Paul Levine - Riptide

Jake Lassiter put the phone message to one side and returned his other calls. He told Bernard/Bernice he would consider suing his/her insurance company for declining payment for a sex change operation on the grounds it was cosmetic surgery. He tried to calm down the mother whose infant was put on the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt at the airport by security guards because the baby was considered carry-on luggage. He listened patiently to the Hialeah man who insisted the First Amendment prevented the zoning board from removing La Virgen de la Caridad from his front yard, despite the fact the statue was forty feet high, contained blinking lights, and played music that kept the neighbors awake.

Then Jake Lassiter returned Thad Whitney’s phone call.

“Shit’s hit the fan,” Whitney said, each word a little puff, as if the breath were being squeezed out of him. The bank lawyer had a habit of speaking in scatalogical cliches. “You know Humberto Hernandez-Zaldivar, one of your basic Cube developers, gets rich on borrowed money?”

“Take it easy, Thad. I’ve known Berto since law school. We tried cases together in the PD’s office, and I consider him a friend.”

“Well, start considering him an asshole. I’ll make this brief, so listen up. A few years ago, when all the South Americans were bringing their cash into town, your buddy Berto buys thirty-eight oceanfront condos thanks to an overly generous loan officer I’ll tell you about later. When currency controls shut off the pesos and bolivars, the condo market dried up, and I he stopped making payments. Bottom line, with acceleration,› unpaid interest, penalties and fees, your buddy’s about four-point-six million in the hole. Pretty big bucks for a kid floated up from Havana on an inner tube.”

“A raft made of tires,” Lassiter corrected him. “He was twelve. His mother died in the Straits.”

“My condolences,” Whitney said coldly, “but frankly, I’m more concerned with our P and L statement for the current fiscal. We may have to call in the regulators, and you know how that frosts my buns.”

Lassiter pictured the bank lawyer at the other end of the line. A bland, forgettable face topped by pale wispy hair that threatened to blow away in the first easterly. Slinging the corporate jargon, feet propped on a marble desk, fouling the air with smoke rings and ill humor.

“Just call the loans and sue to foreclose,” Lassiter suggested, contemplating the ethics of punching out a client. “The condos give you the security.”

“They would, except your old classmate flipped Conrad Ticklin, one of our loan officers. Turned him over for a lousy twenty-five in cash plus an empty condo to play hide-the-weenie with a receptionist from installment loans. Ticklin approves about a hundred and twenty percent financing, and the Cube takes home close to half a mil, over and above the mortgages.”

“Bad news, Thad, but the apartments still secure most of the debt.”

“You’d think so,” Whitney said, “except the bastard slipped in another lien before ours. Closed four million in loans with Vista Bank the day before he closed with us. Theirs are all recorded first. We’re the bare-assed second mortgagee on thirty-eight empty, unsold condos. Get it? We’re sucking hind tit to the tune of four-point-six-million clams.”

Lassiter smiled, taking surreptitious pleasure at the bank’s predicament. “That’s really a shame, Thad.”

“A shame? It’s a fucking crime. C’mon, Lassiter. Let’s see some of that toughness, pro football star, rah, rah, rah and all that shit.”

“Second string, Thad. Story of my life. A step too slow.”

“You’re telling me. Can you sue the wetback by Thursday?”

Jake Lassiter would have liked to put Thad Whitney in the middle of the nutcracker drill, a pair of linemen tattooing his flabby ass with their cleats.

“You there, Jake? How long will it take to draft a complaint, then set up a meeting with the U.S. Attorney so we can prosecute for fraud?”

“I could sue Berto tomorrow. But I’ve got a better idea. Let me take him to dinner tonight.”

“What the hell for? You hard up for black beans and rice?”

Jake Lassiter paused and held the phone away from his face, putting distance between Thad Whitney and himself. It wasn’t far enough. He thought about all the things he’d rather be doing than dealing with the repulsive bank lawyer who was good for forty grand a month in billings. He thought about telling Whitney to take the bad loans and shove them where the sun don’t shine. He thought about hanging up and heading for the beach. And he thought, too, how hard it would be to start a third career. After a moment, he simply said, “If we sue, we’ve got to join Vista Bank as a defendant. They’ll counterclaim and wipe you out with their first mortgage. This has to be finessed. Let me talk to Berto, and I might be able to help you both out.” Lassiter looked at his watch. “Yikes! I gotta get to court.”

“So, is this your biggest case, or what?” Sam Kazdoy asked in a whisper that could be heard throughout the courtroom.

Jake Lassiter leaned close to him at the defense table. “I had another false advertising case even bigger, defending Busty Storm when she was appearing at the Organ Grinder. The state claimed there was no way her bosom measured one hundred and twenty-seven. But I won.”

“How?” Kazdoy asked.

“Centimeters, Sam. Centimeters.”

Their discussion was halted by a stern look from the judge, and Lassiter returned his semi-attention to the witness stand t where Mrs. Sadie Pivnick was swearing to tell the truth, the I whole truth, and nothing but the truth, just like Abe, may his soul rest in peace, always told her.

The prosecutor, Chareen Bailey, a statuesque African-American woman a year out of law school, went through the preliminaries, eliciting name, address, and background, getting warmed up. Mrs. Pivnick sat there stiffly, eyeing the microphone suspiciously, her dyed hair the color of a copper penny. After establishing that her witness was a regular patron of Kazdoy’s All-Nite Deli, Chareen Bailey got down to business.

“Did there come a time, ma’am, when you had a conversation with Mr. Kazdoy about the food in his deli?”

“We talked, sure.”

“And when you talked, did Mr. Kazdoy characterize the food he served?”

“Objection!” Lassiter sang out. He stood, more to stretch his legs than to make a legal point. “No predicate laid as to time or place.”

Judge Morgan Lewis craned his neck to see over the bench and glanced at his watch. “Overruled. Let’s just move it along, Ms. Bailey.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, bowing slightly. They’re still polite when they’re green. She turned to the witness. “You may answer the question, Mrs. Pivnick.”

“Vad question? Who can remember a question when the three of you keep kibitzing?”

The prosecutor gave her a strained smile. “We’ll try it again. Did there come a time when you had a conversation with Mr. Kazdoy in which he characterized the food served in his delicatessen vis a vis the Jewish dietary laws?”

“Vad she say about Visa?” Sadie Pivnick asked, turning to the judge. “My late Abe always insisted I pay cash.”

The judge looked down from his perch and smiled tolerantly. “The food, Mrs. Pivnick. Did you ever discuss the food?”

“ Oy, the food! The stuffed derma gave me the heartburn. I wouldn’t feed it to a dog.”

At the defense table, Sam Kazdoy tugged at Lassiter’s sleeve. “She’s one to talk, that old kvetcherkeh. She put so much chicken fat in her chopped liver, Abe keeled over when he was still a boychik.”

“That’s a shame,” Lassiter whispered.

“He wasn’t a day over eighty,” Kazdoy said, shaking his head sadly.