Decker had planned on only having a calamari appetizer, but he started salivating while eyeing those assholes across the street, so he ordered a bone-in rib eye, black and blue, for fifty-six bucks. Ziegler would yell about the expense report. Like a lot of rich pricks, Ziegler burned money on stupid shit for himself, while starving the people who worked for him. Decker had once seen his boss order a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet for $4,500, all to impress some ambitious, tit-enhanced reality show hostess wannabe who would have blown him for a glass of Boone’s and a seven-episode gig.
Decker studied the body language across the street. He considered himself an expert from his days as a detective. People say more with their bodies than with their mouths. There was an ease between Castiel and Lassiter. He expected that. Ziegler had told him the two guys were old friends. That’s what had concerned the boss. Could he trust the State Attorney?
Decker wasn’t so sure. He hated all politicians. His old boss, the county sheriff, had rolled over instead of standing up for him. Thanks to Lassiter and a couple ACLU lawyers, Decker had been bounced from the force. As if exaggerating under oath and some rough stuff while making arrests were cause for firing.
While chewing his calamari, Decker noticed the change in the body language across the street. Castiel’s shoulders got all stiff. He raised his voice. If it hadn’t been for the traffic on Ocean Drive, Decker probably could have heard him. Decker lifted a small pair of binoculars to his face. He could see the vein in Castiel’s neck throbbing. It got even better when the State Attorney pointed a steak knife at Lassiter, as if he wanted to stab him in the heart. Then Castiel tossed his napkin on the table, like a football ref throwing a penalty flag. He had a few more words with Lassiter, then signaled for the check.
Ziegler would be pleased. Those two weren’t conspiring against him. Hell, they couldn’t make it through a meal together.
Decker sat there a few more minutes. He wanted to see what car Lassiter was driving. The valet brought around a cream-colored Eldorado convertible. Mid-eighties, like some pimp or pusher would drive. It would be an easy car to tail. Not that Ziegler had told him to. This was strictly personal. He owed Lassiter a world of pain and intended to deliver it.
That thought made Decker even hungrier. He wondered if he should order fried Oreo cookies with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
24 The Kid Makes a Discovery
The morning after Castiel picked up the dinner check-and, I hoped, indigestion-I gave two research assignments to my trusty nephew. When I first appointed him my unpaid law clerk, he asked just what lawyers did.
“We play poker with ideas,” I said, a tad pompously.
“Cool. Granny said all you did was push paper and tell lies.”
I had already talked the case through with the boy while teaching him the finer points of a left-right combination on the heavy bag.
“Find the biker who called himself ‘Snake’ and find Krista Larkin’s missing car,” I told Kip.
“That’s it? A biker named ‘Snake’? You don’t want me to find Osama bin Laden’s body while I’m at it?”
“C’mon, Kip. You’re a whiz on the computer. A lot better than me.”
I dropped him off at the Tuttle-Biscayne computer lab. He promised to work hard, and I promised to teach him how to kick Carl Kountz in the nuts.
I was stuck in the office the rest of the day. Interviewing new clients, paying bills, handling the routine paperwork that made me wish I’d chosen another career. Shrimping, maybe, like my old man. Or coaching football at a little college in New England.
I kept replaying my conversation with Alex Castiel. I’d insulted him, and he’d lost his cool and threatened me. Maybe he’d slipped over to the dark side. Or maybe he was just playing it safe like every politico who avoids butting heads with the rich and powerful. And maybe he was right that I was pulling a Vallandigham.
Clement Vallandigham was a lawyer who-like me-would go to great lengths for his clients. Defending a murder trial in the 1870s, Vallandigham tried to prove that the victim accidentally shot himself when drawing his gun. So the lawyer pulled the gun from his pocket, and bang. Shot himself. Vallandigham died, but on a brighter note, the jury acquitted his client.
I wasn’t going to stop looking into Krista Larkin’s disappearance, but I would try to avoid shooting myself. Around midday, I called Amy, doubting she would talk to me. We hadn’t spoken since she scored a TKO against me on the beach with a flurry of girlie punches.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth when we first met,” I said, as soon as she answered.
“No, my fault,” Amy said. “I shouldn’t have berated you for the way you used to be.”
“I deserved it.” Competing to see who could bake the biggest humble pie. “The ‘grinning ape,’ you called me.”
“That was the guy in the picture. If you were still that guy, you wouldn’t be trying to help me.”
“So, a truce?”
“Truce.” She chuckled. It was not a sound I was accustomed to hearing from her.
I invited her to come over for dinner. A family dinner. This time, she said yes.
In late afternoon, I signed up a new client. A guy charged with siphoning gas from a police cruiser. No, I don’t know why he chose that car. Or why he used a cigarette lighter instead of a flashlight in the darkness. Or how he’ll look once he gets his prosthetic nose.
After a full day of upholding the Constitution in the ceaseless pursuit of justice, I headed home, listening to Billy Bob Thornton’s Boxmasters offer a deal to girlfriends everywhere: “I’ll give you a ring when you give me my balls back.”
When I pulled up to the house, Csonka was sitting in the shade of the chinaberry tree, licking the claw of a land crab. He didn’t ask for melted butter or mustard sauce. I smacked the front door open with my shoulder, just like always, and entered the house. I heard feminine voices coming from my kitchen. Okay, one was feminine-Amy Larkin. The other was a whiskey and tobacco contralto.
“Look what the cat drug in,” Granny greeted me.
Cat being on her mind, what with another mess of catfish frying in an iron skillet.
“Glad you could make it,” I said to Amy, who gave me a shy smile. Maybe she was embarrassed by the boxing match on the beach.
She sat at the kitchen counter. No makeup I could detect, with that frosting of freckles across her nose. She wore a turquoise tank top and jeans, her hair tied back with a simple band.
I told her about last night’s dinner with Castiel and his angry threats.
She wrinkled her forehead and thought about it. “If the State Attorney won’t help, what about the U.S. Attorney?”
“No jurisdiction without a federal crime.”
“The local police, then?”
“I can try. But the missing persons investigation was closed a long time ago.”
“What about taking what we have to the Grand Jury.”
“Great idea, but we’re just private citizens. Only the State Attorney can do that.”
“And he wants to protect Ziegler, not prosecute him.”
I didn’t debate the point.
“You won’t give up, will you?” Amy asked, real concern in her voice.
“Jake never gives up,” Granny volunteered, dropping balls of jalapeno-spiked cornmeal into a pot of oil. Deep-fried hush puppies. The required side dish to fried catfish, a meal she insisted on cooking at least three times a week. “Nobody scares him, neither.”
Not true. A lot of people scare me. I just swallow the fear, and I don’t back down. As a result, I break a lot of dishes in the china shop.
“I won’t give up,” I promised, “and we’ll find the truth.”
That brought a warm smile from Amy, a look I hadn’t often seen.