Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice (18 page)

He dismissed the idea with
a wave of a pudgy hand. “
Tacent satis
laudant
. Silence is praise
enough.”

* * *

Codeine took the pain away with a drowsy,
cloudy half sleep. I awoke with a throbbing hand and a head filled
with bowling balls that rolled whichever way I tilted. It was dark
outside, and the mockingbird in the chinaberry tree was whistling
for a mate.

Which made me think of Jo Jo Baroso. What
did it mean, the friction of body parts and remembrance of old
times, so rudely interrupted? I took two pills and started to drift
off again, vaguely aware that Kip kept opening my bedroom door,
looking in at me, during breaks between TV movies.

“
Want to split a beer,
Uncle Jake?” he asked during one of my periods of
semi-consciousness. The aroma of home-delivery pizza entered the
room with him. I thought he was doing well in the self-sufficiency
department. Kids left on their own somehow manage. I ought to
know.

I shook my head, and the effort made my head
pound with a pain that kept time with my heartbeat. Kip came over
and put a hand on my forehead, and for some reason I couldn’t
explain, tears came to my eyes and then sleep overtook me.

***

“
You look like death warmed
over.” She opened the blinds with an irritating
clackety-clack
, and bright sun
slanted through the window and across the bed. “Lord-y, you look
even worse in the daylight.”

I pried my eyes open and squinted into the
glare, finding a silhouette of Granny Lassiter leaning over me.
“Good morning to you, too, Florence Nightingale.”

Granny clucked her disapproval and began
straightening up the room, picking up perfectly clean T-shirts that
happened to be crumpled into piles on the floor. She rearranged my
stylish collection of Dolphins commemorative Super Bowl ashtrays,
ran a finger over a chest of drawers, leaving a trail in the dust.
“Brought you some white lightning,” she said, hoisting a wicker
picnic basket onto the bed. She pulled out a mason jar filled with
a liquid that could power a Saturn rocket. “It’ll stop the pain
dead in its tracks.”

“
So will a coma,” I
said.

I took a sip and grimaced. Granny slipped
downstairs into the kitchen, and at lunchtime reappeared with a
bowl of steaming conch chowder and some grouper fillets cooked in
coconut milk and lime juice. I ate, then dozed off again, just
after she told me she was going to give Kip a haircut since I
apparently hadn’t thought about it.

It was late afternoon when two more visitors
squeezed into my little bedroom. One had been there before. They
both wore navy blue business suits, but the lady looked better in
hers.

“
Hello, Jo Jo,” I said.
“Abe, what brings you here? Find another corpse in my
house?”

“
Nah, but if you looked any
worse ...”

Just then, Kip stuck his court-ordered video
camera through the open door. “I told John Law he couldn’t come in
without a warrant, but Granny said it was okay. Did I do right,
Uncle Jake?”

“
You done good, kid,” I
said, trying to sound like Jimmy Cagney, “but next time, give him a
fatal case of lead poisoning, see?

Kip lowered the camera,
winked, and shot a pretend gun at Abe Socolow, who seemed
distressed at my felonious advice. Jo Jo came over to the bed,
leaned down and kissed me on the forehead, or rather, on a purple
welt on my forehead. Kip walked in and sort of hung around in the
corner, taping the scene for a documentary,
My Uncle, the Punching Bag
.

“
I brought you something,”
Socolow said, tossing a bag onto the bed.

I smelled the garlic bagels before I opened
the bag. “Thanks, Abe. Better than serving an indictment. I guess
you believe me now.”

“
About what?”

“
That I didn’t kill
Hornback or Blinky. That crazy cowboy Cimarron did, and he tried to
kill me, or at least, threatened to.”

Socolow reached into the bag, pulled out one
of my bagels and started chewing. “Doesn’t fit. If Cimarron killed
Blinky, why’d he ask you where he was?”

I shot a look at Jo Jo.

“
I’m sorry, Jake. I gave a
statement. I had to tell Abe what Simmy said.”

