JL04 - Mortal Sin (25 page)

“I’m waiting, Jake.”

“Like having sex the first time, I know what goes where, I’m just not sure about the preliminaries.”

Socolow leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Let me help you out. You don’t have to kiss me first.”

“Okay, Abe. I’ve got something for you. Something from Nicky Florio, but I guess you know that.”

“Prom Nicky? Why did I think it was from you, personally?”

“Don’t know.”

“And this something, I take it, is in the canvas bag at your feet, the one which conspicuously says in large print that it’s the property of the Miami Dolphins.”

“That’s it.”

“And whatever is in this bag, Jake, is it a gift?”

“A gift?”

“Yes, what is the purpose of your delivering this rather dilapidated old bag and its contents?”

“To help you in the campaign, of course. To put your face on billboards and buy TV spots where you promise to execute murderers within thirty days of trial, or even before trial, if opinion polls favor it.”

“Ah yes.” Abe nodded, contentedly. “Are there any strings attached?”

“I didn’t think we would get into that.”

Socolow rapped his fingers on his metallic desk,
rat-a-tat-tat.
Why did it sound like the drum roll of a funeral dirge? Again, he looked out the windows, then back to me. He was watching a lone black bird, its wings swept back, as it circled the courthouse. “A Cuban fortune-teller once told me that the vultures are the souls of lawyers doing endless penance.”

“Doubt it. Lawyers never repent.”

He turned back to me. “You and I share the same cynicism, Jake.”

There was a thought behind those dark eyes, but what was it? “The birds have their own predators. When threatened, do you know what a vulture does?”

“Gets a lawyer bird to write a nasty letter,” I guessed.

“Vomits on its enemy and spoils its appetite.”

“Same thing,” I said.

Socolow studied me a moment before speaking. A wind gust rattled the window on the north side. “To accept this token of your client’s friendship, I must know if a quid pro quo is expected.”

“You mean is this just an illegal campaign contribution or outright bribery?”

He raised a hand and wrinkled his forehead. “Jake, Jake, Jake. Please.”

I stood and walked to the window facing east. Even with the newer, taller downtown skyscrapers, I could see a slice of the bay, crystalline blue, topped with whitecaps. “You don’t want to dance, Abe, so here it is. You take the gift, and when the state cabinet turns to you for an opinion on a certain matter involving Cypress Estates, you come down on Nicky Florio’s side.”

I couldn’t see his face, so I took the silence to mean he was thinking about it.

“And if I take the gift and don’t go Nicky’s way?”

“The governor will have to pick someone to fill your unexpired term.”

He looked puzzled.

“Knowing Florio, you’d be harder to find than Judge Crater.”

Might as well add extortion to bribery.

“I see,” Socolow said. He left his chair and joined me at the window. On the bay, a sailboat slid across the whitecaps on a close reach. I wanted to be on deck, bundled up against the cold wind. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Magically, the boat disappeared behind one of the skyscrapers.

I turned and looked at Socolow, barely a foot away. He put a hand on my shoulder, an unusual gesture for a guy who’d have to warm up to be called a cold fish. There was a hint of sorrow in his eyes.

Then the screeching sound.

A high-pitched electronic wail.

Coming from him.

And me.

“You’re wired!”

He said it. And so did I.

The door to the reception room swung open and banged off the wall. Two men in suits flew through the door. One of them, a barrel-chested guy in brown plaid with a brush cut, looked familiar. I’d seen him around the Justice Building. County detective or F.D.L.E., maybe. He got to me the first. “Jacob Lassiter, you are under arrest for the attempted bribery of a public official and other charges to be later specified. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you.” He turned to the smaller man. “Hank, frisk him.” Brush Cut turned back to me and smiled malevolently. “Okay, asshole, assume the position.”

I spread my legs and leaned against one of the windows, my palms pressed to the glass. A black buzzard on the parapet swung its long neck around and gave me a beady-eyed look. Lucky bird. Nobody was smacking his private parts.

“Hey!” Hank yelled. “What the hell’s this?”

“Can’t tell you,” I answered, over my shoulder, still watching the bird. “I’m remaining silent.”

Hank was under my herringbone suit coat, now pulling out my shirt. I felt a ripping as he yanked the tape off, taking some of the skin of my back with it.

