Paul Levine: Mortal Sin

Diaz felt ill. He would rather be in Miami, banging a guy’s head against the asphalt in a back alley. He lived in a two-story stucco apartment building just off Jose Marti Avenue in Little Havana. The smells there were of cooking pork and steaming espresso. There were no horses with ugly square teeth and jackhammer hooves pounding the sideboards. He wanted to do the job and get the hell out of there.

While the trainer was pleading for another twenty-four hours, Diaz decided to send him a message. Take a little chunk out of the man’s shoulder, just as a warning. Maybe get the guy to find a safe with some cash in it underneath the manure piles. In a movie, he saw the bad guys chop off someone’s little finger. He couldn’t remember if it made the man talk.

Diaz lifted the chain saw with both hands. “No!” the trainer shrieked, his eyes filling with tears.

“Ay, be thankful it’s not your pinga,” Diaz yelled over the roar.

The saw was bucking, and the man was screaming, and the horses were kicking the place down, and Ramos was saying something he couldn’t hear. Diaz tried to gently tap the wailing machine against the trainer’s shoulder, but he missed. The churning blade came to rest against the man’s neck, where it bit through his carotid artery, splattering Ramos’s white linen guayabera a rich scarlet and spraying the two palominos, turning them into pintos.

A week later, on that cool and breezy day, Guillermo Diaz sat in my office. “Grand jury meets this afternoon,” I told him.

“Big fucking deal. They got no witnesses.”

“Ramos turned state’s evidence, testified yesterday. You’re going to be indicted for Murder One.”

“That’s bullshit. Where is the chickenshit cobarde? Where’s he now?”

“In protective custody.

“?Donde?”

“How should I know? And what difference does it make? You think you can get him to change his mind?”

“No, I think I can kill him.”

Outside the windows, a buzzard landed on the ledge, spreading its six-foot wings, then folding them in that familiar hunched-shoulder look. The ugly birds fly south each winter and perch outside the windows of high-rise lawyers, reminding us of our ethical standards.

“You’re not kidding, are you Guillermo?”

“You get to take his statement, “?verdad?”

“Right, a pre-trial deposition.”

“You tell me when and where, it’s over real quick.”

He stood up and paced to the window. Spooked, the buzzard spread its wings and soared away. I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on the credenza, and flicked the button on the Dictaphone. A little red light blinked on. “Let me get this straight, Guillermo. You’re asking me to set up Rafael Ramos, so you can kill him.”

“Ay, Counselor, I do it with or without your help. What other choice I got?”

“Yes,” I told Wilbert Faircloth. “I recorded my conversation with Mr. Diaz.”

Faircloth let his voice pick up some volume. “And did you have a court order permitting you to conduct this recording?”

“I did not.”

“Was the recording made in the course and scope of a bona fide law-enforcement investigation?”

“No, I did it on my own.”

“And, as a lawyer, you are familiar with Chapter 934 of the Florida Statutes, are you not?”

“I know the gist of it.”

“The gist of it,” Faircloth repeated with some distaste. He paused, apparently considering whether to press me on the particulars of the law. “Do you know, sir, that the statute forbids tape recording a conversation unless all parties to that conversation have consented?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that on February twelfth, 1993?”

What would be better, I wondered, denying knowledge of the statute and therefore admitting incompetence, or conceding I knew my conduct was felonious? Probably the former, but damn, it would be a lie. They couldn’t prove it, of course. No perjury charge. Still, one of Lassiter’s Rules is not to lie to the court.

“Yes, I knew the law at the time.”

“May we assume you obtained your client’s permission?”

“You may assume it, but it wouldn’t be true.”

“So then, you did not have Mr. Diaz’s consent to tape-record his conversation?”

I can’t stand it when lawyers posture. “You expect me to ask permission to record his threats to kill a witness?”

“No, Mr. Lassiter. I expect you to follow the law.”

Touche.

“Look, my plan was to record Diaz, withdraw from his case, and warn him that the tape would be turned over to the state attorney if anything happened to Rafael Ramos. The idea was to force him not to kill a man.”

“But you were his attorney, Mr. Lassiter. You owed Mr. Diaz the duty of unyielding loyalty. The conversation was privileged. What gave you the right to act as his conscience?”

“ My conscience,” I answered. “Besides, once he disclosed the plan to commit a crime in the future, I believed the privilege was lost.”

“Did you seek an advisory opinion from the bar to confirm your so-called belief?”

“No. There wasn’t time.”

“So you proceeded to knowingly violate Chapter 934 and to also breach the privilege by contacting the state attorney?”

“Yes. Diaz fired me when I wouldn’t agree to set up a murder. I contacted Abe Socolow after Ramos was found with three bullets in his skull.”

“Do you have any regrets about your conduct?”

“Yeah. I regret not calling Abe before Diaz killed Ramos.”

“Now, isn’t it true that Mr. Diaz was never convicted of that crime?”

“Right. There was a profound lack of witnesses.”

“And you have no proof that Mr. Diaz committed this crime, do you, Mr. Lassiter?”

“No. I mean, yes, I have no proof.” I hate questions phrased in the negative.

“And do you have an explanation for your behavior?”

“It seemed the right thing to do at the time,” I said.

Faircloth couldn’t suppress a snicker. “It seemed the right thing to do.” He shot a look at the judge, trying to figure if he was scoring points. When he turned back to me, his smirk announced he was three touchdowns up with a minute to play. “Is that how you live your life, Mr. Lassiter, doing what seems right at the time?”

I didn’t have to think about the answer. It was just there, the simple, stark truth. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I do.”

Charlie Riggs was watching a lithe young woman in black Lycra shorts and a bikini top whirl through a pirouette on her Rollerblades, smack in the middle of Ocean Drive. No drivers yelled. No horns honked. A white stretch limo politely pulled around her. Four bearded guys gunned their black Harleys in an admiring salute as they gave her room. Two Miami Beach cops in khaki shorts weaved in and out of traffic on their bicycles, looking tanned, fit, and friendly, despite the Sig-Sauer nine-millimeters on their hips.

“Fascinating,” Charlie said, as the young woman sped down the center line.

“Her abdominals, or the aerodynamics of the sport?” I asked.

“Dying of hypothermia in Miami in August,” he answered, dipping a piece of pita bread into a bowl of pureed eggplant with garlic. We were sitting at a sidewalk table of the News Cafe, gathering spot for artists, actors, models, and assorted junior-varsity wannabes. A light breeze from the ocean, a few hundred yards to the east, cut the midday heat to manageable levels. To the west, storm clouds gathered over the Everglades. In the summer, lunch is followed by mid afternoon thunderstorms nine days out of ten. I was wearing jeans, running shoes, dark glasses, and a Hawaiian shirt festooned with orchids. Charlie had on baggy pants that he must have worn while painting his house, a green surgical smock, and a fisherman’s vest with various hooks and flies attached. He wore a shapeless canvas hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. To the casual observer, he was either the hippest guy on trendy South Beach or a demented professor.