"flesh & Bones" (a Jake Lassiter Novel)

Transcript

FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine 1 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Flesh & Bones By Paul Levine SPECIAL FREE EXCERPT You may re-post this excerpt elsewhere on the web or link to it from your website, blog, or social networking site. The author encourages you to send your friends to the Paul Levine Website (http://www.paullevine.com). “Flesh & Bones” is available on Kindle, Nook, and at Smashwords. More information at Paul Levine’s Website. 2 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR WHAT’S THE VERDICT ON JAKE LASSITER? ABOUT “FLESH & BONES” THE EXCERPT GET THE EBOOK 3 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ABOUT THE AUTHOR The author of 14 novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber prizes. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote more than 20 episodes of the CBS military drama ―JAG‖ and co-created the Supreme Court drama ―First Monday‖ starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The critically acclaimed international bestseller ―To Speak for the Dead‖ was his first novel. He is also the author of the ―Solomon vs. Lord‖ series and the thriller ―Illegal.‖ His next novel will be ―Lassiter,‖ a Bantam hardcover — and an e-book — in Fall 2011. You can sign up for the author‘s free newsletter and be eligible for signed books and more at http://www.paul-levine.com. 4 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine WHAT’S THE VERDICT ON JAKE LASSITER? ―Irreverent...genuinely clever...great fun.‖ The New York Times Book Review ―Delicious...‖ Los Angeles Times ―Just the remedy for those who can‘t get enough Spenser and miss Travis McGee Terribly.‖ St. Petersburg Times ―Take one part John Grisham, two parts Carl Hiaasen, throw in a dash of John D. MacDonald, and voila! You‘ve got ‗Mortal Sin.‘‖ Tulsa World ―Enough twists and turns to satisfy Robert Ludlum fans. Publishers Weekly ―Genuinely chilling...Jake Lassiter is Travis McGee with trial experience.‖ The Washington Post Book World ―Cracking good action-mystery...funny, sardonic, and fast paced.‖ Detroit Free Press ―A blend of raucous humor and high adventure...wildly entertaining.‖ St. Louis Post-Dispatch ―Lively entertainment...Jake Lassiter is attractive, funny, savvy, and brave.‖ Chicago Tribune ―Mystery writing at its very, very best.‖ Larry King, USA TODAY ―A rip-roaring read. Vivid, funny and tense...stay-up-late action. Twice as good as Turow and Grisham and four times the fun.‖ Armchair Detective. 5 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ―Levine provides suspense, a little romance, some social commentary, and a huge helping of humor. For sheer entertainment, the Lassiter series is as good as any.‖ Booklist ―Breathlessly exciting.‖ Cleveland Plain Dealer ―A thriller as fast as the wind...Spiffy plotting, snappy dialogue and enough action to keep pulses racing combine to make this one a real barn-burner.‖ Tampa Tribune ―A dazzler, extremely well-written and featuring so many quotable passages...you‘ll want someone handy to read them aloud to.‖ Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine ―Sparkles.‖ The (London) Times 6 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ABOUT “FLESH & BONES” “I was sitting at the end of the bar sipping single-malt Scotch when I spotted the tall blond woman with the large green eyes and the small gray gun.” The next thing Jake Lassiter knows, the woman pumps three bullets into the man on the next barstool. Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, has a new client. She‘s stunning model Chrissy Bernhardt, and the dead man is her wealthy father. The defense? Chrissy claims that she just recovered repressed memories of having been sexually abused by her father. Jake wants to believe her but suspects that the memories were either implanted by a shady psychiatrist or fabricated by Chrissy herself. Complicating the situation, Jake falls for his client, clouding his judgment. Is she an anguished victim or a cold-blooded killer? And what about her brother, who stands to inherit a fortune if Chrissy goes to prison? Jake wades into a quagmire of dirty deals, big money, and family corruption, all leading to an explosive finale. ―Levine‘s prose gets leaner, meaner, better with every book...And Jake Lassiter has a lot more charisma than Perry Mason ever did.‖ – The Miami Herald 7 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine WHAT’S THE VERDICT ON “FLESH & BONES?” ―Filled with smart writing and smart remarks.‖– Dallas Morning News ―High suspense and innovative twists.‖ – Chicago Tribune ―The most dangerous liaison since Sam Spade and Brigid O‘Shaughnessy tangoed in ‗The Maltese Falcon.‘‖– Charlotte News & Observer ―Flesh & Bones,‖ specially priced at $.99 for a short time, is available on Kindle, Nook, and at Smashwords. 