Kill All the Lawyers (6 page)

"Or hit me with a marlin gaff."

He told her then about the gaff delivered to the office. "The marlin on the door. The gaff. Kreeger's way of saying he knows I torpedoed his case."

"But why tell you?"

"To let me know he can do the same thing to me he did to Beshears and Lamm."

"So selling out your client wasn't just blatantly illegal," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "It was also unbelievably stupid."

* * *

Her anger surprised him. What happened to that warm and comfy nurturing he'd expected?

What happened to clinging to her warm bosom?

Steve thought back to the day he'd discovered Kreeger's secret. He'd been looking for helpful witnesses, not damning ones. Kreeger had become a bit of a celebrity. The psychiatrist had done work with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and gained some credibility as an expert on serial killers. Turn on CNN or Court TV, and he'd pop up every time some freak was loose. Then he moved into personal relationships, which Steve figured wasn't all that different than homicide. Relaxed in front of the camera, Kreeger got his daytime TV show, dispensing wisdom to women fed up with their men, an inexhaustible and ever-growing audience.

Steve traveled to the med school in Gainesville, trying to find character witnesses. He spoke to a professor who remembered Kreeger and told a murky story about a fishing trip gone bad. A few more calls turned up the former girlfriend of the late Jim Beshears. The girlfriend told Steve that Kreeger had been enraged by Beshears' charges of academic fraud. The two men had argued, and from her vantage point in the cockpit of the boat, she thought Kreeger might have pushed Beshears overboard, then intentionally hit him with the gaff. But everything had happened so fast and she'd been so shaken, she couldn't be sure. Officially, the death was declared an accident without a full criminal investigation.

Then Steve read Kreeger's bestselling book:
Looking Out for Numero Uno.
The man's views of human nature were downright macabre. In chapter one, "Screw Thy Neighbor," Kreeger posited that greed, hedonism, and selfishness are good. Altruism, charity, and sacrifice are stupid. Self-interest is the only interest. Be the screwer, not the screwee. The more he read, the more concerned Steve became.

He went back to Gainesville and puttered around in the Shands Hospital library. He found Kreeger's monograph,
Murder Through the Eons: Homicide as an Essential Element of Evolutionary Biology.
While a hospital resident on the psychiatry staff, Kreeger had argued that human beings were bred to be murderers. Homicidal instincts, he wrote, are survival tactics dating from prehistoric times. By historical practice, it is rational and sane to kill anyone who threatens your cave, your mate, or your dinner. Our DNA carries those instincts today.

"Murder should not be considered a perversion of human values. Murder is the essential human value."

Then Kreeger went even further. To kill rationally, he declared, does not require one to be engaged in self-defense. Setting aside man-made notions of right and wrong, it would be logical to kill a rival for a promotion at work or for the love of a woman or even for the last seat on a bus.

Suddenly, preparing for the man's trial, it had all become clear to Steve.

William Kreeger, MD, was the love child of Ayn Rand and Ted Bundy.

A man so possessed of narcissism and self-interest and so devoid of feelings for others that he would eliminate anyone he believed was a threat.

His classmate. His lady friend. Or his lawyer.

Sure, Victoria was right. Not only was it illegal to turn over incriminating evidence to the state, with Kreeger as a client, it was also dangerous. So what now? Kreeger wouldn't be satisfied with pranks involving dead fish, marlin gaffs, and trash talk on the radio. Those were just preludes.

Kreeger could be planning his attack right now.

Which meant Steve needed a counterattack. Or better yet, an offensive. A way to bring down Kreeger
before
he took his shot. But how?

Storm into the radio station, jack Kreeger up against the wall, and rattle his fillings.

Nah.

Steve was a lawyer. A schmoozer. He could bob and weave in front of a jury and play rope-a-dope with opposing counsel. But violence? Not his style. Sure, he'd taken one swing with a stick that cracked a man's skull, but that had been necessary to rescue Bobby. What else?

Punching that probation officer in dubious defense of Cece's virtue? Not very impressive. Starting a brawl years ago by spiking the Florida State shortstop while breaking up a double play? Nah, nobody even got bruised.

