 
# SOLOMON & LORD SINK OR SWIM

## Paul Levine

# Solomon & Lord Sink or Swim

## Paul Levine

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2006 Paul Levine

## Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. 

# Table of Contents

Author's Note

_Solomon & Lord Sink or Swim_

Excerpt from _Solomon vs. Lord_

Excerpt from _The Deep Blue Alibi_

Excerpt from _Kill All The Lawyers_

Excerpt from _Habeas Porpoise_

Excerpt from _Lassiter_

Also Available

About the Author

# AUTHOR'S NOTE

Welcome to the world of Solomon & Lord.

The sharpest lawyer to barely graduate from Key West School of Law, Steve Solomon is a beer and burger guy. Fresh from Yale, Victoria Lord is a Chardonnay and pat� gal. A Coral Gables blueblood, Victoria plays by the rules. A Coconut Grove beach bum, Steve makes up his own: "If the law doesn't work...work the law."

The squabblers extraordinaire can't agree on "good morning," but life sizzles when they're together and fizzles when they're apart.

Some critics have compared the lawyers' relationship to David and Maddie of TV's "Moonlighting." Others have mentioned another classic touchstone. In reviewing " Solomon vs. Lord," the first novel of the series, the _Chicago Tribune_ noted:

Remarkably fresh and original with characters you can't help loving and sparkling dialogue that echoes the Hepburn-Tracy screwball comedies. Hilarious, touching, and entertaining."

First up here is the short story, "Solomon & Lord Sink or Swim," which begins with Steve planning a mysterious boat trip. He claims he's going fishing with Manuel Cruz. Victoria isn't buying it. She knows that Cruz stole a bundle from Steve's favorite client. Victoria hops aboard to find out just what Steve has planned. The answer could get them both killed.

Next, you'll find excerpts from the four novels in the series, all of which are currently available on Amazon Kindle:

"Solomon vs. Lord" in which Steve and Victoria bicker and banter as they defend a beautiful young woman, accused of killing her wealthy, older husband. (Nominated for the Macavity and James Thurber awards);

"The Deep Blue Alibi" in which our heroes defend Victoria's "Uncle Grif" on charges he killed a government official with a speargun. The setting is the Florida Keys with side trips to coral reefs and a nudist colony where all is more – and less – than it seems. (Nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award);

"Kill All the Lawyers" in which a furious and possibly deranged ex-client targets Steve, who may have intentionally lost the client's manslaughter case. (Nominated for the International Thriller Writers award); and

"Habeas Porpoise" in which Victoria is appointed a special prosecutor and faces Steve, who defends a murder trial stemming from the kidnapping of highly trained dolphins. (Not nominated for a darn thing).

Finally, a special bonus, an excerpt from "Lassiter," the newest of the series featuring linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. In this one, Jake retraces the steps of a model who went missing 18 years earlier...after their one-night stand. Just what does Jake know that he's not telling? It all comes together in a murder trial with an explosive ending. Number one bestselling writer Harlan Coben calls "Lassiter" the "courtroom drama of the year." Lee Child says that "Jake Lassiter is the lawyer we all want on our side...and on the page."

So enjoy Solomon & Lord...& Lassiter!

Please check out my website and sign up for my newsletter and free prizes or just send me an e-mail. http://www.paul-levine.com

Happy reading!

Paul Levine 
WHAT'S THE VERDICT ON THE "SOLOMON vs. LORD" SERIES?

"A funny, fast-paced legal thriller. The barbed dialogue makes for some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Fans of Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry will enjoy this humorous Florida crime romp." _–Publishers Weekly_ (reviewing "Solomon vs. Lord")

"The writing makes me think of Janet Evanovich out to dinner with John Grisham." _–MysteryLovers.com_

"The repartee between Solomon and Lord is some of the greatest dialogue I have read in years, and is reminiscent of the very best of Dave and Maddie in Moonlighting.'" _–Bookreporter.com_

"Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord are smart and funny and sexy in a way that Hollywood movies were before comedies became crass and teen-oriented." – _Connecticut Post_

"With Jimmy Buffet playing in the background, lying in a hammock with a cold margarita, stretch out and relax with this laugh-inducing series." _–FrontStreetReviews.com_

"Levine expertly sets up the reader, then pulls the rug out. Sometimes hilarious, always amusing. Highly recommended." _–Oakland Press_

"A cross between 'Moonlighting' and 'Night Court.' Courtroom drama has never been this much fun." _–Freshfiction.com_

"A refreshingly delightful mystery. The scene at the nudist colony alone ["The Deep Blue Alibi"] is worth the price of admission." _–Bookloons.com_

"A clever, colorful thriller with characters drawn with a fine hand. Levine ratchets up the tension with each development but never neglects the heart of the story–his characters." _–Publishers Weekly_ (starred review of "Kill All the Lawyers")

"A wonderfully entertaining series. The laughs are belly laughs; the suspenseful moments will grab you by the throat. The courtroom scenes are brilliant." _–BookLoons.com_

"If somehow, Perry Mason and Stephanie Plum had a love child, he might be named Steve Solomon." _–Huntress Reviews.com_

# SOLOMON & LORD SINK OR SWIM

"What aren't you telling me?" Victoria Lord demanded.

_Jeez. Her grand jury tone_.

"Nothing to tell," Steve Solomon said. "I'm going deep-sea fishing."

"You? The guy who got seasick in a paddle boat at Disney World."

"That boat was defective. I'm gonna sue." Steve hauled an Igloo cooler onto the kitchen counter. "You may not know it, but I come from a long line of anglers."

"A long line of liars, you mean."

The partners of Solomon & Lord, Attorneys-at-Law, stood in the kitchen of Steve's bungalow on Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove. The place was a square stucco pillbox the color of a rotting avocado, but it had withstood hurricanes, termites, and countless keg parties.

Unshaven and hair mussed, wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt, Steve looked like a beach bum. Lips glossed and cheekbones highlighted, wearing a glen plaid suit with an ivory silk blouse, Victoria looked sexy, smart, and successful.

"C'mon, Steve. What are you really up to?" Her voice drizzled with suspicion like mango glaze over saut�ed snapper.

Steve wanted to tell his lover and law partner the truth. Or at least, the partial truth. But he knew how Ms. Propriety would react:

_"You can't do that. It's unethical."_

And if he told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? _"You'll be disbarred! Jailed. Maybe even killed."_

No, he'd have to fly solo. Or swim solo, as the case may be.

Steve pulled two six packs of Heineken out of the refrigerator and tossed them into the cooler. "Okay, it's really a business meeting."

Victoria cocked her head and pursed her lips in cross-exam mode. "Which is it, Pinocchio? Fishing or business? Were you lying then or are you lying now?"

For a tall, lanky blonde with a dazzling smile, she could fire accusations the way Dan Marino once threw the football.

"I'm going fishing with Manuel Cruz."

"What! I thought you were going to sue him."

"Which is what makes it business. Cruz wants to make an offer before we file suit. I suggested we go fishing, keep it relaxed. He loved the idea and invited me on his boat."

So far, Steve hadn't told an outright fib and it was almost 8 a.m. Not quite a personal best, but still, he was proud of himself.

For the last five years, Manuel Cruz worked as controller of Toraño Chevrolet in Hialeah where he managed to steal three million dollars before anyone noticed. Teresa Toraño, a Cuban _exilado_ in her seventies, was nearly bankrupt, and Steve was determined to get her money back, but it wouldn't be easy. All the computer records had been erased, leaving no electronic trail. Cruz had no visible assets other than his sportfishing boat. The guy didn't even own a house. And the juiciest piece of evidence – Cruz fled Cuba years ago after embezzling money from a government food program – wasn't even admissible.

"Just you and Cruz, alone at sea." she said. "Sounds dangerous."

"I'm not afraid of him."

"It's not you I'm worried about."

***

Victoria punched the RECORD button on her pocket Dictaphone. "Memo to the Toraño file. Make certain our malpractice premiums are paid."

"You and your damned Dictaphone," Steve complained. "Drives me nuts."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's so..."

"Organized?"

"Anal."

Victoria pulled her Mini-Cooper into the Matheson Hammock marina, swerving to avoid a land-crab, _clip-clopping_ across the asphalt. The sun was already baking the pavement, the air sponge-thick with humidity. Just above a stand of sea lavender trees, a pair of turkey buzzards flew surveillance.

Victoria sneaked a look at Steve as he hauled the cooler out of the car's tiny trunk. Dark, unruly hair, a slight, sly grin as if he were one joke ahead of the rest of the world. The deep brown eyes, usually filled with mischief, were hidden behind dark Ray Bans.

_Dammit, why won't he level with me?_

Why did he always take the serpentine path instead of the expressway? Why did he always treat laws and rules, cases and precedents as mere suggestions?

_Because he has more fun making it up as he goes along._

Steve drove her crazy with his courtroom antics and his high-wire ethics. If he believed in a client, there was nothing he wouldn't do to win. Which was exactly what frightened her now.

_Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño?_

They headed toward the dock, the morning sun beating down so ferociously Victoria felt her blouse sticking to her shoulder blades. The only sounds were the groans of boats in their moorings and the _caws_ of gulls overhead. The air smelled of the marshy hammock, salt and iodine and fermenting seaweed. The fronds of thatch palms hung limp in the still air.

"Gimme a kiss. I gotta go," Steve said, as they stepped onto the concrete dock. In front of them were expensive toys, gleaming white in the morning sun. Rows of powerful sportfishermen, large as houses. Dozens of sleek sailing craft, ketches and sloops and schooners.

"Sure, Mr. Romance." She kissed him lightly on the lips. Something seemed off-kilter, but what? And what was that pressing against her through his shorts?

_Hadn't last night been enough? Twice before SportsCenter, once after Letterman._

She sneaked a hand into his pocket and came out with a pair of handcuffs. "What's this, the latest in fishing tackle?"

"Ah. Well. Er..." Gasping like a beached grouper. "You know that store, _Only Sexy Things?_ " He grabbed the handcuffs and slipped them back into his pocket. "Thought I'd spice up the bedroom."

"Stick to cinnamon incense. Last chance, lover boy. What's going on?"

"You're fucking late, _hombre_!" Manuel Cruz yelled from the fly bridge of a power boat tied up at the dock. He was a muscular man in his late thirties, wearing canvas shorts and a white shirt with epaulets. A Marlins' cap was pulled low over his eyes, and his sunglasses hung on a chain.

The boat was a sportfisherman in the sixty-foot range, all polished teak and gleaming chrome. A fly bridge, a glass enclosed salon, and a pair of fighting chairs in the cockpit for serious deep-sea fishing. The name on the stern read: " _Wet Dream._ "

Men, Victoria thought. Men were so one-dimensional.

" _Buenos días_ , Ms. Lord."

She gave him a nod and a tight smile.

"Let's go, Solomon," Cruz urged. "Fish are hungry."

Steve hoisted the cooler onto the deck. "Toss the lines for us, hon?"

She leveled a gaze at him. "Sure, _hon._ "

Victoria untied the bow line from its cleat and tossed it aboard. She moved quickly to the stern, untied the line, propped a hand on a piling crusted with bird dung, and leapt aboard.

"Vic! Whadaya think you're you doing?"

"Going fishing."

"Get back on the dock."

She smiled and pointed toward the increasing body of water that separated them from land.

"You're not dressed for fishing," Steve told her.

"I'm dressed for your bail hearing." She kicked off her velvet-toed pumps and peeled off her panty hose, distracting Steve with her muscular calves, honed on the tennis courts of La Gorce Country Club. "Now, what's with the handcuffs?"

Steve lowered his voice so she could barely hear him above the roaring diesels. "You remember Solomon's Law number one?"

_Oh, that. Steve's personal code for rule breaking._

"How could I forget? 'If the law doesn't work...work the law.'"

"In the matter of Manuel Cruz, the law isn't working."

***

"What's that?" Cruz asked, eying the cooler on the deck.

"Brought beer and bait," Steve said.

"What for? I got a case of _La Tropical_ and a hundred pounds of shiners and wiggles."

All three of them stood on the fly bridge. Twin diesels throbbing, the _Wet Dream_ cruised down Hawk Channel inside the barrier reefs. The water was green felt, smooth as a billiard table, the boat riding on a plane at thirty knots.

Cruz ran a hand over the polished teak steering wheel. "I come to this country with nothing but the clothes on my back and look at me now."

"Very impressive," Steve said, thinking it would be even more impressive if Cruz hadn't stolen the money to buy the damn boat.

Cruz winked at Victoria, his smile more of a leer. "You two want to fool around, I got clean sheets in the master stateroom."

"Sounds lovely," Victoria cooed. "Want to fool around, Steve?" Her smile was as sweet as fresh-squeezed _guarapo,_ but Steve caught the sarcastic tone.

"Maybe after we catch something," he said, pointedly.

"Heads and A/C work, faucets don't," Cruz said. "Water tank's fouled."

Steve studied the man, standing legs spread at the wheel, a macho pose. A green tattoo of a scorpion crawled up one ankle. On the other ankle, in a leather sheaf, was a foot-long Marine combat knife. It looked like the weapon Sylvester Stallone used in those "Rambo" movies. Out here, it could be used to cut lines or clean fish.

_Or gut a lawyer planning to do him harm._

***

They had just passed Sombrero Light when Cruz said, "So here's my offer, _hombre_. The Toraño bitch gives me a release with a promise never to sue. And vice versa. I won't sue her ass."

"I don't like the way you talk about my client," Steve said.

"Tough shit. I don't like Fidel Castro, but what am I gonna do about it?"

"Your offer stinks like week-old snapper."

"You sue me, what do you get? A piece of paper you can wipe your ass with. I got nothing in my own name, including the boat."

Steve looked right and left to get his bearings. Off to port, in the direction of the reef, he spotted the fins of two sharks heading toward strands of yellow sargasso weed, home to countless fish. Red coral just below the surface cast a rusty glow on the shallow water. To the starboard was the archipelago of the Florida Keys. From here, the island chain was strung out like an emerald necklace. "Let Vic take the wheel a minute," Steve said. "I want you to see something."

Cruz allowed as how even a woman lawyer could keep a boat on 180 degrees, due south, and followed Steve down the ladder to the cockpit. Just off the stern, the props dug at the water like a plow digging at a field. Steve opened the cooler, reached underneath the ice and pulled out a two foot-long greenish-blue fish, frozen solid. A horse-eyed jack.

"Great bait, huh?" Steve held the fish by its tail and let it swing free. It had a fine heft, like a small sledgehammer.

"Already told you. I got shiners and wiggles."

"Then I better use this for something else." Steve swung the frozen fish at Cruz' head. The man stutter-stepped sideways and the blow glanced off his shoulder and sideswiped an ear. Steve swung again, and Cruz ducked, the fish flying free and shattering the glass door of the salon. Cruz reached for his knife in the ankle sheath and Steve barreled into him, knocking them both to the deck.

On the fly bridge, Victoria screamed. "Stop! Both of you!"

The two men rolled over each other, scraping elbows and knees on the planked deck. Cruz was heavier, and his breath smelled of tobacco. Steve was wiry and quicker, but ended up underneath when they skidded to a stop. Cruz grabbed Steve's t-shirt at the neck and slammed his head into the deck. Once, twice, three times. _Thwomp, thwomp, thwomp._

Steve balled a fist and landed a short right that caught Cruz squarely on the Adam's apple. The man gagged, clutched his throat, and fell backward. Steve squirmed out from under, but Cruz tripped him. Steve tumbled into the gunwale, smacking his head, sparks flashing behind his eyes. He had the sensation of being dragged across a hard floor. On his back, he opened his eyes and saw something glistening in the sun.

_The knife blade!_

Cruz was on his knees, knife in hand. " _Pendejo!_ I oughta make chum out of you."

"No!" Victoria's voice, closer than it should have been.

Steve heard the _clunk_ , saw Cruz topple over, felt him bounce off his own chest. Straddling both of them was Victoria, a three-foot steel tarpon gaff in her right hand. "Omigod," she said. "I didn't kill him, did I?"

"Not unless a dead man grunts and farts at the same time," Steve said, listening to sounds coming from both ends of the semi-conscious man.

He shoved Cruz off and stood up, wrapping his arms around Victoria, who was trembling. "You were terrific, Vic. We work great together."

"Really? What did you do?"

"Come on. Help me get him up the ladder." Steve pulled the handcuffs from his pocket. "I want him on the bridge."

"What now? What insanity now?"

"Relax Vic. In a few hours, Cruz will be dying to give back Teresa's money."

***

Steve had played fast and loose with the rules before, Victoria thought, but nothing like this.

_This is scary. And in the eyes of the law, she was dirty, too._

This could mean trading the couture outfits and Italian footwear for orange jumpsuits and shower shoes.

With one wrist handcuffed to the rail at the rear of the bridge, Cruz had been berating Steve for the past twenty minutes. "Know what, Solomon? She hits harder than you do."

"Mr. Cruz," Victoria said, "if you begin to feel dizzy or nauseous, let me know. Head trauma can be very dangerous."

"What about _my_ head?" Steve demanded.

"It's impervious to trauma. Or reason."

The _Wet Dream_ was planing across the tops of small whitecaps when Steve said: "Take the wheel, Vic. Keep it on two-zero-two."

_"Please_ ," she said, irritated.

"What?"

"'Keep it on two-zero-two, _please_.'"

"A captain doesn't say 'please.'"

"Maybe not Captain Bligh." Victoria slid behind the wheel, thinking maybe she'd hit the wrong man with the gaff. She still didn't know where they were headed, and Steve's behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. He had the beginning of a lump on his head, and blood trickled from his skinned elbows and knees.

"Kidnaping," Cruz said. "Assault. Boat theft. You two are gonna be busy little shysters."

"Shut up," Steve said. "Under the law of the sea, I'm master of this craft."

"What law? You stole my fucking boat."

***

Once past Key West, they entered the Florida Straits, the water growing deeper, the color turning from light green to aquamarine to cobalt blue. No reefs here, and a five-foot chop slapped at the hull of the boat. The wavecaps sparkled, as if studded with diamonds in the late afternoon sun.

"Gonna tell you a story, Cruz," Steve said, "and when I'm done, you're gonna cry and beg forgiveness and give back all the money you stole.'"

"Yeah, right."

"Story starts forty-some years ago in Havana. A beautiful lady named Teresa Toraño lost her husband who was brave enough to oppose Fidel Castro."

"Tough shit," Cruz said. "Happened to a lot of people."

"Teresa came to Miami with nothing. Worked minimum wage, mopped floors in a car dealership, ended up owning Toraño Chevrolet."

" My _papi_ always told me hard work pays off," Cruz said, smirking. "Too bad he never got out of the cane fields."

"A few years ago, she hires a new controller. A fellow _exilado._ This guy's got a fancy computer system that will revolutionize their books. It also lets him steal three million bucks before anybody knows what hit them. Now, the banks have pulled Teresa's line of credit, and she could go under."

"I'm not crying, Solomon."

"Not done yet. See, this lady is damn important to me. If it hadn't been for Teresa giving me work my first year out of school, I'd have gone broke."

_"Lo  único que logró la dama fue posponer lo inevitable,"_ Cruz said. "She only postponed the inevitable."

Victoria knew there was more to it than just a financial relationship. Teresa had virtually adopted Steve and his nephew Bobby, and the Solomon Boys loved her in return. After Victoria entered the picture, she was added to the extended Toraño family. Now, each year at Christmas, they all gathered at Teresa's estate in Coral Gables for her homemade _crema de vie,_ an anise drink so rich it made eggnog seem like diet soda. All of which meant that Steve would do anything for Teresa. One of Steve's self-proclaimed laws expressed the principle:

_"I won't break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time...unless it's for someone I love._ "

Now that Victoria thought about it, the question wasn't: _Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño?_ It was: _What_ wouldn't _he do?_

"That sleazy accountant," Steve said. "In Cuba, he kept the books for the student worker program, the students who cut sugar cane. Ran the whole food services division. But he had a nasty habit of cutting the pineapple juice with water and selling the meat off the back of trucks. The kids went hungry and he got fat. When the authorities found out, he stole a boat and got the hell out of the worker's paradise."

"Old news, _hombre_."

"Vic, still on two-zero-two?" Steve asked.

"I know how to read a compass," she said, sharply.

"Where you taking me?" Cruz demanded.

"Jeez, how'd you ever get from Havana to Key West?" Steve said.

"Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees."

"A bit east of due north. So what's two-zero-two?"

"A little west of due south."

"Keep going, Cruz. I think you're catching the drift, no pun intended."

Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on. When it didn't, he continued, "Two hundred two minus twenty-two is one hundred eighty. What happens when you make a hundred eighty degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?"

"Fuck!" Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the rail shuddered. "We're going to Havana!"

"Bingo. We're repatriating you."

"You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us. You remember that tugboat. _Trece de Marzo._ Forty people dead. _"_

"The _Marzo_ was trying to _leave_ the island. We're coming in, and we're bringing a fugitive to justice. They should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana rum."

"They'll kill me."

"Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of course, if you tell us where you've stashed Teresa's money, we'll turn this tub around."

"Dammit, Steve," Victoria said. "We have to talk."

***

Steve put the boat on auto – two hundred two degrees – and took Victoria down to the salon.

"You could get us killed," she said. "Or jailed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment."

"That's why I didn't want you along."

Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He opened the ice maker. Empty, too.

"Cruz is a lousy host," Steve said.

"Are you listening to me? Let's go back to Miami. I'll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges."

They both heard the sound, but it took a second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. "Sol-o-mon!"

Followed a second later by machine gun fire.

***

Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late afternoon light.

"Warning shots," Steve said. "Everybody relax."

Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. "C'mon Cruz. It's now or never. When they pull alongside, I'm handing you over."

"Do what you got to do, asshole."

"Steve, turn the boat around," Victoria ordered. "Now!"

The patrol boat slowed. Two men in uniform at the machine gun, a third man holding a bullhorn.

"I'm not fucking with you, Cruz," Steve said. "You've got thirty seconds. Where's Teresa's money?"

" _Chingate!"_ Cruz snarled.

