“I remember something in Argentina.”
“Pedro Mallo Hospital in Buenos Aires. Kutvolgyi Uti in Budapest. State University Hospital in Bulgaria.”
“So she likes to travel.”
“I ran the hospitals through the databases, too. They all have something in common. Pharmaceutical companies test new drugs in them.”
“So what's wrong with that?” he asked.
“Probably nothing. Kranchick's into research and testing, so the foreign venues make sense. It's just that the controls are looser there.”
“No FDA peeking over your shoulder.”
“Exactly.”
“You think something's not kosher at Rockland?”
“No way to tell. If we had the time and money, we'd hire an expert consultant, really go through their records.”
“I could get Cadillac Johnson.”
“You think you can bribe Kranchick with pulled pork sandwiches?”
“Cadillac's got other talents.”
“Unless he's an endocrinologist, I don't see how he can help.”
“Trust me on this. I'm gonna stop by the Sweet Potato Pie on the way home.”
“What for?”
“A couple slabs of baby-backs.”
“I stopped eating meat.”
“Liar, liar, briefs on fire.”
“Okay. Half a slab, extra sauce. But tell Bruce and I'll have to hurt you.”
“Our secret.”
“So what are you going to ask Cadillac to do?”
“Got a bad connection here,” he said, even though he could hear her perfectly.
“We have a deal, remember? Everything by the book.”
“Losing you,” he said, clicking off. He was working on an idea, and it didn't require an endocrinologist. Just someone with people skills and a measure of courage. The ability to pick a lock might come in handy, too.
Steve knew that Cadillac had played guitar in places where performers sometimes got knifed instead of paid. He'd sold encyclopedias door-to-door. He'd dealt blackjack in a riverboat casino. He was perfect for the job.
If Steve's plan worked, he could tell Victoria all about it when they went to court. If it didn't work, he'd take the fall, not her.
Fifteen minutes later, Steve was sitting in a richly upholstered chair, trying not to spill his Cuban coffee. He was in the office of Bluestein, Dominguez, Greenberg, amp; Vazquez. The late Charles Barksdale's law firm. Perched on the fifty-third floor of a bank building at Flagler Street and Biscayne Boulevard, Steve could see all the way to Bimini.
Unless a turkey buzzard was in his line of sight.
Which it was.
Steve's glance shifted from the red-faced buzzard with the curved beak to the bald lawyer with the half- glasses. The buzzard was balanced on an outside window ledge covered with shit, the lawyer on the corner of a teak desk covered with files.
“Charlie Barksdale was a real romantic,” said Sam Greenberg, the lawyer.
“Screech,” said the buzzard.
“Romantic, how?” Steve said.
“The sorry son-of-a-bitch really believed in love.”
Greenberg ran his firm's family law division, a euphemism for cutthroat divorces and killer custody wars. He was in his late forties, pale and overweight, conservatively dressed in banker's gray wool. Steve thought he had the look of someone who billed twenty-five-hundred hours a year at five hundred bucks per hour. A tired but wealthy look.
“So Charlie loved Katrina?” Steve said.
“He was nuts about her,” Greenberg said.
The buzzard kept its beak shut.
“Plus he liked having a trophy wife,” Greenberg continued. “Gave him self-worth.”
“His net worth not doing the job?”
“Some guys need trinkets on their arm. Me, I've been married to the same woman for twenty-two years. She's fatter than I am and a wicked scold, but I wouldn't trade her in. Hell, I couldn't afford to.”
Steve studied the photo on the credenza. A plump, smiling wife and three kids, one of college age, two younger ones with full sets of gleaming orthodonture.
Greenberg peered over his half-glasses and lowered his voice. “Hot sex, too.”
“Congratulations.”
“Not me. Charlie. After he met Katrina, he was a walking hard-on. ‘Nobody ever got my pecker so hard,' blah-blah-blah. I had to bust his chops to make him do the prenup. He said it violated his principles, ruined the romance.”
“When did he tell you he wanted a divorce?”
“A few days before he died. He's sitting right in that chair where you are now. Pissing and moaning. ‘The bitch is fucking my boat captain. I'm gonna divorce her ass.' The usual stuff. But really suffering. I'm dictating the petition, and he gets sick, goes to the rest room and barfs. I tell him to come back the next day, all the papers will be ready to sign.”
“But he never showed up?”
“Nope.” Greenberg slid off his desk, settled into his high-backed brown leather chair. On the window ledge, the buzzard hopped a step, spread its wings, tucked them in again. Smart birds, the scavengers winter in Miami, feasting on discarded burgers, media noches, and the occasional drug dealer stuffed into a garbage bag. They fly endless circles over the downtown courthouse, roosting on the ledges of the high-rise law firms, providing the source of endless lawyer jokes.
“I called Charlie when he missed the appointment,” Greenberg said. “He said he wasn't feeling so hot, he'd come in in a couple days. When he didn't, I sent the petition by courier to his office. Instead of signing it, he scribbled some nonsense on the ad damnum clause and sent it back.”
“What nonsense?”
“A poem or haiku or something.”
“Mind if I see it?” There'd been no handwriting on the photocopy of the petition provided by Pincher.
Greenberg walked to a teak file cabinet. “Charlie fancied himself an artiste, not just a guy who built condos on zero lot lines. When he'd pay my bill, he'd usually write a poem on the check.”
Outside, the wind rattled the windowpane, and the buzzard hopped off the ledge and soared down Flagler Street. In flight, with its Yao Ming wingspan, the black bird seemed as large as an airplane.
Greenberg drew a thin file from the drawer and handed it to Steve, who quickly found the original Petition for Dissolution. He turned to the last page, saw the formal legal language: “Wherefore Petitioner Prays that the Court Enter a Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage.”
Scrawled over the printed clause was a handwritten note:
Hide a few contretemps Defer a competent wish Cement a spit-fed whore
“What's it mean?” Steve said, thoroughly confused.
“Beats me. But like I said, Charlie-”
“Was a real romantic, I know.”
Steve looked at the poem again. What the hell was it? And why write it on the divorce petition? He wished Victoria were here. Maybe she could figure it out.
“Did you ask Barksdale about it?” he said.
“I phoned the next day,” Greenberg said. “But Charlie wasn't taking any calls. He was dead.”
