fruit growers-a joyous rainbow of different-colored Floridians living and working together. Like many of the symbols foisted on us by government, the mural is a pleasant deception.
Twenty-five blocks away, in the civic center complex, an above-ground walkway connects the county jail to the Justice Building, a misnomer to be sure. Inside, state judges process an endless stream of traffic, misdemeanor, and felony cases, shoveling defendants into and out of our overcrowded prisons. The building houses a slice of Miami’s underbelly, hustlers and losers, drifters and grifters. The voices inside speak in a polyglot of languages from the Caribbean, Central and South America. The corridors teem with store robbers, home burglars, small-time crack dealers, wife-beaters, drunk drivers, and an occasional murderer.
The state attorney’s office is in the building, and usually Abe Socolow can be found there, either trying capital cases or conferring with his major-crimes prosecutors. But for reasons related to history and custom, the grand jury meets downtown in the civil courthouse. It is there that evidence of corruption is heard, prosecutors unveiling their major investigations for twenty-three citizens chosen to determine who shall be indicted.
The county courthouse dates from the 1920s. It is a limestone tower, a wedding cake of rectangular floors growing smaller from bottom to top. Back before there was a Justice Building, both criminal and civil cases were heard in the county courthouse. The jail was at the top, then the highest point in the city. The state attorney still maintains a small office in what used to be the jail, and it is there that Abe Socolow spends much of his time when the grand jury is in session.
Socolow’s office is small but has the illusion of size because of windows where bars used to be on three sides, windows twenty-six floors above Flagler Street. A parapet with gargoyles surrounds the windows, and in a surreal fusion of life and art, black vultures perch there. The vultures arrive each winter and depart each spring, just like the tourists. And every year, the jokes downtown are the same.
I see the courthouse buzzards are out in force today.
The birds?
No, the lawyers.
A lone receptionist, unsmiling and bored, sat at a desk in the anteroom on the top floor. If I brightened her day, she did her best to hide it. She eyed my oversize duffel bag, buzzed her boss, then waved me in.
Abe Socolow sat behind his battleship-gray desk made of the finest alloys the state could buy secondhand. The desk was covered with files. Each file had a colorful sticker identifying the case by number. Socolow didn’t stand up, shake my hand, or whistle “Dixie.”
“I’ve been expecting you, Jake.”
Now what did that mean? Of course he’d been expecting me. I’d called him. Or did Nicky Florio call him too? Maybe I was paranoid, but was Socolow giving me an odd look? Sizing me up, like he’d never seen me before. Gee, I’d been there when he won his first capital case. I’d been too close, in fact, sitting first chair at the defense table.
“Welcome to buzzards’ peak,” he greeted me. His voice grated, always had, the sound of metal shearing metal. He shot a look toward the windows. Outside, three vultures were balanced on the parapet, watching half a dozen buddies soar in the thermal air currents around the building. The black birds had white down-turned beaks and bald, scaly red heads like wild turkeys. A couple of the bigger fellows had six-foot wingspans. “Sit down, Jake. That’s quite a load you’re toting.”
Was that a smile or a sneer?
Socolow’s suit was the same color as the vultures’ feathers but didn’t fit as well. He always looked skinny in his full-cut Brooks Brothers attire. His shirt was white, the tie black with the usual pattern of silver handcuffs. Until recently, he wore rimless eyeglasses. A campaign consultant must have suggested contacts, and now I noticed the dark pouches the glasses had kept hidden. His dark thinning hair revealed a high, furrowed forehead. He was tall and narrow, with slightly hunched shoulders. Not a photogenic politician, just a hardworking career prosecutor who finally got a shot at the brass ring when his boss took a spill.
I slung the duffel bag to the floor and sat down in a state-issued lumbar-busting chair. “I wanted to thank you for stopping by during the Tupton trial.”
“Nicky asked me to do it, so I showed the colors. A little moral support for a friend.”
Nicky. Friend. I measured his words and mannerisms.
“I didn’t realize the two of you were close.”
“Never were, but you knowhow it is in politics, strange bedfellows and all that. The reality is you can’t run for office without a sizable war chest. Do you know what thirty-second TV spots cost in Miami these days?”
“Must be difficult,” I said, “with the thousand-dollar limit on campaign contributions.”
“The law’s supposed to prevent undue influence, right, but what’s the effect of it? Only the wealthy or those with established political machines can run. Look, if a guy’s worth ten million dollars, he can spend two of it on his campaign, and it’s perfectly legal. But if I have two friends who want to give me a million each to run, I’m violating the law.”
“Life’s unfair,” I agreed.
“Everybody knows the campaign laws are bullshit. There hasn’t been a candidate the last twenty years who hasn’t taken unreported cash, services, whatever. It’s a fact of life.”
I took a deep breath and tried to say it. I had wanted him to make it easier for me, and he had, but still, I couldn’t get the words out.
“You all right, Jake?”
“Sure, why?”
“I don’t know. You look a little tired, run-down maybe. Been working too hard?”
“Maybe. Doing a lot of work for Florio Enterprises,” I said.
Hint, hint. C’mon, Abe, ask for the money.
“That’s what I hear,” he said.
“Yeah, a lot of work for Florio Enterprises,” I repeated.
He leaned forward over his desk, and on cue, I leaned forward in my chair. I thought he was going to whisper something, but his voice was still the familiar rasp, loud and irritating. “How long have we known each other, Jake?”
“Long time. I’d just sneaked through night law school, barely passed the Bar, and the P.D.’s Office gave me a job because they needed some heft on the touch football team. You were young, but already a hotshot.”
“You remember the first case we had against each other?”
“ State v. Fonseca. What’d you charge him with, extortion or obstruction of justice?”
“Both. You were highly creative. Of course, you had to be. Here’s your client facing trial in a fencing scam, and he mails a five-pound cow’s tongue to the informant.”
“He was accused of mailing it.”
Socolow’s laugh was a horse’s whinny. “Yeah, after we learned his brother-in-law owns a wholesale meat business…”
“Which you got into evidence.”
“…along with the fact that the tongue arrives at the informant’s house in an L.L. Bean carton that was originally addressed to your client.”
“He’d ordered some waders for trout fishing,” I explained.
“You remember your closing argument?”
In a moment, it came back to me, and I raised my voice in lawyerly indignation. “‘No one is that stupid! Obviously, my client has been framed. An enemy may well have gone through his garbage, retrieved the incriminating carton, and sent the meat.’”
“That was it,” Socolow said, “the last-ditch effort of a desperate lawyer.”
“What else could I do? I was just trying to stir up some reasonable doubt.”
“You must have done it, because Fonseca walked.”
“I remember. He sent me a smoked turkey that Christmas.”
Socolow nearly smiled. It didn’t seem to break his face. We shared a quiet moment of unspoken reminiscence. Finally, Socolow said, “We’re just dancing around it here, aren’t we, Jake?”
“Like Fred and Ginger,” I agreed.
“So, you have something for me, or not?”
