or indirectly, to said party by the Matchmaker.”
“My son-in-law Sheldon wrote that,” Mrs. Slutsky announced. “A lawyer in Jersey. Not a fancy-schmancy office like this…”
She gestured toward the bayfront window. “But he makes a living, kineahora. ”
I scanned the rest of the contract. Meyer Feinstein, D.D.S., with an office address in Lauderhill, paid a registration fee of a hundred dollars plus an additional fifty dollars for every woman introduced to him by Sheila Slutsky. In the event of marriage, according to the red-boxed clause, Meyer owed another twenty-five-hundred dollars.
“What’s the problem?” I asked. “Why won’t he pay?”
“ Feh! So it’s my fault she ran off?”
“Who, the bride?”
“With the Porsche yet.”
“What? She stole his car?”
“Of course not. He gave it to her as a wedding present. Three days later, she was fed up with his mishegoss, tying her up with dental floss, who ever heard of such a thing, so she ran off. But they’re married, right? If that farshtinkener son-in-law of mine had written the contract like I said, I would’ve been paid at the wedding.”
Just then, Cindy buzzed me on the intercom. She reminded me that clients were lining up in the waiting room. There was a young man from Hialeah who wanted to sue the striptease joint for his injuries in an oil- wrestling bout with Brenda the Battling Banshee.
Mrs. Slutsky was still talking, mostly to herself. “Such a nebbish, that dentist.”
Cindy was telling me that Alex Soto was waiting, too, arrested again for the Spanish lotto con. He buys lottery tickets, choosing the number that won the week before. By carefully changing the date, he’s left with what looks like a $7-million ticket. Then, claiming he’s an illegal alien-the only part of the scam that’s true-Soto convinces the mark to cash the ticket for him, asking for ten thousand dollars as good-faith money.
“Okay,” I told Cindy. “No time to go out today. Better order me a cheeseburger and a shake.”
Cindy made a sound like a cow in distress.
“Is the whole world crazy or what?” Mrs. Slutsky asked.
Summer had turned to fall, though you couldn’t tell the difference. It still rained every afternoon, steam rising from the streets after each thunderstorm. Fall became winter, and still it stayed warm. Christmas Day was 83 and muggy, with just the slightest breath of a breeze. The first cold front passed through on New Year’s Eve, and the natives welcomed it. Our tropical winter is ordinarily dry and pleasant, daytime temperatures in the 70s, the sky an azure blue. It is not a time to be locked inside conference rooms, studying documents and taking depositions, but H.T. Patterson was pushing the Tupton case to an early trial. We completed discovery in January, announced ready for trial at a calendar call on Valentine’s Day, and were scheduled to begin picking a jury the first Monday in March. Now I was trying to clean off my desk and clear out my mind prior to the battle.
I was reading the morning paper and chomping a burger at my desk when Cindy walked in again. She’d recently gone blond, and I hadn’t gotten used to it. She’d straightened her hair, too, and wore it in bangs in front and long down the sides. Sort of a sixties’ look that made me think of Peter, Paul, and Mary, or at least of Mary. Today she wore a blue denim jacket with silver piping and matching jeans. Her earrings were Plexiglas squares. Embedded in each one was a condom still in its wrapper. A woman’s group sold the earrings at fund-raisers as a visual reminder of safe sex. In case of need, the Plexiglas opened and the condom popped out.
My secretary may have looked ditzy to the world, but not to me. Everyone underestimated her. Cindy chewed gum, typed fast, and cracked wise, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Today Cindy was busy organizing files for the upcoming trial. I was gobbling some french fries while reading the local section of the paper. Another judge was indicted for taking kickbacks from lawyers appointed to represent indigent defendants. As a bonus, the judge ate on the lawyer’s tab at a fancy Italian restaurant in Coconut Grove. Fried calamari was the judge’s entree of choice, which prompted local columnist Carl Hiaasen to wonder if there were a squid pro quo.
I put down the paper and gestured to Cindy with my burger. “Want a bite?”
She made a face. “You know I’m a vegan.”
“I thought you were from Sacramento, not Vegas.”
“A vegan, silly. A vegetarian who doesn’t eat animal products or use them in any way. No meat, milk, or fish. No wool, leather, or furs. No products that are the result of animal experiments.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I told her, wiping a glob of oil from my chin.
Cindy looked as if she might blow lunch, if she ever had any. “The other day I was at the deli, and a man was eating a tongue sandwich. Can you imagine, eating an animal’s tongue?”
“I’ve tried it. Not bad with mustard.”
Cindy winced. “I can’t imagine eating something that comes out of an animal’s mouth.”
“How ‘bout some eggs?” I asked her.
“You are so gross. But if you want to keep loading yourself with nitrites and benzopyrene, pesticides and heavy metals, just keep snarfing your hamburgers.”
I grunted my intention of doing just that.
“Speaking of poison,” she said with a sly smile, “guess who’s in the waiting room.”
I was slurping my chocolate shake, so Cindy answered her own question. “ Missus Florio.”
Oh, her.
Cindy eyed me, looking for a reaction. When I gave her my poker face, she asked, “Why can’t she make an appointment like everyone else, or does she have special privileges?”
“She has the past.”
“If I were you, jefe, I’d keep it that way.”
Gina wore a black cotton jersey dress with bare shoulders. There is something about an ivory-skinned blonde in black, a promise of heaven, a threat of hell. The dress was held together by a row of black buttons from the neck to the hem, which nearly reached her ankles. It would have been a demure look if she bothered to button up from mid-thigh down.
She waltzed around my office, inspecting the surroundings as if she’d never been there before. She picked up a deflated football with the score of a long-forgotten game painted on the side. She replaced the ball, studied a team photo from my college days, and remarked that I looked dorky with a mustache. She thumbed through an open volume of Southern Reporter, 2nd Series, skimming past a case where a prisoner sued the state for the right to be served decaffeinated coffee because real java made him jumpy. She looked out the window where an easterly was kicking up whitecaps on the bay. Then she turned and stood still, staring at the Dictaphone on my desk as if it were an object of beauty and wonder.
Something was bothering her, but what?
I hadn’t hugged her, or kissed her, or shaken her delicate hand. Hell, I hadn’t even stood up when she came in.
“We have to talk,” she said finally.
Have to.
Which means the subject is painful. Okay, that could be a lot of things. She could confess that Nicky killed Peter Tupton. Or maybe she wanted to admit the affair with Rick Gondolier. Come clean with old Jake. He would understand. Maybe she…
“We can’t see each other anymore,” Gina blurted out.
I blinked. Then I shrugged. It was intended to say, So what? Inside, my stomach felt like the elevator suddenly dropped twenty floors.
She turned away and looked out the window again. Along the shoreline at Bayside, flags stiffened in the breeze. Across Government Cut, one of the cruise ships was easing out of the port, tugboats front and rear. “I guess it doesn’t matter to you that much,” she said.
“It stopped mattering a long time ago.” I stared at her back, admiring the fine lines of her neck. She was facing east, toward Bimini. Good. My face might have given it away. For a lawyer, I am a lousy liar.
“That makes it easier. But, still, I’m sorry.”
“Okay, if that’s it, I’ve got work to do. Hey, you could have called or mailed it in.”
She turned, walked toward my desk, and sat down in a client’s straight-back chair, crossing her long legs.
