Paul Levine: Mortal Sin

I calmed him with a hand on his shoulder and turned to my opponent. “H.T., you’re wasting a lot of valuable time and paper. I’d swear you were getting paid by the word instead of your usual forty percent.”

“Blasphemer! I have promised a percentage of my fee to the Everglades Society, so that Mr. Tupton’s grand works can continue after his untimely passing.”

“How thoughtful. I don’t suppose the group is returning the favor by helping you with the lawsuit, is it? And what percentage are you contributing, Henry Thackery? A tiny morsel, a single digit, no doubt? It’ll be good for a tax deduction and a mention of your generosity in the newspapers, probably at the time we’re picking a jury.”

“Counselor, you vex me.”

“Good. We’re even.”

I yawned and decided to keep quiet. Maybe if I ignored Patterson’s diversions, he’d get back on track. I stretched my legs, locked my hands behind my neck, and cracked my knuckles.

Something touched my left leg.

At first I thought that Nicky, seated to my left, had bumped into me under the table. He hadn’t. I glanced at Gina, sitting directly across from me. She wore a sleeveless red leather mini-dress. Too hot for Miami in the summer, but it covered so little, maybe it didn’t matter. A gold zipper ran diagonally from the hem to the neck. It was unzipped to the middle of her breasts.

Something touched my leg again and moved upward.

Gina’s foot.

Unless you were watching, you wouldn’t notice her slipping slightly lower into her chair as her foot inched upward along my leg. A small smile played at her lips.

Risk.

Danger.

Fun.

They were all the same to her. Sex was enhanced if she was bouncing on the deck of a pitching boat during a gale. Preferably with a man who was not her spouse. She drove too fast, drank too much, partied too long. She liked men who risked their bodies and their bankrolls. She skied on slopes too steep and dived in waters too deep. She jumped off bridges attached to a bungee cord and told me it was her second-favorite sport. And now, with her husband two feet away, her toes crept toward my crotch.

“Just how much did you serve Mr. Tupton to drink?” Patterson asked.

“I didn’t serve him anything,” Nicky replied. “We have servants for that.”

“Servants!” Patterson sang out. “As it is written in Matthew, ‘The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’”

I knew where he was going. This wasn’t a lawsuit but a class war.

“How convenient you have servants,” Patterson continued sarcastically. “Pity they’re not slaves.”

“Objection!” I yelled. “Move to stri-eeek!”

The ball of Gina’s foot had found a part of me that was totally unconcerned with the rules of evidence. Patterson was looking at me, puzzled for once.

“That is, move to stroke, ah-chem, strike the provocative and inflamed, I mean…inflammatory comment of counsel.”

I felt my face redden. Nicky Florio shot me a sideways look that seemed to ask whether I was competent. At the moment, I was not.

“You intended to get Mr. Tupton intoxicated, did you not?” Patterson asked.

“No,” Florio answered flatly.

“Did you ask him to come to the party without his wife?”

“No, that was his choice.”

“Isn’t it true you provided him with female companionship?”

“There were single women at the party, if that’s what you mean.”

Patterson thumbed through his notes. “Do you know a Ms. Amber Lane and a Ms. Marcia Middleton?”

Gina’s foot had miraculously withdrawn from my crotch.

“The ladies work for me. They take reservation deposits on new condos at Rolling Hills Estates.”

I knew the place. Located on a former marsh about six feet above sea level, the only hills were made of swampy landfill, and the estates were town houses crammed sixteen to the acre.

“Were the ladies wearing those very skimpy bikinis,” Patterson asked with obvious distaste, “the ones designed by Satan himself, the ones called-”

“Tongas,” Gina piped up, with a lascivious grin.

“Hush!” I told her.

From across the table, Gina winked at me.

“It was a pool party,” Nicky Florio said. “All the women were in appropriate attire. As I recall, a few were sunbathing topless near the seawall.”

“No!” thundered Patterson. “You violated Coral Gables ordinances, to say nothing of the law of the Lord. As Peter observed, ‘Thou shalt abstain from fleshly lusts-’”

“C’mon, H.T.,” I implored. “Keep to the point.”

“And was it the job of Ms. Lane and Ms. Middleton to spend the day entertaining Mr. Tupton?”

“All the employees are encouraged to socialize,” Florio said.

“Socialize,” Patterson repeated, as if the word turned his stomach. “Did that include playing”-again he consulted his notes-“pool tag? Where the person who’s ‘it’ must tag the next person, regardless of sex, exactly where he or she has been tagged.”

“There were games going on in the pool,” Florio said. “Nobody seemed to be complaining, and I didn’t keep track of what everyone was doing.”

“Just as you didn’t keep track of how much Mr. Tupton drank.”

“Look, fellow. There were a hundred people at my house. I’m not a nursemaid. I’m a businessman. These were all consenting adults, if you know what I mean. If somebody slips into the cabana with someone not his wife, it’s no business of mine. If a guy chooses to get sloshed, that’s his prerogative. During a party, I’m working. I’ve got to entertain county commissioners, tribal leaders, sugar growers, zoning lawyers, subcontractors, plus the usual Ocean Club crowd. I’m sorry about Peter Tupton. I really am. But he drank himself into a stupor and wandered into the wine cellar. It’s his own damn fault, and that’s all there is to it.”

Not a bad speech. We could clean it up a little, make it seem not so harsh, a little more sympathetic to the deceased, then use it at trial. With enough rehearsal, it would seem appropriately spontaneous.

Patterson pretended not to have heard a word. He had taken mental notes, I knew, sizing up the opposition, figuring just what kind of witness he had to deal with, and then he went back to work. “Now concerning your business, you lease several thousand acres in the Everglades from the Micanopy tribe, do you not?”

“Yeah, it’s a matter of public record.”

“And you run the Micanopy bingo games, correct?”

“Right. My associate handles that.”

“Your associate being Rick Gondolier?”

“That’s right.”

I had seen Gondolier’s picture in the newspaper lots of times. Handsome, mid-thirties, he was usually wearing a tux, his arm around a woman in an evening gown at one of Miami’s endless social events. Gondolier came from Las Vegas, where he had managed a couple of hotel casinos. There’d been a scandal, skimming cash, bribing local officials. Some indictments, an immunized witness who disappeared, no convictions. Gondolier made a splash when he bought into Nicky Florio’s businesses. A few major charitable contributions and membership in the right clubs brought contacts and society-page publicity. In Miami, a shady past doesn’t hamper careers. Hereabouts, the only sin is being poor.

“And what are your business relationships with Mr. Gondolier?” Patterson asked.

“Objection to the form of the question,” I said. “Vague, overbroad.”

The court reporter noted my objection, and Patterson thought about it. “I’ll rephrase. Are the two of you partners?”

“Objection, irrelevant.”

Patterson gave me his patronizing look. “If they’re partners and this pool party was a business event,” he lectured, “then Mr. Gondolier is equally liable for the negligence of Mr. Florio. Jake, didn’t you take Business Organizations in law school?”