8 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Flesh & Bones By Paul Levine EXCERPT *** 1 Loaded Dice I was sitting at the end of the bar sipping single-malt Scotch when I spotted the tall blond woman with the large green eyes and the small gray gun. Not that I knew she had a gun. Not that I even saw her at first, even though she was five feet eleven barefoot, and at the moment was wearing black stiletto heels. According to the A-Form later filled out by a bored female cop, the tall blond woman wore three items of clothing that night, and the Charles Jourdan shoes were two of them. The third was a scooped-back, low-cut, black tank minidress. Nothing more. No rings, necklaces . . . or underwear. She did carry a beaded black Versace 9 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine handbag, which apparently held the gun, until she pulled it out and . . . But I‘m getting ahead of myself. When she walked in, I was twirling a snifter, admiring the golden liquid inside, trying to catch the smoky scent that had the Yuppies all atwitter, and likewise trying to figure out why I wasn‘t home drinking beer, eating pizza, and watching ESPN, as is my custom. Life in the no-passing lane. ―Do you sense the reek of the peat?‖ Rusty MacLean asked me, while twirling his own glass. ―Do the pepper and the heather transport you to the Highlands?‖ At the moment we were five feet above sea level, two blocks from the ocean on South Beach, with palms swaying and a Jamaican steel band playing, so you‘ll pardon me if the outdoor club called Paranoia didn‘t feel like Inverness or the Isle of Skye. ―Can we drink it now, or are you going to keep blowing smoke up my kilt?‖ I asked. ―Patience, Jake, patience. Did you clear your palette of the Royal Lochnagar?‖ ―Palette clear, throat dry. Can we drink it now?‖ ―Did you appreciate the Lochnagar‘s muscular, oaky flavor? The hint of sherry?‖ ―Okee? As in Okefenokee? As in swampy?‖ Rusty gave me his exasperated, why-do-I-put-up-with-you look. ―Jake, I‘m trying to civilize you. I‘ve been trying for years.‖ 10 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Rusty MacLean had been my teammate on the Dolphins about a thousand years ago. He was a flashy wide receiver with curly red hair flapping out of his helmet. A free spirit, the sports-writers called him. Undisciplined, the coaches said. Used to drive Shula crazy. Rusty loved to baby himself, nursing small injuries, sitting out Tuesday practices. It is a given in pro football that by midseason everyone is hurt. I‘ve played—though not very well— with turf toe, a broken nose, and a separated shoulder, once all at the same time. Rusty, who had far more natural ability, could make a hangnail seem like a compound fracture. Rusty MacLean raised his glass and said something that sounded like ―Slanjeh. To your health, old buddy.‖ I hoisted my glass. ―Fuel in your bagpipes.‖ He sipped at his Glenmorangie, while I swilled mine, letting it warm my throat. Damn good, but I wouldn‘t admit it. No need to spoil my image as a throwback and relentlessly uncool, unhip, and out of it. I am so far behind the trends that sometimes I‘m back in fashion, just like the Art Deco buildings in the very neighborhood where we now sat, drinking and swapping lies. I wore faded jeans, a Tshirt from a Key West oyster bar advising patrons to eat ‗em raw, and a nylon Penn State windbreaker. I thought I was underdressed until I saw a skinny guy in black silk pants, no shirt, and an open leather vest that couldn‘t hide his navel ring. Or his nipple ring. Rusty wore a black T-shirt under a double-breasted Armani suit, 11 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine his hair tied back in a ponytail. He savored his drink, eyes closed, a beatific smile on his face. ―Mmmm,‖ he purred. ―I‘ve screwed girls younger than this Scotch.‖ ―And you‘re trying to civilize me?‖ Rusty was signaling the bartender, pointing to another bottle of the single-malt stuff. We were going in some sort of ritualized order, from Lowlands to Highlands to islands, and The Glenlivet was next. ―Not Glenlivet,‖ Rusty had instructed me, ―The Glenlivet.‖ ―I know. Like the Eiffel Tower, The Donald, The Coach.‖ ―Robust with a long finish,‖ Rusty said as the bartender poured the liquid gold into fresh snifters. ―The marriage of power and finesse.‖ A waitress slinked by, offering canapés from a silver tray, smoked salmon curled around cream cheese, caviar on tiny crackers. A long way from the trailer park in Key Largo. I remembered a tavern song my father used to warble after he‘d had a few, none of them sips of single-malt Scotch aged in oak casks. Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, Rye whiskey, I cry. If I can‘t get rye whiskey, I surely will die. Funny thinking about my father at that moment, a knife plunged into his heart, dying on a saloon floor. 12 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine I watched her approach the bar, not from some sixth sense that trouble was brewing, though in my experience, tall blondes are trouble indeed. I watched because Rusty MacLean, using the peripheral vision that had always let him know where the safety was lurking, had just gestured in her direction and compared her knees to Dan Marino‘s. Unfavorably to Dan‘s, I might add. A few minutes earlier, I had asked him why he‘d given up being a sports agent to open SoBeMo, a modeling agency. His answer competed in volume with the Dolby-enhanced nihilistic baritone poetry of Leonard Cohen. Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. ―Forty percent,‖ Rusty said. Everybody knows the fight was fixed; the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. My look shot him a question, so he continued. ―Twenty percent from the model, another twenty percent from the company booking the shoot. Compare that to four percent for representing some sixth-round, preliterate prima donna from Weber State, and I‘ll take the babes every time.