Paul Levine: Riptide

Sipping the strong coffee, she arranged the papers alphabetically, which seemed the businesslike thing to do. First came “Allegheny County Industrial Development Authority Environmental Improvement Bond, United States Steel Corporation Project 6–3/4 percent.”

Bonds, she thought, smiling, for she had heard of stocks and bonds. She had posted bond once on a crummy soliciting charge, but that was different. Posting bond, you paid them; stocks and bonds, they paid you. She folded the bond along its creased lines into a little package. On the front, it said, “Five Thousand Dollars,” a wonderful round number. She unfolded the pretty package and inside, attached to the bond, were three dozen little slips with tiny print like an eye exam. Must be the coupons the old man mentioned, she thought. They each said $168.75 payable every September 1 and March 1. Then, what the hell, in the year of our Lord 2012, she would get the five grand.

Too damn long.

Her tits would hang to her hips by then. Tomorrow she would take the bonds to her bank where the vice president with the rat’s tail mustache and wandering hands would tell her how the hell to get some money now. Not about to wait six months to cash little tickets like a shitty bolita prize, much less nearly twenty years for the jackpot.

Violet stacked the rest of the bonds in a neat pile. Next came “Brookhaven, Mississippi, Industrial Revenue Development Bond, General Motors Corporation Project 5–3/8 percent.” The damn coupons here were only $140.62, and the bond said, “Principal due May 1, 2007.”

Fucking General Motors. Violet had a Chevy Impala die on her once, and Brookhaven, Mississippi, sounded like shitkicker city. Next, “Dalton, Georgia Revenue Bond, Salem Carpet Mills Project 7.25 percent.” Due date September 1,1998, not so long to wait. But Jesus, why do all the bonds come from stumpjumper towns? These coupons said $181.00 each, and Violet could not figure out why bonds that each said “Five Thousand Dollars” on front could have different amounts on the coupons inside.

Then, “Evanston, Wyoming Industrial Development Revenue Bond, Dow Chemical Company 13 percent,” with coupons of $325.00 each. Now we’re talking, but the five large ones were not due until September 1, 2014. Jesus, why would the old jerk buy these things? By then, there wouldn’t be enough left of Sam Kazdoy for the cockroaches.

Violet’s eyes were blurry from the small print, so she stopped reading and counted her neat stack of colorful papers, eleven of them, each with dozens of the tiny coupons, some payable in three weeks on December 1. Eleven times five thousand equals fifty-five thousand dollars. Not bad for a night’s work, especially when you don’t have to gargle afterward with Listerine.

Then Violet’s mind drifted. Her little bundle barely made a dent in that file cabinet. How many more eagles were caged there, wings stretching even now? Hundreds at least. And the other drawers, thousands maybe, millions of dollars doing no good to an old fool.

That night, Samuel Kazdoy dreamed of Rachel, his wife, buried long ago, and how her pale body trembled under his touch on their wedding night.

Violet Belfrey slept restlessly, the traffic in the street below clicking like the tumblers of a combination lock. When sleep came, she dreamed of an eagle gliding high, wings proudly swept back, talons of steel clutching papers splashed with colors. She called for the eagle to bring her its catch, but the bird soared toward the sea. Again the eagle flew and now there was another and soon the sky was streaked with their inky smears until the birds disappeared and it rained blues and purples and oranges and Violet saw her prize a last time. Glowing in the moonlight, the papers fluttered to earth, tumbled along a beach, and, one by one, disappeared into the cold tomb of a black sea.

Jake Lassiter waited patiently for an answer from number three, a portly thirty-year-old accountant in a gray suit. The man’s eyes darted from side to side, and he tightened his arms across his chest. Lassiter stole a glance at Marvin the Maven in the front row of the gallery.

Marvin tugged his right ear, ran a hand over his bald head, and nodded. Either he wanted Lassiter to steal second base or he was telling him to keep this guy on the panel. Some lawyers hire psychiatrists at three-hundred bucks an hour to help pick juries. The shrinks are full of advice: The man who sits with his elbows in his lap is submissive, while the one who encroaches on the next juror’s armrests is dominant; the guy who crosses his legs is tense; the woman in a miniskirt with exotic earrings is plaintiff oriented. In Chicago, a cab driver sometimes helps a famous personal injury lawyer by pinpointing jurors’ neighborhoods and determining their economic standing. That wouldn’t work in Miami where most cab drivers don’t speak the language and wouldn’t know 1-95 from the Tegucigalpa Turnpike.

Lassiter preferred to rely on his own instincts with help from Marvin the Maven and Saul the Tailor, two retirees who spend every weekday, nine to five, in the courtrooms and corridors of the Dade County Courthouse.

“Why… yes,” the accountant finally answered. “I would agree that just because someone has been injured doesn’t mean someone else is at fault.”

Lassiter nodded, letting all the jurors appreciate number three’s wisdom. He wouldn’t have a drink with this guy, but he might let him sit on the jury.

“And you understand that the defense is as entitled to a fair trial as the plaintiff?”

“Of course,” the accountant piped up, without hesitation. “Insurance companies have rights, too.”

Lassiter nodded at this pearl of tight-assed wisdom. “And you will not be swayed by sympathy for the injured person?”

“Absolutely not.”

Lassiter smiled. Bingo!

Marvin the Maven leaned toward Saul the Tailor and whispered, “Fatso saves his sympathy for clients with long-term capital losses.”

Lassiter had watched the accountant when he had landed in the third chair in the jury box. Unhappy to be there, he had examined the orange vinyl seat as if a wad of Juicy Fruit might have formed a stalagmite there. Too busy to waste his time, he would likely take out his displeasure on the plaintiff. Which was fine with Jake Lassiter because at the moment he was stuck on the skid row of trial work, the slip-and-fall case.

Only thing worse than defending a slippin’ Sylvia suit, Lassiter thought, was a dog bite case.

It would be all Lassiter could do to keep awake while witnesses debated why Mrs. Ana Fraga-Freitas slipped on a slice of papaya at San Pedro’s Supermercado and skidded headfirst into a pyramid of Pony Malta bottles. Bebida de campeones, drink of champions. The Fraga-Freitas case was not nearly as interesting as one involving the soft drink a few years earlier when Colombian drug dealers laced a shipment with pure cocaine, then overlooked one case after it had cleared customs. A man who bought a spiked bottle at a convenience store ingested enough of the drug to make a buffalo think it was a butterfly. The man didn’t last the night.

Lassiter looked across the courtroom at Mrs. Fraga-Freitas. She wore a neck brace, but that was for show. The soft tissue injury was a product of her chiropractor’s vivid imagination. The broken collarbone had long since healed, and at a solid five feet three, 230 pounds, she could unload refrigerators at the dock. With one hand.

God, how he hated slip-and-falls. The cases were nearly always identical. The plaintiffs were middle-aged to elderly, and if they didn’t slide across the floor at a supermarket, they tripped over invisible cracks in the sidewalk. Every two-bit plaintiffs lawyer with an office in a shopping center and commercials on late-night TV had a fistful of slipping, falling, tripping clients and a stable of orthopedic surgeons better at testifying than operating. The cases took little legal ingenuity but a substantial ability to schmooze with doctors and push them to the limits of their oath, something that became easier when the hefty expert witness fee was paid in advance.