Kill All the Lawyers

Twenty-Eight

GET THEE TO A SHRINKERY

A week after being booked for slugging Myron Goldberg and released for a second time in a month on his own recognizance, Steve was driving south on Dixie Highway, Bobby riding shotgun, when the pipsqueak said, 'I don't want to go to Jewey school.'

'To what?' Steve had never heard the expression.

'You know. Beth Am Day School.'

'Who said anything about transferring?'

'Grandpop.'

'Why, that alter kocker.'

Ever since Herbert had gone ortho, he'd been behaving strangely. Not only was he schlepping to temple every Friday night and Saturday morning, he seemed to be celebrating a new holiday every week, either a feast or a fast. Sure, Steve knew about pigging out-without the pig-at Sukkot and starving at Yom Kippur. But there was his old man, celebrating the Fast of Esther, the banquet at Simchat Torah, eating blintzes and cheesecake on Savuot but zilch on the seventeenth of Tammuz. Maybe his old man was acting weird because his blood sugar was riding a roller coaster.

'If your grandfather wants to discover his roots, fine,' Steve told Bobby. 'But you're staying in public school. It's good to mix with kids of different backgrounds.'

'That's what I told Grandpop. I can say 'fuck off' in five languages.'

Steve pulled into the left-turn lane and waited for the light to change. Only way to cross traffic during morning rush hour was to wait for a yellow light turning red. To his right was the University of Miami and the baseball stadium where once he won a game by scoring from first on a single. Looking back-the high-fives, the cheers, the late night with a Hurricane Hottie-he wondered if that was the high point of his life.

Just examine the facts.

Victoria, the woman he loved, was stewing over their relationship. All talk of moving in together had ceased. Even staying together seemed problematical. Jeez, they hadn't had sex in an eternity.

Kreeger was pulling his chain like a puppeteer with a marionette. Taunting him with Janice and the threat of a custody fight. Nothing had changed. Every step Steve took, the bastard was one step ahead of him.

Gotta stop playing defense, start playing offense.

And Bobby? If Victoria was Steve's heart, the boy was his soul. Steve would do anything for his nephew, make any sacrifice. Just watching Bobby smile clutched at his heart. There had been damn few smiles and laughs those first months after Steve brought the boy home from the commune. Half-starved, locked up, deprived of social contact, Bobby had withdrawn into a shell. In Steve's house, he would sit cross-legged in a corner, swaying, speaking gibberish, if anything at all. Now, seeing Bobby's growth, watching in awe as his brain sizzled and snapped with electrifying speed, well, it brought tears to Steve's eyes.

So how could you betray me, Bobby? How could you sneak off to see that woman who loved crack more than she loved you?

'Because she's still my mom.'

That was Bobby's defense. The night Steve clobbered Myron Goldberg, Steve took Bobby home and made him a smoothie. They talked until dawn, Bobby crying and saying he was sorry he hadn't been honest. A few weeks before, when Janice got out of prison, she had started coming around the neighborhood. At night, she'd sneak into their yard and sometimes look through Bobby's window just to catch a glimpse of him.

Sure, Steve thought. Even with her brain cells burned out by twenty years of narcotics and hallucinogens, Janice had known better than to knock on the door and give her baby brother a big hug. So she'd hung out at the park on Morningside Drive like a regular mom and one day called out to Bobby when he rode by on his bike.

'Why didn't you tell her to fuck off? In five languages.'

'Because she's still my mom.'

Steve couldn't understand it. And knew he couldn't fight it, either. If he forbade Bobby to see his mother, he'd be the villain. The two of them would sneak around behind his back, make a game of it. He was in a lose-lose situation.

The light blinked yellow, and Steve honked at the Beemer in front of him to turn the hell left so we don't sit here another fifteen minutes. The light was red when Steve followed onto Augusto Street, pulling up to the entrance of Ponce de Leon Middle School. A sea of urchins in shorts, T-shirts, and backpacks was surging toward the front door.

Steve reached over and squeezed Bobby's shoulder. He wouldn't kiss the boy, not when his pals might be watching.

Bobby made no move to open the door. 'I don't want to go to school.'

'Why not?'

'First period is P.E. Second is Study Hall. Third is Civics, and I've got permission for independent study off- campus.'

'Independent study? You getting your master's degree?'

'I can go to court with you today if you want me to.'

'You have anything in writing to back up this story?'

'Jeez, Uncle Steve. Don't you trust me?'

'About as far as I can throw Shaquille O'Neal. Now, what's going on?'

'You've got to go in front of some judge, right?'

'Yeah. The Honorable Alvin Elias Schwartz. So what?'

'Grandpop says a defendant should always look as sympathetic as possible. That's why serial killers bring their mothers to court.'

'Yeah?'

'I can make you look more sympathetic. I'm Exhibit A in your trial stratagem.'

'What kind of word is that for a twelve-year-old? 'Stratagem'?'

'Don't you always say, 'If the law doesn't work, work the law?' '

'Not like this. I won't use you as a prop.'

'C'mon, Uncle Steve. If the law doesn't work, work your nephew.'

Victoria paced in the corridor outside Judge Schwartz's courtroom. Morning calendar, the place overflowing with defendants, their wives, girlfriends, and mothers. Bored cops and sleazy bail bondsmen, overworked probation officers and perjurious witnesses-all the jetsam and flotsam of the criminal justice system. It was a familiar place to Victoria, but still she felt ill at ease. This was the venue of her greatest professional embarrassment. Ray Pincher, the State Attorney, had fired her in Judge Gridley's courtroom, not twenty yards away. She could remember her face reddening, the tears welling, and opposing counsel-Steve-the-Shyster Solomon-hitting on her. An inauspicious beginning to their tumultuous relationship. Now, hustling down the corridor were two judges- Stanford Blake and Amy Steele Donner-robes flying, chatting away. She nodded to them in the way lawyers do, being polite, but not too familiar. His Honor and Her Honor smiled back. What were they saying? She could only imagine.

'There's Victoria Lord. She got suckered into a mistrial by Steve Solomon, ended up sleeping with him.'

Riding the escalator moments before, Victoria had encountered the head of the state's Major Crimes Division. They exchanged hellos. The man asked what brought her across the bay. Expecting a murder trial, maybe. White- collar crime. Something to ring the cash register at Solomon amp; Lord, Attorneys-at-Law.

Not. . 'Defending my partner in his second assault and battery case in a month.'

No wonder she was embarrassed. The humiliation didn't stop with Ray Pincher sacking her. Her partner and lover could be counted on for continuing acts of mortification.

Down the corridor, the elevator door opened and out walked Steve.

With Bobby!