" _Senores del barco de pesca!"_ The tinny sound of the bullhorn carried across the water.

"Last chance," Steve said.

" _Se han adentrado en las aguas territoriales de la República de Cuba_."

"Steve, we're in Cuban waters," Victoria said.

"I know. I passed Spanish 101."

" _Den la vuelta y salgan inmediatamente de aquí, o los vamos a abordar."_

"They're going to board us if we don't turn around," she said.

"I kind of figured that out, too." Steve turned to Cruz. "Absolutely, positively last chance, pal. I'm handing you over."

"I'm betting you don't," Cruz said.

The patrol boat was fifty yards away. One of the men in uniform pointed an AK-47 their way.

"Steve...?" Victoria's voice was a plea.

This wasn't the way he'd planned it. By this time, Cruz should have been spouting numbers and accounts from banks in the Caymans or Switzerland or the Isle of Man. But the bastard was toughing it out. Calling Steve's bluff.

_Is that what it is? An empty threat._

Steve wanted to hand Cruz over, wanted him to rot in a Cuban prison.

_But dammit, I'm a lawyer, not a vigilante._

He wished he could turn his conscience on and off with the flick of a switch. He wished he could end a man's life with cold calculations and no remorse. But the rats that would gnaw at Cruz at _Isla de Pinos_ would visit the house on Kumquat Avenue in Steve's nightmares.

"Take the wheel, Vic." Filled with self-loathing, wishing he could be someone he was not. "Twenty-two degrees. Key West."

"Say 'please,'" Cruz laughed, mocking him.

***

Just before midnight, the lights of Key West off the port, the _Wet Dream_ cruised north through Hawk Channel, headed toward Miami. The sky was clear and sparkled with stars. The wind whipped across the bridge, bringing a night chill. Victoria slipped into her glen-plaid jacket. Hair messed, clothes rumpled, emotionally drained, she was trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.

_I came aboard to save Steve from himself and I'm doing a lousy job._

Steve stood at the wheel, draining a _La Tropical beer,_ maybe listening, maybe not, as Cruz berated him.

"You fucking loser," Cruz said. "Every minute I'm tied up is gonna cost you." Cruz rubbed his arm where the cuff was biting into his wrist. "I got nerve damage. Gonna add that to my lawsuit. When this is over, you'll wish the Cubans had taken _you_ prisoner."

"Steve, I need a moment with you," Victoria said.

Steve put the boat on auto – Cruz complaining that it was a damn reckless way to cruise at night – then headed down the ladder, joining Victoria in the salon.

"You can't keep him locked up," she said.

"I need more time."

"For what?"

"To think." He walked to the galley sink and turned the faucet, intending to toss cold water on his face. Same rattle, same thump. "Damn, I forgot. Cruz put all that money into his boat and still can't get the water to work."

"What?"

"A fancy boat like this and you can't wash your hands."

"No. What you said before. 'Cruz put all that money into his boat.'"

"It's just a figure of speech."

"Think about it, Steve. He doesn't own a house. He leases a car. No brokerage accounts, no bank accounts. Everything he has, he puts into his boat. If he ever has to leave town quickly..."

"Like he left Cuba," Steve said, picking up the beat. "With nothing but the clothes on his back."

"This time it would be different because..."

"The money's here! On the boat."

In sync now, she thought.

_A man and a woman running stride for stride._

"Vic, why don't you go back up to the bridge and make sure we don't crash into any cruise ships?"

"And what are you doing?"

"I'm gonna fix the plumbing."

***

Steve opened the hatch in the salon floor and climbed down a ladder to the engine compartment, wincing at the noise from the twin diesels. He found the black water tank first, tucked up under the bow. Sewage and waste water. Nothing unusual about it, and Cruz wouldn't want to dirty his hands with that, anyway. Then Steve found the freshwater tank, a custom job built into one of the bulkheads. Made of fiberglass, it looked capable of holding 500 gallons or more. The boat had desalinization equipment, so why did Cruz need such a big tank?

_A big tank that wasn't working._

Steve grabbed a flashlight mounted on a pole and took a closer look. He peered into an inspection port and could see the tank was three quarters full. On top of the tank was a metal plate with a built-in handle. He turned the plate counter-clockwise and removed it. Then he aimed the flashlight into the opening.

_Water. Well, what did you expect?_

He grabbed a mop that was attached by velcro to a stringer and poked the handle into the tank. The end of the handle _clanked_ off the walls.

_Clank. Clank. Clank_. _Thud._

_Thud?_ What the hell?

Steve pushed the mop handle around the bottom of the tank as if he were stirring a giant vat of _paella._ It snagged on something soft. He worked the handle under the object and lifted.

_Something as long as a man's body but much thinner._

Thin enough to fit into the opening of the custom-built tank. The object was a transparent, plasticized pouch, and when the end peeked out of the opening, Steve saw Ben Franklin's tight-lipped face. A hundred dollar bill. Stacked on others. Dozens of stacks. As he pulled the pouch out of the tank, he saw even more. Hundreds of stacks, thousands of bills.

***

Damn heavy, Steve thought, lugging the pouch up the ladder from the engine compartment. Then he dragged the load out the salon door and into the cockpit. "Now you've done it," Cruz sounded almost mournful. He stood on the bridge, aiming a double-barrel shotgun at Steve. The rail where he had been cuffed hung loose. "I didn't want this. But it's your own damn fault."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Victoria said. "When I came up here, he'd gotten out."

"Not your fault," Steve said. He dragged the pouch to the starboard gunwale.

"Stop right there!" Cruz ordered. "Step away from the money."

"Nope. Don't think so."

Cruz pumped the shotgun, an unmistakable _click-clack_ that Steve felt in the pit of his stomach. "I'll blow your head off."

"And leave blood and bone and tissue embedded in the planking? Nah. You may kill us, but you won't do it on your boat." Steve hoisted the pouch onto the rail.

"If I can't take this to Teresa, I'm sure as hell not gonna let you have it. Your treasure, pal, is strictly Sierra Madre.'"

The shotgun blast roared over Steve's head, and he flinched. The pouch balanced on the rail, halfway between the deck and the deep blue sea.

"Put the money down, asshole."

"Okay, okay." Steve shoved the pouch over the rail and it splashed into the water. "It's down."

"Asshole!" Cruz grabbed both throttles, slowed the boat, and swung her around. He turned a spotlight on the water.

Nothing but a black sea and foamy whitecaps.

He swung the spotlight left and right. Still nothing, until...the beam picked up the pouch floating with the current. Cruz eased the boat close to the pouch at idle speed, slipped the engine out of gear, then dashed down the ladder. Grabbing a tarpon gaff, he moved quickly to the gunwale. Shotgun in one hand, gaff in the other, he motioned toward Steve. "Back up. All the way to the chair."

"Do what he says, Steve," Victoria called from the bridge.

"Only because you said so." Steve moved toward one of the fighting chairs.

Cruz leaned over the side and snagged the pouch with the gaff. He struggled to lift it with one arm, still aiming the shotgun at Steve.

Suddenly, the boat shot forward, and Cruz tumbled into the water, the shotgun blasting into space as it fell onto the deck. On the bridge, Victoria had one hand on the throttles, the other on the wheel.

" _Cono!"_ Cruz shouted from the darkness.

"Do sharks feed at night?" Steve leaned over the side. " Or should I just drop some wiggles on your head and find out?"

"Get me out of here!" His voice more fearful than demanding.

"Nah."

_"No me jodas!"_

"I'm not fucking with you. Just don't feel like giving you a lift."

Victoria raced down the ladder and joined Steve in the cockpit. "Testing, testing," she said, punching a button on her pocket Dictaphone.

"What are you doing?" Steve said.

"Mr. Cruz," Victoria called out. "We'll bring you on board once you answer a few questions."

Cruz was splashing just off the starboard side. "What fucking questions!"

"Do you admit stealing three million dollars from Teresa Toraño?" Victoria said.

***

Pink slivers of sky lit up the horizon and seabirds squawked overhead as Steve steered the boat into the channel at Matheson Hammock. He had one hand on the wheel and one draped on Victoria's shoulder. A shivering Cruz, his arms and legs bound with quarter-inch line, was laced into a fighting chair in the cockpit. His taped confession would be in the hands of the State Attorney by noon. The pouch of money lay at his feet, taunting him.

"What are you thinking about?" Victoria asked.

"I was just imagining the look on Teresa's face when we give her the money."

"She'll be delighted. But it was never about the money, Steve."

"Whadaya mean?"

"When you were a baby lawyer, Teresa believed in you and nobody else did. You needed to prove to her that she was right. And maybe you needed to prove it to yourself, too."

Steve shrugged. "If you say so."

She wrapped both arms around his neck. "But remember this, Steve. You never have to prove anything to me." They kissed, at first softly, and then deeper and slower. The kiss lasted a long time, and when they each opened their eyes, the sun was peeking above the horizon in the eastern sky.

Their bodies pressed together, Victoria felt something digging into her hip. "Are you carrying another pair of handcuffs?"

"Nope."

"Then what...?" She jammed a hand into one of his pocket. "Oh. That."

Steve smiled. "Like I said, no cuffs."

"That's okay, sailor." She brushed her lips against his cheek. "You won't need them."

"Solomon and Lord" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

#

# Solomon vs. Lord

## One

CELL MATES

The man in the holding cell loosened his tie, tossed his rumpled suit coat into a corner, and stretched out on the hard plastic bench. The woman in the facing cell slipped out of her glen plaid jacket, folded it carefully across an arm, and began pacing.

"Relax, Vickie. We're gonna be here a while," the man said.

_"Victoria,"_ the woman corrected. Her angry footsteps echoed off the bare concrete floor.

"Wild guess. You've never been held in contempt before."

"You treat it like a badge of honor."

"A lawyer who's afraid of jail is like a surgeon who's afraid of blood," Steve Solomon said.

"From what I hear, you spend more time behind bars than your clients," Victoria Lord said.

"Hey, thanks. Great tag line for my radio spots. 'You do the crime, Steve does the time.' "

"You're the most unethical lawyer I know."

"You're new at this. Give it time."

"Sleazy son-of-a-bitch," she muttered, turning away.

"I heard that," he said.

Nice profile, he thought. Attractive in that polished, cool-as-a-daiquiri way. Long legs, small bust, sculpted jaw, an angular, athletic look. Green eyes spiked with gray and a tousled, honey-blond bird's nest of hair. Ballsy and sexy, too. He'd never heard "sleazy son-of-a-bitch" sound so seductive.

"If you weren't so arrogant," he said, "I could teach you a few courtroom tricks."

"Save your breath for your inflatable doll."

"Cheap shot. That was a trial exhibit."

"Really? People have seen the doll in your car. Fully inflated."

"It rides shotgun so I can use the car-pool lane."

She walked toward the cell door. Shadows of the bars pin-striped her face. "I know your record, Solomon. I know all about you."

"If you've been stalking me, I'm gonna get a restraining order."

"You make a mockery of the law."

"I make up my own. Solomon's Laws. Rule Number One: 'When the law doesn't work, work the law.' "

"They should lock you up."

"Actually, they already have."

"You're a disgrace to the profession."

"Aw, c'mon. Where's your heart, Vickie?"

" _Victoria!_ And I don't have one. I'm a prosecutor."

"I'll bet you think Jean Valjean belonged in prison."

"He stole the bread, didn't he?"

"You'd burn witches at the stake."

"Not until they exhausted all their appeals." She laughed, a sparkle of electricity.

_Damn, she's good at this._

Fending off his _mishegoss,_ trumping his insults with her own. Something else appealed to him, too. No wedding band and no engagement ring. Ms. Victoria Lord, rookie prosecutor, seemed to be unattached as well as argumentative. Maybe twenty-eight. Seven years younger than him.

"If you need any help around the courthouse," he said, "I'd be willing to mentor you."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?"

_Touché._ But she'd said it with a smile. Maybe this wasn't so much combat as foreplay. Another parry, another thrust, who knows? The more he thought about it, the more confident he became.

_She likes me. She really likes me._

_***_

_I hate him._

I really hate him, Victoria decided.

Dammit, she'd been warned about Solomon. He always tested new prosecutors, baited them into losing their cool, lured them into mistrials. And she wasn't totally "new." She'd handled arraignments and preliminary hearings for eight months. And hadn't she won her first two felony trials? Of course, neither one had involved Steve Slash-and-Burn Solomon.

"You gotta know, the contempt citation is all your fault," he said from the facing cell.

She wouldn't give him the pleasure of saying, _Why?_

Or, _How?_

Or, _Go screw yourself._

"You should never call opposing counsel a 'total fucking shark' in open court," he continued. "Save it for recess."

"You called _me_ a 'persecutor.' "

"A slip of the tongue."

"You're incorrigible."

"Lose the big words. You'll confuse the jurors. Judges, too."

Victoria stopped pacing. It was stifling in the cell, and her feet were killing her. She wanted to pry off her ankle-strapped Prada pumps, but if she stood on this disgustingly sticky floor, she'd have to burn her panty hose. The plaid pencil skirt was uncomfortable, a tad too tight. Now she wished she'd taken the time to let it out before coming to court. Especially after catching Solomon, the pig, staring at her ass.

She saw him now, sprawled on the bench, hands behind his head, like a beach bum in a hammock. He had a dark shock of unruly hair, eyes filled with mischief, and a self-satisfied grin, like he'd just pinned a "Kick Me" note on her fanny. God, he was infuriating.

She couldn't wait to get back into the courtroom and convict his lowlife client. But just now, she felt exhausted. The adrenaline rush was ebbing, the lack of sleep was fogging her mind. All those hours practicing in front of the mirror.

_"Ladies and gentlemen, you will hear the testimony of Customs and Wildlife Officers . . . "_

Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. How many times had she had researched the legal issues, prepped her witnesses, rehearsed her opening statement?

_" . . . who will testify that the defendant, Amancio Pedrosa, did unlawfully smuggle contraband, to wit, four parakeets, three parrots, two cockatoos . . . "_

And a partridge in a pear tree.

Maybe she'd burned herself out. Maybe that's why she'd cracked today. Had she looked ridiculous pushing a grocery cart overflowing with boxes to the prosecution table? There was Solomon, holding a single yellow pad, and there she was, weighted down with books, research folders, and color-coded index cards bristling with notes.

Even though she despised Solomon, she did envy his brash confidence. The way he glided across the courtroom, skating to the clerk's table, flashing an easy smile at the jurors. He was lean and wiry and graceful, comfortable in his own skin. When she rose to speak, she felt stiff and mechanical. All those eyes staring at her, judging her. Would she ever have his self-assurance?

An hour earlier, she hadn't even realized she was being held in contempt. Judge Gridley never used the word. He just formed a T with his hands and drawled, "Time-out, y'all. This ain't gonna look good on the instant replay." It was only then that she remembered that the judge was a part-time college football official.

"Mr. Solomon, you oughta know better," Judge Gridley continued. "Miss Lord, you're gonna have to learn. When I say that's enough bickering, that's by-God enough. No hitting after the whistle in my courtroom. Bailiff, show these two squabblers to our finest accommodations."

How humiliating. What would she say to her boss? She remembered Ray Pincher's "two strikes" orientation lecture: "If you're held in contempt, you'll feel blue. If it happens again, you'll be through."

But she wouldn't let it happen again. When they got back into the courtroom, she'd . . .

_Shit!_

Something was stuck on the velvet toe of her pump.

_A sheet of toilet paper!_

Grimacing, she scraped it off with the bottom of her other shoe. What else could go wrong?

"Hey, Lord, we're gonna be in here a while." That aggravating voice from the other cell. "So here are the ground rules. When one person has to pee, the other turns around."

She shot a look at the seatless, metal toilet bowl.

_Right. As if I'd squat over that fondue pot of festering bacteria._

When she didn't respond, he said: "You still there or you bust out?" Somewhere, deep inside the walls, the plumbing groaned and water gurgled. "Suit yourself, but I gotta take a leak."

_What a jerk._

Solomon was one of those men you run into in bars and gyms, she thought, so clueless as to believe they're both witty and charming.

"No peeking," he said.

_There was a plague of these men, with a sizable percentage becoming lawyers._

"Unzipping now . . . "

_Dear God, scrunch his scrotum, zipper his balls._

"Ahhh," he sighed, the _tinkle-tinkle_ sounding like hailstones on a tin roof. "Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall," he sang out. "Ninety-nine bottles of beer . . . "

"I didn't realize they still made men like you," Victoria Lord said.

***

I'm getting through to her, Steve thought. Sure, she was still playing that old _I am strong, I am invincible, I am wo-man_ shtick, but he sensed a shift in her mood.

There seemed to be something different about the feisty Ms. Lord. Nothing like the court stenographers he usually dated. Quiet, rather submissive women who transcribed whatever they heard. And nothing like the SoBe models, whose brains must have been fried by exposure to so many strobe lights.

He remembered looking around the courtroom when Victoria rose to address the judge. All the players—from his shifty client to the sleepy bailiff—had been riveted. Jurors, witnesses, cops, probation officers, jailers, clerks, public defenders. Hell, everybody watched _her,_ even when _he_ was talking. Yeah, she was a natural, with the kind of pizzazz they can't teach in law school.

_Maybe the best rookie I've ever seen._

Of course, she had a rigid prosecutorial mentality, but he could work on that, once she forgave him for suckering her into contempt. Not that he minded the downtime. To him, this eight-by-eight cell was a cozy second home, a pied-à-terre with a view of the Miami River from the barred window. Hell, they ought to put his name on the door, like a luxury suite at Pro Player Stadium. Failing that, he scribbled on the cell wall:

Stephen Solomon, Esq.

"Beating the state's butt for nine years"

_Call UBE-FREE, 822–3733_

Steve preferred to defend the truly innocent, but where would he find them? If people didn't lie, cheat, and steal, he figured he'd be starving, instead of clearing about the same as a longshoreman at the Port of Miami who worked overtime and stole an occasional crate of whiskey. Steve usually settled for what he called "honest criminals," felons who ran afoul of technicalities that would not be illegal in a live-and-let-live society. Bookies, hookers, or entrepreneurs like today's client, Amancio Pedrosa, who imported exotic animals with a blithe disregard of the law.

Steve glanced into Victoria's cell. She had resumed pacing, a tigress in a cage. Her tailored plaid jacket was draped over an arm. An expensive outfit, he was sure, but wrong for the jury. The high neck accentuated her—well, stiff-neckedness. She should ditch that Puritan look, get something open at the collar, a bright blouse underneath. The matching skirt was fine, a little tighter than he'd expect on the prim prosecutor. A nice ass for someone so flat on top.

"What do you say, after we get out, we hit Bayside, dive into a pitcher of margaritas?" he said.

"I'd rather drink from the toilet bowl."

Keeping her distance for now, he thought. Made sense as long as they were in trial. "Okay, let's wait till we get a verdict. Win or lose, I'll treat you to tapas."

"I'd die of starvation first."

"You might not be aware, but over the years, I've tutored several young women prosecutors."

"I'm aware you've bedded down a few. And rifled their briefcases in the middle of the night."

"Don't believe everything you hear in the cafeteria."

"You're one of those toxic bachelors, a serial seducer. The only thing that shocks me is that some women find you attractive."

_Have I missed a signal? Shouldn't she be warming up by now?_

"I'll bet any relationship you've had, the woman always ended it," she said.

"My nephew lives with me and scares most women off," Steve said.

" _He_ scares them off?"

"He's kind of a reverse chick magnet."

"That sort of thing genetic?" she asked.

***

An hour later, her feet still ached and the toilet still gurgled, but at least Solomon had shut up. Victoria hoped he understood that she had no interest in him. You hit some men with a frying pan, they think you're going to make them an omelette.

But as annoying as she found him, the sparring did help pass the time. And if nothing else, jousting with Solomon might sharpen her courtroom tactics. The trick was not to let him provoke her once they were back in front of judge and jury. She made a vow. Even if he led a herd of elephants into the courtroom, she would maintain a Zen-like tranquillity.

_If I get back into the courtroom._

She wondered if word had reached Ray Pincher that she'd been sent to the slammer. A shudder went through her, and suddenly she felt both alone and afraid.

***

Awfully quiet over there, Steve thought, trying to see her through the shadows.

What was she thinking right now? Uptown girl inhaling the stale sweat and toxic cleansers of her own private Alcatraz. Probably planning what she'd tell her boss, that pious phony Ray Pincher. Scared he'd demote her to Traffic Court.

Had he gone too far, Steve wondered, baiting her into those outbursts? Judge Gridley's contempt citations were sort of like calling unsportsmanlike conduct on both teams. But would Pincher understand? Did he even recognize Lord's potential?

Dammit, Steve thought, beginning to feel regretful. He hadn't wanted to hurt her. He was just trying to have some fun while defending his client.

Another worry, too. His nephew, Bobby, barely eleven, was home alone. If Steve was late, who knows what might happen? One day last week, when he rushed through the door just after seven, the kid announced he'd already made dinner. Sure enough, Bobby had found a dead sparrow on the street, covered it with tomato sauce, zonked it in the microwave for an hour, and called it "roasted quail marinara." It had been easier to throw out the microwave than to clean it.

If he ever dated Victoria, he'd introduce her to Bobby, his relationship litmus test. If she responded to the boy's sweetness and warmth—if she saw past his disability—she might be a contender. But if she was repulsed by Bobby's semi-autistic behavior, Steve would toss her out with his empty bottles of tequila.

Now what the hell was going on? Did he just hear a sniffle?

***

I will not cry, Victoria told herself.

She didn't know what had come over her. A feeling of being totally inadequate. A loser and a failure and a fraud. Dammit, what baggage had spilled out of the closet without her even knowing it?

"You okay?" Steve Solomon called out.

Shit, what did he want now? A lone tear tracked down her face, and then another. Great. Her mascara would turn to mud.

"Hey, everything all right?" he asked.

"Just great."

"Look, I'm sorry if I—"

"Shut up, okay?"

The clatter of footsteps and the jangle of keys interrupted them. Moments later, a man's voice echoed down the dim passageway. "Ready to go back to work?"

"Go away, Woody," Steve said. "You're disturbing my nap."