But Kreeger? The man had a track record of deadly violence. So Steve needed a plan. But a problem there, too. How do you outsmart a man who is both brilliant and a killer, when you are neither?

SOLOMON'S LAWS

3. When you don't know what to do, seek advice from your father . . . even if he's two candles short of a menorah.

Seven

KING SOLOMON AND THE

QUEEN OF SHEBA

Steve needed advice. He needed to talk to the man who had once peered down at assorted miscreants, pronouncing them guilty, dispatching them to places where the only harm they could inflict was on one another. The Honorable Herbert T. Solomon had a feel for this sort of thing.

What do I do, Dad, when some nutcase is after me?

Steve walked out the kitchen door into his backyard. His father and nephew sat cross-legged on the ground, in the shade of a bottlebrush tree. Pieces of plywood and two-by-fours were strewn on the grass, along with a hammer, a saw, and an open toolbox.

"
Shalom,
son," his father called out. Chin stubbled with white whiskers, long silvery hair swept straight back, flipping up at his neck. With a bottle of sour mash whiskey within arm's reach, Herbert T. Solomon looked like Wild Bill Hickock in a yarmulke.

Or maybe a biblical prophet. He held a weathered copy of the Old Testament in one hand and a drink in the other. "The Queen of Sheba," Herbert intoned in his Southern drawl, "having heard of Solomon's fame, came to test him with tricky questions."

"Get to the sexy part," Bobby said. "Where Solomon slips it to Sheba and all the concubines."

Herbert took a sip of the whiskey. "In due time, boychik."

"What's going on, Dad?"

"Ah'm teaching Robert the good book." Herbert flipped a page. "
'The Queen of Sheba gave Solomon gold and spices, and—' "

" 'Spice' is Bible talk for nookie," Bobby interrupted, grinning at Steve. "Grandpop taught me that."

"Grandpop's a regular Talmudic scholar."

Bobby went on, excitedly: "In the first book of Kings, it says that Solomon gave Sheba
'everything she desired and asked for.'
You get it, Uncle Steve?"

"I think I can figure it out."

"Did you know King Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?"

"No wonder he wanted to get out of the house and conquer Mesopotamia." Steve turned to his father, who was pouring whiskey over ice. "Dad, why are you filling Bobby with this nonsense?"

"Our roots are not nonsense." Herbert took a noisy pull on his drink and turned to his grandson. "Robert, our ancestors were warriors in the court of King Solomon. We're direct descendants from His Honor's own wise self."

"Oh, for God's sake," Steve groaned.

"Don't you blaspheme in mah presence."

"And what's with the yarmulke? You covering a bald spot?"

"Ah pray for you, Stephen. You've become a Philistine."

"And you've flipped out. Going orthodox at your age is just plain weird."

Herbert shook his head. "Cain't believe mah son's a heathen and mah daughter's a whore."

"Hey, Dad. Cool it in front of Bobby with that stuff, okay?"

"
Nu?
What's the big deal? You think the boy doesn't know his mother's a junkie and a tramp?"

"Dad, that's enough." Not that it wasn't true, Steve thought, but you don't smack a kid in the face with that kind of talk.

"It's okay, Uncle Steve." Bobby fiddled with a two-by-four, showing no apparent concern. But Steve knew that look. A blank, neutral mask. It was how the boy hid the pain. What the hell was wrong with his father, anyway? Didn't he realize how sensitive Bobby was? Probably not. When Steve was a kid, his father treated him just as callously. Hadn't he called him a "wuss" when four
Marieltos
at Nautilus Middle School beat him up for his lunch money?

Without looking up, Bobby said: "The other day in the cafeteria, one of the kids asked about my parents."

Steve held his breath. Kids can be so cruel. Little predators preying on the one who's different.

"I told them I didn't know my father, and my mom was in prison," Bobby continued.

"You take some heat over that, kiddo?"

Bobby shook his head. "Everybody thought that was way cool. Manuel said he wished he didn't know his old man. Jason asked if I ever visited Mom in prison."

The boy let it hang there. His way of asking Steve why they never drove down to Homestead Correctional. So hard to understand the boy's longing. Janice had neglected and abused him. Locked him in a dog shed, starved him while she got stoned. And Bobby, what . . .
missed
her? Steve decided to let it go. What could he say, anyway?

