“That's an assault!” Zinkavich squeaked. Atthault.
“Bring it up with the judge,” Steve said, walking away.
That was smart, Steve thought, double-timing toward the courtroom. Real smart. Piss off the one guy who can wreck Bobby's life.
I would never lose my cool like that representing a client. But this is personal.
Halfway down the corridor, he overtook Victoria, her ear pressed to a cell phone.
“I'm so sorry, Kat,” she said into a pink Nokia. “If there's anything I can do, please ask…”
Kat? Holy shit. That wouldn't be short for Katrina, would it?
Steve slowed his pace, dropped back a half step.
“Of course I believe you. I know you wouldn't…” Victoria said. “You and Charlie always looked so happy together. God, I feel terrible for you.”
Okay, makes sense. Miss La Gorce Tennis Champion would know the Barksdales.
“Please call if you need anything. I mean it.”
Victoria clicked off, and Steve came alongside. “Are you friends with the grieving widow?”
“Were you eavesdropping?”
“C'mon, we only have a minute.”
“I see Kat at the club. What's it to you?”
“Get me the case and there's a referral fee in it for you.”
“It's illegal to solicit a case,” she chided.
“You think Alan Dershowitz waits for the phone to ring?”
She stopped at the courtroom door. “Why on earth would I recommend you to anyone?”
He struggled for an answer, but didn't have one. She entered the courtroom with a smug look. As the door closed in his face, Steve's mind raced. How could he convince Victoria he had the stuff to help her newly widowed friend? And even if she believed he was the best lawyer in town, which he wasn't, why would she hustle the case for him?
Suddenly, the answers to both questions were obvious.
He'd change his approach. No more bickering, no more insults. When they resumed the Pedrosa trial, he'd show his kinder, gentler side. But he still had to win. She wouldn't send a case to a loser.
So I have to win nice.
It sounded good, he thought. Except for one little flaw. Maybe if his cockatoo-smuggling client were innocent, he could win nice. But as even a myopic judge or sleeping juror could see, Amancio Pedrosa was as dirty as a birdcage floor.
Four
AN ANGELFISH NAMED STEVE
The next morning was gray and cold, at least by Miami standards. Clouds the color of old nickels pushed down from the north, winds kicked up, palm fronds ripped loose from trees. Yesterday, the bird-smuggling trial had slogged along. Victoria had put on her case, Steve had minded his manners. He had even kept half his promise. He was playing nice; he just wasn't winning. Trial would resume at ten A.M. He should be spending the time preparing for court, but there were domestic duties to attend to first.
In his drafty bungalow on Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove, with Jimmy Buffet singing “License to Chill” on a CD, Steve grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and whipped up papaya smoothies. An unusual breakfast, but his nephew, Bobby, chose the menu. That was their deal; the kid would eat everything on the plate as long as he got to pick the food.
No matter the weather, Bobby wore baggy shorts and a Florida Marlins T-shirt. He was skinny, with pipe- stem arms and legs and sandy hair that stood straight up, as if he'd just stuck a finger in an electrical outlet. Rounding out the picture as the class uber-nerd-if he actually went to Carver instead of homeschooling-was a double track of shiny braces and thick black glasses that were always smudged and cockeyed.
Bobby could not find his way home from the park three blocks away, but he could repeat everything he heard or read. Verbatim. As a result, Steve could never win an argument about current events, baseball statistics, or whether he had promised a trip to Disney World exactly seventy-eight days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes ago. The doctors called it echolalia, the flip side of the boy's disability.
Recently, Bobby had found an Italian cooking site on the Internet and had become obsessed with grilled sandwiches. To accommodate his nephew, Steve bought a panini grill, which he used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Now, as Steve constructed Bobby's sandwich with the care of Michelangelo sculpting a statue, the boy stood alongside, making sure he didn't take any shortcuts. If the cheese melted over the edge of the bread or if the ridged grill marks were uneven, Bobby would scream, bang his head against the counter, and wrist-flick the sandwich across the kitchen like a Frisbee.
“The ciabatta fresh?” Bobby asked.
“You bet.”
“The ham Black Forest?”
“Nothing but.”
“The cheese ricotta?”
“Sheep's milk. Just like you told me, kiddo.”
From the intensity of Bobby's look, Steve might have been separating plutonium from uranium. Only when the sandwiches emerged from the press-ham and cheese blended into a luxurious melt, bread crusty with symmetrical grill marks-would the boy relax. While this was going on, with Jimmy Buffet advocating living for the weekend and jumping off the deep end, the phone rang. Fairly certain it wasn't the Key West troubadour inviting him fishing, Steve let the machine pick up:
“This is Herbert T. Solomon. Recovering lawyer.” Re-koven loy-yuh.
Steve's father had been born in Savannah, and though Herbert Solomon had not lived in the Deep South for half a century, he still spoke in a mellifluous, musical drawl. The accent, Steve believed, was purposeful and exaggerated, Herbert's calling card. In his father's scrapbook was a faded newspaper clipping describing one of his closing arguments as a “melodic hymn to the angels, folksy as a farm, sweeter than molasses, soulful as a prayer.” Steve's own courtroom style, should it ever be described at all, would be likened to a grenade exploding in a septic tank.
“Mah spies tell me you've been in the cooler again,” said the voice into the machine. “Stephen, ah've taught you to win with style and grace, not shenanigans and tomfoolery. And when are you bringing mah grandson down here?”
Down here being Sugarloaf Key, just north of Key West, Herbert's own private gulag, though considerably warmer than Siberia.
“Somebody's gotta teach that boy to fish, and it sure as hell ain't you.”
Granddad taking the boy fishing. Now there was a Norman Rockwell notion, Steve thought, not without some bitterness. Herbert Solomon was one of those men who became far better grandfathers than they ever were fathers. How much time did he ever spend with Steve? How many ball games? Track meets? Camping trips?
Steve knew he still resented his father for having placed career first, family a distant second. Herbert Solomon had become just what he wanted: a great lawyer and a great judge, before taking a great fall. Steve had other ambitions. Sure, he wanted to be successful, if he could do it his own way: no compromises, no political bullshit, no ass-kissing. So far, it hadn't exactly worked out.
“You couldn't hit a donkey in the fanny with a bass fiddle, much less outsmart a bonefish,” Herbert continued.
Nothing like nurturing support, Steve thought, grabbing the phone. “Hey, Dad, chill, okay?”
“Why didn't you pick up?” his father demanded.