Elwood Reed, the elderly bailiff, skinny as an axe blade in his baggy brown uniform, appeared in front of their cells. He hitched up his pants. "Mr. Pincher wants to see both of you, pronto."

A chill went through Victoria. Pincher could fire her in an instant.

"Tell Pincher I don't work for him," Steve said.

"Tell him yourself," Reed retorted, fishing for the right key. "He's waiting in Judge Gridley's chambers and he ain't happy."

Reed unlocked their cells, and they headed down the passageway, Steve whistling a tune, jarringly off-key, and Victoria praying she still had a job. 

## SOLOMON'S LAWS

When the law doesn't work . . . work the law. 

## _Two_

HUMILIATIONS

GREAT AND SMALL

No more tears, Victoria vowed as they approached the entrance to Judge Gridley's chambers. She would rather break a nail, tear her panty hose, and shear off a heel of her Prada pumps than cry in front of Steve Solomon.

Biting her lower lip, she tried to transport herself to more pleasant venues. A clay tennis court on Grove Isle, stretching high for an overhead smash, the solid _thwack_ of racket on ball. Handling the wheel of her father's gaff schooner—the _Hail, Victoria—_ when she was ten, the wind snapping against the mainsail. Anyplace but here, where her boss lay in wait, armed with the power to destroy her career.

"Something wrong?" Steve said, walking alongside.

Instincts like a coyote, she thought. The door was six steps away. She felt her insides tighten; her heart pitched like a boat in a squall.

"I've known Pincher for years," Steve persisted. "Why not let me handle him?"

"Does he like you?" she asked.

"Actually, he hates my guts."

"Thanks, anyway."

"Then a word of advice. Don't take any shit."

She stopped short. "What are you saying? That Pincher will respect me if I stand up to him?"

***

"Hell, no. He'll fire you. Then you can come over to my side."

Steve thought the chambers cannily reflected both of Judge Gridley's pursuits, misconstruing the law and bungling pass-interference calls. There were the required legal volumes, laminated gavels, and photos of the judge shaking hands with lawmakers and lobbyists. Then there were old leather football helmets and photos of the striped-shirted Gridley at work on Saturdays in various college football stadiums.

One wall was devoted to trophies and posters, evidencing the judge's fanatical devotion to his alma mater, the University of Florida. A plaque celebrated Gridley as a "Bull Gator Emeritus," and on his desk was a stuffed alligator head with its mouth open, teeth exposed, like a hungry lawyer. Only two things were missing, Steve thought: a bronzed jockstrap and Judge Gridley himself.

Standing on the orange-and-blue carpet was a scowling, trim, African-American man in his forties, wearing a three-piece burgundy suit. When he moved his arms, there was a soft clanging of metal. Raymond Pincher's dangling silver cuff links were miniature handcuffs.

Steve thought that Pincher, the duly elected State Attorney of Miami-Dade County, would have to loosen up considerably just to be called tight-assed. Pincher billed himself as a crime fighter, and his campaign billboards pictured him bare-chested, wearing boxing gloves, a reminder of his days as a teenage middleweight in the Liberty City Police Athletic League. He'd won the championship two years running, once with a head butt, and once with a bolo punch to the groin, both overlooked by the referee, who by serendipitous coincidence was his uncle. Boxing had been excellent preparation for Florida politics, where both nepotism and hitting below the belt were prized assets. These days, when someone suggested he'd make a fine governor, Ray Pincher didn't disagree.

Pincher glared at Victoria, who was biting her lip so hard Steve thought she might draw blood. Suddenly, Steve was worried about her and wanted to save her job. But how to do it? How could he take the heat off her?

Victoria said a quick prayer. First that her voice wouldn't break when she was required to speak. Second, that Solomon would keep his big mouth shut.

"Hey, Sugar Ray," Steve called out. "Execute anyone today?"

_Oh, Jesus._

"Good afternoon, Mr. Pincher." Victoria nodded stiffly, struggling to remain calm.

"Ms. Lord, I am disturbed by what I hear and concerned by what I see," Pincher chanted in a melodious singsong. Before attending law school, he had studied at a Baptist seminary. There, office gossips claimed, he'd been expelled for selling Bibles intended as gifts to Central American orphanages. "A prosecutor is the swift sword of justice, the mighty soldier in the war of good against evil."

"Amen," Steve said.

Victoria felt her cheeks heating up.

_Dammit! Don't be such a girl._

"A prosecutor must never be held in contempt," Pincher said. "Contempt is for defense lawyers of the flamboyant persuasion." "Flam-boy-ant" sounding like a flaming French dessert. "Contempt is for the hired guns who sell their souls for filthy lucre."

"Or for peanuts," Steve said.

"Stay out of this, Solomon," Pincher said. "Ms. Lord, what is the most important attribute of any trial lawyer?"

"I'm not sure, sir," she said, afraid to venture a guess.

"The ability to lie while saying hello," Solomon volunteered.

"Dignity," Pincher fired back. "Ms. Lord, do you know what happens to prosecutors who bring disrespect to the office?"

She stood rigidly, unable to speak.

"Hellfire, damnation, transfer to hooker court," Steve enumerated.

"Termination," Pincher said.

"C'mon," Steve said. "Give her some room. She's gonna be really good if you don't squeeze the life out of her."

Great, Victoria thought, a compliment from Solomon, as helpful as a stock tip from Martha Stewart's broker.

Steve said: "She's already better than most of your half-wits who want to plead everything out and go home at four o'clock."

"Not your business, Last Out."

_Last Out._ What was that all about? She'd have to ask around.

"My point, Ms. Lord, is that you cannot let Mr. Solomon badger, befuddle, or bedevil you." Pincher often employed the preacher's habit of alliteration and the lawyer's habit of using three words when one will do.

"Yes, sir," Victoria said.

"I myself have tried cases against Mr. Solomon," Pincher said.

"You're the best, Sugar Ray," Steve said. "Nobody suborns perjury from a cop like you do."

Cuff links jangling, Pincher wagged a finger in Steve's face. "I recall you bribing a bailiff to take two six-packs of beer to the jury in a drunk-driving case."

" 'Bribery' is an ugly word," Steve said.

"What do you call club seats for the Dolphins?"

"The way they're playing, torture."

"You're Satan in Armani," Pincher said.

"Men's Wearhouse," Steve corrected.

"You have raised contumacy to a high art."

"If I knew what it was, I'd be even better at it."

"We have a dossier on you. Contempt citations, frivolous motions, ludicrous legal arguments."

"Flatterer," Steve said.

"Any more circus tricks, I'll have the Florida Bar punch your ticket." Pincher shot his cuffs and flashed a hard, cold smile. "You don't watch your step, you're gonna end up like your old man."

"Leave him out of this." Steve's tone turned serious.

"Herbert Solomon felt he was above the law, too."

"He was the best damn judge in the county."

"Before your time, Ms. Lord," Pincher said, "Solomon's father was thrown off the bench."

"He resigned!"

"Before they could indict him. Bribery scandal, wasn't it?"

"You know goddamn well what it was. A phony story from a dirty lawyer."

"I was only a deputy then, but I saw the files. Your father's the dirty one."

The room had grown tense.

"What's the penalty for slugging the State Attorney?" Steve said. His hands were clenching and unclenching.

Pincher balanced on his toes like a prizefighter. "You don't have the balls."

The two men glared at each other a long moment.

"Boys, if you're through wagging your dicks," Victoria heard herself say, "I need to know whether to go back into court or look for a new job."

After a long moment, Steve laughed, the tension draining away. Now _she_ was trying to help _him._ "Aw, fuck it, Sugar Ray."

"Never saw you back down before." Pincher sounded suspicious, like Steve might sucker punch him the second he dropped his guard.

"Vickie's influence."

_"Victoria,"_ she corrected icily.

Pincher appraised each of them a moment, tugged at an earlobe, then said: "Ms. Lord, because I know of Mr. Solomon's predilection for provocation, I'm not firing you today."

"Thank you, sir." She exhaled and her shoulders lost their stiffness.

"For now, consider yourself on probation."

His good deed for the week, Steve thought, helping save her job. But what a prick, that Pincher, hacking away at the newbie. Steve felt embarrassed, like he'd been eavesdropping on another family's quarrel. Victoria tried so hard to be tough, but Steve had seen the tremble of her lower lip, the flush in her cheeks. She was scared, and it touched him.

A loud rush of water interrupted his thoughts, the unmistakable sound of an ancient toilet. A moment later, the door to Judge Erwin Gridley's personal rest room opened, and the judge walked out, carrying the sports section of the _Miami Herald._

"What's all this caterwauling?" the judge drawled. He was in his mid-fifties and fighting a paunch but could still waddle down the sidelines after a wide receiver. Suffering bouts of double vision, he wore trifocals in court, but not on Saturdays, which Steve figured might explain some of his more egregious calls, including too many men on the field when replays clearly showed only eleven.

"Mr. Solomon and I were reminiscing about old cases," Pincher told the judge.

"Mr. Pincher remembers cases the way a wolf remembers lambs," Steve said.

"I was just about to tell counsel that I'll be sitting second chair to Ms. Lord for the rest of the Pedrosa trial," Pincher said.

"You, working for a living?" Steve said.

"It would be an honor to have you in my courtroom," the judge allowed.

"It's my new hands-on plan," Pincher said. "One week every month, I'll be in court."

"Then who's gonna shake down lobbyists for campaign money?" Steve asked.

"Keep it up, I'll sue you for slander, Solomon."

"Now, don't you two git started." The judge tossed the sports section onto his desk. "Mr. Solomon and Miss Lord wore me out this morning with their grousing." He turned to the two of them, squinting through his eyeglasses. "I'm hoping a few hours in the cooler settled your nerves."

"We're fine, Your Honor," Victoria said. "Thank you."

"Cell mates today, soul mates tomorrow," Steve vowed.

"Hah," Victoria said.

The judge said: "The clock's running down, so let's talk business."

"Yes, sir," Victoria said. "State of Florida versus Amancio Pedrosa."

" _University_ of Florida versus Florida State," the judge corrected. "Gotta lay five points to take my dog-ass, butt-dragging Gators, for crying out loud."

"You don't want to touch that, Judge," Steve advised.

"Hell, no. Gator's QB got a stinger on the turf at South Carolina last week. I oughta know. I called roughing on the play."

***

As the three men continued to talk about football in grave tones, Victoria took stock of her career.

Humiliations great and small.

_"Consider yourself on probation."_

She had felt her face redden as Pincher berated her. Why did he have to do it in front of Solomon? It was doubly embarrassing when Solomon spoke up for her, though for a moment, it made him seem almost human. She wondered if the florid tint had faded from her neck and cheeks. Victoria could not remember a time when she didn't blush under pressure.

She dreaded going back into the courtroom with Pincher perched on her shoulder like one of Pedrosa's illegal birds. All she wanted now was to win and prove she had the chops to be a trial lawyer.

But what if she lost? Or worse, got fired? The legal market sucked, and her student loans weighed a ton. Each month she wrote a check for the interest, but the principal just sat there—eighty-five thousand dollars—taunting her. The only clothing she'd bought since law school came from Second Time Around, a consignment shop in Surfside.

_Except for shoes. Shoes are as important as oxygen, and you don't want to breathe another person's oxygen, right?_

If she lost her job, she'd have to start selling the jewelry The Queen had given her. Irene Lord, called The Queen for her regal bearing and lofty dreams. Even when her money was gone, she had maintained her dignity and grace. Victoria pictured her mother, dressed in a designer gown for the Vizcayans Ball, her Judith Leiber evening bag flecked with jewels but lacking cab fare inside. She remembered, too, her mother fussing about Victoria's decision to go to law school. A dirty business, she called it.

_"You don't have that cutthroat personality."_

Maybe The Queen was right. Maybe law school had been a mistake. She struggled to be strong, to cover up her insecurities. But maybe she just didn't have what it takes. Certainly Ray Pincher seemed to doubt her abilities.

***

_What's this bullshit about Pincher sitting second chair?_ Steve hated the idea. There'd be no more fun in the courtroom, that's for sure. And Pincher would put even more pressure on Victoria. Steve wondered if she could handle it.

Doing his pretrial homework, Steve had looked her up in the State Attorney's Office newsletter, the "Nolo Contendere." Princeton undergrad, summa cum laude, Yale Law School, a prize-winning article in the law journal. Nice pedigree, compared to his: baseball scholarship at the University of Miami, night division at Key West School of Law.

In addition to the ritzy academics, there was a little ditty in the newsletter: "We're hoping Victoria joins us on the Sword of Justice tennis team. She won the La Gorce Country Club girls' tennis championship three years running while in high school."

La Gorce. Old money, at least by Miami standards, where marijuana smugglers from the 1980's were considered founding fathers. The La Gorce initiation fee was more than Steve cleared in a year. Thirty years ago, no one named Solomon could have even joined.

So why was Victoria Lord slumming in the grimy Justice Building, a teeming beehive of cops and crooks, burned-out lawyers and civil service drudges, embittered jurors and senile judges? A place where an eight A.M. motion calendar—a chorus line of miscreants on parade—could crush her spirit before her _café  con leche_ grew cold. Steve felt a part of the place, enjoyed the interplay of cops and robbers, but Victoria Lord? Had she gotten lost on her way to one of the deep-carpet firms downtown? Stone crabs at noon, racquetball at five.

Now Steve tried to follow the conversation. Judge Gridley was spouting his views on a college football playoff—a grand idea, there'd be more games to bet on—when they were interrupted by a cell phone chiming the opening bars of Handel's "Hallelujah."

"Excuse me," Pincher told them, fishing out his phone. "State Attorney. What? Good heavens! When?" He listened a moment. "Call me when the autopsy's done."

Pincher clicked off and turned to the others. "Charles Barksdale is dead."

"Heart attack?" the judge asked, tapping his own chest.

"Strangled. By his wife."

"Katrina?" Victoria said. "Can't be."

"She probably had a good reason," said Steve, ever the defense lawyer.

"Claims it was an accident," Pincher said.

"How do you accidentally strangle someone?" the judge said.

"By having sex in a way God never intended," Pincher said. "They found Charles tied up in some kinky contraption."

"This is big," Steve said. "Larry King big."

"Charles was a dear friend," Pincher said, "not just a campaign contributor. To die like that . . . " He shook his head, sadly. "If the grand jury indicts, I'll prosecute it myself."

Pincher was not given to many honest emotions, Steve thought, but the old fraud seemed genuinely upset.

"Charles was a gentle man, a charitable man, a good man," Pincher continued.

Now he sounded like he was rehearsing his closing argument.

"Boy, would I love to defend," Steve said.

"Widow'll end up with Ed Shohat or Roy Black," Judge Gridley predicted.

"I'm as good a lawyer as they are."

"This ain't a Saturday night stabbing in Liberty City," Pincher said. "This is high society."

Pincher was right, Steve knew. He'd had dozens of murder trials, but most were low pay or no pay. He never had a client with the resources of an O. J. Simpson or Klaus von Bulow. Or the looks and glamour of Katrina Barksdale. He didn't know the Barksdales, but he'd read about them. Charles had made millions building condos while collecting custom yachts and trophy wives. Katrina would have been number three or four. Wife, not yacht. Photos of the old hubby and young wifey were routinely plastered in _Ocean Drive_ and the _Miami Herald._ You couldn't open a restaurant or hold a charity event without the glam couple. And when her husband stayed home, Katrina was on the arm of an artist or musician at younger, hipper parties.

_The lawyer who got this case was gonna be famous._

Steve could picture the Justice Building surrounded by sound trucks, generators humming, a forest of satellite dishes, an army of reporters. A carnival in the parking lot, vendors hawking "Free Katrina" T-shirts, iced _granizados,_ and grilled arepas. There'd be TV interviews, magazine profiles, analysts critiquing the defense lawyer's trial strategy and his haircut. It'd be a ton of publicity and a helluva lot of fun. And then there was the fee. Not that money juiced him. But Bobby's expenses were mounting, and he'd like to put some bucks away for the boy's care.

And wouldn't he love going mano a mano with Pincher? The bastard would try to ride that pony all the way to the governor's mansion. All the more reason Steve lusted after the case. He hated pretension and self-righteousness, but most of all, he hated bullies. And in Sugar Ray Pincher, he had all three.

"This one's out of your league, Solomon," Pincher said, hammering the nail home.

_Out of his league._

God, how he hated that. Which prompted another disheartening thought.

Was Victoria Lord out of his league, too? 

## MIAMI-DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT

TRANSCRIPT OF EMERGENCY

FIRE AND RESCUE CALLS

Dispatch: Miami-Dade Police. One moment, please.

Caller: 911? Goddammit, are you there? 911?

Dispatch: Miami-Dade Police. Is this an emergency?

Caller: My husband! My husband's not breathing.

Dispatch: Please remain calm, ma'am. Is his airway obstructed?

Caller: I don't know. He's not breathing!

Dispatch: Was he eating?

Caller: We were having sex. Oh, Charlie, breathe!

Dispatch: What's your name and address, ma'am?

Caller: Katrina Barksdale, 480 Casuarina Concourse, Gables Estates.

Dispatch: Have you tried CPR?

Caller: My husband's Charles Barksdale. _The_ Charles Barksdale! Jeb Bush has been here for drinks.

Dispatch: CPR, ma'am?

Caller: I'll have to untie Charlie.

Dispatch: Untie him?

Caller: I've already taken off his mask.

"Solomon and Lord" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

#

# The Deep Blue Alibi

## _One_

WORLD'S RICHEST LOBSTERS

"Forget it, Steve. I'm not having sex in the ocean."

"C'mon," he pleaded. "Be adventurous."

"It's undignified and unsanitary. Maybe even illegal."

"It's the Keys, Vic. Nothing's illegal."

Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord waded in the shallow water just off Sunset Key. At the horizon, the sun sizzled just above the Gulf.

"In this light, you're really magnificent," he said.

"Nice try, hotshot, but the bikini stays on."

Still, she had to admit that there was something erotic about the warm water, the salty breeze, the glow of the setting sun. And Steve looked totally hot, his complexion tinged reddish bronze, his dark hair slick and lustrous.

_If only I didn't have to drop a bombshell on him tonight._

"It'll be great." He slipped his arms around her waist. "A saltwater hump-a-rama."

_Dear God. Did the man I think I love really say "hump-a-rama"?_

"We can't. There are people around."

Twenty yards away, a young couple with that honeymoon look—satiated and clueless—peddled by on a water bike. On the beach, hotel guests carried drinks in plastic cups along the shoreline. Music floated across the water from the hotel's tiki-hut bar, Andr� Toussaint singing "Island Woman."

Why couldn't Steve see she wasn't in the mood? How can someone so good at picking a jury be so oblivious to the ebb and flow of his lover's emotions?

She pried his hands off her hips. "There's seaweed. And sea lice. And sea urchins." She'd run out of _sea things._ "We can do it later in the room."

"Bor-ing."

"So you find our sex life a big yawn?"

"I didn't say that."

She sharpened her voice into cross-exam mode. "Isn't it true that after a few months, all your girlfriends start to bore you?"

"Not the ones who dumped me."

"Do you realize you have relationship attention disorder?"

"Whatever that is, I deny it." He pulled her close, and she could feel the bulge in his swim trunks. "I love our sex life. And the room's fine. Clean sheets. A/C. Nice view. Why don't we go in now and get started?"

_Get started? Makes it sound like cleaning the kitchen._

"You go. Start without me."

"C'mon. We can catch the sunset from the balcony."

She looked toward the horizon, where thin ribbons of clouds were streaked the color of a bruised plum. "We won't make it in time."

No way she was going to miss the orange fireball dip into the sea. She loved the eternal rhythm of day into night, the sun rising from the Atlantic, setting in the Gulf. Day after day, year after year. What dependability. She doubted Steve understood that. If he had his way, the sun would zigzag across the peninsula, stopping for a beer in Islamorada.

She had another reason to postpone the lovemaking.

_The bombshell._

She'd been thinking about it all the way to Key West. A pesky mosquito of a thought, buzzing in her brain. She hated to ruin the evening, but she had to tell him, and soon.

"Okay, I give up," Steve said. " _Coitus postponus._ What time do we meet your uncle?"

She brought her legs up and floated on her back. Looking toward the horizon upside down, the sun floated at the waterline, connected to its reflection by a fiery rope. "Nine o'clock. And I told you—he's not really my uncle."

"I know. Good old Hal Griffin. Your father's partner, the guy who bought you fancy presents when you were a spoiled brat."

_"Privileged,_ not spoiled. Uncle Grif's the one who named my mother 'The Queen.' "

"And you 'The Princess.' "

So Steve had been listening after all, she thought. "You think the name fits?"

"Like your Manolo Blahniks."

She started swimming, heading out to sea, toward the setting sun. Smooth strokes knifing through the water, now glazed a boiling orange. Steve swam alongside, struggling to keep up. "What I don't get is why Hal Griffin called you after all these years."

The same question had been puzzling Victoria. She hadn't seen Uncle Grif since her father's funeral when she was twelve. Now, without warning, a phone call.

"All I know, he has some legal work for me."

"You mean for _us._ "

"He didn't know about you."

"But you told him, right? Solomon and Lord."

"Of course."

_Is this how it begins? A little white lie, followed by bigger, darker ones._

God, she hated this. She had to tell Steve the truth. But how?

He was flailing away, kicking up a storm, trying to catch her. Except for swimming—all splash, no speed— Steve was an accomplished athlete. He'd run track in high school and played baseball at the University of Miami, where he was a mediocre hitter but a terrific base runner.

_"Solomon takes off . . . and steals second!"_

A good primer for lawyering, Victoria figured. Conning the pitcher, pilfering the catcher's signs, then _stealing_ a base. Even the word would appeal to Steve. He had been particularly adept at spiking opposing fielders and kicking the ball out of their gloves. But like a lot of athletes, he didn't know his limitations. He thought he was good at everything. Poker. Auto repair. Sex. Okay, he was good in bed, very good once she taught him to slow down and stop trying to score from first on a single.

A hundred yards offshore, she started treading water, waiting for him to catch up.

