The Deep Blue Alibi (14 page)

When the U.S. Attorney’s public corruption unit pulled a sting operation, it swept up Luber, some zoning inspectors, and two public works employees in a kickback and bribery scheme. Luber flipped quicker than you could say “minimum mandatory sentence.” He signed affidavits implicating several other public officials, including Circuit Judge Herbert T. Solomon.

Steve pleaded with his father to fight the accusations, but the old man caved, quitting the bench and the Bar, even while protesting his innocence. Luber pled guilty to reduced charges, spent his eighteen months at a country club prison in the Florida Panhandle, then came back to Miami. Stripped of his Bar license, he set up shop as a lobbyist. From talk around City Hall, Pinky was making more money than ever, securing lucrative concessions at the airport, rezoning agricultural land for shopping centers, and selling fleets of not-quite-wholesale sedans to the county—all under cover of darkness. It never hurt Pinky’s clients in such matters to make substantial, unreported contributions to local public officials. The contributions were always in cash, and usually delivered by Pinky Luber. In Miami politics, the term “lobbyist” was a pleasant euphemism for “bagman.”

The sight of Luber, fat and prosperous, stinking of treacly cologne, gave Steve the creepy-crawlies. He took a swing with the Barry Bonds. And then another. Closed his eyes. Visualized a ball on its upward arc leaving the bat, soaring toward the fence, nearing the warning track, then
plop,
into the outfielder’s glove. The outfielder’s face appeared: round and pink and chomping a cigar. Damn! The bastard even screwed up Steve’s daydreams.

“I was there the day you stole home to beat Florida State,” Luber said.

Steve opened his eyes. “Who gives a shit?”

“Won five thousand bucks.”

“You bet on college baseball?”

“Stevie, I bet whether the next gal to get on the elevator is a blonde or brunette.” He smiled ruefully. “Then I lost ten grand on the College World Series when you got picked off third in the bottom of the ninth.”

“Ump blew the call.”

“Yeah, a tough break.” Luber took a moment to size him up. When he spoke, it was softly and with a touch of sadness. “You were an arrogant little shit. That dancing off third base, that big lead you took in the series. Why the hell do it? You woulda scored on any hit.”

“I was trying to draw a bad throw. If the pitcher puts it in the dugout, I score and we tie it up.”

“You put the whole team at risk so you could be the hero. Now you’re doing the same thing with Herb.” Luber rocked forward in the chair and got to his feet. He brushed off his pants, as if he’d just hopped off a particularly dusty horse instead of a relatively clean, secondhand chair. “I gotta get going. Ponies are running at Calder.”

Luber had always seemed short, but now, aged and a tad stooped, he was truly pint-size.

Luber started for the door, stopped, and turned. “Getting picked off. There’s a lesson in that you never learned. You can’t depend on umpires. Same for judges. Same for the whole damn system. That’s why it’s better to resolve matters informally. Between people.”

Steve put the head of the bat on the floor, leaned on the handle. “What are you getting at?”

“That cockamamie suit you filed to get Herb’s license back. You drop it, I could give you some help.”

“What kind of help?”

Pinky’s cheeks crinkled with a chubby smile. “Let’s say you had a murder case that’s got you stumped.”

That caught Steve by surprise. “What do you know about it?”

“C’mon, Stevie. I got friends who say Hal Griffin’s been pulling some pretty cute permits down in Monroe County. New docks, hydrofoil service, liquor license for a gulfside terminal. Then a guy from Washington gets whacked on his boat. If I were defending Griffin, I’d be asking myself one mighty big question.”

“What’s that? Who could you bribe to get the case dropped?”

“The one the ancient Romans asked, wise guy.
Cui bono?
Who stands to gain?”

“Already doing that. Looking for who profits if Griffin takes a fall.”

“So let me help you. I know people. I hear things.”

“So whadaya know? Whadaya hear?”

“Oy! I should give it away, you gonif?” Pinky Luber sniggered and waddled toward the door. “Got another Roman expression for you. Quid pro quo.” He opened the door to the reception room and slipped the bowler onto his head. “Without some
quid,
kid, there ain’t no
quo.
”

Fifteen

IN PRAISE OF INANIMATE

WOMEN

“Pinky Luber tried to bribe you?” Victoria sounded skeptical.

