He knew that Peligrosa belonged to a middle-aged couple he’d met in August at the Jewel Ball in La Jolla, one of San Diego’s glitzier events. Jules had escorted a sixtyish widow named Barbara Gump whom he’d mistakenly thought would be easy pickings if he needed a willing investor in some future scheme, but she’d spent the evening knowledgeably discussing her blind trusts, and killed any hopes Jules may have had. She was a good friend of Willis and Lou Ross, owners of Peligrosa.
Jules had thought it wouldn’t be all that easy to find the right legal advice because he needed counseling on a potential criminal matter, and criminal law was not the specialty of most yachting attorneys. But Jules was aware that Willis Ross headed a law firm that had represented an investment group that bilked a thousand people out of $180 million in a Ponzi scheme by promising a thirty percent annual income from foreign investments. Moreover, the law firm had got the lucrative job of defending the corporate head of a savings and loan that had scammed another thousand or so people out of their savings, for many of them their life savings, so Willis Ross was more than qualified to advise.
The lawyer, like Jules Temple, had an eye for the ladies, young ladies. Jules discovered that on the night they’d met, when he and Willis Ross were not taking turns dancing with each other’s escorts. Since then, Jules and Willis had had a few discussions about Jules’s idea to open an up-market topless dancing club.
Jules waited at the bar for a few minutes, then headed down to the dock where Willis Ross was idling his twin 1400-horsepower diesels. Willis wore baggy knee-length shorts and Topsiders, and an America’s Cup Nautica jacket. He spotted Jules and waved.
“C’mon aboard!” he yelled from atop the fly bridge.
The big sportfisher had a marlin tower and outriggers for big fish. Jules had been told that the boat had cost 1.3 million dollars.
“Looks like you’re ready to cast off.”
“Waiting for Lou,” Willis Ross said. “That woman’s never on time.”
Willis Ross was sixty-three, and had scars from skin cancer surgeries all over his face and neck, and across his hairless scalp. He’d even lost a piece of his lip to the knife, but despite all this he’d never given up the sun and sea.
“Going fishing?” Jules asked.
“Naw. She just needs blown out and it’s a beautiful day. Who wants to bill clients on a day like this?”
“Any lawyer who ever lived,” Jules said, grinning.
“Actually I’ve been scrubbing down the hull,” Willis Ross said. “My boat cleaner’s been sick for the past month. I hate to let him go, but I’m looking around for a new one.”
“Buy you a drink?” Jules asked.
“C’mon aboard. I’ll supply the drinks,” Willis Ross said.
“Why not. Got a beer?”
Jules hopped aboard and sat in the fighting chair while Willis Ross headed to the wet bar inside the main saloon. When he returned with cocktails, Jules said, “Hey, I wanted a beer. It’s kinda early for heavy booze.”
“Try it,” Willis Ross said. “The best rum money can buy.”
The lawyer removed his white floppy hat and sat on a locker in the shade.
His bald scalp looked even worse than the last time Jules had seen it. The lawyer wore hats now, and ladled on the sunscreen, but it was too late. Crusty patches of white mingled with fiery splotches of red. The cumulative effect of all those years of harsh California sun had done its worst. His flesh was alive with skin cancers from the neck up. Even his hands and forearms were badly scarred from surgeries.
The lawyer said, “You still drive that yellow Miata, don’tcha, Jules? I been thinking about buying one for a … friend. She thinks they’re cute.”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “I had an auto security system installed in mine. It arms and disarms by remote control. It can even unlock the door. And get this: It can start the engine from a distance of three hundred feet! That way your car’s cooled off or warmed up before you get in it. That system set me back a thousand bucks.”
“Isn’t that overkill for a cheap little car?”
“Maybe,” Jules said, “but I won’t be driving a cheap little car much longer. I’ll be glad to show it to your friend if she’s interested.” Then he thought: cheap car. The nouveau shyster!
After the first rum, Jules didn’t have any trouble convincing himself to have another. When they were working on the second, Jules said, “I’m getting nearer to close-of-escrow, and when I close, I’ll be looking for that spot I told you about.”
“What spot?”
“The topless club, remember? With the most beautiful girls this town’s ever seen?”
“Oh yeah,” Willis Ross said, smacking his lips when he licked off the rum. “You gonna sell memberships like the place down on Midway?”
“That might be one way to set things up,” Jules said. “It keeps out the riffraff. I might decide to take a few investors, the right people, of course. Interested?”
“I’m interested in being a member,” the lawyer said.
“You’ll get membership-card number one,” Jules said. “Can I ask you a couple questions about the law?”
“For membership number one? Fire away.”
“Do you know anything about environmental law? You know, for dumping hazardous waste, that sort of thing?”
“Probably not as much as you know,” the lawyer said. “It’s a new field. There really isn’t much case law out there when it comes to environmental crimes.”
“You know about the penalties, don’t you? Like, a hundred grand a day and prison time for certain kinds of violations.”
“It can top two hundred thousand a day,” the lawyer said. “And there’s a provision for some big jail time. Why do you ask? I hope you’re not in trouble?”
“No, no,” Jules said. “It’s just that this guy that’s buying my business, he’s having some problems. I’m scared to death something could happen to him and make me lose my deal.”
“What problems?”
“Well, it seems that his employees might’ve dumped a load of very hazardous waste when they should’ve properly disposed of it. And somebody got sick from it. Very sick.”
Before Jules could continue, Lou Ross came flouncing along the dock shouting, “Ahoy, Jules!”
Jules didn’t like her but she liked him and she’d made it clear the first night they’d met at the ball in La Jolla. Every time he’d danced with her she’d done more pelvic thrusts than Michael Jackson in concert. But Lou Ross was getting on, and multiple face-lifts hadn’t worked, not as far as Jules was concerned. Her body was okay for her age, but unless she had more to offer by way of business, he wasn’t interested.
Every time Jules saw her at the club she never missed the opportunity to tell him when Willis was going on a fishing trip. Once she’d left a message at Green Earth saying she’d be having lunch at the club and begged him to be her guest. He’d declined, claiming that he had to go to L.A. to negotiate the purchase of two new bobtails. Still, he didn’t want to shut the door because her husband was important. And at this crucial time in Jules’s business life, Willis Ross could become very important, if any of Jules’s worst fears were realized.
He held out his hand to help Lou Ross aboard. She was wearing a glittery T-top decorated with red, white, and blue sequins that formed a small American flag and a large elephant. Her tinted henna hair said hot rollers and hairdressers, and she was ten pounds past looking good in red stirrup pants.
“It’s for George Bush,” she explained, indicating the T-shirt. “The Republican elephant? I had it made special when we met Mrs. Bush at the fund-raiser. You like?”
She thrust out her chest when she said it, and he had to admit she had pretty nice hooters. His eyes told her that, and she smiled, brushing the back of her hand against his fanny when she walked by him to the saloon.