to my chair. Here the chains were broken, but Blinky’s living room felt like a cage. Something wasn’t making sense, but I didn’t know what. After a moment, I stopped pacing and turned back to Socolow. “Why are you telling me all this? What do you want from me?”
“ We figure Baroso will contact you,” he said.
“ Yeah, clients occasionally call their lawyers, so what?”
“ When he does, call me.”
I started to say something, but Socolow raised his hand as a teacher might to an unruly student. “Now, before you shout attorney-client privilege, hear me out. He killed Hornback, or he knows who did, and either way, I want to talk to him. So, get his story and see if you can bring him in.”
I gave Socolow a look that asked what’s in it for my client.
“ A voluntary surrender and things will go easier for him,” Socolow said. “Maybe the muscle was just supposed to muss up Hornback, and he went too far. If your client surrenders, I wouldn’t fight a reasonable bail request. If he makes us bring him in, he can sit in county jail until his case is called. He’ll have the jailhouse pallor and bum haircut that’ll tell the jury he’s right out of the can.”
“ What if he didn’t kill Hornback and doesn’t know who did?” I asked.
“ Then he’s got nothing to worry about, does he?” Abe Socolow answered.
Jo Jo Baroso walked back onto the balcony and lit a cigarette. I don’t know if statistics bear it out, but it seems more women than men are smoking these days. I’m not sure why, and any speculation would sound like male chauvinism, something I gave up along with bell bottoms and muttonchop sideburns. Male or female, smoking is something I’ve never understood. Not that I’m a health nut. Sure, I pour skim milk over my granola with mangoes. And I’ve cut back on the saturated fats and cholesterol, limiting my cheeseburgers (with a chocolate shake, double fries on the side) to days with an “r” in them.
I believe in moderation, not fanaticism. In my younger days, I would close every after-hours bar in the eastern division of the AFC. Yeah, even Buffalo. Some guys work hard and play hard. I played hard and played hard. I was a step too slow and often injured. Coaches, like generals, have great tolerance for other people’s pain. In one snowy game against the Patriots, I dislocated a shoulder making a tackle on a kickoff. To pop it back into place, the trainer handed me a cinder block and let go. Gravity and Xylocaine got me back in the game. The shoulder still clickety-clacks on the few occasions I comb my hair.
It’s the nineties, and recklessness-booze, drugs, and casual sex-is out. Caution is in. I know this is true. There’s a chart in USA Today to prove it. So now, I don’t drink and drive, sleep around, or draw to an inside straight. I’m still not quite housebroken, but I’ve left some of the wildness behind. I take fewer chances. Where I used to spin the wheel and choose red or black-what difference did it make?-now, I stay out of the casino. I am convinced, you see, that sooner or later, the ball will plop into double zero.
Two policemen I didn’t know showed up. Without excusing himself, Socolow, the detective, and the policemen disappeared into a back bedroom Blinky uses as an office. A woman cop in uniform came in from the elevator pushing what looked like a bellman’s cart. I heard drawers opening and closing and what sounded like furniture being moved.
I walked onto the balcony, standing to the ocean side- windward-of Jo Jo Baroso’s smoke plumes. The bridge was up on the Venetian Causeway as a forty-something-foot sloop sailed through, heeling slightly in the easterly. Three gulls lazily rode the updrafts, singing their gull songs.
“ He’s really fooled you, hasn’t he?” Jo Jo said.
“ Abe?”
“ My brother!”
“ I just don’t think he’s capable of murder, in person or with help.
“ That’s not what I mean. He’s charmed you.”
“ He’s a charming rogue,” I admitted.
Behind the city, the sky was streaked with scarlet at the horizon, and the sun was setting over the Everglades. “You’ve gotten him out of trouble so many times, you, of all people must know what he’s really like.”
“ Blinky’s a dreamer. You remember the Miami Ski Mountain deal? He ordered three hundred million cubic yards of limestone to build a mountain along Dixie Highway.”
“ I remember. He tried to sell stock in a ski lift. Even the most gullible figured you couldn’t keep snow from melting in the tropics.”
“ My point is, Blinky believed it. He spent ten grand on the drawings.”
“ His overhead, just overhead. How could he sucker the rubes without some slick displays?”
“ You won’t cut him a break will you?”
“ He doesn’t deserve one.”
“ You are a tough customer,” I told her.
She studied me a moment. Her gaze seemed to look back over the years, or maybe I was imagining it. “You know what infuriates me about you, Jake?”
‘‘ Virtually everything.’’
“ Your naivete. You see life like an overgrown Boy Scout. I bet you help little old ladies across the street.”
“ Yep, and sometimes tall, young ones.” In the blush of the sunset, her dark complexion glowed the color of caf e au lait. I gave her my crooked grin and looked straight in those dark, velvet eyes.
Josefina Jovita Baroso didn’t melt. She didn’t faint. She narrowed her eyes just a bit to appraise me, and finally said, “You’re still a damned attractive man, Jake Lassiter.”
Now, that was a switch.
“ You have presence,” she went on, “and you manage to project strength and warmth at the same time. You have a full crop of hair that looks like a wheat field that needs cutting, a tan that reveals you spend too much time at the beach, and your size is most appealing. Thank God you don’t wear those suits with the padded shoulders or you wouldn’t be able to fit through doorways.”
I was beginning to enjoy this.
“ You are sentimental to a fault, which causes you to have terrible judgment about people. You are bright enough, I suppose, though I doubt anyone ever considered you brilliant, unless it was one of your teammates whose jersey number approximated his IQ. You are a nonconformist, which makes your choice of professions somewhat curious. As far as your lawyering is concerned, while perhaps not technically unethical, it is amoral, at the very least…”
Had there been a subtle shift in tone?
“…You have a certain easygoing charm and affability. Your eyes crinkle when you smile, and doubtless, there are numerous women who find you irresistible, chief among them I suspect are cocktail waitresses, South Beach models, and bubble-brained cheerleaders.”
Somehow, I heard a “but” coming.
“ But if you think a smile and a laugh can get you inside my panty hose, you’d better think again, buster.”
“ Buster? Whatever happened to mi coraz o n?”
“ What happened between us is ancient history. I swear I barely remember it.”
“ I don’t believe you.”
“ Really, what do you remember?”
“ A lot of caring,” I said, “a lot of moist heat.”
“ Anything else?”
“ Squabbles, lots of squabbles.”
“ That’s what I remember, that and your leaving me.”