“He’s wired!” Hank announced.

Socolow leaned against the window. “What gives, Jake?” Now the vulture was looking at Socolow.

“Oh shit!” It was Brush Cut. I sneaked another peak. He stood next to Socolow’s desk, dumping the contents of the duffel bag onto the floor. “Hey, asshole, what the hell is this?”

Apparently, as far as Brush Cut was concerned, I had a new name. Even worse, I was responding to it. “Laundry,” I answered. He kicked some tattered Penn State sweatpants across the room. “Hey, careful,” I warned him. “Those have sentimental value.”

Brush Cut was cursing, and Hank was muttering to himself, but he didn’t tell me to turn around or put my hands down, so I stayed put. I’d seen enough angry cops to do what I was told and not do anything else until I was told to do that, too. Socolow was still next to me, waiting. I said, “Abe, I had to find out if you were dirty. Nicky Florio wanted to buy you. At least, that’s what he told me. I was supposed to be the bagman. He wants your vote on something very big.”

“Cypress Estates?”

“Yeah.”

Socolow shook his head. “Doesn’t wash. He’s got my vote on that, and he doesn’t have to pay for it.”

“You don’t understand. Not just the housing and the resort.” I took a deep breath. “Casino gambling, too.”

“I know.”

“You do?” I was floored. “How do you know?”

“Florio took me into his confidence. He’d given me some support, drummed up contributions in the building industry, all reported, all aboveboard. I researched the issue to see if I could support him. Look, a decent lawyer can argue either side, we both know that. But here, it’s really clear. His leases are in order, and the federal law favors his position. I don’t think the state can stop casino gambling on Indian land. I told him I’d support him with the cabinet, no sweat, and it won’t cost him a dime. As far as I’m concerned, he can move Las Vegas out there.”

Now I turned around without asking anybody for permission. Brush Cut was tossing my T-shirts across the room and peering into the duffel bag, hoping to find something more incriminating than a sweat-stained jockstrap.

“I don’t get it, Abe,” I said. “Why would Nicky want me to bribe you to do something you’re going to do anyway?”

“Well, that’s not the way Nicky sees it. He told me you were coming to offer me a bribe all right, but not on his behalf.”

I waited.

“For yourself, Jake.”

“I still don’t get it.”

He seemed to be thinking about how much to tell me. I watched Brush Cut take a pair of scissors from Socolow’s desk and begin cutting the lining out of the duffel bag. “You’re wasting your time,” I told him.

He scowled at me. “Really, asshole?” He picked up the phone and dialed a number. After a moment, he said, “Gunther here, what’d you find?” He listened a moment. “How much?” He paused again, then smiled. I was hoping he wouldn’t smile at me like that. He hung up the phone and walked over to the window, squaring his shoulders and looking me in the eye. We were the same height. He was ten years older, but in good shape. Square shoulders, flat gut.

He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a blue-backed piece of paper. “Do you own a motor vehicle, a 1968 Oldsmobile 442, license plate J-U-S-T-I-C-E with a question mark at the end? Is that right,
JUSTICE?”

“Yeah, why?”

“What a shitty plate. Like the dickheads who used to wear the American flag on their jeans.” He handed me the paper. “I’m serving you with a copy of the search warrant obtained for your motor vehicle. The search was carried out in the parking lot across the street just a few minutes ago. In the wheel well in the trunk, instead of a spare tire, there was found a substantial quantity of fifty-dollar bills. It’s being inventoried now, but apparently it’s in the range of a million bucks.”

I turned to Socolow. “See, Abe, that corroborates what I’ve been telling you.”

Socolow was thinking about it. He seemed profoundly unhappy. “Not the way I see it. Nicky Florio gave us a sworn statement saying you and somebody named…”

“Gondolier,” Gunther helped out.

“Yeah, you and Gondolier skimmed a million dollars from the bingo hall. You were supposed to be the company’s lawyer and Gondolier the manager of the hall, but the two of you ran your own little scam with the cash.”

I was shaking my head, as it was becoming clear how Nicky Florio had framed me.

“Gondolier’s missing,” Socolow said, “and here you are with the money in the trunk of your car. According to Florio, you planned to offer me a piece of the action to buy some protection when he blew the whistle on you.”

“And you believed that?”