"So where are we eating?" he asked, breathing hard.

So very Steve. He would plan dinner while still eating lunch. "Uncle Grif made reservations at Louie's Backyard."

He made an appreciative _hmm_ sound. "Love their cracked conch. Maybe go with the black grouper for an entree, mango mousse for dessert."

Sex and food, she thought. Did he ever think about anything else?

"And we'll be back in the room in time for _Sports Center,_ " he continued.

Yes, of course he did.

Was it his imagination, or was something bothering Victoria? Steve couldn't tell. She'd been quiet on the drive down the Overseas Highway, occasionally glancing toward the Gulf, where red coral heads peeked through the shallow turquoise water. He'd asked how her cases were going—they divided up the workload as _his, hers,_ and _theirs—_ but she didn't want to talk shop. He'd sung some old Jimmy Buffett songs. But she didn't join his search for a lost shaker of salt.

Now he told himself that nothing was wrong. After all, he was holding Victoria in his arms as they treaded water. In the glow of the twilight, she was stunning, her skin blushed, her butterscotch hair pulled back in a ponytail, highlighting her cheekbones. Small breasts, long legs, a firm, trim body. He felt a pleasurable stirring inside his trunks. The air was rich with salt and coconut oil, and he was with the woman he loved, a woman who, for reasons inexplicable, seemed to love him, too.

By his calculations, they still had time to hit the room, make love, and meet Griffin at Louie's. Maybe do it in the shower as they cleaned up for dinner, the Solomon method of multitasking. He just wished the sun would hurry the hell up and call it a day.

Nearby, two windsurfers caught a final ride. Overhead, seabirds dipped and cawed. From the beach, he heard the sound of salsa coming from the bar's speakers, Celia Cruz singing "Vida Es un Carnaval."

Damn straight. Steve felt his life was a carnival, a sun-filled, beach-breezed, beer commercial of a life. This was better than knocking off a mega-insurance company for a seven-figure verdict. Not that he ever had, but he could imagine. Better, too, than stealing home in a college baseball game. That he'd done, against Florida State. Of course, his team lost. But still, a helluva moment.

"Steve, we need to talk," Victoria said.

"Absolutely." He watched a pink sash of clouds at the horizon turn to gray. A slice of the sun nestled into the water. On the beach, the tourists yelped and cheered, as if they had something to do with this nightly miracle. "What do we need to talk about?"

"Us."

_Uh-oh._

In Steve's experience, when a woman wanted to talk about _us,_ life's carnival was about to fold its tent. He quickly ran through his possible misdemeanors. He hadn't been rude to her mother, even though Her Highness loathed him. He hadn't left the toilet seat up for two weeks, at least. He hadn't flirted with other women, not even the exotic dancer he was representing in a prickly lewd and lascivious trial.

"So what'd I do now?" Sounding defensive.

Victoria put her hands around his neck, twining her fingers, as they treaded water in unison. "You treat me like a law clerk."

_Oh, that. At least it wasn't something that would toss him out of bed._

"No I don't. But I am the senior partner."

"That's what I mean. You don't treat me as an equal."

"Cut me a break, Vic. Before you came along, it was my firm."

"What firm? Solomon and _Associates_ was false advertising. Solomon and _Lord_ is a firm."

"Okay, okay. I'll be more sensitive to . . ." What? He'd picked up the phrase from Dr. Phil, or Oprah, or one of the women's magazines at his dentist's office.

_"I'll be more sensitive to . . ."_

You toss around the words when your girlfriend is upset. But it's best to know what the hell you're talking about. "Your _needs,_ " he finished triumphantly. "I'll be more sensitive to your needs."

"I'll never grow as an attorney until I have autonomy."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't get all crazy. It's not going to affect our relationship, but I want to go out on my own."

"Your own what?"

"I want to open my own shop."

"Break up the firm?" Stunned, he stopped bicycling and slipped under the water. She grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up. "But we're great partners," he sputtered, spewing water like a cherub on a fountain.

He couldn't believe it. Why would she want to trash a winning team?

"We're so different. I do things by the book. You burn the book."

"That's our strength, Vic. Our synergy. You kiss 'em on the cheek, I kick 'em in the nuts." Peddling to stay afloat, he took her by the shoulders and eased her closer. "If you want, I'll change my style."

"You can't change who you are. As long as it's Solomon and Lord, I'll always be second chair. I need to make a name for myself."

He almost said it then: _"How about the name Mrs. Victoria Solomon?"_

But he would have sounded desperate. Besides, neither one of them was ready for that kind of commitment.

"I'm not going to beg you to stay," he said instead, brusquely. "If it makes you happy, go fly solo."

"Are you mad?"

"No, I'm giving you space." Another phrase he'd picked up somewhere. "I'm giving you respect and . . ."

A rumbling, grumbling growl in the distance.

_What the hell's that noise?_

Jet Skis? They ought to ban the damn things. But even as he turned to face the open sea, he realized this sound was different. The roar of giant diesels.

A powerboat roared toward the beach. And unless it turned, straight toward them.

From the waterline, it was impossible to judge the size of the boat or its speed. But from the sound—the rolling thunder of an avalanche—Steve knew it was huge and fast. A bruiser of a boat, good for chasing marlin or sailfish in the deep blue sea. Not for cruising toward a beach of swimmers and paddlers and waders.

Steve told himself to stay calm. The jerk would turn away at the piling with the _No Wake_ sign. The boat would whip a four-foot mini-tsunami toward the beach, everyone on board having a big laugh and a bigger drink.

_Okay, so turn now._

"Steve . . ."

"Don't worry. Just some cowboy showing off."

But the boat didn't turn and it didn't slow down. Instead, it muscled toward them, its bowsprit angled toward the sky like a thin patrician nose.

Now Steve was worried.

Five hundred yards away. The boat leapt the small chop, splatted down, leapt again. He could see white water cascading high along the hull, streaming over the deck. The roar grew louder, a throaty baritone, like a dozen Ferraris racing their engines. The son-of-a-bitch must be doing forty knots.

Still it came, its bow seemingly aimed straight at them. In twenty seconds, it would be on them. Windsurfers scattered. Swimmers shrieked and splashed toward shore. On the beach, people in chaise lounges leapt to their feet and backpedaled. A lifeguard tooted his whistle, drowned out by the bellow of the diesels.

Squinting into the glare of the sinking sun, Steve could see there was no one on the fly bridge. A boat without a driver.

"C'mon!" Victoria cried out, starting to swim parallel to the beach.

Steve grabbed her by an ankle and yanked her back. They didn't have the speed or maneuverability. What they had were five seconds.

"Dive!" he ordered.

Wide-eyed, Victoria took a breath.

They dived straight down, kicking hard.

Underwater, Steve heard the props, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the diesel roar. Then, a bizarre sensation, a banging in his chest. Like someone smashing his sternum with a ballpeen hammer. A split-second later, he heard the _click-click-click_ of a bottlenose dolphin, but he knew it was the boat's sonar, bombarding him with invisible waves. Suddenly, the wash of the props tore at him, dragging him up then shoving him down. He tumbled head-over-ass, smacked the sandy bottom with a shoulder, and felt his neck twist at a painful angle. Eyes open, he swung around, desperately looking for Victoria, seeing only the murky swirl of bottom sand. Then a glimpse of her feet headed for the surface. He kicked off the bottom and followed her.

They both broke through the water just as the boat ramped off the sandy incline, going airborne, props churning. Steve heard screams from the beach, saw people scattering as the boat flew over the first row of beach chairs, slashed the palm-frond roof of the tiki-hut bar, and crashed through a canvas-topped cabana. The wooden hull split amidships with the sound of a thousand baseball bats splintering, its two halves separating as tidily as a cleanly cracked walnut.

"Vic! You okay?"

But she was already swimming toward shore.

Victoria ignored Steve's shouts to wait. No, the _senior partner_ would have to catch up on his own. She had seen the lettering on the stern as the big boat lifted out of the water: _FORCE MAJEURE IV._ She instantly recognized the name, remembered the first _Force Majeure,_ even after all these years.

_How could it be?_

In a place where most boats were christened with prosaic puns _—Queasy Rider, Wet Dream—_ this craft could be owned by only one man. In the law, a _force majeure_ was something that couldn't be controlled. A superior, irresistible force. Like a powerful yacht ...or its powerful owner.

Steve was still yelling to wait up as she scrambled onto the sand and ran toward the broken boat. The bridge was lying on its side in the sand, the chrome wheel pretzled out of shape. Shards of glass, torn cushions, twisted grab rails, were scattered everywhere. The fighting chair, separated from its base, sat upright in the sand, as if waiting for a missing fisherman.

Half-a-dozen Florida lobsters crawled across the sand, a shattered plastic fish box nearby. Something was impaled on one lobster's antenna. It took a second for the bizarre sight to register.

_A hundred-dollar bill. The lobster's spiny antenna was sticking right through Ben Franklin's nose._

Then she saw the other bills. A flutter of greenbacks, blowing across the beach, like seabirds in a squall.

"This one's breathing, but he's messed up bad."

It was the hotel lifeguard, bent over a thin man in cargo shorts and polo shirt. He lay on his side, motionless, his limbs splayed at grotesque angles, a broken doll. The lifeguard turned the man gently onto his back, then gasped. A metal spear protruded from the man's chest.

"Jesus!"

Victoria got a look at the man's face.

_Thank God. It's not him._

"Another one! Over here!" A woman's voice.

Victoria navigated around a thicket of splintered teak decking. A female bartender was crouched in the sand over a thick-bodied man in a white guayabera. Rivulets of blood ran down the man's face from a gash on his forehead. "Don't move," the bartender ordered. "We're gonna get you to the hospital."

The man grunted. He appeared to be in his sixties, with a thick neck and thinning gray hair. His eyes were closed, either from pain or the blood running into his eyes.

Victoria edged closer.

_Could it possibly be him?_

"You should put a compress over the wound," she said.

The man opened his eyes, and Victoria recognized him at once. "Uncle Grif!"

"Hello, Princess." Grimacing through the pain, Hal Griffin pushed the bartender aside. "Leave me alone, dammit. I need to talk to my lawyer." 

## SOLOMON'S LAWS

If the facts don't fit the law . . . bend the facts. 

## _Two_

THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE

Lower Keys Medical Center wasn't far away, but the streets were jammed. Locals on bicycles, teenagers in flip-flops, cruise-ship passengers scorched from the Caribbean sun. With Victoria sitting shotgun, Steve was at the wheel, stuck in traffic, bogged down behind a Key West taxi, pink as Pepto-Bismol. Steve banged the horn, but the taxi didn't pick up speed. Of course not; its bumper sticker read: _"What's Your Hurry? This Ain't the Mainland."_

They had taken the ferry from Sunset Key and picked up Steve's rusty orange 1976 Eldorado from its parking spot off Mallory Square. The old Caddy, whose throaty rumble had once sounded dark and velvety, like a pot of brewing coffee, now hacked and belched like a geezer at the Sand & Surf Retirement Home.

"So who's the other guy on the boat?" Steve asked.

"All I know, Uncle Grif was bringing someone to dinner. He didn't say who."

Steve honked at a bearded jaywalker with tattooed snakes crawling up his bare back. "And just now, on the beach, he didn't tell you?"

"It didn't seem to be the time for introductions." Trying to shut him up. She knew Steve well enough to read his mind. He was already thinking there was profitable legal business scattered in that boat wreckage.

_Sure, Steve, but it's gonna be my business, not yours._

"And how the hell did that guy get a spear in his chest?" Not letting up. He was like a fifty-ton Mud Cat dredging the harbor, a _force majeure_ in his own right.

"I don't know any more than you do, Steve."

"Three possibilities," he persisted. "One: accident. Griffin's showing the guy the speargun and it fires. Then we've got a civil case to defend."

"We," she thought, her heart sinking. God, hadn't he been listening?

"Two: They fought over something. The guy clobbers Griffin, who shoots him with the spear. Then, we've got aggravated battery, maybe murder if the guy dies. Self-defense a possibility if Griffin feared for his life."

_Try poaching Uncle Grif's legal work, you'll be in fear for_ your _life, sweetheart._

"Three: a boat malfunction. The steering goes out, we sue the manufacturer or repair yard or parts supplier for damages. That doesn't explain the spear, but—"

"Let's just see how Uncle Grif is doing," she interrupted icily, "and not worry about business."

"Sure thing, but we could be looking at big bucks here."

"We" again. When you're already upset with your boyfriend, his everyday aggravating habits seem even worse. There's a multiplier effect, like the bank compounding interest. Here he was, once again not listening to her, once again not picking up the nuances of her voice, the rhythms of her mood.

_Dammit, Solomon. You can read the flutter of a witness' eyelashes. Why can't you hear me unless I scream?_

They passed the marina at Garrison Bight, ancient houseboats slouched cockeyed in the water, unrehabilitated hippies sprawled on front porches, drinking the night away. Two tourists on motor scooters hogged the middle of the road, and Steve banged the horn again. He hung a left at College Road onto Stock Island, headed past the pungent garbage dump and landfill, and pulled between two rows of royal palms into the hospital parking lot. A helicopter descended noisily, heading for the concrete pad near the Emergency Room entrance. But if there was any emergency, it was journalistic, not medical. The chopper was from Channel 4 in Miami.

_Great. Just great. Steve never met a camera he didn't love._

A Monroe County sheriff's car sat angled at the hospital's front entrance. Perched on the hood of the car, like a long-legged ornament, was a white ibis. If she were superstitious, Victoria would have considered it a bad omen. The bird watched them walk into the lobby, Victoria's mind swirling with memories.

Why _had_ Uncle Grif called her after all these years? And why had he _not_ called all these years?

_The Lords and the Griffins._

When she was a child and Lord-Griffin Construction Company was booming, the two families were inseparable. Nelson and Irene Lord, Harold and Phyllis Griffin. Dinners, bridge games, vacations. For Victoria, before her world collapsed, it was a time of nannies and cruises, tennis camps and Shetland ponies. Her favorite playmate was Hal, Jr. They'd played doctor when she was four and Junior was six, kissed for real when she was twelve and he was fourteen. Such innocence. Such promise. Until her father leapt off the roof of one of the Lord-Griffin condos. Then came the lawsuits, bankruptcies, Grand Jury investigations. Something about bribery and extortion in the building trades. Hal Griffin took his family to Costa Rica and laid low for several years.

Victoria and her mother lost track of them, but then Uncle Grif turned up in Singapore and Indonesia, building hotels and accumulating a fortune. Over the years, he worked his way back home, developing resorts in the Caribbean. Then, a year ago, there'd been a story in the _Miami Herald_ when he bought Paradise Key, a small, private island in Shark Channel, just off the Gulf side of Islamorada. There was speculation in the business pages about a new Griffin project in Florida, but nothing official. Then, last week, Uncle Grif finally called. He apologized for having been out of her life all these years. Then said he'd been keeping tabs on her.

_Keeping tabs._ That had sounded mysterious. But it must have been true. Uncle Grif knew all about her honors at Princeton and Yale Law. He knew about her brief stint in the State Attorney's Office, and he'd heard she was in private practice. Now he had some legal work that might interest her.

_Her._

Not the senior partner at some deep-carpet firm. Not Alan Dershowitz. Not Steve Solomon. But her.

_Victoria Lord, attorney-at-law. Sole practitioner._

Dammit! How could she get Steve to accept that?

Now, there's a guy who really fills a hospital bed, Steve thought, getting a glimpse of Harold Griffin. Burly chest, wide shoulders, thick neck, a white bandage on his forehead, and his right arm in a sling. A still handsome, still rugged man in his mid-sixties, Griffin had pale blue eyes and bushy, sun-bleached eyebrows.

"My God, you're all grown up, Princess," Griffin said as Victoria walked to his bedside.

"How are you feeling, Uncle Grif?"

"Nothing but a separated shoulder, a couple cuts, and a monster headache." He looked toward Steve. "You must be the young man Victoria mentioned."

"Steve Solomon." Wondering just what Victoria had said. "Young man" made him sound like a boyfriend, which he was. But this was business, right? Hadn't Victoria told him about the firm? "I'm Victoria's partner."

"Partner," Griffin repeated. "Used to be, when you said you were someone's partner, everybody knew what you meant. Like Victoria's father and me. Borrowed money together, built condos together, covered each other's ass. These days, it might mean a couple of interior decorators playing house." He barked a laugh and said, "Come to think of it, they're covering each other's ass, too."

"What happened out there, Mr. Griffin?" Steve asked.

"Call me Grif. I was bringing Stubbs down from Paradise Key to discuss the new project. Ben Stubbs from Washington. Environmental Protection Agency. Poor sucker's in the ICU right now. Never saw so much blood in my life, and I was in 'Nam."

"What's the EPA have to do with your project?" Victoria asked.

Griffin motioned her to move closer. "Cop still in the hall?"

"Right outside the door."

"Did he happen to say if he was protecting me or confining me?"

"Didn't say anything, Uncle Grif."

True, Steve thought. The deputy, a gum-chewing, jug-eared, close-shaved kid, had been too busy gaping at Victoria's tanned legs.

"Can't talk to you about Stubbs until we sweep for bugs," Griffin whispered. "I once bid on a shopping center in Singapore. Figured my hotel room might be bugged, so I made all my calls from the bathroom after turning on the shower. But every move I made, a competitor beat me to the punch. Turned out, there was a bug in the toilet-roll dispenser."

In Key West, Steve thought, the only bugs in hotel bathrooms were likely to have eight legs. He couldn't envision Willis Rask, the sheriff, illegally eavesdropping in a hospital room. Same for State Attorney Richard Waddle, even if his nickname was "Dickwad."

"Can you just tell us what happened on the boat?" Victoria asked.

Griffin used his good arm to wave them even closer. Victoria scooted along one side of the bed, Steve the other. It was starting to look like a sleepover at Never-land Ranch. Griffin continued so softly, it was nearly impossible to hear him. "I don't know how the hell Stubbs got that spear in his chest. And that's the truth."

"You make any stops? Refuel, that sort of thing?" Steve asked. Thinking they needed a third party coming aboard. A mermaid with a speargun would do.

Griffin looked around, as if someone might be listening. When he didn't find anyone, he whispered: "One quick stop. A couple miles west of Black Turtle Key, one of those no-name islands. I keep my lobster pots offshore there. Pulled up a few critters for our dinner."

"I thought we were going to Louie's Backyard," Victoria said.

"You ever have their lobster jambalaya, Princess?"

"Never saw it on the menu."

" 'Course not. They make it just for me. I bring the lobster, they do the rest, from the andouille sausage to the spices."

Speaking louder now, apparently not concerned if eavesdroppers stole his recipe.

"I think I saw our dinner crawling across the beach," Victoria said.

"Lobsters are out of season," Steve reminded them.

"So sue me," Griffin shot back.

What do you make of a guy who brings his own food to the best restaurant in Key West? Probably the same thing you'd say about someone who names his boat _Force Majeure._ This guy lives large, fills a conference room the way he fills a hospital bed. A man used to getting his own way. So what does he do if things don't go his way?

"All those hundred-dollar bills blowing across the beach," Steve said. "What was that about?"

"Louie's is expensive," Griffin said. "I was gonna pick up the check."

"Uh-huh."

"Seriously, I just keep a lot of cash around."

"How much? On the boat today."

"Maybe a hundred thousand. More or less."

_All that cash. One man with a spear in his chest. Another with a bump on his noggin. And a mess of out-of-season lobsters. Where do you look in the law books for this one?_

"See anybody on that little island where you stopped?" Steve asked.

Griffin shook his head.

"You head straight from there to Sunset Key?"

Again, Griffin lowered his voice to a parched whisper. "At thirty-five knots. I'm up on the fly bridge, wind blowing my hair, or what's left of it. I asked Stubbs to keep me company up there, but the lazy bastard stays in the cockpit, getting a tan, drinking a Bud. Few minutes later, I look down, and he's not there. I figure maybe he's inside, sacking out or taking a leak. Little while later, I still don't see him, so I get on the intercom, but there's no answer. I get worried, think maybe he fell overboard. He'd been drinking pretty good and he's clumsy on his feet, especially on a wet deck. So I put her on auto and went down the ladder."

He paused and gnawed his lower lip. Steve didn't have to try a hundred cases to know that what was coming next was either a careful lie or the painful truth. The trick—the damned near impossible trick— was to distinguish the two.

"Soon as I open the door to the salon, I see Stubbs," Griffin said. "On the floor, slumped up against a bulkhead, bleeding like a stuck pig, that spear in his chest. I run out of there, climb back up the ladder. I was gonna call the Coast Guard, head for Marathon."

"Fishermen's Hospital."

"Exactly. But then, _boom._ The lights go out."

"Meaning what?"

"I don't know. My next memory is being down on the deck, my head split open, drifting in and out.

Maybe someone up on the fly bridge whacked me across the skull as I came up the ladder."

_Oh, shit. The phantom strikes. Twice. First in the salon, then on the bridge._

"Next thing I know, I'm on the beach with a stomping headache, and here comes the Princess, looking just like her mother all those years ago." He turned toward Victoria. "How is The Queen, anyway?"

"Before you two catch up on old times," Steve interrupted, "did you tell that story to the police?"

"What do you mean by 'story,' Solomon?"

"Nothing. Just asking if you gave a statement."

"Don't bullshit me, kid. Spit it out."

Steve took a breath, fired away. "What you just told us, it's the worst story I ever heard. Worse than Scott Peterson's phone calls to Amber Frey."

"Steve," Victoria said. Her warning tone. "You're not talking to some thug in the lockup."

He ignored her, cut to the heart of it. "There are only two of you on the boat in the middle of the Gulf, right?"

"Yeah."

"So who speared Stubbs?"

Griffin's eyes narrowed. "When Stubbs comes to, ask him."

"And if he doesn't come to?"

That stopped Griffin a moment. Then he said: "My theory is, someone stowed away below before we left my dock."

"Like in that book by Joseph Conrad," Victoria said.

"What book?" Steve asked. _Just what's Miss Princeton summa cum laude talking about now?_ In college, Steve had read the Cliffs Notes of _Heart of Darkness,_ but he didn't remember any stowaway.

