Lassiter 08 - Lassiter (11 page)

Suddenly, the State Attorney’s role had come into focus. Castiel might be my basketball buddy, but he’d had a relationship with Perlow far longer and deeper. The old hood was grandfathered in.

“You own Alex Castiel,” I said. “If Uncle Max wants a favor, he can’t say no.”

“You are so hasty with accusations, Mr. Lassiter.”

“Always honest, seldom kind. That’s me.”

“Back in Cuba—”

“Max, is this shit necessary?” Ziegler interrupted. “This prick lawyer accuses me of murder, and you’re telling Bar Mitzvah stories?”

“Sha!”

Hush!
I didn’t know much Yiddish, but a Jewish stockbroker I once dated was always telling me to shut up.

Ziegler sank deeper into his chair, sulking.

“Once in a while, in the gaming business,” Perlow said, in a grandfatherly tone, “someone was entitled to wet his beak, but he starts drinking the whole birdbath. I didn’t send out a couple half-wits to throw the guy into the backseat of a car.”

“Aw, Jesus.” Ziegler wheeled around and stared out the window.

“I invited the man to my suite,” Perlow continued. “I offered espresso,
pastelitos
. We talk like gentlemen. He sees the error of his ways and agrees it won’t happen again.”

“You must serve good pastry,” I said. “What’s on the menu today?”

“Hypothetically, let’s say I have a grievance with a lawyer. To make a living, this lawyer needs cooperation from judges, from prosecutors, even from the clerk of the court. If suddenly no one offers him a plea, if his files go missing, if every client gets the max, the whole town knows he can’t deliver the goods.”

I was starting to feel sorry for this hypothetical lawyer.

“Maybe the poor schlemiel starts cutting corners in order to survive,” Perlow went on. “Someone lets the Florida Bar know of the man’s malefactions. Soon he’s broke and without a law license.”

First Alex Castiel, now Max Perlow. Double-teaming me like two linemen on a draw play. “Ruining me seems like a lot of trouble to go to if your sleazy pal had nothing to do with Krista Larkin’s disappearance.”

“Fuck you,” Ziegler shot back, still looking out the window.

Perlow tapped the floor with his cane.
Rat-a-tat-tat
. I think he was telling both of us to settle down. “There’s another solution, Mr. Lassiter. Maybe you need some work. A retainer from Ziegler Enterprises.”

“What the hell!” Ziegler whirled around in his chair to face his partner.

“Calm down, Charlie.”

“How much?” I asked, being a stickler for details.

Perlow allowed a small smile, thinking he had me. “Serious shekels, I assure you.”

Things were moving way too fast, I thought. First they send Angel Roxx to seduce me, then Ray Decker to escort me. Then I encounter Mutt and Jeff. Good gangster, bad gangster. I’d hit a nerve, and these two were freaking out. I sure as hell wasn’t going to take their money, but I’d like to know why it was being offered. What did they have to hide?

“This
retainer
,” I said. “I get the money whether or not there’s work to do?”

“Isn’t that how a retainer works?”

“So does a bribe.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m sure Charlie can find something for you to do.”

Ziegler drilled me with eyes cold as coins. “Wish I was still in hard core. You could mop up jism on the set.”

“Keep your retainer,” I said. “I’d rather come after you.”

“Take your best shot, shyster.”

“I’ll start by asking questions of your bigshot friends. Maybe the Archbishop has something to say.”

Ziegler emitted a sound very much like a dog growling.

“A suggestion, Mr. Lassiter,” Perlow said. “You’re here now. Ask Charlie anything you want. Whatever you learn, feel free to take to Alejandro.”

Surprising me. “Sure, why not?” I said.

With a hostile witness, many lawyers begin with soft violins before they start pounding the kettle drums. They try to lull the witness into a false sense of security. I think subtlety is overrated.

“Were you fucking Krista Larkin when she was seventeen?” I began.

Ziegler blinked and shot a look at Perlow, who said, “Tell him the truth, Charlie.”

“Yeah, I was fucking her. So what? I wasn’t the only one.”

“Did she come to parties at your house?”

“Yeah, lots of them.”

“What about the night she disappeared?”

“Never showed up.”

“You invited her?”

“On the set that day. She said she’d come by, but she didn’t.”

“Any idea why?”