I turned back to Socolow. “I don’t know why
he asked. Maybe it doesn’t make any sense, but look at the facts.
There are four people involved in Rocky Mountain Treasures. One is
dead, one is missing and presumed dead, one just got the crap
kicked out of him by the fourth one. C’mon, Abe, it doesn’t take
Sherlock Holmes ...”

“
Maybe you’re right, but
maybe not. You know as well as I do that when you’re dealing with
circumstantial evidence, you’ve got to rule out the possibility of
any other set of facts. Who’s to say that you and Cimarron aren’t
involved in a power struggle for that treasure company? Maybe the
other two just got in the way. Or maybe Hornback sided with
Cimarron, and you had him taken out, and Blinky sided with you, and
Cimarron took him out. Or vice versa, or a hundred other scenarios
I haven’t thought of.”

“
Abe! I’m not in a power
struggle with the cowboy. I never even knew the guy existed. I
never asked to be in that company. I was just dragged into
it.”

Socolow seemed to think about it. He gave
the impression of engaging in quiet, deductive reasoning, but after
a moment, he said, “You got any cream cheese?”

“
No. Abe, you’re giving me
a headache. What are you doing about Cimarron?”

“
No way we can charge him
with murder, but if you and Josefina give a sworn statement, we’ll
file a direct information for aggravated assault and trespass. You
want us to charge him?”

“
Yes,” I said.

“
No,” Jo Jo
said.

“
Well, I’m sure pleased the
two of you are back together,” Socolow said. “Just like old times.
Maybe I ought to leave the room and let you hash this out.” He
stood up and started for the door. “You think your granny brought
any of that Key lime pie with her?”

When he was gone, Jo Jo shot a nervous look
toward Kip, who was sitting in the corner.

“
It’s okay,” I said. “Kip
and I are covered by the uncle-nephew privilege.”

“
There’s no such thing,”
she told me. Turning back to the kid, she said, “Would you turn off
the camera please?”

“
I will if you say, ‘Fasten
your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.’

She looked puzzled.

“
An audition,” I explained.
“He’s looking for a new Bette Davis.”

“
Jake,” she said, giving me
a no-nonsense look I remembered so well, “this is
serious.”

“
Okay, Kip. It’s a wrap.
I’m closing down production. You can stay and listen but keep
quiet.”

He grumbled but turned off the camera.

Jo Jo waited a moment, then said, “Simmy
called me this morning.”

“
Great, where is
he?”

“
Didn’t say. He apologized,
said he lost his head, but it was a combination of things. Jealousy
at finding you in my bed, anger at Luis, frustration with the
company.”

“
Okay, he’s got problems,
and he works them out by using my head for punting practice. I hope
you told him that the next time I see him, I going to even things
up.”

“
No, I didn’t tell him
that,” Jo Jo said, evenly. “Mostly, I listened. He kept repeating
what he said the other night, that Blinky had double-crossed him,
and you must have been in on it. Then, he told me he wanted me
back. He didn’t realize it before, but he wants to start
again.”

“
Yeah, well tell him to
take a number. I’m first in line.”

“
Oh, Jake. I don’t know
what to do. I really don’t. A week ago, I had no one, and now, two
men want me.”

“
Like Katharine Hepburn
in
The Rainmaker
,”
Kip said.

“
Hey, kid,” I said, “how
‘bout going downstairs and keep an eye on the D.A.”

“
Why? Is this where it gets
X-rated?”

I shooed him out, and we were alone. “Jo Jo,
my head is spinning when it isn’t throbbing. Two nights ago, we
made love, and it was a ten on the Richter scale. We turned back
the clock. Then we get a visit from a maniac the size of a missile
silo, a guy who may have killed your brother, and now you’re
telling me you’re thinking about going back to him. Is that what
I’m hearing?”

Her dark eyes were moist. “I don’t know,
Jake. I just don’t know. It’s so much more complicated than you
realize. Luis didn’t tell you everything, and neither did I.”

“
I’m listening,” I
said.

But she wasn’t talking.

“
Jo Jo!”

