“And you care because …?”
“She also threatened my partner. That makes it my business.”
“I’ll find her, and I’ll deal with her. I don’t want you or your pistol-packing driver anywhere near her.”
“If she comes after Charlie, you can’t protect her. Do you take my meaning?”
“I take it as a threat.”
“It’s simple advice. I’ve spoken to Alejandro. He won’t charge her for that incident at the gun range if you can get her to leave town.”
I shook my head and laughed.
“What?” he said.
“From walking Meyer Lansky’s dog to delivering messages for the State Attorney. I can’t figure out if you’ve come up or down in the world.”
“Such a smart mouth you have.”
We’d walked less than a block when Perlow stopped and said, “I’m bushed. Let’s sit.”
I followed him through a gate in the coral rock wall, and we found a bench in the shade of a palm on the beach, the fronds swaying in the ocean breeze. Thirty yards away, a shirtless, leathery-skinned man of maybe ninety worked a metal detector across the sand.
“I have no wife, Mr. Lassiter,” Perlow said, somberly. “No children or grandchildren or blood relatives I give a shit about. Alex means everything to me.”
“I know. His old man gave you a job at the casino. You stood in for him the day they snipped Alex’s foreskin.”
“Alex is the son I never had,” Perlow said. “I would do anything for him.”
I believed him. The godfather was a real Godfather.
“Years ago, when Charlie Ziegler was schtupping that underage girl, I told Alex to stay away from him.”
“But Alex didn’t listen.”
“He was young. He couldn’t see Ziegler for what he was. A weak man. A man of the flesh.”
I thought of one of Granny’s old cracker expressions. If you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas. Or at Ziegler’s house, chlamydia.
“If the Attorney General investigates,” Perlow said, “there’ll be a flood of publicity. Even though he’s done nothing wrong, Alex will be linked to a man who seduced underage girls.”
“Like I said before, not my concern.”
“You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Lassiter. Surely it is not necessary for me to underscore how precarious your position is.”
“I think I got the point when you mentioned how good a shot your pistolero is.”
Perlow used a knuckle to scratch at his Errol Flynn mustache. “So, why so damned stubborn?”
“Because I don’t like being pushed around. When I am, I push back. So, no, I’m not gonna abandon my plans. In fact, I’ll expand them. If Castiel is involved in a cover-up, the feds ought to be interested, too. I’ll ask the Justice Department to take a look at all three of you. I’ll bet there are files on you going back so far, J. Edgar Hoover hadn’t started wearing dresses.”
The old man shook his head and sighed. On the beach, two copper-toned young women were playing Frisbee. They wore micro-thongs and nothing on top. I didn’t pay attention to their Frisbee skills.
“How’s your knowledge of history, Mr. Lassiter?”
“I know who bombed Pearl Harbor.”
“Do you know about Meyer Lansky ordering the hit on Ben Siegel?”
“I saw the movie Bugsy, if that counts.”
“They’d grown up together, and Meyer loved Ben like a brother. But Ben was stealing, and after a warning, Meyer felt he had no choice. Do you take my meaning, Mr. Lassiter?”
“Lansky had Bugsy killed, even though he didn’t want to.”
“Think how it pained Meyer. And consider that I have no feelings whatsoever toward you.”
Perlow nudged the fedora back on his head, got to his feet, and waved his cane in the air. It must have been a magic cane, because the Bentley immediately appeared, easing up to the curb.
Nestor, the husky driver and crack shot, came out and held the door open. Tats up and down both arms, a five-pointed crown on the back of his shaved head. Latin Kings gangbanger.
“Will you answer a question, Perlow?” I said.
“What?”
“That party that Krista Larkin didn’t go to …”
“What about it?” Perlow ducked into the car.
“Were you there?”
“Of course, Mr. Lassiter” came the voice from the darkened backseat. “Everyone was there.”
36 Three Mysterious Cars
Hoofing it back to the office along Espanola Way, I was especially alert. Head swiveling this way and that, I was on the lookout for anything or anyone out of the ordinary.
Like one of Nestor’s Latin King hermanos.
When I got upstairs, I told my assistant, Cindy, about Perlow’s threat, trying to make it sound funny, an old guy shaking his cane at me. Pretending I wasn’t even a teensy bit scared.
Cindy immediately expressed concern.
“How about two months’ severance?”
“But you’re still working.”
“Talking about if they sever your head. How about writing a check now?”
“Relax, Cindy. Nothing’s gonna happen.”
“Maybe not if you bail. Forget about Krista Larkin.”
“Can’t do it. I’m getting close or Ziegler and Perlow wouldn’t be going bat shit.”
“Really? You’re getting close?” Cindy cocked a pierced eyebrow. “First Alex Castiel says there’s nothing his office can do, he thinks Charlie Ziegler is a great guy. Then Ziegler sends a little honey to your house. Against all odds, you turn her down, and Ziegler has two thugs grab you. This Perlow guy tells you to back off or he’ll wreck your law practice. Then Ziegler says Krista ran off with some biker. But to make everyone feel better, he offers Amy a hundred grand and thirty for you. When that doesn’t work, an ex-cop who works for Ziegler beats you up.”
“I think that was personal.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Your client flips out, shoots the car you love, which? — just guessing here-means she fired you. It doesn’t sound like you’re getting close to anything except erased. Which is why I’m asking for two months’ pay in advance, plus medical.”
“Forget it.” Before shooing her out of my office, I asked what she’d found on the old purple Impala that followed me to the shooting range.
“Registered to a Terence Connor of Boca Raton.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Pension planner who owns about a dozen vintage cars.”
“Get me a phone number.”
“Doubt he’s gonna answer. He looted his clients’ accounts, got indicted, and skipped town. He’s a fugitive.”
It made no sense. The owner of the Escalade was in prison, and this guy was on the run. I failed to get the plate number of the Hummer, so no telling who might own that vehicle, but I wasn’t ruling out Bernie Madoff.
Cindy returned to her cubicle and I looked over my calendar of appointments. It was New Customers day, and pickings were slim. A lawyer pal faced disciplinary action for dressing as a priest and rushing over to a downtown building that had just collapsed. While giving last rites, he whipped out contingency fee contracts. I made a note to look into getting a seminary degree online-backdated, if possible.
The phone rang, as it does once in a while. I was hoping it was Amy. Cindy answered and buzzed me. “There’s trouble at Kip’s school, boss. Get over there, ASAP.”
37 The Old Instep Stomp
I drove across the MacArthur Causeway on new steel-belt radials and looped onto I-95, which dropped me off on Miami Avenue. The top was down, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was going full throttle, singing “The Sky Above, the Mud Below,” a tale of horse rustling and kangaroo court justice.
“Someone go and dig a ditch, there may well be a hanging.”
The old Eldo rolled through the business section of Coconut Grove, then under a canopy of Japanese banyan trees, and into the gated entrance of Tuttle-Biscayne, the ritzy bayfront school where Motor Boating is an elective.