The Dark of Day (2 page)

“I'm going to puke!” Turning, she leaned over the grass. When she was done, the man gave her a handkerchief. Her hands were shaking as she wiped her lips and chin. “I'm sorry. I want to go home now, please.”

“Do I look like a cab driver? Who'd you come with?”

“A friend.”

“Tell him it's time to go.”

“Her. She's a girl. Do you work here? Maybe you know where she is. Alana. Long hair. Beautiful. She's sort of dark. From Venezuela.”

“Alana Martin?”

“Yes! Where is she?”

“Don't know. Well, well. Small world. Friends of Alana.”

“How could she just
leave
me here? Shit! How am I going to get home?”

“You have a cell phone? Call a taxi.”

“I don't have enough money for a taxi.” She started to cry.

“Come on. Stop that.” He let out a breath. “Okay. It's your lucky night. I was leaving anyway. I'll take you home, but if you throw up in my boss's Cadillac, you can walk.”

“Thank you so much. Thank you.” She stumbled, and he held her up with an arm around her waist.

Then she was in a car, leaning against a side door, and cold air blew on her face. She opened her eyes. The man was going through her purse. She grabbed for it, and he pulled it out of her reach.

“I only have five dollars!”

“Just finding out where you live, sweet face. I asked, and you couldn't seem to tell me.” He pulled out her driver's license and held it under the dome light, which shone on his shaved head. He had a short beard and a mustache. “Kylie Ann Willis. Lansing, Michigan. Twenty-one years old. Not bad. I should have had one like this back in the day. Looks almost real.”

“It
is
real!”

“With that cracker accent, no way you're from Michigan. How old are you, kid? Are you even eighteen?”

“Yes!”

He shoved the license back into her purse and tossed it to her lap. “I doubt that. Your folks know where you are?”

“Of course. I . . . I'm a student at the University of Miami.”

“Yeah? Studying what, nuclear physics?”

She closed her eyes. The seat was so soft.

“Wake up.” He patted her cheek. “Where am I taking you? If you can't remember, I'll have to drop you at the Miami Beach Police station and let them figure it out.”

She forced her eyes open, forced them to bring the two images of his face together. She moistened her lips. “Twenny-six, east of Biscayne. Windmere Apartments.”

“Windmill?”

“Wind . . . mere.”

“Good. Have you there in ten minutes.”

They passed a long line of cars from the party, huge houses with gates, then the guard house at the entrance. The striped arm went up, down. They went over a short bridge and took a right on the MacArthur Causeway. The streetlights came faster and faster.

She moaned a little.

“Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh.”

Downtown Miami. Lights going in and out of the car. The man held a cigarette, its end glowing orange. He blew smoke toward the window, which was open a few inches. He was a big man with big hands and a heavy stainless-steel watch on his thick wrist. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his cuffs.

He glanced over at her. “So. Kylie. You're a friend of Alana's.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good friend?”

“I thought so. She dumped me. She went off to see somebody and didn't come back.”

“Like who?”

“Somebody, I dunno.”

“You and Alana hang out together?”

“I guess. She's my best friend. A model. I'm going to be a model too.”

“How long have you girls known each other?”

“Since . . .” Kylie frowned. “After I got here.”

“When was that?”

“March?”

“What'd you do, come down from Cornpone, Alabama, for spring break and decide you liked South Beach?”

“I do like it. I like it a lot.”

She closed her eyes against the streetlights that were coming too fast, turning into strobe lights, and in the darkness she began to spin backward. She dug her fingers into the seat and held on.

the judge's gavel came down, and the former defendant, Harnell Robinson, put a kiss on his lawyer's cheek. He hugged his family, his sports agent, and the teammates who had sat behind him during three days of trial. Swinging her tote over her shoulder, C.J. Dunn signaled her young associate to follow with the files and turned her client toward the exit. A sheriff's deputy pushed open the double doors while another held back the spectators. Robinson stopped to sign his autograph and shake a few hands.

In the corridor, reporters converged on Robinson, shouting. How did he feel? Was he relieved? When would he return to practice?

Arms around his family, Robinson smiled for the cameras. “Good. I feel real good. I feel like, you know, like somebody up there was looking out for me. Justice prevailed!”

Before the trial, C.J. had sent him to Macy's for some blue suits. Leave the custom-tailored Armani at home with the Rolex. Wear a cheap watch, your wedding ring, your Super Bowl ring, and that's it. Lose the braids and the diamond ear stud. No miniskirts on the wife,
belly shirts on the daughter, or drooping pants on the son. For the three days of the trial, his mother had carried a Bible and worn a hat, gloves, and a below-the-knee dress, a bit of overkill that C.J. had decided to let pass.

Last New Year's Day, at three o'clock in the morning, Harnell Robinson had been arrested at a club on South Beach for aggravated battery on one of the bouncers. A felony conviction on top of a previous skirmish with some fans could have ended Robinson's career. But C.J.'s private investigator delivered good news: the bouncer had served time in Illinois for possession of meth, carrying a concealed firearm, domestic battery on his girlfriend, and a string of DUI's. A copy of his rap sheet found its way to Channel Seven. The judge instructed the jurors not to watch the news, but it was too late.

C.J. motioned to her associate, Henry. When he came closer, she dropped her keys into his coat pocket. “Go get my car. I'll meet you outside.” He backed up and steered the rolling briefcase around the crowd, which had grown as people stopped to see what was going on.

The woman reporter from Channel Eight's
Justice Files
elbowed the
Miami Herald
sports reporter aside. “Harnell, what's next for you?”

With a smile, C.J. stepped into the frame. “Mr. Robinson has been vindicated. What he wants now is to go home and be with his family so he can start putting this ordeal behind him. On Monday morning, eight A.M., he's reporting for practice with the rest of the team.”