“I told him I’d known you a long time, and I couldn’t believe you were a thief, but that I’d follow through. When you called to see me, I set up the sting. But the way it looks to me, you changed your mind.”

“I did?”

“You show up without the money but wired, trying to incriminate me on tape. You didn’t know I’d already given my blessing to the gambling, so you want me to agree to a bribe. If I had, you’d have dirt on me, and that was your protection. You wanted to compromise me, not pay me.”

“Abe! You can’t believe…”

Socolow left me by the window and walked to his desk, his shoulders slouching. “You got greedy. You’re dirty, Jake, and you thought you could buy me.”

“That’s so stupid. Everybody knows you can’t be bought.”

“Then what were you doing with the bag and the wire? What the fuck were you trying to do to me, Jake?”

“Like I said, Florio told me you were for sale. I didn’t believe it, but I just had to know. I had to know if I could trust you, or if you already belonged to Nicky Florio.”

“And if I had turned it down cold?”

“I would have told you the truth. Everything. Including what happened to Gondolier.”

“I’m listening.”

But I was finished blabbing. I’d already said too much. In a minute, they could add accessory to murder to the charges, or maybe worse. “I think I’d like to talk to a lawyer now.”

Gunter was in my face again. He called me a familiar two-syllable name to get my attention, then got down to business. “Additionally, Mr. Lassiter, you’re under arrest for the crime of grand larceny. You have the right to remain silent. You have—”

“Oh shut up!”

Gunther’s face lost most of his expression, and there hadn’t been much to start with. I started past him toward Socolow. I never saw the short right. Gunther threw it from his hip and caught me squarely in the solar plexus. A sucker punch. I folded in half and dropped to a knee, gasping. I couldn’t get a breath in. My stomach heaved.

I heard Socolow’s voice. “Gunther, Jesus Christ, was that necessary?”

“Hate the asshole’s license plate,” he answered.

The wave of nausea hit me quick and hard. Two heaves, then I let it go, soiling Gunther’s black brogans like a spooked vulture.

“Goddamn it!” Gunther backed away, shaking his shoes, leaving a trail across the state of Florida’s gray industrial carpeting. “Cuff him, Hank.”

I was still on one knee.

“Jesus, let him clean up first,” Socolow said.

My old buddy. He thought I was a thief, but he didn’t want to deprive me of my dignity. Once I got out of this jam, I would thank him, take him out for steaks and beer. I would also kick Gunther’s ass from here to Sopchoppy.

Socolow took me by the arm and helped me up. He pointed to a door leading to his private bathroom. I nodded, walked unsteadily to the door, went in, and closed the door. I turned on the water and washed out my mouth. I threw what passes for cold water on my face. There was an old-fashioned eight-paned window that had been painted shut, probably during the Eisenhower administration.

I wanted some fresh air.

That’s all.

I wasn’t going to escape. After all, where was there to go?

I strained to push the window up. It didn’t budge. I flexed my knees and got my center of gravity lower. The window frame began to creak, or was that my knee?

“Hey, Lassiter, hurry the hell up.” Gunther’s impatient voice.

I flushed the toilet, and while the water was rushing, flipped the lock on the door, hoping they didn’t hear the click. Back at the window, I tried again, and this time, the dried paint cracked away from the window frame, and it shuddered open. A blast of cold air smacked me in the face. I took several drags.

I bent over and stuck my head out. The south side of the building. A splendid view of the elevated Metrorail tracks, the high-rises of Brickell Avenue running along the bay, and farther south, heavily wooded Coconut Grove, where only this morning I was cozy and safe.

There was an impatient
knock-knock
at the rest room door.

“Be right out,” I hollered.

And I was, stepping right out onto an old balcony three hundred feet above Flagler Street, stepping out into knee-deep birdshit, stepping out among my feathered friends, who eyed me warily, spreading their wings and hopping a safe distance away along the parapet, probably all thinking the same thought: What’s the asshole up to now?

I
T WAS A VULTURE’S’S-EYE VIEW, LOOKING DOWN AT THE TOPS OF BUILDINGS
, Biscayne Bay peeking from behind the modern skyscrapers. Above me, a jumbo jet roared, its gear down, on final approach to the airport. I imagined the passengers, foreheads pressed to windows, expectant with new adventures.