_"The Secret Sharer,"_ Victoria continued. "A ship captain hides a stowaway who's accused of killing another seaman. The captain sails close to shore and lets the stowaway swim to safety."

"And when the boat crashed on Sunset Key," Steve said, "what happened to this secret sharer fellow?"

"I don't know," Victoria said. "It's just an idea."

"I don't know either," Griffin said. "And I didn't give a statement to the police. You think I'm a damn fool, Solomon?"

"No. I pity the man who takes you for one. Or who crosses you."

"Steve, please." A command, not a request. "Uncle Grif, I'm sorry. Steve can be abrasive sometimes."

"No problem, Princess. I like this punk."

"You do?" She sounded stunned.

"Most lawyers stick their tongues so far up my butt, it tickles my nose. Sorry, Princess. Your mother used to say I was uncouth. Not like your father. All polished fingernails and luncheon clubs. Of course, if Nelson had begun life spreading hot tar on roofs, his hands might not have been so clean." Griffin turned back to Steve and showed a crooked smile. "I told the cops my head hurt, and I'd talk to them later. I do good, Counselor?"

"Real good. Not a word to the cops until we hear what Stubbs has to say. Then we'll draft a statement for you. Assuming you want us to represent you."

"We'll see. Give me a game plan."

"We have to prepare for the worst. Stubbs comes to and says the two of you argued, and you speared him like an olive with a toothpick. We get a doctor who'll say that after losing all that blood, Stubbs is hallucinating."

Griffin winked at Victoria. "I like the way this punk thinks."

"So who knocked Uncle Grif unconscious?" Victoria said.

"The same guy who shot Stubbs," Steve answered.

"And that would be ...?"

"Jeez, we've been here ten minutes. Give me a chance to come up with our one-armed man."

"Steve, you can't just spin stories out of thin air," Victoria said.

"Sure I can. It's one of Solomon's Laws."

"What laws are those?"

"Steve makes them up as he goes along." Victoria pursed her lips, showing her displeasure. " 'If the law doesn't work, work the law.' That sort of thing."

" 'If the facts don't fit the law,' " Steve said cheerfully, " 'bend the facts.' That's another one."

"I like what I'm hearing." Griffin seemed to be enjoying himself, despite his injuries. "What else, Solomon?"

"I want to be there when the cops question Stubbs. Or better yet, question him first."

"It'll never happen," Victoria said. "The police won't let you near him."

"There are ways," Steve said.

"Don't even think about it."

"What's going on?" Griffin asked.

"Steve likes to crash parties. Once, he faked a heart attack to get into an ER."

"It wasn't a big deal," Steve said, "until I got the bill for my angiogram."

Griffin coughed up a laugh. "You're an asshole, Solomon."

"Yeah?"

"But my kind of asshole." He turned to Victoria. "Princess, you did real good hooking up with this guy. You're hired. Both of you."

"The Deep Blue Alibi" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

#

# Kill All The Lawyers

## _One_

FISH OUT OF WATER

Wearing boxers and nothing else, eyes still crusty with sleep, Steve Solomon smacked the front door with his shoulder. Stuck. Another smack, another shove, and the door creaked open. Which was when Steve noticed the three-hundred-pound fish, its razored bill jammed through the peephole. A blue marlin. Dangling there, as if frozen in midleap.

He had seen alligators slithering out of neighborhood canals. He had heard wild parrots squawking in a nearby park. He had stepped on palmetto bugs the size of roller skates. But even in the zoo that was Miami, this qualified as weird.

Steve glanced up and down Kumquat Avenue, a leafy street a mile from the brackish water of Biscayne Bay. _Nada_. Not a creature was stirring, not even a crab.

He checked the front of his bungalow, the stucco faded the color of pool algae. No other animals lodged in windows or eaves. No pranksters hiding in the hibiscus hedge.

A squadron of flies buzzed around the marlin's head. The air, usually scented jasmine in the morning dew, took on a distinctively fishy smell. A trickle of sweat ran down Steve's chest, the day already steaming with moist heat. He grabbed the newspaper, sprinkled with red berries from a pepper tree, like blood spatter at a crime scene. Nothing on the front page about a late-night tidal wave.

He considered other possibilities. Bobby, of course. His twelve-year-old nephew was a jokester, but where would he have come up with a giant fish? And who would have helped the kid hoist it into place?

"Bobby!"

"Yeah?"

"Would you come out here, please?"

"Yeah."

_Yeah_ being the oxygen of adolescent lungs.

Steve heard the boy's bare feet padding across the tile. A moment later, wearing a Miami Dolphins jersey that hung to his knees, Bobby appeared at the fishsticked front door. "Holy shit!"

"Watch your language, kiddo."

The boy removed his black-framed eyeglasses and cleaned the lenses with the tail of his jersey. "I didn't do it, Uncle Steve."

"Never said you did." Steve slapped at his neck, squashing a mosquito and leaving a bloody smear. "Got any ideas?"

"Could be one of those he-sleeps-with-the-fishes deals."

Steve tried to remember if he had offended anyone lately. Not a soul, if you didn't count judges, cops, and creditors. He scratched himself through his boxers, and his nephew did the same through his Jockeys, two males of the species in deep-thinking mode.

"You know what's really ironic, kiddo?"

"What?"

"My shorts." Steve pointed to his Florida Marlins orange-and-teal boxers, where giant fish leapt from the sea.

"You're confusing irony and coincidence, Uncle Steve," the little wise guy said.

***

Twenty minutes later, Victoria Lord showed up, carrying a bag of bagels, a tub of cream cheese, and a quart of orange juice. She kissed Steve on the cheek, tousled Bobby's hair, and said: "I suppose you know there's a marlin hanging on your front door."

"I didn't do it," Bobby repeated.

"So what's up?" Victoria asked.

Steve shrugged and grabbed the bagels. "Probably some neighborhood kids."

He had showered, shaved, and put on jeans and a tropical shirt with pictures of surfers on giant waves, his uniform for days with no court appearances. Before Victoria came into his life, he would have moseyed into the office wearing shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt reading: _"Lawyers Do It in Their Briefs."_ At the time, Steve's cut-rate law firm had the embellished name of Solomon & Associates. In truth, Steve's only associates were the roaches that crawled out of the splintered wainscoting.

Now it was Solomon & Lord. Victoria had brought a touch of class along with furniture polish, fresh lilies, and an insistence that Steve follow at least _some_ of the ethical rules.

Today she wore a silk blouse the hue of a ripe peach, stretchy gray slacks, and a short jacket woven with intricate geometrical shapes. Five foot eleven in her velvet-toed Italian pumps. Perfect posture. Blond hair, a sculpted jaw, and bright green eyes. An overall package that projected strength and smarts and sexiness.

"You listen to the radio this morning?" Victoria asked.

Steve poured her a thimbleful of café Cubano, syrupy thick. "Sure. Mad Dog Mandich's sports report."

"Dr. Bill's talk show."

"That quack? Why would I listen to him?"

"He was talking about you, partner."

"Don't believe a word he says."

"Why didn't you tell me you were his lawyer?"

Steve took his time spreading cream cheese on a poppyseed bagel. "It was a long time ago." Evading all questions about Dr. William Kreeger. Pop psychiatrist. Mini-celebrity. And now ex-con. "What'd he say?"

"He called you Steve-the-Shyster Solomon."

"I'll sue him for slander."

"Said you couldn't win a jaywalking case if the light was green."

"Gonna get punitive damages."

"Claimed you barely graduated from a no-name law school."

"The Key West School of Law has a name; it just doesn't have accreditation."

"He said you botched his trial and that he'd sue you for malpractice, except he has no faith in the justice system. Then he ranted about O. J. Simpson and Robert Blake and Michael Jackson."

"I saw O.J. at Dadeland the other day," Bobby said, munching a bagel. "He's really fat."

"So did you screw up Dr. Bill's case?" Victoria asked Steve.

"I did a great job. The jury could have nailed him for murder but came back with manslaughter."

"Then why's he so mad at you?"

"Aw, you know clients."

"I know mine are usually happy. What happened between you and Dr. Bill?"

If he told her, Steve knew, she'd go ballistic. _"You did what? That's unethical! Illegal! Immoral!"_

"Nothing happened. He did time, so he blames me."

"Uh-huh." She sipped at the Cuban coffee. "Bobby, you know how I can tell when your uncle's lying?"

"His lips are moving," the boy answered.

"He speaks very quietly and puts on this really sincere look."

"I'm telling the truth," Steve said. "I don't know why the bastard's mad at me."

Technically, that was true. Steve knew exactly what he did wrong in Kreeger's case. He just didn't know what Kreeger knew. On appeal, the guy never claimed ineffective counsel. He never sued for malpractice or filed disbarment proceedings. Instead, he went off and served six years, worked in the prison mental health facility, and got early release.

Before he was indicted for murder, William Kreeger had a clinical psychiatry practice in Coral Gables and had achieved notoriety with a self-help book, _But Enough About You._ He peddled a simplistic me-first philosophy, and after a puff piece on _Good Morning America,_ he landed his own syndicated TV show where he dispensed feel-good one-liners along with relationship advice. Women adored the guy, and his ratings shot into _Oprah_ territory. "You ever see Kreeger on TV?" Steve asked.

"Caught his show when I was in college. I loved the advice he'd give those women. 'Drop the jerk! Dropkick him out of your life right now.' "

"Ever notice his eyes?"

"A killer's eyes?" Bobby sneaked a sip of the café Cubano. It only took a thimbleful to turn him into a whirling dervish. "Like Hannibal Lecter. Or Freddy Krueger. Or Norman Bates. Killers, killers, killers!"

"They're fictional characters, not real killers," Steve corrected him. "And put down the coffee."

The boy stared defiantly at his uncle, hoisted the cup, and took a gulp. "Ted Bundy. Ted Kaczynski. John Wayne Gacy. Real enough, Uncle Steve?"

"Cool it, kiddo."

"David Berkowitz. Dennis Rader. Mr. Callahan . . ."

"Who's Mr. Callahan?" Victoria asked.

"My P.E. teacher," the boy replied. "He's a real dipstick."

Bobby's rebellious streak had started with the onset of puberty. If it were up to Steve, his nephew would have stayed a little kid forever. Playing catch, riding bikes, camping out in the Glades. But the kid had become a steaming kettle of testosterone. He was already interested in girls, dangerous terrain for even the well-adjusted. For a troubled boy like Bobby, this new frontier would be even more treacherous.

"Last warning, and I mean it." Steve poured some molten steel into his voice. "No more coffee, no more murderers, or you're grounded."

Bobby put down the cup, and drew a finger— _hush, hush_ —to his lips.

Steve nodded his thanks and turned to Victoria. "What were you saying about Kreeger's eyes?"

"Hot," Victoria said. "Dark, glowing coals. The camera would come in so close you could almost feel the heat."

"Turned women on," Steve said.

"What about that woman in his hot tub? Did he kill her?"

"Jury said he did, in a manslaughterly kind of way."

"What do you say?"

"I never breach a client's confidence."

Victoria laughed. "Since when?"

"Dr. William Kreeger is out of my life."

"But you're not out of his. What aren't you telling me?"

"Wil-liam Kree-ger," Bobby said, drawing out the syllables, his eyes narrowing.

Steve knew the boy was working up an anagram from Kreeger's name. Bobby's central nervous system deficit had a flip side. Doctors called it "paradoxical functional facilitation." The kid had a savant's capacity to memorize reams of data. Plus the ability to work out anagrams in his head.

"William Kreeger," the boy repeated. "I EMERGE, KILL RAW."

"Nicely done," Steve complimented him.

"So you do think he's a murderer?" Victoria cross-examined.

"The jury's spoken. So has the judge and the appellate court. I respect all of them."

"Hah."

"Don't you have to get to court, Vic?"

"I've got lots of time."

"But I don't. Bobby, let's go to school."

"I'd rather watch you two fight," the boy said.

"We're not fighting," Steve said.

"Yet." Victoria studied him, her eyes piercing green laser beams. "This morning, Dr. Bill challenged you to come on the air and defend yourself."

"Forget it."

"I thought you'd leap at free publicity."

"Not on some third-rate radio program."

"Aren't you the guy who bought ads on the back of ambulances?"

"Ancient history, Vic," Steve said. "I've decided to become more like you. Principled and dignified."

"Uncle Steve's speaking softly again," Bobby said, "and trying to look sincere."

***

Thirty minutes later, Steve was headed across the MacArthur Causeway toward Miami Beach. He had kissed Victoria good-bye and dropped off Bobby at Ponce de Leon Middle School. Now, as his old Mustang rolled past the cruise ships lined up at the port, Steve tried to process the morning's information. What was this feeling of dread creeping over him? The last time he'd seen Kreeger was at the sentencing. It had been a messy case with just enough tabloid elements—drugs, sex, celebrity—to attract media attention.

A woman named Nancy Lamm had drowned in three feet of water. Unfortunately for Kreeger, the water was in the hot tub on his pool deck. That wouldn't have been so bad, except for the gash on Nancy Lamm's skull. Then there was the tox scan revealing a potent mixture of barbiturates and booze. The pills had come from Kreeger, which was a big no-no. He was a court-appointed expert in Nancy's child custody case, so he shouldn't have been playing footsie with her in a Jacuzzi. In an unseemly breach of medical ethics, Kreeger and Nancy had become lovers. The state claimed they'd had a spat, and she was going to blow the whistle on him with the state medical board. Armed with proof of motive, the state charged Kreeger with murder.

Steve could still remember his closing argument. He used the trial lawyer's trick of the loaded rhetorical question.

_"Is Dr. William Kreeger a stupid man? No, he has a near-genius IQ. Is he a careless man? No, quite the contrary. He's precise and meticulous. So, ask yourselves, if Dr. Kreeger were inclined to kill someone, would he do it at his own home? Would he be present at the time of death? Would he admit to police that he had provided a controlled substance to the victim? I think you know the answers. This was an unfortunate accident, not an act of murder."_

The jury returned a compromise verdict: guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Not a bad result, Steve thought—but then, he didn't have to serve the time. Now he dredged up everything he could remember about the moment the jury came back with the verdict. Kreeger didn't even wince. Not one of those clients whose knees buckle and eyes brim with tears.

Kreeger didn't blame Steve. Thanked him, in fact, for doing his best. Kreeger hired another lawyer for the appeal, but nothing unusual there. Appellate work was brief writing. Steve was never much for book work, and footnotes gave him a headache.

He never heard from Kreeger again. Not a call or postcard from prison. And nothing when he got out.

_So what's with all the insults now? Why is he calling me a shyster and challenging me to debate him on the air?_

Steve didn't like the answer. Only one thing could have changed.

_He found out. Somehow, he found out exactly what I did._

Meaning Kreeger also figured out that he would have been acquitted if any other lawyer on the planet had defended the case. And that marlin on the door? It had to be a message from Kreeger, something they both would understand.

_A marlin._

Not a grouper or a shark or a moray eel.

A marlin had significance for both of them.

_So what's Kreeger want?_

Steve tried the loose-thread approach, something his father taught him. _"Whenever you're stumped and feeling dumb as a suck-egg mule,"_ Herbert T. Solomon used to drawl, _"grab a loose thread and pull the cotton-picking thing till you find where it leads."_ Now Steve pulled at the idea of Kreeger suddenly attacking him on the radio and jamming a rotting fish into his front door. Where did that thread lead?

Probably not to a lawsuit or disbarment proceedings. No challenge for Kreeger's towering ego to seek redress through official channels. No chance to show his obvious superiority. Steve pulled at the thread some more. It kept leading back to a dead woman in a hot tub.

_"The bitch betrayed me."_

That's what Kreeger had told Steve, even while denying that he'd killed Nancy Lamm. Kreeger's hot eyes notwithstanding, there was an icy coldness to the man that could make you shiver. And now the answer Steve was seeking emerged with chilling clarity.

_The bastard doesn't want to sue me. He wants to_ kill _me._

## _Two_

THE FACE IN THE WINDOW

Walking down the noisy corridor at school, dodging bigger kids with Mack truck shoulders, Bobby tried to remember the dream.

_It was a dream, right?_

The face in his bedroom window. He tried to picture the face, but it was lost in the fog of sleep. Dammit, his brain was letting him down. All that stuff in his head, but where was the face?

_When I close my eyes, why does all this useless 411 pop up?_

In one corner of his brain, floating letters, constantly rearranging themselves into new words. In another corner, the periodic table of elements, 118 of them, from hydrogen to ununoctium. _So where did the face go?_

He hadn't told Uncle Steve about the face in the window because it was just a dream.

_Or was it?_

Bobby decided to put his brain in reverse and logically consider the events of the past twelve hours. The same night someone stuck a giant fish on the front door, he dreamed of a face in the window.

_Okay, think! What else do you remember?_

A noise! There'd been a noise in the backyard. A palm frond falling, maybe? No, different than that.

Someone bumping into the old windsurfer propped against the house? Maybe. And a second sound. Metallic. The mast clanking against the boom? Could be.

_Noise. Face. Fish._

The words flashed in his brain. Just like the warning sign in front of the school.

_Slow Children. Slow Children. Slow Children._

Which could be rearranged to spell SIN HELL CROWD.

A raging river of words cascaded through his brain. He could shatter the words with a hammer, the letters scattering then re-forming, an endless scrawl of graffiti. Sometimes Bobby thought he could hear the synapses in his brain, crackling like a power line he once saw in the street after a storm, throwing off sparks, dancing like a thick black snake. Sometimes, listening to the sounds grow louder, watching the letters multiply, he would walk into walls or get lost heading home from the bus stop. When that happened, Uncle Steve would teach him the concentration game. That's how his uncle stole all those bases when he played baseball at U.M. Focusing on the pitcher, studying every twitch, knowing whether he would go to the plate, or try to pick him off first base.

_"You're gonna be even better than me at the concentration game, kiddo, because your brain's a Ferrari and mine's an old pickup truck."_

But it didn't feel that way. Sometimes Bobby thought there was too much floating around in his head, like Grandpop's stews where he tossed in snapper heads and mackerel tails and called it bouillabaisse.

Bouillabaisse. USE A SLOB ALIBI.

The letters ricocheted inside his skull.

_Noise. Face. Fish._

He tried to clear out all the other images and draw a picture of the face in the window. For several moments, nothing. Then . . .

_A woman!_

What else? Bobby played cop, like on the TV shows. What color hair? How old? Any identifying marks?

She looked familiar.

_She looked like Mom!_

Only cleaner. Bobby remembered the way his mother had looked on the farm. She was carrying cold soup into the shed where he was locked up. Her face streaked with soot from the fireplace, her eyes watery and far away. Totally zonked on stuff she smoked or inhaled or injected. That night, Uncle Steve broke into the shed to take him away. Lots of images there.

_The bearded man with the walking stick._

The man smelled like wet straw and tobacco. Sometimes he slept in Mom's bed, and sometimes, after they yelled and hit each other, he would spend the night on the floor of the shed, farting and cursing. Bobby had watched the man carve the stick from a solid piece of wood. It was as long as a cane, but thicker, with a curved top like a shepherd's staff. The man had polished it and painted it with a shiny varnish.

_Whoosh! Ker-thomp!_

The sounds from that night. The man had tried to hit Uncle Steve with the staff. But Uncle Steve was very quick and strong, too, stronger than he looked. He wrestled the staff away and swung it like a baseball bat. _Whoosh._ Then, _ker-thomp,_ the stick struck the man's head, sounding like a bat hitting a ball. Home run.

Bobby remembered Uncle Steve carrying him through the woods, slipping on wet stones, but never falling. Bobby could feel his uncle's heart beating as he ran. Instead of slowing down, he ran faster, Bobby wondering how anyone could go so fast while carrying another person, even someone as skinny as him.

Ever since that night, Bobby had lived with Uncle Steve. They were best buds. But Bobby couldn't tell him about Mom in the window. Uncle Steve hated Mom, even though she was his sister.

_"My worthless sister Janice."_

That's what he called her when he didn't think Bobby was listening.

There was another reason to keep quiet, too. It might only have been a dream.

***

Bobby spotted Maria kneeling at her locker, her shirt riding up the back of her low-rise jeans, revealing the dainty knobs of her spinal column, like the peaks of a mountain range. He caught a glimpse of her smooth skin, disappearing into the top of her black panties. Black panties. PACK A SIN BELT. Maria was the hottest hottie in the sixth grade. Caramel skin, hair as black as her panties. Eyes as dark as the obsidian rock Bobby handed her in earth science class, their hands touching. Maria Munoz-Goldberg.

Bobby crouched down at his own locker. He wanted to say something, but what?

Maria had taped photos of Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray to the inside of her locker. Bobby had seen them in that dipshit movie, _A Cinderella Story,_ but maybe slamming Maria's favorite actors wasn't the way to go.

What could he do? Maria lived only a block away on Loquat, 573 steps from his front door. Should he tell her that?

_No, she'll think I'm a stalker._

"Hey, Bobby," she said.

"Hey." He turned too quickly and bashed his elbow into his locker door. _Owww!_ His funny bone, the pain so intense it momentarily blinded him.

"You read the history junk?" she asked.

He mumbled a "yeah" through the pain.

"The Civil War has too many battles," she complained. "I can't remember them all."

Bobby thought about saying he'd memorized the battles alphabetically from Antietam to Zollicoffer. But that would sound so dorky. "For the quiz, just know Gettysburg and both Bull Runs," he said.

"There's so much to read." A faint whine, but coming from her parted lips, it sounded musical.

_Antietam, Bachelor's Creek. Chickamauga, Devil's Backbone, Ezra Church . . ._

He couldn't help it. His brain was reciting Civil War battles from A to Z.

"Do you think you could help me?" she asked.

"You mean . . . study together?"

"I could come over to your house after school."

He tossed his shoulders, as if that would be okay, but no big deal. "Sure. Cool. You know where I live?"

She smiled, perfect teeth, the orthodonture having been removed at the beginning of the school year. "I know it's gotta be close. I've seen you outside my house."

_Busted!_

"I, uh . . . walk . . . sometimes. The neighborhood. Kumquat. Loquat. Avocado . . ."