“Yeah, it's gonna be good, you know, to get back in uniform.”

The reporter said, “Your accuser has filed a suit for damages. Do you think he has a better chance in civil court?” She shoved her microphone at him.

That brought a scowl. “No! Uh-uh. I'm gonna beat him there, too. You put me in front of a hundred juries, it's all the same.”

C.J. gripped her client's elbow and pulled him away. They walked in a moving blaze of light toward an elevator that his friends held open for him. When the doors slid shut, C.J. found herself squeezed among men so tall that even in four-inch heels she couldn't see over their shoulders.

Robinson's wife had stopped crying. She stood stiffly with her arms crossed. Robinson stroked her hair. “Baby? You all right?”

“If you put me through this one more time, I will rip off your face.” The chuckles in the elevator stopped when she whirled around and glared at the men behind her.

The group crossed the lobby and exited the glass doors of the fading, 1960s-style courthouse. A black Range Rover pulled up at the curb just as reporters and cameramen came out of the building and ran down the steps. People stopped to stare.

Spots of light shone on Harnell Robinson's wraparound shades. He bent to give C.J. a hug. “Girl, I appreciate everything you did for me.”

On tiptoes she whispered into his ear, “I want the rest of my fee, Harnell. Cashier's check, my desk by noon on Monday. It had better not bounce this time.”

“No problem.”

His friends cleared a path, and Robinson and his family waved as they climbed into the vehicle. Through the open front passenger window he gave a thumbs-up. Reporters chased the car, which quickly picked up speed, heading for the expressway.

Alone on the sidewalk, C.J. opened her tote bag and found her sunglasses. The shadows from the palm trees didn't reach this far, and already she could feel the prickle of perspiration. Her lightweight wool suit was fine for an air-conditioned courtroom, but it soaked up the sun. She lifted her long, blond-streaked hair and scanned the parking lot for a silver BMW moving among the acre of cars and the support pilings of the expressway that arched over the river.

“Ms. Dunn!”

The
Justice Files
reporter was racing toward her in sneakers. Her cameraman trotted behind, shouldering his heavy camera. Black-haired, smooth-skinned Libi Rodriguez, showing her cleavage. She spoke into her cordless mike. “We're here with celebrity lawyer C.J. Dunn, who just came out of court with her client, Miami Dolphins running back Harnell Robinson, after a surprising victory. C.J., our viewers want to know. How did you pull it off, when so many witnesses testified that it was Robinson who started the brawl?”

C.J. didn't like to look into a camera wearing sunglasses, but if she took them off she would squint. She said, “The prosecution witnesses were mistaken.”

“Some say the jurors were swayed by stories leaked from your office in the weeks before the trial. Do you have a comment?” She thrust the microphone at C.J.

Maintaining her smile, C.J. said, “Libi, I think you're just mad that you didn't hear about them first.”

She walked away and noticed her car making the turn at the end of the block. The single line of traffic moved slowly. When Henry was in front of the building, he swung the BMW close to the sidewalk and waited for C.J. to get in. But her eyes had shifted to what was behind him, a Mercedes-Benz limousine, vintage 1956, with bulbous front fenders and a heavy chrome grille, glinting in the sunlight. She knew that car, and she knew its owner.

The driver's door opened, and a young man with blond hair got out and hustled around the long hood. He didn't look like a chauffeur; he wore a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. “Ms. Dunn? Mr. Cahill wonders if he could have a few moments of your time.”

The tinted glass gave no view of the man inside. She held up a hand, then walked back to her own car and motioned for Henry to lower the window. “Looks like I have a ride. Go ahead and take the files back to the office.”

Henry turned around to see behind him. “Who is
that?
”

“In the limo? Milo Cahill.”

“Milo Cahill the architect?”

“Right. I won't be long. Go on, we're holding up traffic.”

The driver opened the rear door of the Mercedes, and C.J. peered inside the dim interior, making out a white Panama hat and a tropical print shirt. “Milo? What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. Get in, will you? It's an oven out there.”

C.J. got in, and the door closed with a solid thud. They exchanged a quick kiss on the cheek. “You look fantastic as ever,” he said in his honey-sweet Carolina drawl. He took her hand. “My word. Is that blood on your claws? My spies told me you won, and I ran right over to congratulate you.”

She folded her sunglasses into their case. “Thank you for sending Harnell to me, but he still owes me twenty thousand dollars.”

“But think of all the publicity!”

“My partners at the firm would rather have the cash,” she said.

“Stop complaining. You should be happy. C.J., why don't you return your calls? I've been trying to reach you for days.”

“I know. I'm sorry, Milo, it's just been crazy. You didn't say it was urgent, so—”

With a dismissive wave, he settled into his corner as the limo glided away from the curb. A glass panel separated passengers and chauffeur. “Kick off your shoes if you want to.”

“May I?” They were ankle-strap Pradas, lovely and lethal. She dug her toes into the plush carpet. “Sweet Jesus, that feels good.” She slid her hand over the faux leopard-skin rug on the seat. “You are getting too, too decadent.”

“I would only confess this to my dearest friends, but the upholstery is so worn out I can't bear to look at it anymore. I'm having it replaced with red leather. This old rattletrap surely needs some TLC. I am speaking of the car, so don't make any jokes.” Milo reached over to open a cabinet between the jump seats. A mahogany shelf dropped down, revealing a row of crystal glasses, a silver martini shaker, and cocktail stirrers. “I'd have brought champagne, but I wouldn't want to lead you astray.” He lifted a Perrier from the cooler and handed it to her with a napkin. “Happy Friday, darlin'.”