“I don’t know if you’d call it a bribe,” Steve said, “but he implied he’d help us in Griffin’s case if I’d drop Dad’s Bar petition.”

Victoria wanted to ask more, but it was awkward, with all the people staring at them. “This is so embarrassing.”

“What’s the problem?” Steve said.

They were hurrying along Flagler Street, a woman in a thong bikini slung over Steve’s shoulder. The woman’s breasts, full spheroids, overflowed her bikini top. Her hair, a blond avalanche—Farrah Fawcett circa 1976—tickled Steve’s neck.

“Everyone’s looking at us,” Victoria said.

True. Patrons at the
café Cubano
stands, clerks from the discount camera shops sneaking smokes on the sidewalk, Latin-American tourists rolling luggage carts … everyone was gaping, pointing, laughing. Probably because the woman in the bikini was a hundred-pound, custom-made, silicone “love doll,” anatomically correct right down to every digit and orifice.

“We should have parked right across the street from the courthouse,” Victoria said.

“And pay fifteen bucks? No way.”

Steve had parked his old Caddy at a meter around the corner on Miami Avenue. They had three minutes to get to the hearing. Motion for summary judgment in the case of Pullone vs. Adult Enterprises, Ltd., dba The Beav. Long before Steve hooked up with Victoria— professionally and personally—he had represented The Beav, the strip club in Surfside. The cases were usually mundane consumer-fraud actions: selling sparkling cider as champagne for twenty bucks a glass or running multiple credit card charges every time the song changed during a lap dance. There was also the occasional personal-injury suit, including today’s case. Clayton Pullone, a middle-aged, married CPA, claimed to have suffered a dislocated hip while wrestling Susie Slamazon, The Beav’s famed bikini grappler, in a vat of lime Jell-O. Although the blonde on Steve’s shoulder was not Susie, her specs were as close as he was likely to find. Her name was Tami, according to the instruction manual, which also included helpful hints about washing various parts with warm, sudsy water.

“Cuánto cuesta la rubia?”
a man in a guayabera shouted as they passed Castillo Joyeria, a cut-rate jewelry store. Inquiring into the price of the blonde.

“You can’t afford her,” Steve called back.

In fact, Tami cost six thousand dollars. Custom-made to the buyer’s specifications. Skin tone: tan. Hair: honey blond. Nails: French manicure. Pubic hair: lightly trimmed. Breasts: 38DD and jiggly. Articulated hands that can grip. Mouth, vagina, and anal cavity, well … in working order. Lubed and suction ready, if you were into that sort of thing. Tami was on loan from Harvey Leinoff, The Beav’s owner, who after dating the hired help for years had recently turned to inanimate sex objects for his personal needs. No back talk, no dressing room catfights, no overtime pay.

The three of them—Steve, Victoria, and Tami— headed up the granite steps to the courthouse, Steve beginning to wish they had parked closer. Tami was damn heavy, and as her weight shifted, a perky silicone nipple lodged—like a pencil eraser—in his ear.

Victoria tried to ignore the carnival going on next to her. “So how could Luber help us in Uncle Grif’s case?”

“He let on that he knew who stuck Stubbs with that spear. Or could find out. It wasn’t clear which.”

“Do you trust Luber?”

Steve struggled up the last step. “About as far as I can throw Tami.”

They were at the front doors, waiting to go through the metal detector, the guards stifling laughs.

“This is crazy,” Victoria said. “There’s no way you can force the plaintiff to roll around on the courtroom floor with your rubber doll.”

“Don’t need the plaintiff. I’m gonna wrestle Tami.”

“Oh, please …”

“I’m gonna strip down to my briefs—”

“Not the leopard-spotted ones!”

“Of course not. That would be tacky. I’m wearing my Florida Marlins silk boxers. Which you’d know if you’d slept over last night.”

Waiting for an overweight bail bondsman to go through the security check, Victoria whispered: “Please try not to get us held in contempt.”

“Vic, a lawyer who’s afraid of jail—”

“Is like a surgeon who’s afraid of blood,” she finished. “I know. I know.”

They’d reached the front of the line, where Omar Torres, a portly courthouse security guard, was manning the walk-through metal detector.

“Omar, we’re late for a hearing,” Steve said. “Could you speed it up a bit?”

“No way, Steve,” Torres said. “Yesterday, some
santero
sneaked in here with a human skull, cast a spell right in Judge Gridley’s courtroom.”