‖ ―We don‘t call them babes anymore,‖ I corrected him, having been dragged into the nineties, just in time for the millennium. Now, as I followed his gaze, Rusty said, ―Here‘s another reason. Whose knees would you rather look at it, Dan Marino‘s or Chrissy Bernhardt‘s?‖ If they‘d asked similar questions on the Bar exam, I would have passed the first 13 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine time. I watched Chrissy Bernhardt walk the walk, hips rotating with that exaggerated roll forward, the arms swinging gracefully so far back she could have been waving at someone behind her. A stroll down the runway in Milan. Her bare shoulders had the rounded, developed look of hundreds of hours in the gym. Her ash-blond hair slid across those shoulders with each stride, and in her black stiletto heels, she was as tall as me, though a hundred pounds lighter. Twenty feet away now, headed right for us, Chrissy Bernhardt seemed to look at Rusty. He always got the eye contact before I did. I am not a bad-looking man, despite a nose that goes east and west where it should go north and south. I have shaggy, dirty-blond hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, and a waist that is just beginning to show the effects of numerous four-Grolsch nights. Rusty has a different look, sleek and feral, and women love it. He always seems to send out sonar waves that bounce off attractive women and back to him. This time, though, when he smiled, she didn‘t smile back. Now I saw she was looking past Rusty at the beefy man on the next barstool. About sixty, a pink well-fed face, a nose that seemed too small for the rest of him, and thick arms with a golfer‘s tan peeking out from beneath the short-sleeved guayabera. Earlier, the man had twice asked the bartender for the time. Then he had given me a look and grinned. ―I know you. Number fifty-eight for the Dol14 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine phins, right?‖ ―Long time ago.‖ ―I remember a game against the Jets, you made a helluva hit on the kickoff team, recovered the fumble . . .‖ He smiled again, then continued in a deep, gravelvoiced rumble, ―Then went the wrong way. You ran toward the wrong end zone.‖ ―I got turned around when I made the hit,‖ I explained, as I have so many times over the years. ―Lucky for you, your own kicker tackled you.‖ Yeah. Garo Yepremian couldn‘t tackle me if I was drunk and blindfolded. He had, however, fallen on me after I tripped on the twenty-yard-line stripe. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Now the woman reached into the little beaded black handbag she was carrying. The deep-voiced man next to us seemed to recognize her, too, and a thin smile creased his face. When it disappeared, I glanced back at Chrissy Bernhardt, who now was holding a Beretta 950, a silly little handgun that shoots .22 shorts out of a two-inch barrel. It‘s a lousy weapon for killing someone, but it weighs only ten ounces and leaves room for cigarettes and makeup in a tiny handbag. With a single tear tracking down her face—navigating the contours of those granite cheekbones—Chrissy Bernhardt held the small pistol in both hands and squeezed off the first shot. The pop was no louder than a champagne cork‘s, and 15 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine anyone in the bar who heard it probably thought it was just another celebratory bottle of the middling California hiccupy stuff the management was serving to the SoBe, chi-chi crowd of opening-night freebie-glomming party freaks. Of course, the beefy man with the pale, thinning hair didn‘t think it was a champagne cork. Not after the red stain appeared on the right side of his chest, armpit high. He sat there a second in disbelief, watching the blood dribble down the front of his creamy guayabera. Then, speechless, he looked up toward the tall young woman. And so did I. A second tear rolled down her lovely face, now illuminated by the spotlights set into the recessed ceiling of the outdoor bar. Potted palms rustled gently in the soft evening breeze, carrying the scent of the ocean mixed with jasmine and a hint of locally grown high-grade marijuana. There was something faintly Hollywood about the whole scene, except if this were a movie, I would have dived from my barstool and knocked the gun from the woman‘s hand, after which she would have fallen in love with me. But I didn‘t. And she didn‘t. Or did she? Mouth agape, like the cop holding on to Lee Harvey Oswald as Jack Ruby plugged him, I just watched as she fired the second shot, this one lower, plinking the tip of the man‘s pelvis and ricocheting toward the dance floor, where the police 16 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine would later find it and slip it into a little plastic bag, as they are inclined to do. Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everyone knows the captain lied. Frozen to my barstool, I watched Chrissy Bernhardt lower the gun slightly, aiming at the man‘s crotch. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died. The man tried covering his groin with his hands, and the third bullet slipped between his spread fingers, nicked his penis, then entered his thigh, lodging in but not breaking his femur. All of this took just a few seconds. Rusty never moved, except to lean toward me and away from the line of fire. In games, he‘d always head for the bench during brawls, and I‘d be out there busting my knuckles against the top of some gorilla‘s helmet. As she took aim again, I finally leaped from the barstool and dived for the gun, knocking it away. Chrissy Bernhardt fainted, and I caught her, just scooped her up and held her there, her cheek resting on my shoulder, her flowing hair tickling my neck. Which is how my picture came to be plastered on page one of The Miami Herald, a beautiful, unconscious woman in my arms, a dumb, gaping look on my face. Beneath the photo, the caption ―Lawyer disarms gun-toting model—too late.‖ Story of my life: a step too slow. 17 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine 2 Concussion Zone ―Patricide,‖ Doc Charlie Riggs said with distaste. ―A crime of biblical dimensions.‖ ―And mythical,‖ I added. ―Oedipus, of course,‖ Charlie said. ―And let‘s see now . . .‖ Talking to the retired coroner is like playing poker with ideas, and today it was my turn to deal. ―Orestes,‖ I told him. It isn‘t often I get the upper hand on Charlie, so I milked it. ―Orestes beheaded his mother, Clytemnestra, for plotting the death of his father, Agamemnon.‖ ―Yes, of course. Very good, Jake. Very good, indeed.‖ He gave me his kindly teacher look. It‘s fun proving that I didn‘t spend five 18 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine years at Penn State for nothing, if you‘ll pardon the double negative. My freshman year, I was drafted by the Thespian Club to play Big Jule in a student production of Guys and Dolls, mostly because the other actors had the physique of Michael J. Fox. It was fun, and it prompted me to switch my major from phys. ed. to drama, where I specialized in playing large, dumb guys. Yeah, I know, type casting. My favorite part was Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and I still remember hearing sobs in the audience when I asked George to tell me about the little place we‘d get, and there was George pulling the gun out of his pocket. ―And I get to tend the rabbits,‖ I said, and George was pointing the gun at the back of my head, and the people in the audience were sniffling and bawling. I wish Granny could have been there. Anyway, here I was—two careers later—still acting, but this time for judges and juries. At this precise moment, I was listening as my old friend told me about the autopsy report, which his friends at the county morgue had slipped him last night. The gunshots should not have killed Harry Bernhardt, Doc Riggs told me. Would not have killed him if he hadn‘t had a heart condition. Seventy-five percent blockage of two coronary arteries due to a lifetime of Kentucky bourbon, Cuban cigars, and Kansas beef. ―The shock of the shooting set loose a burst of adrenaline,‖ Charlie said, leafing through the report. ―Combined with the blockage, that could have killed him instantly.‖ 19 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ―But it didn‘t,‖ I protested. ―He survived. The surgery was supposedly successful.‖ ―Sure, the bullets were removed, the bleeding stopped. But, between the shooting and the surgery, the system had taken some brutal shocks, especially for a man with damaged arteries. While recovering in the ICU, the unfortunate Mr. Bernhardt went into spontaneous ventricular fibrillation. The muscle fibers of the heart weren‘t getting enough oxygen.‖ Charlie opened and closed his fist rapidly to demonstrate. ―The heart was literally quivering, but no blood was being pumped. Cardiac arrest followed. The Code Blue team attempted to resuscitate and defibrillate but was unsuccessful. Death was imminent.‖ ―But he was fine when they put him into the ambulance,‖ I said. ―Fine?‖ Charlie raised a bushy eyebrow. It was a look he‘d used hundreds of times to tell jurors that the lawyer questioning him was full of beans. Charlie Riggs had been medical examiner of Dade County for twenty-five years before retiring to fish the Keys and drink Granny Lassiter‘s moonshine. Now, he was sitting in my office high above Biscayne Boulevard, giving me the benefit of his wisdom, without charging me a fee, except for a promised Orvis graphite spinning rod. A small bandy-legged man with an unruly beard, he wore eyeglasses fastened together with a bent fishhook. A cold meerschaum pipe was propped in the corner of his mouth. ―Fine?‖ he repeated. ―Mr. Harry Bernhardt was leaking blood from three bullet 20 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine wounds. Four, if you count both the thigh and the penis, which were hit with the same bullet.‖ ―Let‘s count the penis. I would if it were mine.‖ I riffled through the paramedics‘ report and the hospital records. ―But he survived the surgery, which stanched the bleeding and removed the bullets. He was in critical but stable condition in the ICU for two hours after he was patched up.‖ ―What are you getting at, counselor?‖ ―The heart attack could have been independent of the shooting. Maybe I can get Socolow to charge her with aggravated assault, instead of—‖ ―You can‘t represent her! You‘re a witness.‖ ―Me and a hundred others, plus a security videotape that caught the whole thing. I already talked to Socolow. He said he‘d rather have me as an opposing lawyer than a witness.‖ ―If I were you, I wouldn‘t take that as a compliment.‖ ―Socolow‘s been wrong before. Besides, Ms. Christina Bernhardt asked me to represent her.‖ ―What‘d you do, slip your card into her bra when she was passed out?‖ ―Wasn‘t wearing a bra, Charlie. Panties, either.‖ ―Good heavens!