'But unlikely,' I suggested.
'Unless you were trying,' Roger Salisbury said.
8
This is how I prepare my closing argument. I toss the files into the trunk of the 442 convertible and head home. Home is in the old part of Coconut Grove between Kumquat Avenue and Poinciana. You can't see the house from the street thanks to the jacaranda, live oak, and chinaberry trees that crowd the small lot. So little sun reaches the front yard that the lawn wouldn't support a hungry billy goat. The trees also shade the house, a 1920s coral rock pillbox that would be the last building standing after a direct hit by Alice, Bruce, Celia, or David. Granny Lassiter lived in the house when the Grove was full of artists and barnacled types, when there were saloons instead of boutiques. After the area became chic, Granny grabbed her fishing gear and headed for the Keys.
I leave the files in the trunk and head into the kitchen. There is a refrigerator, a microwave, some cabinets, and enough room for two very good friends to stand. The house is two stories but barely more than a cottage. It will never grace the pages of Architectural Digest but is perfect for someone who does not want to entertain or rub shoulders with society.
I turn on all the ceiling fans. I don't like air-conditioning. It dries out the air and shuts you off from the natural sounds of birds, crickets, and neighborhood burglars.
My porch looks into a jungle of overgrown shrubs and weeds that, like the battlement of a castle, shelters my tiny backyard. Because the neighborhood is secluded, drug dealers have been moving in. They are good neighbors for the most part, never noisy, never nosy. The ones who process the cocaine, however, are a problem. On Loquat Street last year, a house blew up when a barrel of ether ignited. Nothing left of the house or three Colombians. Charred pieces of greenbacks wafted over Coconut Grove, tiny embers blinking like fireflies in the nighttime sky. A portrait of U.S. Grant, his beard scorched, landed in my hammock.
I put on the eight-ounce gloves and hit the heavy bag that hangs on the porch. It doesn't hit back. It doesn't say ouch. I go four rounds and win them all. I think about the case, the high points, what to emphasize, what to shrug off. It all comes back, witness by witness. I don't need the files or my notes. Each jab is a scrap of testimony to push, each hook a point to drive home.
I lie on my back and do stomach crunches. When a man gets to a certain age, he has to work the stomach hard. If not, it starts to merge with the chest. The whole torso becomes one amorphous mass. I work my stomach hard.
I finish with push-ups. First regular push-ups, then elevated, with feet propped up on the porch, hands on the ground, lowering myself into the overgrowth of the yard until the weeds tickle my nose.
Then I check the refrigerator. Everything I need, starting with smoked amberjack. I find some mayo that hasn't quite turned green, some Muenster that has, a jar of Pommery mustard, half a lemon. There are fresh tomatoes on the counter, part of the Florida winter crop, pale and tough, the hide of tennis balk. I've brought home a fresh loaf of French bread. I stack some of the amberjack on the bread, slather on the mayo, layer three leathery tomato slices on top, and cover it with the cheese and mustard. Dinner is served. Life in the fast lane.
Back at the refrigerator, I buy myself a beer. The choice, a sixteen-ounce Grolsch with the porcelain stopper or Anchor Steam, my one exception to the American beer boycott. I study them both. My biggest decision of the day, other than deciding whether to get sucked into a discussion of damages, or throw all my weight into shouting, 'no liability.' Cefalo will have to argue both, first that Salisbury is liable for professional negligence, second that the damages should be roughly equal to Brazil's foreign debt. I have to argue there is no liability. Sometimes, if you think you're going to lose that one, you slip into the alternative argument, but if you find the defendant liable, damages should not exceed the cost of a Dolphins' season ticket. Problem is, that weakens your liability case.
Now about that beer, the mind still cranking away. Anchor Steam has a deep amber color. Knew a girl with eyes like that once. Every time I looked at her, I got thirsty. I go for the Grolsch.
The files were still in the trunk, an emptied four-pack of Grolsch was in the trash, and I was in the hammock, letting the mind run through it all, visualizing tomorrow. I didn't hear the phone until the third ring. Realized I wasn't visualizing at all. Dozing.
'I need to see you,' a woman's voice said. 'Are you busy?'
It took a moment, then I placed it. Susan Corrigan. 'I'm hard at work trying to find justice in an imperfect world.'
'Do you know where Lagoon Road is?' she asked.
'Sure, Gables Estates.'
'That's where I live, nine-ten Lagoon Road.'
'The newspaper must be paying handsomely these days.'
'It's Dad's house. Please come over. Now. It's important.'
Of course, Dad's house. Which means, it's now stepmom-my's house.
'I don't know if that's such a good idea. Ethically, I'm not permitted to speak to Mrs. Corrigan without her lawyer present.'
Not that I toe the line somebody else draws. Guys from big law firms in three-piece suits sit around hotel ballrooms at ABA conventions thinking up lots of rules. Their idea of ethics is to give the side with the most money the upper hand. My ethical standards are simple. I never lie to the court or knowingly let a client do it. Other than that I like to shoot the opposition in the kneecaps.
'She's not here,' Susan Corrigan said. 'Just come around back to the cabana by the pool. This involves your client.'
Oh. A little bit of me knew that's what it was about. Another little bit of me hoped it was something else again. I stored a few megabytes of closing argument somewhere between my ears. Then I showered. I put on faded blue jeans that worked hard to get that way, a blue and orange rugby shirt, and a pair of well-worn running shoes in case I had to chase her again. I never got the 442 out of third gear going down Old Cutler, a two-lane, winding road heading south out of Coconut Grove. Huge banyan trees stood on each side of the road, their tangled trunks like giant snakes erupting from the ground. The thick branches met overhead, forming a dark umbrella that blocked out the moonlight. Briny smells of saltwater hammocks oozed from the bay side of the road. I turned left onto Arvida and headed down Millionaire's Row, lushly landscaped homes backed up onto canals with clear access to Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic beyond.
The Corrigan house sat on a cul-de-sac lined with royal palms a hundred feet high. You could get a crick in your neck looking up at the trees. The house, too. The first thing you notice is its height. You look up to see the ground floor. Though Lagoon Road is only five feet above sea level, if you add forty feet of fill and top it with a heap of landscaping, you have a Florida mountain. Then the sound, a waterfall tumbling through huge coral boulders.
You could look at the Corrigan house and be overwhelmed with its size or its styling, rough-hewn cedar flanking stone walls, sun decks overlooking the water. But I thought of only one word, electricity. How much juice did it take to run four separate central air-conditioning systems, to power the pump that ran the waterfall that cascaded down the man-made mountain, to illuminate with colored spotlights the palm trees and blooming poinsettias and impatiens? How much more electricity for the hot tub and the front gate and TV cameras? The Corrigan house was a one-family oil shortage.
The front gate was open and I pulled into the brick driveway and sat there a moment. No other cars, no signs of life, the four-car garage buttoned up tight. A flagstone walk ran around the house. It was bordered with three- foot-high pine posts, each topped by a tiny lamp. Heavy hemp lines were strung post to post to form a path, like queues in a theater.
Behind the house, a wooden deck led to a swimming pool. Fifty yards long but only twelve feet wide, a serious pool for laps. It smelled of salt water, not chlorine, probably a pipe right to the bay. Beyond the pool was a concrete dock, a boathouse, and a private lagoon that opened onto Biscayne Bay. Tied to the dock was a yacht that in time of war would be impounded for transporting troops.
