Mortal Sin jl-4 Read online

  Our second cold front of the season. Arctic air moving down from Canada, a deep freeze in the Midwest. This was the mother of all cold fronts as far as Florida was concerned, dipping far south, freezing the citrus groves hard, bringing snow flurries to Orlando, and giving us a nighttime frost as far south as Key Largo.

  By morning, the wind was due north and holding strong, not even suggesting that it would begin clocking toward the east and warmer air. The sky was a brittle blue and cloudless, and Miamians were agog with the novelty of it all. The graphics guys at the Miami Journal had icicles dripping from the masthead. The weather gal on the morning TV show gave frostbite advice, and a crop specialist fretted about the winter tomato and strawberry crop.

  In my Coconut Grove neighborhood of small, older houses, a different smell was in the air. The fragrance of hibiscus was replaced by the smoke from fireplaces. Inside, my old coral-rock house was warm and comfy; only a layer of frost on the windows revealed just how cold it was. I dug out my wool suit, the conservative gray herringbone, and polished my black wing tips. I chose a white shirt and a gray tie with a rose-colored pattern.

  I made a breakfast of shredded wheat with slices of yellow star fruit, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a cup of coffee, black. I skimmed the headlines in the Journal — more Rolex robbers mugging drivers at gas stations for their watches, the head of Planned Parenthood quitting because she became unexpectedly pregnant-then grabbed my bag and took off.

  The upholstery in my antiquated chariot was cold and stiff, cracking when I sat down. The engine coughed and hacked and sputtered and said to hell with it a couple of times until I coaxed her into life. I let the old gal warm up, whispering sweet nothings about a new wax job while the defroster blew noxious air at the windshield. The clutch rebelled when I put her in gear and tried to bounce my left knee into my jaw.

  With the frost melting and the engine backing off, I took my usual shortcut through the south Grove, from Poinciana up Douglas, passing Royal Palm, Palmetto, Avocado, and Loquat, hanging a right on Thomas by the old Negro Cemetery, then scooting over to Hibiscus, and north a block to Grand. Morning rush hour was building with rich white folks from Old Cutler Drive, Cocoplum, and Gables Estates cutting through the black Grove to get downtown, so I swung left on Matilda, and then right on Oak, which becomes Tigertail, and takes me right to the entrance of I-95 just north of Seventeenth Avenue. Of course, I could have headed north on U.S. I to get to the same place, but I never take the straight path when a serpentine route will get me there thirty seconds faster. Besides, I was running late, and Abe Socolow hates to be kept waiting.

  There are three courthouses in Miami, to the utter confusion of citizens called to jury duty. Our town is the venue of choice for international drug dealers, as well as a convenient place to bring to trial various savings-and-loan scoundrels and notorious presidents of banana republics. This prompted the federal government to add a bunch of judges and build a new courthouse connected to the FDR-era post office that housed the old one. Sometimes, prospective jurors summoned to hear fender benders in state court inexplicably end up there. Baffled, they watch busloads of shackled Latino cocaine cowboys hustled into the building for their arraignments, the good citizens wondering if they’ve been transported to some Central American principality.

  For big trials, the feds still use the old Central Courtroom, a spacious two-story affair with coffered ceilings, dark wainscoting, red velvet draperies, and a hand-carved witness box. On the wall, dating from the early forties, is a twenty-six-foot-long pastel mural depicting our state’s past. Indians, fishermen, farm laborers, beauty queens, fruit growers-a joyous rainbow of different-colored Floridians living and working together. Like many of the symbols foisted on us by government, the mural is a pleasant deception.

  Twenty-five blocks away, in the civic center complex, an above-ground walkway connects the county jail to the Justice Building, a misnomer to be sure. Inside, state judges process an endless stream of traffic, misdemeanor, and felony cases, shoveling defendants into and out of our overcrowded prisons. The building houses a slice of Miami’s underbelly, hustlers and losers, drifters and grifters. The voices inside speak in a polyglot of languages from the Caribbean, Central and South America. The corridors teem with store robbers, home burglars, small-time crack dealers, wife-beaters, drunk drivers, and an occasional murderer.

  The state attorney’s office is in the building, and usually Abe Socolow can be found there, either trying capital cases or conferring with his major-crimes prosecutors. But for reasons related to history and custom, the grand jury meets downtown in the civil courthouse. It is there that evidence of corruption is heard, prosecutors unveiling their major investigations for twenty-three citizens chosen to determine who shall be indicted.

  The county courthouse dates from the 1920s. It is a limestone tower, a wedding cake of rectangular floors growing smaller from bottom to top. Back before there was a Justice Building, both criminal and civil cases were heard in the county courthouse. The jail was at the top, then the highest point in the city. The state attorney still maintains a small office in what used to be the jail, and it is there that Abe Socolow spends much of his time when the grand jury is in session.

  Socolow’s office is small but has the illusion of size because of windows where bars used to be on three sides, windows twenty-six floors above Flagler Street. A parapet with gargoyles surrounds the windows, and in a surreal fusion of life and art, black vultures perch there. The vultures arrive each winter and depart each spring, just like the tourists. And every year, the jokes downtown are the same.

  I see the courthouse buzzards are out in force today.

  The birds?

  No, the lawyers.

  A lone receptionist, unsmiling and bored, sat at a desk in the anteroom on the top floor. If I brightened her day, she did her best to hide it. She eyed my oversize duffel bag, buzzed her boss, then waved me in.