‖ ―It‘s a model thing. Interferes with the smooth flow of fabric on skin.‖ 21 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Charlie Riggs looked at me skeptically. ―Just when did you become an expert on models?‖ ―Rusty MacLean taught me a few things. Actually, he‘s the one who retained me. He‘s her agent, promises to pay the tab.‖ ―Better get a hefty retainer from that weasel,‖ Charlie advised, ―or you‘ll never see a dollar.‖ ―Hey, Rusty‘s an old friend. He introduced me to every after-hours watering hole in the AFC East and many of the women therein.‖ ―Even in Buffalo?‖ ―Especially in Buffalo. What else is there to do?‖ Charlie harrumphed his displeasure. ―I never trusted a receiver who didn‘t like going over the middle.‖ Like coaches and generals, Doc Charlie Riggs had remarkable tolerance for other people‘s pain. ―Charlie, believe me, no one likes going over the middle. It‘s a concussion zone.‖ It‘s true, of course. No one wants to run full speed into Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert, or even little old me, Jake Lassiter, linebacker with a tender heart and a forearm smash like a crowbar to the throat. ―It‘s not just that he short-armed it,‖ Charlie said. ―It‘s that he never gave a hun22 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine dred percent. With you, Jake, it was different. You had no business being out there. You just gave it everything and overachieved.‖ ―It was either that or drive a beer truck,‖ I said. In those days, I hadn‘t thought about law school, still confining myself to honest work. But Charlie Riggs was right about one thing. Rusty had talent he never used. Rusty MacLean was a natural. A four-sport star at a Chicago high school, he was an All-American at Notre Dame and a first-round draft choice with the Dolphins. I was a solid, if unspectacular, linebacker at Coral Shores High School in the Florida Keys, a walk-on at Penn State, and a free agent with the Dolphins. I hung on as a pro because of a willingness to punish myself—and occasionally an opponent—on kickoff teams. I played linebacker only when injuries to the starters were so severe that Don Shula thought about calling Julio Iglesias to fill in. Rusty could do anything—pole-vault, high-jump, play tennis with either hand. The first time he touched a golf club, he shot a 79. But he hated practice and loved parties. Blown knee ligaments ended his career when he didn‘t have the discipline to suffer through a year of painful rehabilitation. My career ended differently. I fought back after knee surgery, numerous fractures, and separated shoulders, but was simply beaten out by better, younger players. I enrolled in night law school because it left days free for windsurfing. Charlie grumbled something else about my old teammate, then went back to the 23 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine autopsy report, pausing once to tap tobacco into his pipe and then light it. I stood up and paced, stopping in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the bay, Key Biscayne, and the ocean beyond. From the thirty-second floor, I could make out tiny triangles of colorful sails on the waters just off Virginia Key. Windsurfers luxuriating in a fifteen-knot easterly. Beats murder and mayhem any day. ―What about it, Charlie? Will you testify that the heart attack was an intervening cause?‖ ―But it wasn‘t!‖ he thundered. ―The shooting was the proximate cause of the coronary.‖ ―Not so fast,‖ I cautioned. ―At his age, with the condition of his arteries, Harry Bernhardt could have had a coronary at any time, right?‖ ―But he didn‘t have it any time. He went into cardiac arrest three and a half hours after your client—if that‘s what she is— plugged him, her own father, for God‘s sake.‖ ―How about just helping me out at the bond hearing, Charlie? Maybe give a little song-and-dance to get her out of the can.‖ Charlie raised his bushy eyebrows at me. ―Are you suborning perjury?‖ ―No, I was just saying—‖ ―That I lie at the bond hearing, as if that would be a lesser evil than at the trial.‖ His look was a dagger. ―Jake, an oath is an oath.‖ 24 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine I remembered what a writer once said about another lawyer, the disgraced and now deceased Roy Cohn: ―He only lies under oath.‖ Well, why not? That‘s when it counts. ―Veritas simplex oratio est,‖ Charlie said. ―The language of truth is simple. But lies, prevarications, calumnies, they‘ll catch you in their web.‖ I hate arguing with Charlie Riggs because he‘s always right, and he keeps me semihonest with his damned Yankee rectitude. ―The grand jury meets tomorrow,‖ I said. ―I was hoping to talk Abe Socolow into a plea to a lesser—‖ ―Jake, how long have you known Abe?‖ ―Since he was prosecuting shoplifters and I was a rookie learning how to obfuscate the facts, confuse the jury, and obstruct justice.‖ ―You mean when you were in the PD‘s office.‖ ―That‘s what I said.‖ ―So you‘ve known Abe your entire career.‖ ―Such as it is.‖ Doc Riggs cocked his head to one side and gave me his disappointed-mentor look. ―Okay, Charlie, I know what you‘re saying. Abe‘s a hard ass, and I should know it. I just thought we had a special case here. A woman with no prior record who‘s no threat to the community . . .‖ 25 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ―Right. She‘s got no other fathers to kill.‖ ―Charlie, all those years working for the state have warped your sense of fairness. You‘ve become a real shill for the prosecution.