_Shut up already! You sound like a total wingnut._

"My hood, too." She stood up, and so did Bobby, miraculously managing not to drop his books or bang his shins into the locker.

"Give me your address," she said. "I'll come over around four."

Bobby wrote the address on a slip of paper. He knew that some people couldn't remember things the way he could.

"I'll bring some DVDs," Maria said. "If we get done early, maybe we can just hang and watch a movie."

"Great. Have you ever seen _A Cinderella Story_? It's pretty cool."

"Are you kidding! I _love_ that movie. I've seen it like a zillion times."

Another smile, and she spun on her heel and headed off, breathing a "See ya later" over her perfect shoulder.

_Holy shit._

Maria Munoz-Goldberg was coming to his house with her history book, her DVDs, and her black panties. He watched her walk toward home room, the symphony of her voice still echoing in his brain, along with . . .

_Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Irish Bend, Jenkins' Ferry, Kennesaw Mountain . . ._

The names wouldn't stop. But they were so soft, he could still hear Maria's voice and could still see her parted lips, warm and sugary in his brain. 

## _Three_

GAFF FROM THE PAST

Steve parked the car and admired the twenty-foot-high likeness of himself. It was a part of the day he always enjoyed.

The two-story mural was painted on the chipped stucco wall of Les Mannequins, the modeling agency where Solomon & Lord maintained its offices. There was Steve, sitting on the edge of a desk, wearing a charcoal gray suit, reading a law book. Something he never wore, something he never did. Standing next to him was Victoria, in a ruby red knit suit with a two-button, ruffled-trim jacket, her breasts fuller, her hips rounder than in real life.

_Artistic license._

Then the caption, in fancy script:

_Solomon & Lord, Attorneys-at-Law_

_The Wisdom of Solomon, the Strength of the Lord_

_Call (555) UBE-FREE_

Victoria had been appalled, of course. "Cheesy" and "blasphemous" were two of her kinder adjectives. The mural was the handiwork of Henri Touissant, a sixteen-year-old Steve had represented in Juvenile Court. One of the best graffiti artists in Little Haiti, Henri was busted while tagging an overpass with a drawing of President Bush having intimate relations with a goat. "Profound political satire," Steve argued in the lad's defense. The judge gave Henri probation, and Steve hired him to paint the mural, in lieu of attorney's fees.

Now, heading into the building, Steve was plagued by a question that had been bothering him all morning.

_Just how much should I tell Victoria?_

It was one of the recurring issues of their relationship, both professional and personal. He'd been more open with Victoria than with any other woman he'd ever known. Of course, he'd never cared for any other woman with the depth of feelings he had for her.

_But she can be so damn judgmental._

Steve remembered the fireworks in Bobby's guardianship case. Faced with the possibility that the state would take his nephew away, Steve had secretly paid Janice, his drug-addled sister, to change her testimony. When Victoria found out, she exploded.

_"You can't bribe a witness."_

_"I'm paying her to tell the truth. If I don't, she'll lie and we'll lose."_

_"It's still illegal."_

_"When are you gonna grow up? When the law doesn't work, you've got to work the law."_

_Smack._ Vic slapped him. Hard. Sparring partners instead of law partners.

So just how would Victoria react if he told her the truth?

_"Oh, by the way, Vic. State_ versus _Kreeger. Forgot to tell you. I tanked the case."_

She'd clobber him with his Barry Bonds rock-hard maple baseball bat. Or his Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, or Rafael Palmeiro models. Steve favored bats by baseball's most notoriously juiced players.

Or maybe not. Would she even believe him?

_"You took a dive? You, the guy who cheats to win?"_

As he walked through the front door, Steve decided to tell Victoria everything about the Kreeger case. What he did and why he did it.

Women appreciate honesty. He'd read that in one of Victoria's magazines, a relationship column tucked away in the ads for overpriced Italian footwear. Expose your doubts, express your fears, confess your weaknesses, and she'll be understanding and forgiving.

Okay, he'd bare his soul. He'd do it today. He made that promise to himself. He wished he had a Bible to swear on, wondering what happened to the one he lifted from a hotel room in Orlando.

***

"Ste-vie! Ste-vie!" A high-pitched whine.

"Wait up!" A second voice. Louder and more insistent.

The shouts came from somewhere between the photo studio and the wardrobe room.

_Damn. If I don't hustle, they'll cut me off at the stairs._

"Stevie, wait!"

Steve heard the _clackety-clack_ of leather hoofbeats, and in a second there they were. Lexy and Rexy. Pale blond twins. Models, six feet tall. As litigious as they were leggy.

One wore florescent orange spandex shorts and a white halter top. The other was in Daisy Duke cutoffs with a leopard-print halter. Both wore strappy sandals with stiletto heels that could take out an eye.

"You gotta help me," Lexy demanded. Or maybe it was Rexy. Who could tell?

"Got to," her sister agreed.

"What now, Lexy?" Taking a shot at the name. "I'm really busy."

"I'm Rexy! My belly button is an inny."

"And mine's an outy," Lexy confirmed.

"Everybody on South Beach knows that." Rexy shook a long index finger at him, the lacquered nail festooned with gold stars. "Margaux says you have to represent me. It's in your lease."

Margaux being the owner of Les Mannequins. Solomon & Lord got free office space under the litigate-for-rent clause he'd thought was such a great idea. Now he was spending half his time handling _mishegoss_ for the models.

"Haven't I done enough for you two?" he asked.

"Hah." Rexy again.

He'd already gotten them handicapped parking stickers, successfully arguing that bulimia was as much a disability as paraplegia. He'd skated Lexy out of a RWI case—Rollerblading while intoxicated—even though she'd plowed into a group of tourists on Ocean Drive, knocking them over like bowling pins. And he'd beaten back a lawsuit against Rexy by an angry suitor who had spent two thousand bucks on dinner, drinks, a limo, and a Ricky Martin concert, only to have her go home with a member of the band.

"A man who dates a South Beach model takes the risk she'll be a rude, inconsiderate airhead," Steve had argued to the judge. Rexy thought he'd been brilliant.

Now the sisters blocked his path to the stairs, bony elbows akimbo, like wooden gates at a railroad crossing.

"Look at this!" Rexy waved an eight-by-ten flyer at him. An advertisement for a South Beach plastic surgeon with before-and-after shots of a woman's breasts. She pointed at the photo. "Can you believe _this_?"

"Boobs. What about them?"

"Don't you recognize them?" She yanked down her halter, exposing two coconut-size, gravity-defying breasts with pointy nipples.

"Ah," he said. "The afters." Suddenly, Steve was happy Victoria was across the causeway in the courthouse. Not that he kept his past a secret from her. Still, sleeping with a room-temperature IQ model wasn't something he'd post on his r�sum�. "They're your boobs, right?"

"You gotta sue that quack for my mental anguish." Rexy kept the top pulled down and stood, hipshot in model pose, as if Richard Avedon might record the moment for a coffee-table book. "A million dollars, at least."

Steve was about to say: _"A million bucks of mental anguish seems excessive for a twenty-dollar mind,"_ then realized he'd told her that every time she wanted to sue someone.

"They're handing these out in the clubs," Rexy wailed, shaking the flyer in his face.

"I don't know, Rexy. Your face isn't even in the photo. What are your damages if you're the only one who knows it's you?"

"Are you nuts? You know how many guys already called me, saying they saw my tits on the way to the men's room?" She pulled her top back up, and Steve took the opportunity to brush past her and hightail it up the stairs.

"I'll go to the library, research the law," he called out, with as much sincerity as he could muster.

"Like you know where the library is," Rexy shot back.

At the top of the stairs, Steve was just about to open his reception room door when he heard a _thump,_ followed by a woman's scream. Another _thump,_ as if someone had bounced off a wall, then a woman's angry voice: _"No me toques, idiota!"_

_Cece's voice!_

Steve threw open the door and saw a jumble of images. His secretary, Cece Santiago, in red panties and bra. A man hoisting her into the air, swinging her left and right, her feet sailing off the floor.

"Hey, put her down!" Steve thundered.

"Fuck you!" The man was bare-chested and big, with a watermelon gut. Mid-forties, face lathered in sweat. He wore suit pants with suspenders and was barefoot.

Steve crossed the room in two steps. The man let go in midswing, and Cece flew across her desk, knocking files to the floor.

Steve grabbed the man by the suspenders.

"Hey! I don't do guys," the man protested.

"Steve, _no te metas_!" Cece shouted, just as he uncorked a straight right hand. It caught the man flush on the chin, and he fell to the floor like a sack of mangoes.

"Jesus! You knocked him out," Cece wailed. "I'll never get paid."

"What are you talking about? This guy was trying to rape you."

Cece stepped into a pair of spandex workout shorts. "Rape me? That limp-dick pays me two hundred dollars to _wrestle._ "

"But you screamed. I thought—"

"I let him think he's gonna win, then I pin him."

"Here? In my office? You're running a sex service _here_?"

"Not sex, _jefe._ Fantasy wrestling. Some guys get off on it."

She tugged a sleeveless T-shirt over her head, her deltoids flexing, and the tattoo of a cobra coiling on her carved right bicep. Cece spent more time lifting than typing, and it showed, both in her ripped physique and in Steve's typo-laden legal briefs.

The guy moaned and tried to get to his feet.

"You all right, Arnie?" Cece asked.

"Gonna sue," the man mumbled, rubbing his jaw.

"Sorry I hit you, Arnie," Steve told him. "I didn't know."

"Yeah. Well, I know all about you, Solomon. I heard on the radio. You're that shyster who couldn't win a jaywalking case if the light was green."

"Aw, jeez."

"Gonna file criminal charges." Arnie grabbed his shirt from a corner of Cece's desk, picked up his socks and shoes from the floor, and hurried out the door.

"Are you gonna get in trouble, _jefe_?" Cece asked Steve.

"Me? What about you? This violates your probation."

"Doubt it. Arnie's my probation officer."

"No way."

" _Verdad, jefe_. On his reports, he says I enjoy competitive sports as a hobby."

Cece Santiago had been Steve's client before she became an employee. A little matter of beating the stuffing out of a cheating boyfriend, then driving his car off the boat ramp at Matheson Hammock.

Steve walked to his desk. "Do you think we can do a little work this morning, assuming it doesn't interfere with your hobby?"

"What work? Nobody called. Mail's not here yet. But you did get a personal delivery." She nodded toward the corner of the reception room.

Propped against the wall was a graphite pole, maybe eight feet long with a stainless-steel hook at the end.

"Fishing gaff," Steve said. "Who sent it?"

" _No sé._ It was outside when I opened up the store."

Steve picked up the gaff, hefted it, ran his hand over the sharp, lethal hook. "For landing big fish. Like marlin."

Kreeger on the radio. The marlin in the door. And now the gaff. It was all coming together, Steve thought, and he didn't like where it was heading.

_Kreeger's telling me he's killed before, and he can kill again._

Steve felt a chill run up his spine. He sensed a presence behind him, whirled around, but no one was there.

_The bastard's getting to me._

Which had to be part of Kreeger's plant, too. It would give him pleasure to inflict fear as well as pain.

"Deep-sea fishing?" Cece said. "Didn't you get seasick when you took Bobby on a paddle boat at Water World?"

"The gaff's not for me to use. It's to remind me of something."

"Of what, _jefe_?"

"Of the time a client of mine went fishing with someone else and only one of them came home."

"Kill All the Lawyers" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

#

# Habeas Porpoise

## _One_

RUNNING TALL

Just after two a.m., Steve Solomon sprinted along the seawall, chasing the man on the Jet Ski.

Black wet suit. Black helmet. Dark visor. A Darth Vader look.

The man shot Steve the bird, then shoved the throttle wide open. The Jet Ski jolted airborne, splashed down, and roared along the channel toward Biscayne Bay.

"Stop him, Uncle Steve!"

Bobby, urging him on. Steve had ordered his twelve-year-old nephew to stay on the dock, but the boy was running, too, trailing behind.

"You can catch him!"

_Sure, kiddo. Leave it to me to capture the bad guy, rescue the dolphins, save the world._

A quarter-moon hung like a scythe over the Bay. Cetacean Park should have been quiet. The channel should have rippled placidly in the moist breeze, the air scented with salt and seaweed. Instead, the Jet Ski growled like an angry beast, belching greasy vapors in its wake.

Steve picked up his pace. Years earlier, he had been the fastest Jewish kid on Pine Tree Drive, admittedly a group with more shleppers than sprinters.

He figured there was one chance to catch the man. The channel ran straight for three hundred yards, then dog-legged right for another two hundred yards before reaching open water. He could cut diagonally across an empty field, the shortest leg of the triangle, and intercept the Jet Ski at the inlet to the Bay.

Steve looked back over his shoulder. Bobby had stopped along the seawall, either because he was pooped or because he was belatedly following his uncle's orders.

Steve ran tall, back straight, shoulders relaxed, head still. He had always been fast over short distances. Stealing bases at U of M, a painless ninety-foot sprint. But lousy at distance running. No patience for the training, no tolerance for the pain. Before Victoria, his live-in girlfriend, he'd been a sprinter in his personal life, too. Hundred-yard dashes, hundred-hour relationships.

Flying now, feet barely touching the ground. Hopped over a fallen pond frond, never breaking stride. Shot a look at the Jet Skier, the dive knife sheathed at his ankle. Calculated time and distance. And possible injuries.

_Knife wound, concussion, drowning._

They would reach the intersection of channel and Bay simultaneously.

Steve hit the embankment and drove off his back foot. He launched into space, arms spread like wings, soaring toward the man on the Jet Ski, thinking . . .

_Just what the hell am I doing?_

## _Two_

FROM BEDROOM TO BAY

One hour before leaping into the darkness of Biscayne Bay, Steve was locked in the spooning position with his girlfriend and law partner, Victoria Lord, her hair tickling his nose, her sweet scent fueling his dreams. The phone jarred him awake. Wade Grisby at Cetacean Park.

Victoria stirred as Steve pulled on his Hurricanes running shorts and a T-shirt with the slogan: _"What If the Hokey Pokey_ Is _What It's All About?"_

"Bobby," Steve whispered. Explanation enough.

She rolled over, her blond hair splayed across the pillow. "Dolphins or stars?"

Steve understood the shorthand. Bobby had broken into the planetarium the night of a meteor shower. Lately, the kid had been sneaking out of the house to play with the dolphins on Key Biscayne.

He stroked Victoria's cheek. "Dolphins. Wade Grisby caught him talking to Spunky and Misty."

Talking _and_ listening. Bobby believed he could understand dolphinese, as he called it. The boy was even writing a dictionary of the clicks, whistles, and moans that came from their blowholes.

Victoria propped up on one elbow. In her sheer black negligee, with her sleepy eyes, she looked like a star in one of the old black-and-white movies. Lauren Bacall, about to entice her man back to bed.

_"Steve, I just can't get enough of you."_

Instead, Victoria said, "Steve, maybe it's time Bobby saw a therapist."

"I'll talk to him. He'll be okay."

Steve leaned over and kissed her, Victoria exhaling a warm breath. Asleep before he was out the door.

***

Every day another drama, Steve thought, driving across the Rickenbacker Causeway. Getting Bobby out of another jam. This didn't sound as serious as climbing on a catwalk over I-95 to spray paint an exit sign. Bobby had removed the apostrophe from the word "Beaches' " because the typographical error drove him nuts. The kid was sweet and loveable, and in some mysterious way, a genius. But he wasn't socially developed, and lately he'd been acting out.

Breaking curfew. Trespassing. Keeping secrets.

Steve had asked Bobby if everything was okay, if he was having problems, if he wanted to talk about anything.

_"Yep."_

_"Nope."_

_"Huh?"_

Typical adolescent. But unusual for a kid who was ordinarily so verbal. Steve wondered if Bobby's central nervous system disorders were in play. A little klutzy, a lot brainy. The kid seesawed between semi-autistic behavior and savantlike abilities of memory and language feats. "Paradoxical functional facilitation," the doctors called it. Bobby could create anagrams in his head. But lately, his wordplay had been limited to chirping sounds at the breakfast table. Dolphinese.

Steve pulled his Mustang convertible into the empty lot at the bayside attraction. Signs pointed toward the bottlenose dolphin channel, the killer whale tank, the indoor aquarium.

Steve hustled toward the channel. Wondering if he'd been too lax with Bobby, too reluctant to discipline him. Grounding his nephew didn't seem to work. The kid just crawled out his bedroom window and took off.

Steve followed a path of palm trees to the channel. Spotlights on metal poles illuminated the dark water. He figured Grisby would be in his small dockside office, lecturing Bobby on the dangers of breaking into other people's businesses.

That's when Steve heard the roar of the engine. Spotted Darth Vader. Totally surreal.

The Jet Ski carved a turn, kicked up spray, and slowed near the dock. The rider glared at Steve. Early twenties with a pugnacious jaw and cruel mouth. Raising a fist above his head, he shouted, "Liberation!"

_What the hell's going on? Where's Grisby? Where's Bobby?_

"Bobby!"

Steve heard sneakered footsteps on the concrete dock, his nephew running toward him, all flying elbows and knees, a skinny arm pointing at the masked man on the Jet Ski. "He's stealing Spunky and Misty!"

The man cruised close to the seawall and bared his teeth. "Freedom for the animals!"

_So that's it. The guy's a dolphin-kidnapping, animal-libbing, eco-terrorist asshole._

Steve was all for animal rights. But not burning down labs. Or bombing research centers. Or terrorizing scientists. If a few rats had to die to find a cure for cancer—well, it was a trade-off that made sense.

The man gave Steve the finger, gunned the Jet Ski, and headed out the channel toward the Bay.

"Stop him, Uncle Steve!" 

## _Three_

CALL ME FISHMEAL

One hour before Bobby Solomon begged his uncle to stop Darth Vader from stealing the two dolphins, the boy had climbed a chain-link fence, sneaked across a concrete dock, and crept over a catwalk to a floating wooden platform.

Praying he wouldn't be caught.

Uncle Steve would be so pissed. But Bobby had decided to take the risk.

_I need to talk to Misty and Spunky._

His best friends.

Waiting for their signal, Bobby sprawled on his back. He let his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. In a moment, he spotted the constellation Sagittarius in the clear night sky.

A splash, then a rapid-fire _click-creak-click._ A second splash and a familiar high-pitched whistle.

_Misty and Spunky saying hello._

They were the stars at Cetacean Park. Spunky was the color of a blue-steel revolver, with a long beak and a gray belly. His fluke—the wing-shaped paddle at the end of his tail—was oversize, powering his giant leaps.

He weighed about 250 pounds, depending on how much mackerel he'd had for breakfast. Misty, his girlfriend, had a sleek, silvery-blue body with a pink belly. She loved to be rubbed at the base of her dorsal fin.

Bobby put two fingers to his lips and whistled. Two short blasts. _"Hi guys."_

Spunky slapped the water with a fin, splashing Bobby. The Spunkster joking around.

No tanks to confine them, the two dolphins lived in a channel that ran to Biscayne Bay, a steel gate blocking their path to open water. Bobby swam with the dolphins, fed them, played with them. Even watched them have sex, belly-to-belly.

_Not an everyday sighting. Not like seeing Pamela Anderson or Paris Hilton do the big nasty on video._

Pennants strung across the channel crackled in the sea breeze. The park had been closed for hours, but sugary songs about a thousand years old still poured from the speakers. Barbra Streisand was ordering someone not to rain on her parade. Barbra Streisand. SAD BREAST BRAIN.

So easy. You just picture the letters, and they fly around and anagrammatize themselves. Bobby thought in pictures and sounds, just like the dolphins. He could remember almost everything he'd ever seen or heard.

For the past year, he'd been listening to the sounds coming from Spunky's and Misty's blowholes, trying to untangle their language. Building a dictionary of dolphin talk. The clicks and squeaks, moans and whistles all meant something, but you had to be patient. You had to _really_ listen and remember the patterns. Tonight, he hoped to add a few new phrases to his notebook. Then he'd bicycle home, sneak back into the house without waking Uncle Steve and Victoria, and catch some z's before school.

Earlier tonight, he'd told Victoria a big fat fib. More than one, really. She'd been cooking meat loaf, filled with onions and dripping with Worcestershire and Tabasco sauce. She wouldn't eat a bite, but she always made meals Bobby loved. That's the way Victoria was. Making sure his clothes were clean, his homework finished, his hair combed. So he was bummed to fake her out.

She'd been worried about him, Bobby knew. Tonight, he promised not to break curfew, not to sneak out, not to slink into places he didn't belong. Then, when she came into his bedroom around eleven p.m., while Uncle Steve was watching _Sports Center,_ Bobby pretended to be asleep. Victoria sat on the edge of his bed, stroked his hair, and sang a lullaby to him. "Goodnight, My Angel," the Billy Joel song. Like he was a little kid, except no one ever sang to him when he was little, including his real mom, who—let's face it—was basically a coke whore who didn't care about anyone but herself.

As Victoria sang, Bobby squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lower lip to keep from crying. Wishing she was his mom. Hoping Uncle Steve didn't blow it with her.

Now, two hours after Victoria pulled the blanket up to his chin and softly closed his bedroom door, Bobby lay on the floating platform at Cetacean Park. After a few moments, Misty swam up to him.

Bobby _click-clack_ ed his tongue. _"Hungry, Misty?"_

She whistled a two-syllable reply. _"Feed me."_

That's what it sounded like, anyway. Bobby reached into a rubber pail and lobbed a chunk of mackerel toward the water. Misty gulped it down and whistled again. _"Thanks."_

He dug into the pail for another fish, and chirped a high-pitched sound from the back of his throat. _"Squid or crab, Spunky?"_

"Who's there?"

_Oh, shit. Mr. Grisby._

Bobby could see the owner of Cetacean Park, silhouetted by a spotlight on the dock. A nice guy—but then, he'd never caught Bobby breaking into the place.

"Goddammit! Answer me! I know you're there."

_And if Uncle Steve finds out . . ._

Bobby peered through the darkness, his heart pounding. Mr. Grisby was holding something in both hands. A rifle? A shotgun? No, why would he . . . ?