Victoria placed her purse on the conveyor belt for the X-ray machine.

“Gonna have to pat you down, honey,” Torres said.

“In your dreams,” Victoria said.

“Not you, Ms. Lord.” Torres pointed at Tami the Love Doll, now standing shakily on her feet—painted toenails and all—leaning on Steve. “
Her.
Gotta check all her body cavities.”

“No need, Omar,” Steve replied. “I already did last night.”

Victoria tried to analyze what Steve had told her, but it didn’t compute. “Why would Pinky Luber care about your father’s case?”

“Obviously, he’s afraid of something.”

They were sitting on a black wooden bench that resembled a church pew in the corridor outside Judge Alvin Schwartz’s chambers. Steve had moved Tami between them after two guys in suits walked by and pinched the doll’s boobs. Plaintiff’s P.I. lawyers, Victoria figured. The insurance guys would never be so bold.

Steve had checked in with the bailiff, an officious young man who would be unemployed if not related to Judge Schwartz through marriage, if not bloodlines.

The bailiff carried a clipboard and demanded to know the names of every lawyer and witness who would be appearing in his great-uncle’s chambers. Steve dutifully gave their names, choosing “Tami Stepford” for his witness. They settled down to wait. Judge Schwartz was running late, a legalism for reading the morning paper while having his coffee with a bagel and a schmear.

“What’s Luber afraid of?” Victoria asked. “He’s served his time. There’s nothing more the state can do to him.”

“Unless something new came out in the Bar case.”

“Anything now would be too late under the statute of limitations.”

Steve shrugged, and Tami’s head slid down his shoulder. “All I know, Pinky’s scared shitless about my lawsuit.”

“Did you tell your father about his visit?”

“Yep. Dad said Pinky was a wind-belly from way back. And if I got mixed up with him, I’d be hitched to a dead mule that was ass-deep in molasses. Or maybe it was manure, I can’t remember which.”

“Herb still wants you to drop the Bar case, right?”

“Said if I didn’t, he’d write me out of his will.”

“Strong words.”

“Yeah, I’d lose a leaky houseboat and a collection of empty Bacardi bottles.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to be intimidated by Dad or bribed by Pinky. Full speed ahead on the Bar case and to hell with Pinky Luber.”

“But if Luber really can help us …”

“Forget it. I won’t sell out my father.”

“Herb doesn’t want his license back. Maybe you should listen to him.”

“This is what I’ve been talking about, Vic. You’re too close to the Griffins. You can’t be objective.”

“Me? You won’t accept help in Uncle Grif’s case because you need to prove something to your father.”

“Prove what?”

“That you’re just as good a lawyer as he was.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Yes it is. If
you
were objective, you’d see it.”

After that, no one said a thing, not even Tami.

The bailiff called three other cases, whose deep-carpet lawyers customarily gave him cash at Christmas, Halloween, and Bribe-Your-Public-Servant Day. So the partners of Solomon & Lord were still sitting on the hard, wooden pew at ten a.m., Victoria wondering what to tell Steve about her late-night phone call.

Then she just blurted it out. “The Queen called last night.”

“Zurich or Johannesburg?”

“Katmandu. She’s getting injections of pituitary glands from mountain goats. Supposed to rejuvenate the skin.”

“You tell her about the case?”

Victoria nodded. “She was shocked. First time in years either of us mention Uncle Grif’s name, and I have to tell her he’s being charged with murder.”

“She ask about Junior?”

“Only a hundred questions. ‘How’s he look? What’s he doing? Is he married?’ ”

“She still think he’s a dreamboat?”

“And
‘terrif.’
She said Junior was a
terrif
kid, so she’s not surprised how he turned out.”

“And how did he turn out? I mean, what exactly did you tell her?”

“Nothing much.” Which was basically true, she thought. She didn’t share her conflicted feelings with The Queen.

“Her Highness hates me, doesn’t she?” Steve pried.

“She barely knows you.”

“She thinks I’m not good enough for you.”

“All parents think that about their children.”

“Not my old man.”

“You want to make a better impression on The Queen, stop wearing that stupid T-shirt every time you see her.”

“What shirt?”

“Don’t play dumb. The one that says:
” ‘If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother.’ ”

“I’ve tried being nice. She didn’t like the watch I gave her.”

“If it had been a real Cartier and not a knockoff, she would have loved it.”