‖ ―A shill?‖ He growled and jabbed his pipe at me. ―I‘m just objective, and you‘re not.‖ ―Of course not!‖ Now it was my turn to raise my voice. ―I‘m Christina Bernhardt‘s lawyer, her shield against the powerful forces of the state or anyone else who would do her harm.‖ ―So what is it you want? Probation, counseling, community service?‖ My shrug asked, Why not? ―Face it, Jake. You‘ve got yourself a murder trial, and a loser at that.‖ ―Don‘t underestimate me, Charlie.‖ ―I never have. I just think that sometimes you don‘t know when you‘re in the concussion zone.‖ I was chomping a cheeseburger at my desk when Cindy, my secretary, walked in, made a face, and twirled a finger through her burnt-orange curls. ―If the nitrites and benzopyrene don‘t give you cancer, the pesticides and heavy metals will.‖ ―What?‖ A drop of grease splattered a slip-and-fall file that was open in front of me. 26 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ―That disgusting fat-laden animal flesh you‘re eating will kill you. The excess protein will cause kidney failure, and the antibiotics actually lower your resistance to infection.‖ ―Bon appétit,‖ I said, hoisting my dripping burger toward her. ―Do you know that the production of animal foods consumes twenty percent of our energy supply? Do you know that seventy-five percent of our water is devoted to raising animals for food?‖ ―And worth every drop.‖ I belched. ―Where do you get these numbers, anyway?‖ ―The Vegan Society,‖ she said, plopping down in one of the two matching client chairs, the oak armrests stained by years of sweaty palms. Oh, the vegans. No animal products whatsoever, including dairy, eggs, and honey. I pictured a bunch of skinny busybodies, eating their tofu and raising hell with your basic steak-and-lobster guys such as my very own carnivorous self. ―What do you have for me?‖ I asked. She consulted her pad. ―Roberto Condom is in the waiting room,‖ she said, stifling a laugh. ―With all the legal work you do for him, you‘d think he‘d ask for a name change, too.‖ ―What‘s wrong with ‗Roberto‘?‖ She wrinkled her nose at me. Droll wit is so seldom appreciated. ―Anyway, you 27 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine gotta get moving,‖ Cindy ordered. ―You‘ve got Rusty MacLean at three, his place. Then Christina Bernhardt at five, her place.‖ ―Very funny, Cindy.‖ Chrissy‘s place was the Women‘s Detention Center, where she was being held without bond. At least for now. ―Bobby, you look great!‖ ―No sé, Jake. They want to revoke my probation.‖ ―What? Are you looting lobsters again?‖ My client gave me his pained look. ―Jake, mi amigo, I was setting them free from their traps. Don‘t you remember our defense?‖ He let his voice slip into a pretty fair impression of my impassioned closing argument. ―Roberto Condom, protector of the environment, friend of flora and fauna, mammal and crustacean alike.‖ ―We might have won,‖ I reminded him, ―if the Marine Patrol hadn‘t found three hundred deceased lobsters iced down in your pickup truck.‖ Roberto shrugged. That‘s life. He was in his mid-thirties, toreador thin, with slicked-back black hair, a pencil mustache, and long curving sideburns that resembled the blade of a scythe. He wore a bird‘s-egg-blue linen shirt with puffy sleeves, and pleated white slacks. Though he looked like a gigolo in a 1940s movie, Rob28 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine erto Condom was more at home in a swamp than in St. Moritz. As a thief, Roberto was a specialist, and his especialidad was stealing living things. He never boosted a car, but he had rustled cattle from ranches near Ocala. He never rifled a cash register, but he had once broken into a pet store and stolen every tropical fish in the place. He poached sea turtle eggs, which he could sell for a hundred bucks a pop to botánicas in Little Havana where they were believed to be aphrodisiacs, water spider orchids from Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, and live ostrich chicks from Lion Country Safari. At this very moment, Roberto Condom was wearing hand-sewn ostrich-skin cowboy boots that would run you a thousand bucks, unless you brought your own ostriches to the bootmaker. Roberto disdained mundane crime, especially drug dealing. Which was how I‘d gotten him off when a partner double-crossed him and stuffed condoms—yeah, I know—filled with cocaine inside seven hundred boa constrictors Roberto was smuggling into the country. Before the boas left Bogotá, someone had jammed the packets of cocaine inside their rectums, then sewed the orifices shut, a job I have never seen advertised in the ―Help Wanted‖ section. When the constipated and ornery snakes were discovered by Customs, Roberto was charged with drug importation as well as cruelty to animals. Roberto showed up for trial with Bozo, his pet six-foot boa, curled around his neck, pleading that he loved snakes and would never do such a thing. The jury was out only twenty minutes, and Roberto walked. At 29 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Christmas, I was rewarded with a snakeskin jacket that looked familiar, but it took me three months to figure out that I hadn‘t seen Bozo in a while. ―So if it‘s not lobsters, what?‖ I asked. ―Stone crabs, sponges, starfish, wood storks? You‘re not stealing live coral from Pennekamp Park, are you?‖ ―Jake!