"Who the hell's there!"

Southern accent. Sounding riled.

Bobby pressed down flat on the platform. It was hard to tell in the spotlight's glare, but Mr. Grisby seemed to be looking his way.

"Dammit! Answer me."

_Nowhere to swim, nowhere to hide._

A thunderclap. Spunky broke the surface, twirled a backflip ten feet above the waterline, hung in the air a second, then hit the surface with a quiet _splash._ Showing off, but blowing Bobby's cover, too.

On the speakers, Celine Dion was singing, "My Heart Will Go On." Somewhere, Bobby thought, a big ship was about to sideswipe an iceberg. Celine Dion. END ICON LIE.

Spunky surfaced and whistled. A trilling _wee-o, wee-o, wee-o._ Calling Misty, Bobby knew. Then another sound. Not the dolphin.

A sliding metallic _clack._

Bobby knew that sound. He'd gone skeet shooting with his grandpop.

_A shotgun racking._

"Last chance, dammit! You, on the platform! Hands up!"

"Don't shoot, Mr. Grisby." Bobby's voice wobbled.

"Robert Solomon. That you?"

"Yes, sir." Bobby got to one knee, raised his hands in surrender.

Grisby chuckled. "Dammit, boy. Your uncle know where you are?"

"No, sir. I sneaked out."

"Gonna call him right now. I'll bet he tans your hide before the sun comes up."

"Uncle Steve doesn't believe in spanking."

"Then he's a damn fool."

A blast of water. Spunky and Misty exploded above the surface, side by side. The dolphins' bodies were silvery-black against the moonlight. They hit the surface together, smooth as knives, and vanished.

They had heard something, Bobby thought. Or sensed it with their sonar. What we call "sonar," anyway. Their echolocation ability. Sending out sound waves, getting readings back. Seeing in the dark by picturing the shapes of objects.

_So totally cool to be a dolphin. To swim so fast, dive so deep, jump so high._

Bobby wondered what they sensed in the darkness. Mr. Grisby stared out at the channel, toward the open water of the Bay. Bobby followed his gaze. Nothing there.

"I want you out of here quick." Grisby didn't take his eyes from the horizon.

Bobby heard something in the man's voice. Saw it as a picture, felt it on his skin. Something cold and sharp, an icicle poking him in the back.

"Dammit, boy! You hear me? This is no place for you."

The sound a freezing liquid now, covering Bobby as if he were encased in a glacier. It was the sound of fear. 

## _Four_

GUNSHOTS IN THE DARK

A flood of sensations as Steve flew off the embankment toward Darth Vader on the Jet Ski. The metal gate at the Bay inlet, marked with red and green lights, was wide open. If the bastard made it through the inlet, he'd have a clear path all the way to Key West. Then, in the distance, another Jet Ski, already in the Bay. An accomplice. And silhouetted in the headlight of the Jet Ski, two dolphins sped into open water.

_Shit. Too late to rescue them._

Steve was airborne.

Spread-eagled.

The masked man ducked. The crook of Steve's right arm caught him under the chin, cartwheeled him off the Jet Ski. A clothesline tackle.

A second later, both men were treading water, the Jet Ski purring softly, turning tight circles in the channel. Steve's right shoulder flared with pain. It felt as if someone had stabbed him with an ice pick, then hammered it into the bone. Next to him, the man's hand was clapped protectively over his neck.

A thick neck. Strong jaw with high cheekbones. Light-skinned African-American. His helmet had been knocked off, revealing a shaved head. Illuminated only by the moon and the lights on the gate, the guy looked a little like that wrestler turned actor. The Rock. Dwayne Johnson, the guy who gave all that money to the University of Miami.

"Corporate goon," the man groaned.

Steve treaded water and massaged his right shoulder. "Hey, asshole. You scared the shit out of my nephew."

"You don't think dolphins are scared when they're taken from their mothers?"

"Don't start that crap with me."

The two men faced each other in the water, each pedaling to stay afloat. On the causeway, a police siren wailed.

"You think your nephew's life has more value than a dolphin's? Or a turtle's? Or a harbor rat's?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." No use telling this guy, but Steve valued Bobby's life more than his own.

"You're with them, aren't you?" the man demanded.

"Them who?"

"The circuses and the zoos. The testers and the torturers. The users and abusers."

"I'm just a guy with a nephew who loves dolphins."

The man reached under the water and came up with the dive knife that had been sheathed at his ankle. Serrated blade, glimmery in the moonlight. With his free hand, he started paddling toward the Jet Ski. "Try to stop me, I'll cut your throat."

"Isn't my life worth as much as a harbor rat's?"

A light blazed, blinding Steve. "Hold it right there! Both of you!" boomed overhead.

Steve squinted toward the shore. Police car on the bank. Two cops at the water's edge. One gripped a Maglite the size of a Barry Bonds bat. The other aimed his 9 mm Glock at them. Two-handed grip, legs spread and knees flexed, just like they teach them at the academy.

Steve continued treading water.

"Hands where I can see 'em!"

_What's the cop think I'm gonna do, the backstroke?_

Steve threw both hands above his head. He immediately sank. He kicked hard and popped up just as Darth Vader called the cops "establishment thugs."

"For the record," Steve interjected, spitting water, "I play softball in the Police Athletic League."

One cop started to say something but was interrupted by the blast of a shotgun, the sound rolling down the channel. Instinctively, Steve whirled toward the park.

_Bobby! Where's Bobby?_

The last Steve had seen the boy, he had stopped along the seawall, waiting for his uncle to be a hero.

An instant later, a second blast echoed in the warm ocean breeze.

"Habeas Porpoise" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

#

# LASSITER

## Prologue

Women's Jail Annex, Miami . . .

I presented my Florida Bar card at the security window and eased onto a metal bench that would likely throw my back out if the wait lasted more than a few minutes.

It did.

I stood, stretched, and studied the frescoes covering the cracks in the plaster walls. Island scenes of towering palms along a placid sea. Laughing mothers and hopscotching children in splashy Caribbean colors. The paintings made the place even more dreary, the inmates' lives even more hopeless.

Finally, a female guard brought my client from her cell. With her face scrubbed of makeup and her dark hair in a ponytail, Amy Larkin looked more like a college cheerleader than a woman charged with First Degree Murder.

"I didn't kill him, Jake," she blurted out. "Honest, I didn't."

"Hold that thought."

I settled into a straight-backed chair, and we faced each other across a table with cigarette scars from the days lawyers smoked in the visitors' room, just to cover the smells.

"Where were you last night?" I asked.

"Nowhere near Ziegler's."

_An alibi? Attending Mass with a hundred witnesses would do just fine._

"I was with a man," Amy said.

_Not as good as church, but better than the scene of the crime._

"Who's the lucky guy?"

"Can't tell you."

"Why the hell not?"

"It's too dangerous."

I gave her my big, dumb guy look. It's not much of a stretch. "What's that mean?"

"If he testified, his life would be in danger."

"What about _your_ life?"

She fingered the opening of her jailhouse smock, flimsy as crepe paper. "He wants to help, but I won't let him."

"That's my decision, not yours. Give me his name."

"I can't."

My lower back was throbbing again. Too many blind-side hits had knocked a lumbar vertebra off-kilter.

"I'm thinking your alibi is bullshit."

"You just have to trust me, Jake."

"The hell I do."

I get my hands dirty for my clients. I fight prosecutors in court and occasionally in the alley behind the Reasonable Doubt tavern. I stand up to judges who threaten me with contempt and to Bar Association bigwigs who would love to pull my ticket. But I won't tote my briefcase across the street for a client who deceives me.

"Lie to your priest or your lover. But if you lie to me, I can't help you."

"I'm not! I wasn't at Ziegler's. I didn't shoot anyone."

I looked for the averted gaze, the tightened lips, the nervous twitch. Nothing.

"I'm innocent, Jake. Dammit, isn't that enough?"

"Innocence is irrelevant! All that matters is evidence. So give me your alibi, or the jury will give you life."

She took a moment to think it over before saying, "I'm sorry, Jake. You'll have to win without an alibi."

I pushed my chair away from the table and got to my feet. "Enjoy your stay, Amy. It's gonna be a long one." 

## One

A Brew and Burger Guy

Eight days earlier . . .

When the hot brunette in the tight black skirt waltzed into the courtroom, I was cross-examining a stubborn cop who wouldn't agree to "good morning."

"Isn't it true my client passed the field sobriety test?" I asked him.

"No, sir. He couldn't walk a straight line."

"Just how wide is that line, Officer?"

The cop shrugged, bunching the muscles of his neck. "Never measured it."

"Why not?"

He smirked at me. "It's imaginary."

"Really?" Pretending to be surprised. "And how long's that imaginary line of yours? Six feet? A mile? What?"

"I guess you could say it's infinite."

The brunette shimmied into a front-row seat, tugged the hem of her skirt, then fixed me with a look as friendly as an indictment.

"So, my client stepped off an imaginary line, which has an infinite length and an indefinite width. An invisible line. Is that your testimony?"

"Not at all. I can see it."

"You can see imaginary lines." I paused. "So you're delusional?"

The cop's eyes flicked toward the prosecutor. _Help._ But he didn't get any.

"Officer . . . ?" I prompted him.

"I'm trained and experienced. I've arrested hundreds of drunk drivers in the last—"

"I'm sure you have," I interrupted. "Now, what other imaginary objects do you see?"

"None I can think of."

"No unicorns?"

"No, sir," he said, through gritted teeth.

"Leprechauns, then?"

"No."

"Not even a chupacabra crawling out of the Everglades?"

"Objection!" Harold Flagler III, the young pup of a prosecutor, belatedly hopped to his feet.

"Grounds?" Judge Wallace Philbrick asked.

"Mr. Lassiter is badgering the witness."

"It's my _job_ to badger the witness," I fired back.

"Judge Philbrick," Flagler whined.

"I get _paid_ to badger the witness."

"Your Honor, please admonish—"

"C'mon, Flagler. Didn't they teach you trial tactics at Yale?"

"Mr. Lassiter!" Judge Philbrick wagged a bony finger at me. "Address your remarks to the court, not opposing counsel."

"I apologize, Your Honor." Sounding so sincere I nearly believed myself.

I swung around, as if pondering my next question. In truth, I wanted a good look at the woman in the gallery. Slender with military school posture, an angular jawline, and a somber expression. Tucked into her pencil skirt was a silk blouse, red as blood, with those big, puffy sleeves, as if she might be hiding an Ace of Hearts, or maybe a derringer. Chin tilted up, she stared me down.

I gave her a quick, crinkly grin and looked for any hint of interest. No inviting eyes or playful smile. _Nada._ Maybe if I wowed her in closing argument, she'd lighten up and slip me her phone number.

Occasionally, I get a groupie or two. Women attracted to a big lug with a craggy profile, a broken nose, and hair the color of sawgrass after a drought. Two hundred thirty-five pounds of ex-linebacker crammed into an off-the-rack, wrinkled brown suit. A brew-and-burger guy in a Chardonnay-and-paté world. I wrapped up my cross-exam, while sneaking peeks at our visitor. She pulled something out of her purse. I walked toward the rail and saw it was a photo, but I couldn't make out any details.

Flagler stood, fondled his Phi Beta Kappa key, and announced the great State of Florida rested its case.

My turn. No way would I let the presumably innocent Pepito Dominguez testify. He was a twenty-year-old smart-ass with a diamond earring and a barbed-wire tattoo circling his neck. With no witnesses, I rested, too.

The bailiff tucked the jurors into their windowless room where they could surf for porn on their PDAs, and the judge turned to me. "Mr. Lassiter, Ah assume you got some legal mumbo jumbo for the record." His Honor came from a family of gentleman farmers in Homestead by way of Kentucky, and his voice rippled with bourbon and branch water.

"Motion to exclude the breathalyzer test," I began, going through the motions of making my motions.

"Grounds?"

"No evidence the operator was properly trained, the equipment properly maintained, and the test properly administered."

Boilerplate stuff. No chance.

"Denied." _De-nahd._

"Motion to exclude my client's statements to the arresting officer."

"Denied."

I checked the gallery. Mystery Woman was still there, eyes drilling me.

_Who the hell are you?_

I'd had multiple concussions on the football field. Still, I thought I remembered all my disgruntled ex-clients and infuriated ex-girlfriends. Maybe she was a Florida Bar investigator, building a case against me for yet another insult to the dignity of the court. Or maybe just one of those women with bloodlust. You see them at boxing matches and bullfights and murder trials. Not usually a rinky-dink DUI.

At the next break, I intended to plop down beside her. If she didn't serve me with a subpoena, I might ask her out for a drink.

"Motion for directed verdict. Do you want to hear argument, Judge?"

"About as much as Ah want to hit Dixie Highway during rush hour."

"For the record, I'd like to state my grounds."

"You can pour syrup on a turd, but that don't make it a pancake. Got any more motions you want denied, Mr. Lassiter?"

"I'm plumb out." Adopting a Southern accent of my own. Judge Philbrick peered at me over his spectacles, wondering if I was mocking him.

At the prosecution table, Flagler gave me his Ivy League snicker. If I wanted, I could dangle him out the window by his ankles. But then, I'd been picking up penalties for late hits while he was singing tenor with the Whiffenpoofs. Okay, so I'm not Yale Law Review, but I'm proud of my diploma. University of Miami. Night division. Top half of the bottom third of my class.

"You two want to talk a minute before Ah bring the jury in for closing?" Judge Philbrick picked up a cell phone and wheeled around in his chair to give us some privacy.

Flagler sidled up to me and said, "Perhaps it is a propitious time to discuss a deal."

"If my client wanted to plead guilty, he wouldn't need me."

"We could recess, have a latte downstairs, and work it out."

"I don't drink latte, with or without a hint of nutmeg."

"If I win, I'm asking for jail time."

"Ooh, scary."

Shaking his head, Flagler returned to the prosecution table and picked up his neatly printed note cards. The jurors filed back in, and Judge Philbrick ordered them to listen carefully to closing arguments, but to rely on their own memories, not those of the lying shysters. Actually, he said "learned counsel," but everybody knew what he meant.

I glanced toward the gallery. Yep, the woman was still there in the front row. I gave her a neighborly nod. She took it and gave nothing back.

Flagler bowed obsequiously to the judge and thanked the jury for leaving their fascinating jobs and coming to the courthouse in the service of justice.

_Or a reasonable facsimile thereof._

After twenty minutes, he sat down and I stood up. "How did my client blow a point-six when stopped by the police officer but only a point-zero-nine at the station?"

Judging from their blank looks, math was not the jurors' favorite subject.

"I'll tell you how," I continued. "There's _no_ way! At point-six, my client's breath could have ignited charcoal in a hibachi."

Fearing he'd belch beer into the cop's face, my too-damn-clever client had squirted enough Listerine into his mouth to disinfect a knife wound. The mouthwash vaulted the kid's _mouth_ alcohol off the charts, while the _blood_ alcohol test accurately pinned the number at a notch above the lawful limit.

Oftentimes, complete dickwads are undeservedly lucky, while the good get crapped on by life's endless shit storm. So it was with Pepito Dominguez, who inadvertently, but fortuitously, screwed up the alcohol tests.

"If the tests don't fit, you must acquit!" I boomed.

Rest in peace, Johnnie Cochran.

After some more double talk and sleight of hand, I thanked the good citizens for not falling asleep and sat down. The judge recited his instructions, and the bailiff returned the jurors to their little dungeon to deliberate.

I spun through the swinging gate and plopped down next to Mystery Woman. Up close, she had full lips and a flawless complexion, without the hint of foundation, blush, or war paint. Her eyes were green with a touch of a golden sunset, her dark hair pulled straight back and held by a squiggly elastic band. Late twenties or early thirties.

"Hey there." I gave her a lopsided grin that has been known to charm a number of barmaids.

"Hello, Mr. Lassiter." No smile. No warmth. No nothing.

"Have we met before?"

"My name is Amy Larkin."

She waited a moment, as if the name might provoke a reaction. It didn't.

"So what brings you to the courthouse, Amy Larkin?"

"You do, Mr. Lassiter. I need to ask you some questions."

Something in the way she said "questions" convinced me we weren't going to be chatting over Happy Hour.

"Fire away," I said.

She handed me the photo she had been holding. A small cocktail table in front of a stage. Pole dancer in the background. Front and center, two young women in string bikinis were draped over a thick-necked guy with shaggy hair and a bushy mustache the color of beach sand. The Sundance Kid with a shit-eating grin. Young. Cocky. Stupid.

I should know. The guy was me.

Embarrassing to look at now. I was a glassy-eyed drunk in a Dolphins jersey. Number 58. Not even traveling incognito. A red scab ran horizontally across the bridge of my nose. If you make enough helmet-first tackles, your face mask will take divots out of your flesh.

"Long time ago. Birthday party my teammates threw for me," I said. "Where'd you get the picture?"

She ignored my question and shot back her own. "Do you know the girls?"

One of them, a big-boned blonde, had her arms locked around my neck, her enhanced breasts squashed against my chest. The other one was younger. Slender. Auburn hair. Girl-next-door looks. She was kissing my cheek.

"The one with coconut boobs was a stripper. Sonia Something-or-other. She hung around with one of my teammates. I don't know the younger one's name."

"Krista."

I flipped the photo over. On the back, someone had scrawled, _"The Whore of Babylon."_

"Okay. The girl's name is Krista. We're in a picture together. So what?"

She gave me a look hard enough to leave bruises. "She was my sister."

"Was?"

"She's gone."

"Gone meaning dead?"

"Disappeared and presumed dead."

Except for the two of us, the courtroom was empty now and silent as a mausoleum.

"I'm sorry. I'm very sorry to hear that." She studied me through hard, cold eyes. "But what's all this have to do with me?"

"I think you know, Mr. Lassiter."

"No, I don't. So why not stop dancing around and just tell me?"

"You seem agitated, Mr. Lassiter. Why is that?"

"Because you're playing me and you're not very good at it. Where'd you learn your interrogation technique, _Law & Order_?"

"Why would I need to interrogate you? Have you committed a crime?"

I stood up. "Cut the crap. If you're not going to tell me what's going on—"

"It's quite simple, Mr. Lassiter." Her eyes locked on mine, daring me to leave. "You're the last person who saw Krista alive." 

## Two

Jake the Fixer

I long-legged it down the corridor, Amy Larkin in pursuit. The Justice Building was emptying now, just a few straggling girlfriends and wives of defendants who show up at hearings, some blowing kisses, others hurling insults about unpaid child support and broken promises.

"So you're not going to talk to me, is that it?" Amy raised her voice to my back.

"I don't know anything about your sister's disappearance. Got nothing more to say."

"What happened that night? You can tell me that."

"It was my birthday party. There were some girls. There always were."

"That's it?"

I stepped onto the down escalator, Amy right behind.

"It was a long time ago. I don't remember one night from another, one girl from another, okay?"

I hopped off the escalator and turned the corner, coming alongside Joseph Gillespie, proprietor of Let'em Go Joe Bail Bonds. He tipped his Florida Marlins cap and let me pass, so I could hit the next escalator in full stride. Amy Larkin was a step behind. Three more floors, then the lobby, then the parking lot. She was going to be on my tail for a while.

"So you're not interested in clearing your name?" she called after me.

"I don't know what happened to your sister. Hell, I don't even remember her."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care!"

"Was she just another easy fuck for you?"

"Jesus!"

Three steps ahead, on the escalator, a young female probation officer turned around and glared at me.

"Did you hurt her?" Amy demanded.

I kept quiet.

"Did you kill her?"

Most people would say, "Hell, no!" But having spent fifteen years asking questions under oath and having read thousands of transcripts, I knew the questions wouldn't end with my simple denial.

_Who else was there?_

_What happened in the strip club that night?_

_Did you ever see my sister again?_

It would be endless, and there would be questions I wouldn't want to answer. Not truthfully, anyway. It was all so long ago. That guy in the picture. It was me, but a _different_ me. Today, I would behave differently. I would be a better man. Or would I?

"Did you know how old Krista was?" Amy pressed me.

Again, I forced myself to keep quiet. It's the same advice I give my clients. Even the innocent ones? Yeah. Because no one is a hundred percent innocent. I wasn't. Not that night.

Amy was still jabbering when we hit the deserted ground floor. The lobby lawyers, guys who scrounge for clients near the elevator bank, had given up for the day.

She grabbed me by the sleeve of my suit coat. "If you had a shred of decency, you'd tell me everything you know." Her voice tight, her pain palpable.

She had that right. A shred of decency was about my ration.

"Walk with me," I said, figuring she wouldn't let up. "But stop pecking at me."

We exited the building on the 12th Street side and crossed into the parking lot. My old Biarritz Eldo was resting under a skinny palm tree at the far end of the lot, by the Miami River. A rust bucket freighter, its top deck covered with used bicycles, was steaming east, toward the ocean, and a distant port in the islands.

"I'm truly sorry about your sister," I said. "And for your pain."

She waited. I wasn't about to tell her _everything_ I knew. But, ignoring my own counsel, I planned to tell her enough to get her off my ass.

"I _do_ remember her." Hell, yes, I thought. Krista would be hard to forget.

Still, Amy waited.

I took a deep breath. I looked Amy Larkin in the eyes. Then I told her the story.

***

It had been Rusty's idea. Throw his pal a birthday party at Bozo's, a strip club on LeJeune Road near the airport. Not that I objected. I was a free agent, one year out of Penn State, busting my ass to hang on to the Dolphins' roster. Rusty MacLean was a flashy wide receiver with deceptive speed, best known for slanting hard across the middle, his long red hair flapping out of his helmet like flames trailing an engine. He was a bad boy and, of course, women loved him.

Rusty knew the guy who owned Bozo's. Hell, he knew all the guys who owned strip clubs, massage parlors, and peep shows. Rusty paid for the booze and half a dozen strippers. Lap dances included. Anything in the Champagne Room in back was between the stripper and the partygoer. Tips _not_ included.

Rusty had been seeing Sonia What's-her-name for a couple months. He called her his favorite, but that's like Tiger Woods calling a seven-iron his favorite club or his wife his favorite woman. There were plenty more in the bag, when the need arose.

