So? What’s he say?”

“Says he was advised by the powers that be that he can’t talk about it.”

“The ‘powers that be?’ That’s all he said?”

“That. And, ‘the Patriot Act is a bitch.’ ”

“You ever read the so-called Patriot Act, George?”

“No. Why would I?”

“I tried. It’s nearly four hundred pages. Basically, it gives the feds the right to come into my house and perform a rectal exam if they don’t like the cut of my jib.”

“You haven’t become one of those antigovernment nut jobs, have you Jake?”

“No way. I love the military. I love the government inspecting slaughterhouses so I don’t get poisoned by my rib eye. I don’t even mind paying taxes for your salary. I just wonder what’s left of the Bill of Rights.”

“Everyone’s got their pet peeves,” Barrios said. “With me, it’s murder.”

That shut me up a second.