‖ Again feigning insult. Then he fingered his necklace of alligator teeth, and I knew. ―Gators. You‘re poaching in the Everglades.‖ ―Chíngate! I‘m no poacher. I have a license.‖ ―Which limits you to six gators a season.‖ ―Six,‖ he sniffed. ―How can a man make a living? I get two hundred dollars a hide, then some fancy store in Bal Harbour sells one purse for twenty times that.‖ ―Nobody said life is fair.‖ ―Verdad. Even if you shoot a big caimán right in the eye, it‘ll flop around in your boat for hours. You gotta stick a wire in its spine to kill it, and then you‘ll be up to your knees in gator shit.‖ ―If that‘s an invitation to your next hunt, forget it.‖ ―I‘m just saying that your everyday working guy like me has it tough.‖ ―Okay, so you‘re Lunch-Bucket Jose. How many hides they catch you with?‖ ―Solamente fifty-seven.‖ ―Jeez, a serial poacher.‖ 30 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ―Three days‘ work. This time of year, it should be more like a hundred. I tell you something funny. The water level‘s been down in the Glades for six months.‖ ― ‗Course it has. It‘s the end of the dry season. Wait a few weeks, and it‘ll rain every dog day afternoon.‖ ―Yeah, but the dry season hasn‘t been that dry this year. Something‘s screwy. The gator holes are parched. Damn few turtles and ducks for them to eat, and fishing‘s shot to hell. I called the Water Management Office, pretended to be one of those Audubon Society types. They said they‘d look into it, but you know how government is.‖ I filed the information away in one of the dusty recesses of my mind, wondering how we would use it. As usual, my client was a step ahead of me. ―So I‘m thinking, Jake, maybe I was doing the gators a favor.‖ ―How, by plugging them through the eye with a three hundred Weatherby?‖ ―Beats starving to death, verdad? Jeez, I‘m just speeding evolution along. Natural selection, survival of the fittest, in a way, I‘m a visionary, ahead of my time.‖ I remembered what Charlie had said about Chrissy‘s case. ―So what do you want, Bobby—probation, community service?‖ ―Hell, no! I‘m a goddamn hero. They should give me a medal.‖ 31 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine 3 Cheekbones and Chic Bones ―So-Be-Mo,‖ Rusty MacLean said, giving each syllable a little push. ―South Beach Models. Catchy, no?‖ ―Catchy, yes,‖ I agreed. We were sitting in his office on the third floor of an Ocean Drive Art Deco building. The facade of the 1930s structure had recently been repainted seafoamgreen with flamingo-pink racing stripes. The windows were topped by cantilevered shades that looked like eyebrows, and the lobby was framed in keystone and decorated with ornamental friezes that seemed to celebrate leaping sailfish. Rusty‘s office walls were decorated with covers of magazines that were not on my regular reading list: Mondo, Grazia, Esprit, Vogue, and Elle. Each cover dis32 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine played a beautiful young woman in fancy duds, some of the models displaying enough cleavage to distract a guy who wouldn‘t know Ralph Lauren from Ralph Cramden. ―The Wall of Fame,‖ Rusty told me. His girls who had made good. I recognized Chrissy Bernhardt‘s pouting lips on a cover of Marie Claire. An interior window looked into an adjacent office where one of Rusty‘s talent scouts, a chain-smoking middle-aged woman with eyeglasses on a chain of imitation pearls, interviewed a mother and her two teenage daughters. All three were dressed identically in tank tops, black miniskirts, knee socks, and high-heeled white sneakers. ―Mom‘s living through her daughters,‖ Rusty had said when he escorted me to his office past the glass-enclosed room. ―They waltz in here on open-audition day, girls who aren‘t five-six on their tippy-toes, with mashed potatoes where their cheekbones should be. Eileen Ford used to say there‘s no such thing as a model with a short neck, but nobody gave the word to these moms.‖ I looked outside through the other window, across Lummus Park to the ocean. The beach was dotted with blue umbrellas, and a mile or so offshore, a cruise ship was making its way through turquoise water with a thousand happy tourists aboard. ―Not a bad view, eh?‖ Rusty asked. He gestured toward a telescope at the corner of the room, its barrel pointed due east toward the water. ―The Tenth Street beach 33 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine is topless these days. Wanna take a look?‖ ―Another time, Rusty. I‘ve got to get to the women‘s jail and—‖ ―Brazilians,‖ he said. ―What?‖ ―They started it. Just took off their tops. Didn‘t wear much of a bottom, either. Then the local girls started doing it. Pretty soon you had a topless beach. Go farther north, up to Haulover, and it‘s totally nude.‖ ―Rusty, do you think we could talk about Chrissy?‖ He shrugged and pulled a large scrapbook from a shelf. ―She walked in here with a first-rate book about a year ago. I knew right off she was a winner, a real gravy train for an agent. Maybe not what the French call the top du top des top models, but in the upper echelon. Hard worker who paid her dues in Italy, France, New York, the usual stops. Started doing real well about the time tits came back in.‖ ―I never knew they were out.‖ ―She had the raw material. You ever hear the expression ‗cheekbones and chic bones‘?