On that night long ago, I remember Rusty swooping down on the table where I sat with Sonia and the new girl. Sonia was all plastic boobs and hair extensions. The kid, Krista, had a sprinkling of freckles and a wide, innocent toothpaste commercial smile. Even toasted, I realized she didn't belong here with a bunch of degenerates like Rusty, my teammates . . . and me.

The offensive line sat at the bar, looking like giant beer kegs on a loading dock. Models of teamwork, the guys maintained their usual positions, the center in the middle of the group, flanked by both guards, and then the tackles. The tight end must have been taking a piss. One of our defensive backs—a showboater, but aren't they all?—was demonstrating his karaoke prowess, with a soulful rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia." Half a dozen strippers were offering companionship in exchange for tips.

I had just won a drinking game called "Who Shit?" Yeah, I know, very mature. In those days, fueled by testosterone and tequila, I often engaged in clever activities, such as pounding holes in plasterboard with my forehead.

***

_Rusty staggered over, grabbed Krista by the shoulders, and hoisted her out of her chair. "Wanna ride the wild stallion?"_

_Her body stiffened._

_"How old are you, kid?" I asked, realizing she wanted no part of Rusty's rodeo._

_"Twenty-one."_

_"Right. And I'm gonna make All-Pro. Rusty, why not pick on someone old enough to vote. Or at least old enough to drive?"_

_"Stay out of this, benchwarmer." Rusty slung her onto his back and gave her a horsey ride to the Champagne Room, a dark place separated from the VIP Room by a beaded curtain._

_I gave Sonia a look, but she just shrugged._

Rusty will be Rusty.

_We left it at that. Rusty was a star, and I was a free agent linebacker, specializing in kamikaze tackles on the kickoff team. My deepest concerns involved running faster and hitting harder. I read the sports pages and the Dolphins' playbook and little else. I was not given to profound thoughts._

_A few moments later, I heard a scream from the back._

_A_ man's _scream. Rusty yelping, then cursing. The words starting with "motherfucking" and ending with a word that rhymes with "punt." I tore through the beaded curtain and flicked on the lights._

_"Bitch stabbed me, Jake!"_

_Rusty was sprawled naked on the floor. A knife handle protruded from his right buttock, blood seeping around the blade._

_"She had a fucking knife in her boot!" Rusty was gasping for air, and I was afraid he was going into shock._

_"Calm down, cowboy. We'll get you to Jackson."_

_"No hospitals, Jake. No police. That doc in Hialeah. Get me there."_

_The girl was curled in the fetal position in a corner of the sofa. Sobbing. Nude except for one white patent leather boot. She had a bloody lip and her neck was ringed with red marks. Four fingers and a thumb had pressed into her flesh. I could even make out the imprint of Rusty's Super Bowl ring._

_"Jesus, Rusty, what the hell did you do to her?"_

_"I paid for it rough." He hacked up a wet cough. "She knew what she was getting into."_

_By now, three of our larger teammates had crowded through the doorway. They debated who would take Rusty to Dr. Toraño in Hialeah, finally deciding all of them would go. Offensive linemen believe in teamwork. My job was to take care of the girl, or more accurately, make sure the girl caused no problems for Rusty or the team._

_I stripped off my jersey and handed it to her. She put it on, sniffled, and wiped her nose with her arm. "You're not gonna call the cops on me, are you?"_

_"Why the hell would I do that?"_

_"I stabbed your friend."_

_"Knowing Rusty, he deserved it."_

_She gave me a look, somewhere between relief and disbelief._

_"Some women I know would give you a medal," I said. "And trust me, the cops would be worse for Rusty than for you." I opened my wallet and pulled out several twenties._

_Jake the Fixer._

_I jammed the bills into her hand. Years before I became a night-school lawyer, I was already massaging the justice system. "Everything's gonna be okay."_

_She touched her neck with one hand, feeling where she had been choked._

_"Let's get you cleaned up." I dabbed the blood from her lip with a napkin. Our faces were just inches apart, her green-gold eyes staring into mine._

_"I need to get out of here," she said._

_"Good idea. Do you have a car?"_

_"Out of Miami. Out of this . . ." Her gesture took in the stained vinyl sofa, the cheesy nude prints, the entire mildewed, sleaziness of the place. "Can you help me?"_

_"I'm not a social worker. Come on."_

_"You're kind of cute. Do you have a girlfriend?"_

_"Dozens. Now, where do you live? I'm gonna get you a cab."_

_"Let's go to your place."_

_"Nope. Too many sharp objects in the kitchen."_

_"Just for the night."_

_"And then tomorrow, what?"_

_"I never worry about tomorrow."_

_"Poetic. Where do you live?"_

_"Please. I'll do anything you want." In case I didn't get the point, her tongue darted between painted lips. When I didn't respond, she grabbed my hand and slipped it under the jersey and onto a warm, natural, silken breast. She took my other hand, raised it to her face, and stuck my thumb into her mouth. She sucked it. Hard and with plenty of tongue and slurping sound effects. Subtlety was not the girl's strong suit._

_I was tempted. Who the hell wouldn't have been? But I was still thinking about Rusty and cops and curfews and Coach Shula. A human cold shower._

_"Not gonna happen, kid," I said._

_She pushed my hand out from under the jersey and spit my thumb out of her mouth. "Asshole!"_

_"Right. Okay, where do you live?"_

_"Miami Springs, but I don't want to go back there. There's this guy . . . ."_

_"There usually is," I said. Figuring she lived with some punk. A drug dealer or a pimp._

_"An old guy," she continued. "Like almost forty. He pays my rent and wants me to do these gross movies, and—"_

_"No time for life stories. I'm paying for a cab. You decide where to go."_

_She looked at me then, her eyes empty and defeated. Another man letting her down. I imagined a father or a stepfather, a creep who did things that pushed her out the door and into a seedy place like this._

_But I can't save the world. I can't even save one lost girl._

_We didn't exchange another word, and after I tucked her into the cab, I never saw her again._

## Three

The Road to Hell

That was the story I told Amy Larkin.

Most of it was true. Rusty. The knife. The busted lip. The cash.

But I had left things out and cut the story short. I hadn't sent Krista home. No way would I tell Amy Larkin what really happened. The unedited version would feed her suspicion that I had a motive for wanting Krista to disappear.

"I don't believe you," Amy said, flatly.

"Why the hell not? If I was gonna lie, I'd have a better story."

"It's a smart story. Better than if you claimed to be a hero."

"Right. Who would believe that?"

"You come out looking like a shit, but not a rapist or a killer."

We were standing next to my Eldo convertible in the Justice Building parking lot, nearly empty now, the afternoon sun beating down on the pavement. A snowy white egret had migrated across the street from the river and was scratching at the asphalt where someone had spilled a bag of potato chips.

"Problem is, you're lying," she said.

"So you're a human polygraph, that it?"

She pulled out a leather case and handed me a business card. Amy G. Larkin. Fraud Investigator. Auto Division of some insurance company in Toledo, Ohio.

"I interview liars every day," she said.

"Lot of fender-bender cheats in Toledo, I'll bet."

"Do you have any witnesses? Anyone see Krista get into that cab? Who'll back up your story?"

That's the problem with lies, I thought. To keep them going, you have to fertilize and water them. Then they grow like strangler weeds.

"I told you the truth. Take it or leave it."

"So even by your own account, you had a chance to be a Good Samaritan, and you turned away."

"That's one way of looking at it. Another is that I'm not the last person to see your sister alive."

"The cabdriver you can't name?"

"And the guy she didn't want to go home to."

"And his name is . . . ?"

"No idea."

Three toots of a horn came from the direction of the river, a freighter asking for the drawbridge to open, pissing off motorists who'd be stuck for the next five minutes.

"You might want to track down where Krista was living in Miami Springs," I said. "Maybe there's some record of who paid her rent."

"I know how to investigate, Lassiter. It's what I do."

"Great. Then if there's nothing more you need from me . . . "

"Why so anxious to get rid of me?"

I imagined her asking the same question to a guy with an inflated bill to repair his rocker panel.

"Let me ask you something," I said. "Why's it taken you so long to find me? Your sister disappeared what, eighteen years ago?"

"That's not your concern."

"Fine." I pocketed her card. "I'll call you if I think of anything else."

"No, you won't."

She turned and headed toward her rental at the other end of the lot, forgetting to say what a pleasure it had been to meet me. I stood there a moment in the tropical heat, watching her go. Only when she had ducked into a red Taurus did I bring up the remaining memories of that long ago night.

The whole truth? I did not put Krista Larkin in a cab and send her home. Oh, I tried. But she refused to get in. Instead, standing in the street in front of Bozo's, she thrust out a thumb and tried hitchhiking up LeJeune Road. It took about thirty seconds for a car to stop. Four guys were inside, windows down, hooting and hollering, and bragging about the size of their equipment. I grabbed her and dragged her to my car.

She was laughing as soon as her butt hit the seat. She'd gotten what she'd wanted. I drove to my apartment, telling myself it was with good intentions. Yeah, yeah. I know what paves the road to hell.

I gallantly gave Krista my bedroom. I'd sleep on the sofa, and in the morning, we'd figure out what to do.

Deep inside, I knew it was bullshit, and so did she. Teenage girl, beautiful and willing. Horny jock—or is that redundant? It was a sure thing, and no guy I knew would have turned it down.

The mating dance was a simple two-step. I asked if she wanted to shower. _Yes._ She asked if I wanted to join her. _Yes_. I took her standing up under the steaming water, her legs locked around my hips. Then on the chaise on the balcony, Krista wanting to feel the breeze from the bay. Finally in the bed, where we conked out until close to noon.

When I awoke, I had no regrets. No pangs of conscience. My only worry was making my one o'clock practice. Being late would cost me $500 and enhance the possibility of finishing my career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Krista found a white dress shirt in my closet. She wore that and nothing else and padded off to the kitchen, where she tried making French toast, creating a lake of egg yolks on the counter. Getting all domestic after one night of play.

My head ached from the booze. She was already talking about how we might spend the weekend.

"How old are you?" I asked. "Really."

"Twenty."

"Bullshit."

It took some persuading, but she finally admitted the truth. "Almost eighteen."

Shit. Jailbait.

"You gotta go now, kid."

"Whadaya mean?"

"I'll drive you to your place."

"I wanna stay with you."

"Not gonna happen."

"The stuff I did last night. I can do even better."

Her eyes brimmed. I felt sorry for her, just as she supposed I would. Still . . .

"Get dressed Krista. We gotta go."

"Asshole!" She tore off my shirt, popping all the buttons. She stamped into the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later, I was driving west on 36th Street through a frog-strangler of a storm, thunder rattling the windows of my old Camaro. When I pulled up to the curb, I saw a man standing under the awning of Krista's apartment building, smoking a cigar. Blocky build. Blue jeans and a brown suede jacket, an urban cowboy look. Thinning hair with a bad comb-over. He tossed the cigar into the bushes as we pulled up.

"Shit, it's Charlie," Krista said.

The guy's hands were balled into fists at his sides.

I did the semi-chivalrous thing. Double-parked next to a puddle and said, "see ya," as she got out of the car. The guy she called "Charlie" stayed under the awning, the rain drilling the canvas like gunshots.

"In the car, babe." He gestured toward a lobster red Porsche, the water beading on its waxy finish.

"I gotta get cleaned up, Charlie."

"Now! You're late and you're costing me money."

"You gonna be okay, kid?" I called through the window.

"Fuck you, asshole." She shot me the bird and headed for the Porsche.

Charlie stepped off the curb and splashed toward my door. He sized me up and didn't seem impressed. "Have fun, stud?"

"What's it to you?"

"Lemme guess. Best you ever had."

"Fuck off."

"Hell, she's the best I ever had, and I've had a helluva lot more than you."

"I don't keep score," I said.

"We all keep score. Even Boy Scouts like you."

From the Porsche, Krista yelled, "You coming, Charlie? Thought we were late."

He ignored her and looked at me with a mirthless smile. "Did you play rough? That's the way she likes it, you know."

"This how you get off? Talking to guys about fucking."

"You didn't leave any bruises, did you, stud?"

"Fuck you."

"If you did, it'll cost you."

"Who are you, her pimp?"

The guy laughed. "Pimp. Manager. Fuck buddy. Man for all seasons. But you, stud? You're just a john." 

## Four

People Change

I have no excuses, other than being 23, with more sex drive than brain power. I seem to remember rationalizing my conduct: _Hey, she was a stripper. It's not like I deflowered her after catechism class._

But the truth is that I didn't care about her. I simply took what was offered and gave nothing in return, except some crumpled twenty-dollar bills.

That was then. And now?

I didn't want to get involved in Amy's life, either. All I needed was to convince her that I wasn't the last person to see her sister alive. There was "Charlie." Problem was, my story of a rainy day and a mystery guy with a comb-over would sound like bullshit. The truth often does. If I could find Charlie's last name, I'd have something solid to give Amy. Then I would bid her good-bye, good luck, and have a nice life.

Jake Lassiter, still the escape artist.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the Justice Building with my DUI jury out, I was cruising across the MacArthur Causeway, headed toward my office on South Beach. It was a crystalline clear, breezy afternoon, the sun bursting into diamonds on the bay. To my right, one of the big cruise ships was steaming out Government Cut, headed to the islands.

I tried calling my old teammate Rusty MacLean. Back in the day, he'd known a lot of sleazebags. Maybe he could pin a last name on "Charlie." Rusty's voicemail promised he'd ring me right back, if he wasn't fishing, riding his horse, or coaching his daughters' field hockey team.

With the top down, my car attracts whistles, horn toots, and tail-fin envy. It's a 1984 Caddy convertible that's gone to the moon, according to the odometer.

The Biarritz Eldorado was my fee from Stan (Strings) Hendricks, a Key West piano tuner, who was picked up on the Overseas Highway with three hundred pounds of Acapulco Gold in the trunk. If I didn't win the case, Strings would do a dime for trafficking, and I'd get squat.

The sheriff 's deputy testified that he had kept pace with the Caddy, which was supposedly speeding. After the stop, the cop said he smelled marijuana, giving him probable cause to search the car. But I subpoenaed the cruiser's videotape, and by counting the seconds between a clearly visible bridge and a gas station, I proved that Strings was going only 43 mph. Search quashed, marijuana excluded. My client went free, and I got his cream-colored Biarritz Eldorado with red velour pillowed upholstery. The car looked like a Bourbon Street brothel on wheels, and naturally, I loved it.

My cell rang just as I passed the Fisher Island ferry port.

"Jake, you worthless SOB," Rusty greeted me. "Where you been hiding out?"

"Unlike some people, I have to work for a living."

"Screw that. C'mon down to the Keys and let's chase some bonefish."

When he wasn't at his house-on-stilts in Islamorada, Rusty lived on thirty acres of what used to be mango orchards in the Redlands. He'd married a lovely woman and fathered twin girls. In his spare time, of which he had plenty, Rusty ran a foundation that kept at-risk kids in school and out of trouble. After Rusty the Reprobate retired from the game, he had changed. I respected him for that.

We swapped insults, and then I asked Rusty what he remembered about the night at Bozo's.

"I don't wanna revisit that shit," Rusty said. "I was a total dog back then."

"One hundred percent pussy hound," I agreed. "But it's important, okay?"

"I've pretty much erased the nineties from my memory bank. Except for '91 when I made the Pro Bowl." I could have said, _"As an injury replacement,"_ but that would have been unkind.

"Let me refresh your recollection, Rusty," I said, as if cross-examining a hostile witness. "You got rough with the girl, she stabbed you, and a friendly doc in Hialeah stitched you up under a tequila anesthetic."

"Yeah, still got the scar. All right, what do you want to know?"

"The girl ever mention a guy named Charlie?"

"Who the hell can remember?"

"Try, okay?"

"You got a last name?"

"That's what I'm looking for."

"Can't help you. Sorry."

"Ever see the girl again?"

"Why would I? What's this about, anyway?"

I told him about my meeting with Amy Larkin.

"Bummer," Rusty said, reaching back decades for the word. "But don't blame yourself, Jake. Jeez, compared to me, you were a gentleman."

"Compared to you, the Marquis de Sade was a gentleman."

"You want my advice, let it go."

"I intend to. But I'd like to give the sister a lead, some nudge in the right direction. Then I'm done."

"Wish I could help you, Jake."

"What about the other stripper?" I asked. "Sonia something."

"Sonia Majeski. You need her number?"

"You're still in touch?" I couldn't believe it.

"She called me a couple years ago after reading about Rusty's Scholars."

One of the New Rusty's good deeds. He selected several of the best—and poorest—students at Miami Central High School and took them on Caribbean cruises, along with volunteer guidance counselors and SAT tutors.

He told me that Sonia had gotten out of the life. Studied accounting at Miami-Dade, married a Customs agent, and snagged a job with Royal Caribbean. Now she was a purser on a cruise ship and got Rusty hefty discounts for his scholarship cruises.

He promised to text me Sonia's number as soon as we hung up. I told him I'd chase the wily bonefish with him soon. He called me a liar. I told him to fuck off. Translation: We're still asshole buddies.

In ten minutes, I would be sitting at my desk, punching the phone. With a little luck, Sonia Majeski would know what happened to Krista Larkin. With a lot of luck, maybe Krista wasn't dead. Maybe she'd changed her name and married a dentist and was living in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in a four-bedroom house with two kids, a swimming pool, and a hybrid SUV parked out front.

Yeah, and maybe I'll be the first ambulance chaser appointed to the Supreme Court. Chances were, Krista was long gone. I just didn't want her sister running around town shouting that I had something to do with it.

"Lassiter" is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

# 

# ALSO AVAILABLE

## JAKE LASSITER SERIES

_"Mystery writing at its very, very best." – Larry King, USA TODAY_

TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD: Linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter begins to believe that his surgeon client is innocent of malpractice...but guilty of murder.

NIGHT VISION After several women are killed by an Internet stalker, Jake is appointed a special prosecutor, and follows a trail of evidence from Miami to London and the very streets where Jack the Ripper once roamed.

FALSE DAWN: After his client confesses to a murder he didn't commit, Jake follows a bloody trail from Miami to Havana to discover the truth.

MORTAL SIN: Talk about conflicts of interest. Jake is sleeping with Gina Florio and defending her mob-connected husband in court.

RIPTIDE: Jake Lassiter chases a beautiful woman and stolen bonds from Miami to Maui.

FOOL ME TWICE: To clear his name in a murder investigation, Jake follows a trail of evidence that leads from Miami to buried treasure in the abandoned silver mines of Aspen, Colorado. (Also available in a new paperback edition).

FLESH & BONES: Jake falls for his beautiful client even though he doubts her story. She claims to have recovered "repressed memories" of abuse...just before gunning down her father

LASSITER: Jake retraces the steps of a model who went missing after his one-night stand with her 18 years earlier. (Also available in a new paperback edition).

LAST CHANCE LASSITER: Living by no code but his own, Lassiter represents Cadillac Johnson, an aging rhythm and blues musician who claims his greatest song was stolen by a top-of-the-charts hip-hop artist.

## SOLOMON vs. LORD SERIES

(Nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber awards).

"A cross between 'Moonlighting' and 'Night Court.' Courtroom drama has never been this much fun." – _FreshFiction.com_

SOLOMON vs. LORD: Trial lawyer Victoria Lord, who follows every rule, and Steve Solomon, who makes up his own, bicker and banter as they defend a beautiful young woman, accused of killing her wealthy, older husband.

THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI: Solomon and Lord come together – and fly apart – defending Victoria's "Uncle Grif" on charges he killed a man with a speargun. It's a case set in the Florida Keys with side trips to coral reefs and a nudist colony where all is more –and less – than it seems.

KILL ALL THE LAWYERS: Just what did Steve Solomon do to infuriate ex-client and ex-con "Dr. Bill?" Did Solomon try to lose the case in which the TV shrink was charged in the death of a woman patient?

HABEAS PORPOISE: It starts with the kidnapping of a pair of trained dolphins and turns into a murder trial with Solomon and Lord on _opposite_ sides after Victoria is appointed a special prosecutor, and fireworks follow!

## STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

IMPACT: A Jetliner crashes in the Everglades. Is it negligence or terrorism? When the legal case gets to the Supreme Court, the defense has a unique strategy. Kill anyone, even a Supreme Court Justice, to win the case.

BALLISTIC: A nuclear missile, a band of terrorists, and only two people who can prevent Armageddon. A "loose nukes" thriller for the 21st Century. (Also available in a new paperback edition).

ILLEGAL: Down-and-out lawyer Jimmy (Royal) Payne tries to re-unite a Mexican boy with his missing mother and becomes enmeshed in the world of human trafficking and sex slavery.

PAYDIRT: Bobby Gallagher had it all and lost it. Now, assisted by his 12-year-old brainiac son, he tries to rig the Super Bowl, win a huge bet...and avoid getting killed in the process. (Also available in a new paperback edition).

Visit the author's website at http://www.paul-levine.com for more information. While there, sign up for Paul Levine's newsletter and the chance to win free books, DVD's and other prizes. 

# ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author of 16 novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote more than 20 episodes of the CBS military drama "JAG" and co-created the Supreme Court drama "First Monday" starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The critically acclaimed international bestseller "To Speak for the Dead" was his first novel. He is also the author of the "Solomon vs. Lord" series and the thrillers "Illegal," "Ballistic," "Impact," and "Paydirt." His most recent novel is "Last Chance Lassiter." More at http://www.paul-levine.com 
All copyrights by Nittany Valley Productions, Inc.

_Solomon & Lord Sink or Swim_ Copyright © 2006 (Originally published as Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor)

_Solomon vs. Lord_ Copyright © 2005

_The Deep Blue Alibi_ Copyright © 2006

_Kill All The Lawyers_ Copyright © 2006

_Habeas Porpoise_ Copyright © 2007 (Originally published as Trial & Error)

Cover design by Jeroen Ten Berge

Interior Design by Steven W. Booth, www.GeniusBookServices.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Nittany Valley Productions, Inc. 