“Maybe she was worn out from sucking cock all day.”

“Am I mistaken, or did you just get the Humanitarian of the Year award?”

“Cor-fucking-rect, and I’m a Grand Claw, too. You know how much you gotta give to charity to get a golden bib?”

“Who cares? Underneath your bib, you’re still a sleazebag.”

He turned to Perlow. “A fucking criminal defense lawyer lecturing me.”

“One difference,” I said, “I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not.”

“You hypocrite! Max, did you hear him?”

“Not now, Charlie.”

But Ziegler barreled on. “Hey, Lassiter, you think I don’t remember you? You think Krista didn’t tell me about you? I know what happened that night, you two-faced fuck!” He smirked at me. “Did you tell your client you fucked her sister? Or do you want me to?”

I couldn’t breathe. It felt as if someone had cinched leather straps around my chest and pulled tight.

“Charlie, that’s not the way to resolve this,” Perlow said. “Mr. Lassiter, do you have anything else?”

I was reeling from Ziegler’s accusations. I’d tumbled from the moral high ground to the gutter.

Ziegler knew
.

He even guessed that I hadn’t been honest with Amy Larkin. I had to fix that and fast.

I had blundered coming here. I could see it in his triumphant grin. If a snake could smile, that would be its look.

Perlow stirred, bracing his cane to get to his feet. “If that’s it, Mr. Lassiter, it would appear you have nothing placing the girl in Charlie’s company the night she disappeared.”

“Maybe today I don’t. But this isn’t over. Hell, it hasn’t even started.” Trying to salvage the moment by sounding tough, but really just spraying a garden hose on the
Hindenburg
.

I turned to leave, listening to Ziegler snicker like a horse. Just as I reached the door he said, “Hey, Lassiter, why do you think I sent Angel your way?”

I didn’t answer, and he said, “Because I
know
you. You’re just like me.”

“Bullshit. I sent her home.”

“My mistake. Next time, I’ll send jail bait.”

He was still cackling when the door closed behind me.

“Nestor, what’s the problem?” Perlow asked his driver and bodyguard. The creamy white Bentley was stuck in the exit lane of the Ziegler Enterprises building.

“Car being towed.”

Perlow saw it then. Ziegler’s black Lincoln. The car Ray Decker used. Four flat tires.

Lassiter, he thought.

What the hell to do about him?

Ziegler had gloated after Lassiter left. Thought he’d won the round. But all he’d done was bloody the nose of a street fighter. Lassiter wasn’t a weaker foe because Charlie shamed him, but a more determined one. The lawyer didn’t have a booming practice or a 24-karat reputation. But again, that only made him more dangerous.

“A man who has nothing in his pockets has nothing to lose.”

Meyer Lansky himself said that more than half a century ago. The man President Batista of Cuba called
“El Judio Maravilloso,”
the marvelous Jew. The man with nothing in his pockets turned out to be a bearded guerrilla fighting in the mountains of Cuba. His name was Fidel Castro. Lansky tried to warn Batista that the rebel leader had a ruthlessness of purpose that not even overwhelming forces and firepower of the army could stop.

Charlie Ziegler never understood such things. He had always been undisciplined. Those damn parties with the girls and the drugs. There were men around town who would remember. Witnesses. If Lassiter turned up the heat, how would Ziegler react? Charlie was not the strong and silent type. Perlow figured he could crack like a piñata, all his secrets—
their
secrets—spilling out.

Perlow sighed, looked at his aged hands. He wished Meyer were still around. Meyer kept emotion out of the equation and never acted rashly. When the boys suspected that Bugsy Siegel was skimming from the Flamingo, Meyer urged caution. Only when the proof was overwhelming did he authorize the hit. Quick and efficient.

What would Meyer do now?

“If a man is a moneymaker, you can forgive a lot of his faults.”

El Judio Maravilloso
was right. With all his failings, Ziegler still made Perlow money from the reality channel and international distribution of porn. Not only that, it was all legitimate. Jeez, they even paid taxes. You had to be careful these days. With that RICO crap, they could convict you for just thinking about committing a crime.

“Nestor, you remember Jake Lassiter? Used to play for the Dolphins.”

Tejada laughed. “First time I saw him play I was doing sixty days in Youth Hall. I liked his style, his helmet flying off when he made a big hit on a kickoff.”