‖ ―Don‘t think anyone at the Quarterdeck Saloon ever says that,‖ I admitted. ―Well, Chrissy has it. Straight, thin nose, full lips, flawless complexion, long legs, and those shoulders. You gotta have shoulders to work the runway or the 34 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine clothes look like shit. She‘s got an expressive face and great hair and can be ultrasleek and sophisticated or a California beach girl, whatever the client wants. Her body‘s perfect, everything in proportion, but a lot of girls have that. There‘s something else that‘s hard to define, a kind of spark that ignites in front of the camera, an energy that makes you watch. The best models are full of life, even when they‘re perfectly still. They‘re not passive unless the shot calls for it. You understand, Jake?‖ ―Not a word of it.‖ He was thumbing through the pages of her book, Chrissy in a swimsuit and high heels, in a striped silk blouse and miniskirt, in an ankle-length dress from a magazine ad. Then a couple of moody black-and-white shots taken in the woods. Sunlight filtered through leafy branches and Chrissy lay nude on her back on a fallen tree, her knee coyly raised to shield her groin, both hands hovering over, but not quite covering, her breasts. ―She had a reputation in Europe as pretty wild, but in this business, that‘s par for the course. She could party all night and still make an eight a.m. call. Took the work seriously. Used to give hell to the crews. The lighting, the makeup, the clothes. Everything had to be right and never was. In France, her nickname was Casse-Couille, ‗Ballbreaker.‘ ― Rusty ran a hand through his long hair, giving his ponytail a little pat. ―When 35 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine she got back here, I landed one national commercial for her. Iced tea. She was in a white tennis outfit, and by the time she gulped down the tea, every man in America wanted to fuck her, marry her, or adopt her. Maybe a hundred fifty grand in residuals. Did some international spots, Latin America, a couple in the Far East, and a lot of fashion, five thousand a day for catalog work, some very classy editorial, too. The only negative, she wouldn‘t fuck me.‖ ―Talented and smart, too,‖ I said. ―Yeah, now that you mention it, she‘s pretty sharp. More than most mowdells. You know what they call a model with half a brain?‖ ―I have a feeling I‘m going to find out.‖ ―Gifted.‖ ―That‘s dated, Rusty. Chauvinist, too.‖ ―What does a model say when she‘s screwing?‖ ―What?‖ ― ‗Are all you guys on the same team?‘ ― ―Sometimes, Rusty, I think your emotional development stopped at about age twenty-two.‖ ―Rookie year. A thousand yards in receptions, a babe in every city in the conference, two in Baltimore.‖ ―The prosecution rests.‖ 36 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Rusty put down the book and walked to the window. He squinted through the telescope and fiddled with the focus knob. ―Chrissy‘s different than most of the girls, ‗cause she grew up rich. A lot of them come from farms in the Midwest, trailer parks in Georgia. They go off to New York or Milan when they‘re sixteen, and they don‘t read a book for the next ten years.‖ ―Whereas you‘re a regular Edmund Wilson, right?‖ ―Who?‖ ―Never mind. What‘s the point?‖ He thought about it a moment. Next door, the mother and daughters were gone. In a corridor, a booking agent was watching a female model step onto a doctor‘s scale. It reminded me of a jockey weighing in at the track, only the model was a foot taller and wasn‘t carrying a saddle. She looked fine to me, even a bit too thin, but the booking agent scribbled something on a clipboard and mouthed the words three pounds, her scowl making it seem like a capital offense. Finally, Rusty said, ―The point is that Chrissy had all the advantages. Do you know who Harry Bernhardt is?‖ ―Was,‖ I reminded him. ―From now on, Harry Bernhardt is purely past tense. Didn‘t he do some farming?‖ Rusty barked out a laugh. ―Yeah. And Johnny Unitas did some throwing. Harry Bernhardt is . . . was a goddamn conglomerate. Sugarcane, cattle, real estate, you 37 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine name it. Houses in Palm Beach, Aspen, and London. Well connected both politically and socially, major contributor to both political parties at the state and national levels. The only red on that old boy‘s neck came from the afternoon sun in Monaco.‖ ―Chrissy ever talk about him?‖ I asked. ―Not a word. She left home when she was a teenager. Damn few people even knew the connection ‗til she aced him.‖ ―Any other acts of violence? Ever see her threaten anyone?‖ ―Chrissy? Hey, Jake, listen to me. Chrissy Bernhardt might not be an angel, and she sure as hell has a past, but I‘ve never known her to hurt anyone, with the possible exception of herself. So if she killed her old man, which you and I saw with our very own eyes, she had a damn good reason.‖ “Flesh & Bones” is available on Kindle, Nook, and at Smashwords. More information at Paul Levine’s Website. 38 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine ALSO AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords 39 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords Kindle | Nook Smashwords 40 FLESH & BONES by Paul Levine Kindle | Nook Smashwords Visit the Paul Levine Kindle page at Amazon (click or copy-and-paste): http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Levine/e/B000APPYKG/ Visit the Paul Levine page at Smashwords (click or copy-and-paste): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JAKELASSITER 41