"I want to. Believe me, I want . . ."
Outside, the mockingbird was at it again, and in the distance, a police siren wailed. "What do you want, Jake?"
"I want to wrap my arms around you and carry you off somewhere. Someplace safe where no one can hurt you."
"Ah, you are my knight."
"No. The armor's rusted, the knees are creaky, and my steed has thrown a shoe. Besides that, I've always been a step too slow."
She leaned over and kissed me. Smoky and sweet. "Not for me," she said.
Softly, tentatively, she kissed me again. Waiting for me to kiss her back. But I didn't. I stalled.
"It's important that we maintain some distance," I said. "At least until the case is over."
"You mean geographical distance?" She scooted closer on the bed, gave me a playful smile, and ran a hand through my hair. "Or emotional distance?"
"Both. I find the two are usually related."
"Oh, I don't know. I've been physically close to lots of men. But not emotionally close."
"Everyone's done that," I said. "But it's so meaningless. So . . ."
"Empty."
"Exactly."
"You don't want to get involved with me, do you?" she asked.
"It's not that I don't want to. I can't."
"What are you afraid of?"
"You. Me. I've been down this road before."
"Would it be unethical?"
"Technically, yeah. The Bar passed a rule that prohibits lawyers from sleeping with their clients."
"Really?"
"Unless they were involved before the case. Then the lawyer's grandfathered in."
"Nice choice of words," she said.
"But that's not the point. I didn't learn my ethics from a book. I just try to do what's right. And if we're involved, it'll cloud my judgment."
"And we wouldn't want that," she said, wriggling close enough that we were breathing the same oxygen.
"Chrissy, I'm serious."
"So am I." She stripped the T-shirt off over her head, and then the shorts that covered her bikini bottom, and then the bottom, too. She stood and stretched, and though there was something practiced in it, back arched, breasts thrust forward, a pose she may have struck a thousand times, it was also so completely natural and innocent as to be even more provocative. Which, of course, was exactly what she intended. Some beautiful women may be unaware of their effect on men. Others, particularly those whose living depends on their looks and the moods they can create, know precisely the effect of every tilt of the head, every turn of the hip, every shadowy smile. There is neither pride nor shame in their display of naked flesh. It is just a fact, and in the perfection of details, the symmetry of features, the combination of physical strength and robust health that emanates from such a creature, there is always the knowledge that it will fade. Next year's model will soon replace it, so if you possess such beauty, the time to use it is now.
Chrissy turned toward the door, giving me a view of her tapered back, the slope of her ass. She flicked the light switch, then whirled and came back to the bed, moving gracefully, silhouetted in the darkness, a lithe, willowy sexual animal totally aware of her powers. She sat down, tucked her legs under her, and leaned toward me, her breasts pressed against my chest.
I'm sure some man exists somewhere on this planet who could have resisted. But Pope John Paul II wasn't in bed with Chrissy Bernhardt. That poor excuse for a chivalrous knight, Jake Lassiter, was there, all six feet two, 223 pounds of him, blood pumping, imagination soaring. I needed a stern warning. Caution, libido loose. Dangerous curves. Slippery when wet.
She tilted her head and kissed me again. This time, I kissed back. Slowly, then deeply. I cradled her head in my hands, and we kissed some more, our tongues fencing; then she dug her teeth into my lower lip.
I wanted to save her and savor her, taste her and devour her. I wanted a thousand things, and all of them now. A yearning moan rose from her, and we clutched at each other, hands roaming.
She reached down and pulled off my boxers, which I kicked across the room. She let a hand run down over my chest to my stomach, to my crotch. I was so hard it hurt.
We kissed some more, hungrily, biting each other's lips, sucking, searching, finding. Our hands explored each other, stroking and grasping. I cupped a hand around a firm round breast and took a nipple between forefinger and thumb.
"Harder, Jake. It won't break."
