Paul Levine - Kill All the Lawyers

But Kreeger? The man had a track record of deadly violence. So Steve needed a plan. But a problem there, too. How do you outsmart a man who is both brilliant and a killer, when you are neither?

SOLOMON'S LAWS

3. When you don't know what to do, seek advice from your father. . even if he's two candles short of a menorah.

Steve needed advice. He needed to talk to the man who had once peered down at assorted miscreants, pronouncing them guilty, dispatching them to places where the only harm they could inflict was on one another. The Honorable Herbert T. Solomon had a feel for this sort of thing.

What do I do, Dad, when some nutcase is after me?

Steve walked out the kitchen door into his backyard. His father and nephew sat cross-legged on the ground, in the shade of a bottlebrush tree. Pieces of plywood and two-by-fours were strewn on the grass, along with a hammer, a saw, and an open toolbox.

" Shalom, son," his father called out. Chin stubbled with white whiskers, long silvery hair swept straight back, flipping up at his neck. With a bottle of sour mash whiskey within arm's reach, Herbert T. Solomon looked like Wild Bill Hickock in a yarmulke.

Or maybe a biblical prophet. He held a weathered copy of the Old Testament in one hand and a drink in the other. "The Queen of Sheba," Herbert intoned in his Southern drawl, "having heard of Solomon's fame, came to test him with tricky questions."

"Get to the sexy part," Bobby said. "Where Solomon slips it to Sheba and all the concubines."

Herbert took a sip of the whiskey. "In due time, boychik."

"What's going on, Dad?"

"Ah'm teaching Robert the good book." Herbert flipped a page. " 'The Queen of Sheba gave Solomon gold and spices, and-' "

" 'Spice' is Bible talk for nookie," Bobby interrupted, grinning at Steve. "Grandpop taught me that."

"Grandpop's a regular Talmudic scholar."

Bobby went on, excitedly: "In the first book of Kings, it says that Solomon gave Sheba 'everything she desired and asked for.' You get it, Uncle Steve?"

"I think I can figure it out."

"Did you know King Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?"

"No wonder he wanted to get out of the house and conquer Mesopotamia." Steve turned to his father, who was pouring whiskey over ice. "Dad, why are you filling Bobby with this nonsense?"

"Our roots are not nonsense." Herbert took a noisy pull on his drink and turned to his grandson. "Robert, our ancestors were warriors in the court of King Solomon. We're direct descendants from His Honor's own wise self."

"Oh, for God's sake," Steve groaned.

"Don't you blaspheme in mah presence."

"And what's with the yarmulke? You covering a bald spot?"

"Ah pray for you, Stephen. You've become a Philistine."

"And you've flipped out. Going orthodox at your age is just plain weird."

Herbert shook his head. "Cain't believe mah son's a heathen and mah daughter's a whore."

"Hey, Dad. Cool it in front of Bobby with that stuff, okay?"

" Nu? What's the big deal? You think the boy doesn't know his mother's a junkie and a tramp?"

"Dad, that's enough." Not that it wasn't true, Steve thought, but you don't smack a kid in the face with that kind of talk.

"It's okay, Uncle Steve." Bobby fiddled with a two-by-four, showing no apparent concern. But Steve knew that look. A blank, neutral mask. It was how the boy hid the pain. What the hell was wrong with his father, anyway? Didn't he realize how sensitive Bobby was? Probably not. When Steve was a kid, his father treated him just as callously. Hadn't he called him a "wuss" when four Marieltos at Nautilus Middle School beat him up for his lunch money?

Without looking up, Bobby said: "The other day in the cafeteria, one of the kids asked about my parents."

Steve held his breath. Kids can be so cruel. Little predators preying on the one who's different.

"I told them I didn't know my father, and my mom was in prison," Bobby continued.

"You take some heat over that, kiddo?"

Bobby shook his head. "Everybody thought that was way cool. Manuel said he wished he didn't know his old man. Jason asked if I ever visited Mom in prison."

The boy let it hang there. His way of asking Steve why they never drove down to Homestead Correctional. So hard to understand the boy's longing. Janice had neglected and abused him. Locked him in a dog shed, starved him while she got stoned. And Bobby, what. . missed her? Steve decided to let it go. What could he say, anyway?

"If you visit your Mom, those nightmares will come back, kiddo."

No, he would rather stay clear of the subject of Janice Solomon, junkie, tramp, and utterly worthless mother.

"If mah son won't go to Shabbos services with me," Herbert declared, "maybe mah grandson will."

"I have to study," Bobby said.

"On a Friday night? You oughta be praying, then chasing tail. Maybe praying you catch some."

"Dad, what the hell's going on? You haven't been to synagogue in thirty years."

"The hell you say. When ah was a practicing lawyer, ah went to High Holy Days every year."

"Right. You handed out your business card on Yom Kippur. What's up now?"

"Mah grandfather was a cantor, you know that?"

Steve had heard the stories since he was a child. Herbert claimed to have traced the family tree back nearly three centuries. Ezekiel Solomon was among the first English colonists to settle Savannah in the 1730s. The Solomons grew and prospered, and over the generations the family sprawled to Atlanta and Birmingham and Charleston. According to Herbert, who specialized in the tradition of exaggeration employed by lawyers, peddlers, and Southerners, the tree that sprouted from old Ezekiel produced farmers and weavers, stone masons and mill owners. Even an occasional rabbi and cantor. Not to mention a stock swindler and a bookie who went to prison for fixing college football games in the 1940s.

But what was this crap about the court of King Solomon? It was one thing to trace your ancestors back to James Oglethorpe. But quite another to lay claim to a royal name three thousand years old.

Until recently, Herbert hadn't cared much about spirituality. So, why now? He was getting older, of course. Probably sensing his own mortality.

Then there's his fall from grace.

Nearly fifteen years ago, snared in a bribery and extortion scandal, Herbert had protested his innocence but nonetheless quit the bench and resigned from the Bar in disgrace. That had to be it, Steve thought.

Lost and found. My old man found religion to make up for what he's lost.

Career and status, gone. Wife-Steve's mother, Eleanor-dead of a vicious cancer. Daughter Janice in and out of jail and drug rehab. A touchy relationship with Steve.

Herbert picked up a hammer and a handful of nails and grabbed a two-by-four. "Gotta get to work, son."

"On what?"

"Gonna make a scale model of the Temple of Solomon," Herbert said.

"You got a building permit for that?"

"Got the blueprints. How long's a cubit, anyway?"

Steve doubted his father could drive a nail straight. When Steve was Bobby's age, Herbert couldn't glue the wings of a balsa airplane to the fuselage.

"Robert, the temple is where King Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant," Herbert said, "the very tablets the Lord gave to Moses."

"I know, Gramps. I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. "

Enough was enough. "Bobby, I need to talk to your grandfather for a few minutes," Steve said.

"So?"

"There are fresh mangoes on the counter. Go make yourself a smoothie."

"You can't order me around. I'm descended from King Solomon." Bobby squeezed his eyes shut. "King Solomon. SOLO GIN MONK."