“
I’m so sorry Luis got you
involved in this. Maybe it’s not too late to get you out. Please,
Jake, let it drop. Let me handle it. I have things I’ve got to do.
Don’t follow me. And someday I hope you’ll forgive me.”

She bolted from the room, and I heard her
blue patent leather pumps beating a staccato retreat down the
stairs. I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t. I wanted to
call out to her, to ask her more questions.

Starting with one...

Forgive you for what?

And backing up a bit...

Follow you where?

And maybe most important...

Get me out of what?

Which was the most difficult of all, because
if you don’t know what you’re involved in, how the heck are you
going to get out?

Chapter 13

A Dozen Deadly
Thoughts

I went back to work, shuffling papers,
pleading out first-timers for stern lectures and probation because
the prisons

were too crowded to house my fallen angels.
Weeks passed with no news. Metro police could not find the moose
disguised as a cowboy and finally asked for help from the sheriff s
department in Pitkin County, Colorado, on the theory that Cimarron
had gone home.

Our local cops seemed to be happy to lateral
the ball. In a county with a murder a day and a hundred stolen cars
a week, arresting a guy for assault was not the highest priority.
Especially when the word I was getting from the state attorney’s
office was that Socolow considered the whole thing a lovers’
triangle where nobody got killed. In other words, no big deal, a
couple of guys trading punches over a woman. I didn’t see it that
way, but then I was the guy whose ears rang for a week.

Maybe the case embarrassed
Socolow. After all, Jo Jo Baroso was on his staff. Who needs the
sly remarks and elbow-in-the-ribs jokes about the lady
prosecutor
con dos amantes
in the bedroom?

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking because
Socolow was more aloof than usual. He stopped returning my calls.
He let it get around town that I was either a witness or a suspect
in more cases than I was a lawyer. Then I noticed a gray Dodge
behind me on the way home from the office, and again the next day
on the way to the courthouse. I wouldn’t have paid attention,
except each day, the Dodge changed lanes suddenly to keep me in
sight. Two men were in the front seat, but I couldn’t make out
their features. On South Miami Avenue headed north from Coconut
Grove, I pulled into the Vizcaya parking lot and let the car go by,
checking the license number. As I figured, state-owned. Either
Socolow had me under surveillance, or the governor was tracking me
down to offer a judgeship.

Abe Socolow.

We had known each other since I squeaked
through the bar exam and landed a job in the P.D.’s office. He was
a young assistant state attorney, whose enthusiasm had not yet been
sharpened into cynicism. He prosecuted shoplifters, check bouncers,
and drunk drivers with equal vigor, and I defended them with
creativity. He usually won, but that’s the way it works in the den
of iniquity (and inequity) of the Metro Justice Building. Other
defense lawyers considered Socolow dour and mean-spirited. I always
liked him, admired his fighting spirit, even found him funny in a
hard-assed way. Years ago, in an arson case, I asked for a
continuance because my client was in the hospital.

“
What’s wrong with him?”
the judge asked.

“
Probably smoke
inhalation,” Socolow said.

Socolow worked long hours, took on difficult
cases, and his career soared. Felony division within a year, major
crimes the next, public corruption unit, then capital cases. He
became state attorney by default when Nick Wolf, his predecessor,
took a fall for playing footsie with drug dealers.

My career was different. It started slow,
then tapered off. When I realized that virtually all my clients
were guilty— though not always with what they were charged—some of
the air went out of me. If I was going to rescue the flotsam and
jetsam of the sewage pipe we call the justice system, I might as
well get paid for it. I went downtown to Harman & Fox, an
old-line firm that represents insurance companies and banks. The
crusty coots there wanted someone who could try a tough case
without peeing his pants, and as a concession to my past, allowed
me to handle criminal cases, though I suspect they wish they had a
back door for my clients to enter and leave.

So Abe Socolow was an old foe. Strange that
I had begun to think of him as an old friend. Is my life so empty
that I concocted a kinship out of an adversarial relationship?
Maybe, but what a depressing thought.