I squeezed, and she gasped, and I took the nipple into my mouth like a ripe red cherry. My hand swept down across her flat stomach and found the wet heat of her. As I touched her, she gasped, then grabbed me by the back of the neck and put her lips to my ear. "Love me, Jake. Love me, please." Her voice heavy with yearning and sadness and a crushing physical need. The sounds reverberating like a bass chord deep inside me. I wanted to cover her with my shield, to protect her from harm, to carry her away to a place where no one could hurt her again.
She spread her long legs and whispered again. "Love me now, Jake." The same desperate longing.
I pressed myself against her pubic bone, which ground into my shaft. I slid lower and she was open to me, steamy, waves of heat rising from her. I entered her, and she locked herself around me, and we fell into the same rhythm, our bodies moving to the same beat, ever so slowly. I let her set the pace, and as it quickened, she bit at my chest, clawed at my back with her nails, then grabbed my head with both hands and tore at my hair. Her breath came in short, hot blasts against my neck, and half in pain, half in delirious pleasure, I quickened my pace, thrusting harder and faster, until a growl came up from deep inside her and then me, and her eyes rolled back, and she gave a low, wolflike wail, and then she thrust her wrist into her mouth and bit down hard, as if she could not stand to hear her own pleasure.
I pounded harder, coming then, too, and she wrapped even tighter around me, and I held her there, my face pressed against hers, until finally I tasted a salty drop and saw that her tears were mixed with mine.
11
Fruit of the Earth
"Let's see if I got this straight," Roberto Condom said. "You got some babe who's charged with murder out on bond, but me— who maybe was in the vicinity of a larceny involving some fruit— me, I got to sit in this shithole."
"If you're convicted, it's three first-degree felonies," I said, "and they'll have you under the habitual offender law. Life in prison."
"
Carajo!
"
"My sentiments exactly."
"It's 'cause I'm Cuban, isn't it, Jake? I'm an oppressed minority."
"Sorry, Roberto. In Miami, you're the majority."
We were sitting a tiny lawyers' visiting room in the Dade County Jail. I had elbowed my way past throngs of relatives on the sidewalk, a polyglot of mothers, wives, girlfriends, and screaming babies. Overhead, men leaned out through barred windows, their women yelling up at them, screaming they'd like to suck them or shoot them, howling about unpaid rent, forgotten birthdays, and a variety of domestic ills not usually aired at mega-decibels on public streets.
From inside the visitors' room, I could her men shouting and steel doors clanging. I am always claustrophobic inside a jail, even when I have a pass that gets me out the door. With the incessant racket and the metallic disinfectant smell, I imagine myself crunched inside a fifty-five-gallon barrel as someone bangs on the lid with a baseball bat.
"Maybe you can give the judge a little present," Roberto said.
"I don't bribe judges."
"Not a bribe. I got a friend who'll send him a human skull with red and black beads and fourteen pennies. Give the judge leprosy."
"C'mon, Roberto. You should have more faith in your lawyer."
"I'll put my faith in
brujería
and
palo mayombe
."
"The judge could come down with Ebola virus, but you'd still be in the can. Let me work on it, okay?"
"Yeah, but it ain't fair. First of all, they got nothing on me.
Nada
. Maybe trespassing, which is what, a misdemeanor? How they gonna prove I
took
the mangoes? Maybe they fell into my truck. Maybe it's not even a crime to pick the fruit of the earth, which belongs to all of God's creatures, right?"
I just love it when clients devise my strategy.
"They wouldn't prosecute a possum for stealing mangoes, would they, Jake?"
"No, they'd shoot it, which is what Guy Bernhardt wanted to do to you."
"That
puerco!
Stealing from Guy Bernhardt ain't stealing at all," Roberto said.
From somewhere above us, one inmate yelled at another to turn down his radio. "What do you mean by that?"
"The
hijo de puta
steals water from half the farmers in South Dade. My cousin Xavier has thirty acres two miles from the Bernhardt farm, and his wells have gone dry."
"Bernhardt told me about the battle over water down there."
"Bet he didn't tell you everything."
"It's an old story, Roberto. The rich get richer. The poor die of thirst."