Sounded right to Perlow. A guy who would sacrifice his body for the team.

“Reminded me of a pit bull,” Tejada said. “You ever go to a dog fight, Mr. P?”

“Never.”

“A pit bull latches on to another dog and don’t let go. Beat ’em on the head with a shovel. Chop off a hind leg. Don’t matter. He just fights to the death.”

Perlow felt revulsion at the description of a maimed animal. He never considered himself a violent man. On the few occasions when he had to make someone disappear, it was always with regret and sadness. More than once, he dipped into his own pocket to send money, anonymously, to the widows and children.

“Fought like a dog,” Tejada said, tying up his thoughts. “Right up to the whistle and a little after.”

When the tow truck pulled the Lincoln out of the exit lane, Tejada eased the Bentley toward Coral Way, the engine purring. Perlow considered the tattoo on the back of Tejada’s shaved head. A five-pointed crown. Symbol of the Latin Kings, which Perlow thought sounded like Desi Arnaz’s mambo band, but was the largest Hispanic street gang in the country. A steroid-pumped hulk, Tejada had done time for armed robbery and aggravated assault, both pluses on his résumé.

“You hungry, Nestor?”

“You know me, Mr. P. I can always eat.”

“How about the Forge? I’ll treat you to crab cakes.”

“Forge is closed, sir.”

“Jeez, I forgot about the remodeling.”

I’m getting old
.

Perlow thought of Vincent Gigante, “The Oddfather,” wandering around Manhattan in his bathrobe, showing up for court unbathed and unshaven. The press thought Gigante was faking it, but Perlow knew the man. Alzheimer’s was a bitch.

“How about Pumpernik’s for a pastrami sandwich?” Perlow said.

Tejada laughed. “You’re messing with me, Mr. P.”

“Yeah. How many years they been closed, I wonder?”

Perlow longed for the old days. When you could still make a buck shy-locking and running numbers and shooting craps in a cabana at the Fontainebleau. Before they had slots at the racetracks and offshore gambling on the Internet.

Jesus, video poker!

How can you trust a card game where you don’t see the deck?

His thoughts returned to Lassiter. If Lassiter tried to go public with accusations against Charlie, he would have to be stopped. Perlow would find it distasteful, but what else could he do?

“Nestor, I haven’t asked you to get your hands dirty for a while.…”

“Anything you want, Mr. P, you just ask.”

“Thank you, Nestor.”

“When do you want it done, sir?”

“I have to think it through. These decisions are never easy.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. P, if your interests are threatened, the sooner you act the better.
‘Más vale matar a la primera rata antes de que la casa se llene de ellas.’
 ”

“Something about rats in the house.” Perlow had once spoken decent Spanish, but that was half a century ago.

“Better to kill the first rat before the house gets full of them,” Tejada translated.

Perlow smiled. Meyer himself would have warmed to the concept.

I had nearly turned around after leaving Ziegler’s office. I wanted to crash back through the door, hoist him from his chair by his designer lapels, and toss him through a wall. Let all those certificates and plaques come raining down. But I knew my anger was with myself, not him. I’d given Ziegler the ammunition and the weapon, and he’d been happy to blow me away.

I took a cab home, showered, and changed into fresh shorts and T-shirt. I called Amy’s cell and told her we needed to talk. I didn’t tell her I had a confession to make. She said she was going jogging on the beach, trying to sweat out her frustrations and clear her mind.

I drove across the Rickenbacker Causeway, watching a line of thunderheads rumble across open water toward Key Biscayne. Summer in Miami, where it rains every afternoon at 3:17
P.M.
, give or take.

I caught up with Amy on the white sand near the old lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. She wore cutoffs and a red bikini top and was Ohio pale, but her carved abs and rounded delts revealed she was no stranger to the gym.

I needed to tell her the truth about my night with Krista. If she heard it from Ziegler instead of me, I’d lose whatever trust I’d struggled to build. Amy might even begin to suspect me again in her sister’s disappearance.
That’s the problem with lies and cover-ups. They make the underlying wrong seem even more grievous.

“I want you to take precautions,” I told her, as wind gusts rustled the palm fronds and swirled loose sand across the dunes. I couldn’t bring myself to confess. Instead, I stalled.

“Why?”

“Ziegler’s rattled and he’s called in reinforcements.”