“If it’s that videotape you’re after, I don’t know where itis-”
“But surely your boyfriend does,” said Maggie.
Chemo pointed at the television. “Hey, lookie there!” On the screen, Detective Sonny Crockett was chasing a drug smuggler through Stiltsville in a speedboat. This was the first time Christina had seen Chemo smile. It was a harrowing experience.
Maggie said, “So how do you get in touch with him?”
“Mick? I don’t know. There’s no phone out there. Anytime I wanted to see him, I rented a boat.”
A commercial came on the television, and Chemo turned to the women. “Jesus, I don’t want to go back to that house-enough of that shit. I want him to come see me. And he will, soon as he knows I’ve got you.”
In her most lovelorn voice, Christina said to Maggie, “I really don’t think Mick cares one way or the other.”
“You better hope he does,” said Chemo. He pressed the towel firmly into Christina’s mouth and turned back to watch the rest of the show.
On the morning of February eighteenth, the last day of Kipper Garth’s law career, he filed a motion with the Circuit Court of Dade County in the case of Nordstrom v. Graveline, Whispering Palms, et al.
The motion requested an emergency court order freezing all the assets of Dr. Rudy Graveline, including bank accounts, certificates of deposit, stock portfolios, municipal bonds, Keogh funds, Individual Retirement Accounts, and real estate holdings. Submitted to the judge with Kipper Garth’s motion was an affidavit from the Beachcomber Travel Agency stating that, on the previous day, one Rudolph Graveline had purchased two first-class airplane tickets to San Jose, Costa Rica. In the plea (composed entirely by Mick Stranahan and one of the paralegals), Kipper Garth asserted that it was Dr. Graveline’s intention to flee the United States permanently.
Normally, a request involving a defendant’s assets would have resulted in a full-blown hearing and, most likely, a denial of the motion. But Kipper Garth’s position (and thus the Nordstroms’) was buttressed by a discreet phone call from Mick Stranahan to the judge, whom Stranahan had known since his days as a young prosecutor in the DUI division. After a brief reminiscence, Stranahan told the judge the true reason for his calclass="underline" that Dr. Rudy Graveline was a prime suspect in an unsolved four-year-old abduction case that might or might not be a homicide. Stranahan assured his friend that, rather than face the court, the surgeon would take his dough and make a run for it.
The judge granted the emergency order shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. Kipper Garth was astonished at his own success; he never dreamed litigation could be so damn easy. He fantasized a day when he could get out of the referral racket altogether, when he would be known and revered throughout Miami as a master trial attorney. Kipper Garth liked the billboards, though. However high he might soar among the eagles of Brickell Avenue, the billboards definitely had to stay…
At ten forty-five, Rudy Graveline arrived at his bank in Bal Harbour and asked to make a wire transfer of $250,000 from his personal account to a new account in Panama. He also requested $60,000 in U.S. currency and traveler’s cheques. The young bank officer who was assisting Rudy Graveline left his office for several minutes. When he returned, one of the bank’s vice presidents stood solemnly at his side.
Rudy took the news badly.
First he wept, which was merely embarrassing. Then he became enraged and hysterical and, finally, incoherent. He staggered, keening, into the bank lobby, at which point two enormous security guards were summoned to escort the surgeon from the premises.
By the time they deposited Rudy in the parking lot, he had settled himself and stopped crying.
Until one of the bank guards had pointed at the fender of the car and said, “The hell happened to your Jag, brother?”
Perhaps it was the euphoria of the legal triumph, or perhaps it was simple prurient curiosity that impelled Kipper Garth to drop by the Nordstrom household during his lunch hour. The address was in Morningside, a pleasant old neighborhood of bleached stucco houses located a few blocks off the seediest stretch of Biscayne Boulevard.
Marie Nordstrom was surprised to see Kipper Garth, but she welcomed him warmly at the door, led him to the Florida room, and offered him a cup of coffee. She wore electric-blue Lycra body tights, and her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a girlish ponytail. Kipper couldn’t take his eyes off the subject of litigation, her breasts. The exercise outfit left nothing to the imagination; these were the merriest-looking breasts that Kipper Garth had ever seen. It was difficult to think of them as weapons.
“John’s not here,” Mrs. Nordstrom said. “He got a job interview over at the jai-alai fronton. You take cream?”
Kipper Garth took cream. Mrs. Nordstrom placed the coffee pot on a glass tray. Kipper Garth made space for her on the sofa, but she moved to a love seat, facing him from across the coffee table.
Kipper Garth said, “I just wanted to bring you up to date on the malpractice case.” Matter-of-factly he told Mrs. Nordstrom about the emergency court order to freeze Dr. Graveline’s assets.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means his money won’t be going anywhere, even if he does.”
Mrs. Nordstrom was not receiving the news as exuberantly as Kipper Garth had hoped; apparently she could not appreciate the difficulty of what he had done.
“John and I were talking just last night,” she said. “The idea of going to trial… I don’t know, Mr. Garth. This has been so embarrassing for both of us.”
“We’re in it now, Mrs. Nordstrom. There’s no turning back.” Kipper Garth tried to suppress the exasperation in his voice: Here Rudy Graveline was on the ropes and suddenly the plaintiffs want to back out.
“Maybe the doctor would be willing to settle the case,” ventured Mrs. Nordstrom.
Kipper Garth put down the coffee cup with a clack and folded his arms. “Oh, I’m sure he would. I’m sure he’d be delighted to settle. That’s exactly why we won’t hear of it. Not yet.”
“But John says-”
“Trust me,” the lawyer said. He paused and lowered his eyes. “Forgive me for saying so, Mrs. Nordstrom, but settling this case would be very selfish on your part.”
She looked startled at the word.
Kipper Garth went on: “Think of all the patients this man has harmed. This alleged surgeon. If we don’t stop him, nobody will. If you settle the case, Mrs. Nordstrom, the butchery will continue. You and your husband will be wealthy, yes, but Rudy Graveline’s butchery will continue. At his instruction, the court file will be sealed and his reputation preserved. Again. Is that really what you want?”
Kipper Garth had listened intently to his own words, and was impressed by what he had heard; he was getting damn good at oratory.
A few awkward moments passed and Mrs. Nordstrom said, “They’ve got an opening for a coach over at the jai-alai. John used to play in college, he was terrific. He even went to Spain one summer and trained with the Basques.”
Kipper Garth had never heard of a Scandinavian jai-alai coach, but his knowledge of the sport was limited. Ooozing sincerity, he told Mrs. Nordstrom that he hoped her husband got the job.
She said, “Thing is, he can’t tell anybody about his eye. They’d never hire him.”
“W hy not?”
“Too dangerous,” Mrs. Nordstrom said. “The ball they use is like a rock. A pelota it’s called. John says it goes like a hundred and sixty miles an hour off those walls.”
Kipper Garth finished his coffee. “I’ve never been to a jai-alai game.” He hoped she would take the hint and change the conversation.
“If you’re playing, it helps to have two good eyes,” Mrs. Nordstrom explained. ‘Tor depth perception.”
“I think I understand.”