"Yeah, but did you know Bernhardt dumps most of the water he's pumping?"
"What do you mean?"
"His irrigation ditches flow into a canal that goes straight into Biscayne Bay. When his trees have had enough, Bernhardt's wells keep pumping, but he dumps the water. I seen it with my own eyes. Three nights in a row, before we did the mango heist, I cased the place, crawled all over that property on my belly. Water was five feet deep in the irrigation ditch, flowing like a river, due east."
"That doesn't make any sense. He sells the water. Why waste it?"
"How should I know?"
Outside the room a buzz, and a security door clicked open, then clanged shut. "You're pulling a scam on me, aren't you, Roberto? You're cooking up some defense. You weren't out there to steal mangoes. You were working undercover for the Water Management District."
"Jake,
mi amigo
, you gotta believe me." Sounding hurt, which a con man can do to make you feel guilty for mistrusting him. "Guy Bernhardt's dumping water into the bay. I swear it. Have you ever known me to lie?"
"Only under oath," I said, thinking of Roy Cohn.
"Well, I'm telling you I seen it with my own eyes."
But why? I kept wondering. I thought about it but didn't come up with any bright ideas. Mango-loving, sister-helping, trigger-happy Guy Bernhardt was getting more mysterious by the moment.
"So, like I was saying, Jake. They shouldn't arrest me for stealing mangoes from that
cabrón
. They should—"
"I know. I know, Roberto. They should give you a medal."
12
Memories
"What can I do for you, Mr. Lassiter?" she asked.
"You can call me Jake."
"Fine, and you can call me Dr. Santiago." She belted out a hearty laugh. "Actually, you can call me Millie."
Dr. Milagros Santiago was a heavyset woman in her fifties, with glasses perched on top of her forehead. Her office was on the second floor of a three-story stucco building on Coral Way, a crowded street lined with banyan trees and small shops. It was a hot June day, but inside, the air conditioning was booming full blast. A rubber tree sat in one corner of the room, looking forlorn and in need of therapy. The wallpaper was beige grass cloth. A couch and matching chairs were in muted, soothing earth tones.
"Charlie Riggs told me you might help me with a case," I said.
"
Mi querido hombre!
Are you Charlie's friend?"
"He's like a father to me."
"What a dear man. We worked together on psychological profiles of serial killers when I was with the Behavioral Science Unit."
"Charlie didn't tell me you were an FBI agent."
"I wasn't. I had a fellowship, wrote a bunch of papers nobody read. I spent three years listening to death row inmates describe their sexual fantasies, then opted for a change of venue."
"Private practice," I said.
"Yeah. Now, I listen to housewives tell me how they dream Clint Eastwood will park his pickup truck in front of their house and pick flowers for them."
She slid the glasses down from her forehead and studied me a moment. Then she stood up and walked to a counter where an espresso machine was humming. She turned a lever, and thick black liquid fizzed into two thimble-sized containers. "If I give my patients a full cup," she said, "they talk so fast I can't take notes."
She handed me the steaming rocket fuel, which, for reasons my Cuban friends cannot fathom, I drink without sugar. "I saw a shrink a couple of times," I said.
"Good for you. Some men would never do that, or admit it if they had."
"I'd just been cut by the Dolphins, sacked by a girlfriend, and rejected by three law schools."
"Your life seemed to be at its nadir, and I suspect your self-esteem had taken a tumble."
"You would think so, but I went to the shrink to find out why I didn't seem to care. I spent all my time partying and windsurfing and hanging out. Drinking too much, sleeping too late, and settling into an unmotivated life of unrelenting fun. I was a rebel without a clue, and I needed to find out why."
She seemed to think it over while she sipped at the syrupy drink. "Your indifference may have been a defense mechanism to failure. You really
did
care, but you couldn't admit to yourself that you did."
"Yep. And once I figured that out, I set some goals and changed my life."
"And you've stayed off the couch ever since."
"No. Once, a few years ago, a woman died. A woman I cared about. I thought I could have saved her, should have saved her, so I had some things to work out."