  Abe Socolow sat behind his battleship-gray desk made of the finest alloys the state could buy secondhand. The desk was covered with files. Each file had a colorful sticker identifying the case by number. Socolow didn’t stand up, shake my hand, or whistle “Dixie.”

  “I’ve been expecting you, Jake.”

  Now what did that mean? Of course he’d been expecting me. I’d called him. Or did Nicky Florio call him too? Maybe I was paranoid, but was Socolow giving me an odd look? Sizing me up, like he’d never seen me before. Gee, I’d been there when he won his first capital case. I’d been too close, in fact, sitting first chair at the defense table.

  “Welcome to buzzards’ peak,” he greeted me. His voice grated, always had, the sound of metal shearing metal. He shot a look toward the windows. Outside, three vultures were balanced on the parapet, watching half a dozen buddies soar in the thermal air currents around the building. The black birds had white down-turned beaks and bald, scaly red heads like wild turkeys. A couple of the bigger fellows had six-foot wingspans. “Sit down, Jake. That’s quite a load you’re toting.”

  Was that a smile or a sneer?

  Socolow’s suit was the same color as the vultures’ feathers but didn’t fit as well. He always looked skinny in his full-cut Brooks Brothers attire. His shirt was white, the tie black with the usual pattern of silver handcuffs. Until recently, he wore rimless eyeglasses. A campaign consultant must have suggested contacts, and now I noticed the dark pouches the glasses had kept hidden. His dark thinning hair revealed a high, furrowed forehead. He was tall and narrow, with slightly hunched shoulders. Not a photogenic politician, just a hardworking career prosecutor who finally got a shot at the brass ring when his boss took a spill.

  I slung the duffel bag to the floor and sat down in a state-issued lumbar-busting chair. “I wanted to thank you for stopping by during the Tupton trial.”

  “Nicky asked me to do it, so I showed the colors. A little moral support for a friend.”

  Nicky. Friend. I measured his words and mannerisms.

  “I did
n’t realize the two of you were close.”

  “Never were, but you knowhow it is in politics, strange bedfellows and all that. The reality is you can’t run for office without a sizable war chest. Do you know what thirty-second TV spots cost in Miami these days?”

  “Must be difficult,” I said, “with the thousand-dollar limit on campaign contributions.”

  “The law’s supposed to prevent undue influence, right, but what’s the effect of it? Only the wealthy or those with established political machines can run. Look, if a guy’s worth ten million dollars, he can spend two of it on his campaign, and it’s perfectly legal. But if I have two friends who want to give me a million each to run, I’m violating the law.”

  “Life’s unfair,” I agreed.

  “Everybody knows the campaign laws are bullshit. There hasn’t been a candidate the last twenty years who hasn’t taken unreported cash, services, whatever. It’s a fact of life.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to say it. I had wanted him to make it easier for me, and he had, but still, I couldn’t get the words out.

  “You all right, Jake?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I don’t know. You look a little tired, run-down maybe. Been working too hard?”

  “Maybe. Doing a lot of work for Florio Enterprises,” I said.

  Hint, hint. C’mon, Abe, ask for the money.

  “That’s what I hear,” he said.

  “Yeah, a lot of work for Florio Enterprises,” I repeated.

  He leaned forward over his desk, and on cue, I leaned forward in my chair. I thought he was going to whisper something, but his voice was still the familiar rasp, loud and irritating. “How long have we known each other, Jake?”

  “Long time. I’d just sneaked through night law school, barely passed the Bar, and the P.D.’s Office gave me a job because they needed some heft on the touch football team. You were young, but already a hotshot.”

  “You remember the first case we had against each other?”

  “ State v. Fonseca. What’d you charge him with, extortion or obstruction of justice?”

  “Both. You were highly creative. Of course, you had to be. Here’s your client facing trial in a fencing scam, and he mails a five-pound cow’s tongue to the informant.”

  “He was accused of mailing it.”

  Socolow’s laugh was a horse’s whinny. “Yeah, after we learned his brother-in-law owns a wholesale meat business…”

  “Which you got into evidence.”

  “…along with the fact that the tongue arrives at the informant’s house in an L.L. Bean carton that was originally addressed to your client.”

  “He’d ordered some waders for trout fishing,” I explained.

  “You remember your closing argument?”

  In a moment, it came back to me, and I raised my voice in lawyerly indignation. “‘No one is that stupid! Obviously, my client has been framed. An enemy may well have gone through his garbage, retrieved the incriminating carton, and sent the meat.’”

  “That was it,” Socolow said, “the last-ditch effort of a desperate lawyer.”

  “What else could I do? I was just trying to stir up some reasonable doubt.”

  “You must have done it, because Fonseca walked.”

  “I remember. He sent me a smoked turkey that Christmas.”

  Socolow nearly smiled. It didn’t seem to break his face. We shared a quiet moment of unspoken reminiscence. Finally, Socolow said, “We’re just dancing around it here, aren’t we, Jake?”

  “Like Fred and Ginger,” I agreed.

  “So, you have something for me, or not?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Outside the south window, two vultures soared high in the up-drafts, huge wings spread wide, then came to rest on the little balcony that surrounded the top floor. The birds seemed to like Socolow’s office. Maybe it was the view. Maybe it was the company.

  “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 Buil
ding. 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.”