"If you visit your Mom, those nightmares will come back, kiddo."

No, he would rather stay clear of the subject of Janice Solomon, junkie, tramp, and utterly worthless mother.

"If mah son won't go to
Shabbos
services with me," Herbert declared, "maybe mah grandson will."

"I have to study," Bobby said.

"On a Friday night? You oughta be praying, then chasing tail. Maybe praying you catch some."

"Dad, what the hell's going on? You haven't been to synagogue in thirty years."

"The hell you say. When ah was a practicing lawyer, ah went to High Holy Days every year."

"Right. You handed out your business card on Yom Kippur. What's up now?"

"Mah grandfather was a cantor, you know that?"

Steve had heard the stories since he was a child. Herbert claimed to have traced the family tree back nearly three centuries. Ezekiel Solomon was among the first English colonists to settle Savannah in the 1730s. The Solomons grew and prospered, and over the generations the family sprawled to Atlanta and Birmingham and Charleston. According to Herbert, who specialized in the tradition of exaggeration employed by lawyers, peddlers, and Southerners, the tree that sprouted from old Ezekiel produced farmers and weavers, stone masons and mill owners. Even an occasional rabbi and cantor. Not to mention a stock swindler and a bookie who went to prison for fixing college football games in the 1940s.

But what was this crap about the court of King Solomon? It was one thing to trace your ancestors back to James Oglethorpe. But quite another to lay claim to a royal name three thousand years old.

Until recently, Herbert hadn't cared much about spirituality. So, why now? He was getting older, of course. Probably sensing his own mortality.

Then there's his fall from grace.

Nearly fifteen years ago, snared in a bribery and extortion scandal, Herbert had protested his innocence but nonetheless quit the bench and resigned from the Bar in disgrace. That had to be it, Steve thought.

Lost and found. My old man found religion to make up for what he's lost.

Career and status, gone. Wife—Steve's mother, Eleanor—dead of a vicious cancer. Daughter Janice in and out of jail and drug rehab. A touchy relationship with Steve.

Herbert picked up a hammer and a handful of nails and grabbed a two-by-four. "Gotta get to work, son."

"On what?"

"Gonna make a scale model of the Temple of Solomon," Herbert said.

"You got a building permit for that?"

"Got the blueprints. How long's a cubit, anyway?"

Steve doubted his father could drive a nail straight. When Steve was Bobby's age, Herbert couldn't glue the wings of a balsa airplane to the fuselage.

"Robert, the temple is where King Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant," Herbert said, "the very tablets the Lord gave to Moses."

"I know, Gramps. I saw
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
"

Enough was enough. "Bobby, I need to talk to your grandfather for a few minutes," Steve said.

"So?"

"There are fresh mangoes on the counter. Go make yourself a smoothie."

"You can't order me around. I'm descended from King Solomon." Bobby squeezed his eyes shut. "King Solomon. SOLO GIN MONK."

"Fine, kiddo. Now, give us a few minutes."

"Okay, okay." The boy got to his feet and slouched toward the kitchen door.

"I've got a problem, Dad. I need advice."

"Then you damn well came to the right place," Herbert Solomon said.

* * *

Just as he had done with Victoria, Steve told his father everything. How he learned Kreeger's philosophy by reading his monograph on rational murder. How he uncovered Beshears' death, then sold Kreeger out in the murder trial by tipping off Pincher. How he found the marlin on his door and the gaff in his office, symbols of Kreeger's homicidal fishing trip. And how upset Victoria became when he confessed his lawyerly sins. When he was finished, Herbert exhaled a long, low whistle. "Jesus and Magdalene, David and Bathsheba."

"I don't think those two couples are equivalent," Steve said.

"Then you didn't read
The Da Vinci Code.
Son, when you stroll through the cow pasture, you best not be wearing your wingtips."

"What the hell's that mean?"

"You stepped in deep shit. So what is it you want? Girlfriend advice or Florida Bar advice? 'Cause if it's girlfriend advice, ah'd say it's high time that shiksa converts. A dip in the
Mikvah,
the gateway to purity. Miriam's well in the desert."