“ I’m sorry, Jake. I gave a statement. I had to tell Abe what Simmy said.”
I turned back to Socolow. “I don’t know why he asked. Maybe it doesn’t make any sense, but look at the facts. There are four people involved in Rocky Mountain Treasures. One is dead, one is missing and presumed dead, one just got the crap kicked out of him by the fourth one. C’mon, Abe, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes…”
“ Maybe you’re right, but maybe not. You know as well as I do that when you’re dealing with circumstantial evidence, you’ve got to rule out the possibility of any other set of facts. Who’s to say that you and Cimarron aren’t involved in a power struggle for that treasure company? Maybe the other two just got in the way. Or maybe Hornback sided with Cimarron, and you had him taken out, and Blinky sided with you, and Cimarron took him out. Or vice versa, or a hundred other scenarios I haven’t thought of.”
“ Abe! I’m not in a power struggle with the cowboy. I never even knew the guy existed. I never asked to be in that company. I was just dragged into it.”
Socolow seemed to think about it. He gave the impression of engaging in quiet, deductive reasoning, but after a moment, he said, “You got any cream cheese?”
“ No. Abe, you’re giving me a headache. What are you doing about Cimarron?”
“ No way we can charge him with murder, but if you and Josefina give a sworn statement, we’ll file a direct information for aggravated assault and trespass. You want us to charge him?”
“ Yes,” I said.
“ No,” Jo Jo said.
“ Well, I’m sure pleased the two of you are back together,” Socolow said. “Just like old times. Maybe I ought to leave the room and let you hash this out.” He stood up and started for the door. “You think your granny brought any of that Key lime pie with her?”
When he was gone, Jo Jo shot a nervous look toward Kip, who was sitting in the corner.
“ It’s okay,” I said. “Kip and I are covered by the uncle-nephew privilege.”
“ There’s no such thing,” she told me. Turning back to the kid, she said, “Would you turn off the camera please?”
“ I will if you say, ‘Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.’
She looked puzzled.
“ An audition,” I explained. “He’s looking for a new Bette Davis.”
“ Jake,” she said, giving me a no-nonsense look I remembered so well, “this is serious.”
“ Okay, Kip. It’s a wrap. I’m closing down production. You can stay and listen but keep quiet.”
He grumbled but turned off the camera.
Jo Jo waited a moment, then said, “Simmy called me this morning.”
“ Great, where is he?”
“ Didn’t say. He apologized, said he lost his head, but it was a combination of things. Jealousy at finding you in my bed, anger at Luis, frustration with the company.”
“ Okay, he’s got problems, and he works them out by using my head for punting practice. I hope you told him that the next time I see him, I going to even things up.”
“ No, I didn’t tell him that,” Jo Jo said, evenly. “Mostly, I listened. He kept repeating what he said the other night, that Blinky had double-crossed him, and you must have been in on it. Then, he told me he wanted me back. He didn’t realize it before, but he wants to start again.”
“ Yeah, well tell him to take a number. I’m first in line.”
“ Oh, Jake. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. A week ago, I had no one, and now, two men want me.”
“ Like Katharine Hepburn in The Rainmaker,” Kip said.
“ Hey, kid,” I said, “how ‘bout going downstairs and keep an eye on the D.A.”
“ Why? Is this where it gets X-rated?”
I shooed him out, and we were alone. “Jo Jo, my head is spinning when it isn’t throbbing. Two nights ago, we made love, and it was a ten on the Richter scale. We turned back the clock. Then we get a visit from a maniac the size of a missile silo, a guy who may have killed your brother, and now you’re telling me you’re thinking about going back to him. Is that what I’m hearing?”
Her dark eyes were moist. “I don’t know, Jake. I just don’t know. It’s so much more complicated than you realize. Luis didn’t tell you everything, and neither did I.”
“ I’m listening,” I said.
But she wasn’t talking.
“ Jo Jo!”
“ I’m so sorry Luis got you involved in this. Maybe it’s not too late to get you out. Please, Jake, let it drop. Let me handle it. I have things I’ve got to do. Don’t follow me. And someday I hope you’ll forgive me.”
She bolted from the room, and I heard her blue patent leather pumps beating a staccato retreat down the stairs. I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t. I wanted to call out to her, to ask her more questions.
Starting with one…
Forgive you for what?
And backing up a bit…
Follow you where?
And maybe most important…
Get me out of what?
Which was the most difficult of all, because if you don’t know what you’re involved in, how the heck are you going to get out?
Chapter 13
I went back to work, shuffling papers, pleading out first-timers for stern lectures and probation because the prisons were too crowded to house my fallen angels. Weeks passed with no news. Metro police could not find the moose disguised as a cowboy and finally asked for help from the sheriff s department in Pitkin County, Colorado, on the theory that Cimarron had gone home.
Our local cops seemed to be happy to lateral the ball. In a county with a murder a day and a hundred stolen cars a week, arresting a guy for assault was not the highest priority. Especially when the word I was getting from the state attorney’s office was that Socolow considered the whole thing a lovers’ triangle where nobody got killed. In other words, no big deal, a couple of guys trading punches over a woman. I didn’t see it that way, but then I was the guy whose ears rang for a week.
Maybe the case embarrassed Socolow. After all, Jo Jo Baroso was on his staff. Who needs the sly remarks and elbow-in-the-ribs jokes about the lady prosecutor con dos amantes in the bedroom?
Anyway, that’s what I was thinking because Socolow was more aloof than usual. He stopped returning my calls. He let it get around town that I was either a witness or a suspect in more cases than I was a lawyer. Then I noticed a gray Dodge behind me on the way home from the office, and again the next day on the way to the courthouse. I wouldn’t have paid attention, except each day, the Dodge changed lanes suddenly to keep me in sight. Two men were in the front seat, but I couldn’t make out their features. On South Miami Avenue headed north from Coconut Grove, I pulled into the Vizcaya parking lot and let the car go by, checking the license number. As I figured, state-owned. Either Socolow had me under surveillance, or the governor was tracking me down to offer a judgeship.
Abe Socolow.
We had known each other since I squeaked through the bar exam and landed a job in the P.D.’s office. He was a young assistant state attorney, whose enthusiasm had not yet been sharpened into cynicism. He prosecuted shoplifters, check bouncers, and drunk drivers with equal vigor, and I defended them with creativity. He usually won, but that’s the way it works in the den of iniquity (and inequity) of the Metro Justice Building. Other defense lawyers considered Socolow dour and mean-spirited. I always liked him, admired his fighting spirit, even found him
