Paul Levine - Solomon versus Lord

“It's got nothing to do with Bobby.”

“It reflects on your fitness as a parent. I'll have to bring it up with the judge.”

“Do what you gotta do.”

“I see a disturbing pattern here,” Zinkavich said. “Your sister's a convicted felon, you're in and out of jail, your father's a disbarred lawyer-”

“He wasn't disbarred. He resigned.”

“Whatever. My point is, your entire family seems spectacularly unfit to care for a special-needs child.”

“That's bullshit, Fink, and you know it.” Steve cursed himself for his own recklessness. With the guardianship hearing coming up, getting thrown in the can today hadn't been smart.

“The state only has Robert's interests at heart,” Zinkavich said.

“The state has no heart.”

“You have a real attitude problem. It's something else I intend to bring up with the judge.”

“If that's it, I gotta go.”

“Not until we schedule a home visit. You haven't allowed Dr. Kranchick her follow-up.”

“She scares Bobby. I don't want her around.”

“You don't have a choice. Either you give the doctor access or I'll have a body warrant issued and we'll seize Robert.”

“The fuck you will.”

Steve felt a wave of heat surge through him and struggled to control his rage. First that cheap shot at his father, now the threat to grab his nephew. The bastard just violated the unwritten rule that you could ridicule your adversary for anything from the cut of his suit to the size of his dick, but Family was off-limits.

Zinkavich smirked. “Maybe a few days in Juvenile Hall will change Robert's mind and yours.”

“You son-of-a-bitch.” Steve's hand flew up, grabbed Zinkavich's tie, twisted it around a fist. “If your storm troopers ever lay a finger on my nephew, I will personally…”

Steve dug the knot into Zinkavich's flabby neck, increasing the pressure until his blowfish cheeks turned red. After a moment of staring into his bulging eyes, Steve released him.

“That's an assault!” Zinkavich squeaked. Atthault.

“Bring it up with the judge,” Steve said, walking away.

That was smart, Steve thought, double-timing toward the courtroom. Real smart. Piss off the one guy who can wreck Bobby's life.

I would never lose my cool like that representing a client. But this is personal.

Halfway down the corridor, he overtook Victoria, her ear pressed to a cell phone.

“I'm so sorry, Kat,” she said into a pink Nokia. “If there's anything I can do, please ask…”

Kat? Holy shit. That wouldn't be short for Katrina, would it?

Steve slowed his pace, dropped back a half step.

“Of course I believe you. I know you wouldn't…” Victoria said. “You and Charlie always looked so happy together. God, I feel terrible for you.”

Okay, makes sense. Miss La Gorce Tennis Champion would know the Barksdales.

“Please call if you need anything. I mean it.”

Victoria clicked off, and Steve came alongside. “Are you friends with the grieving widow?”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

“C'mon, we only have a minute.”

“I see Kat at the club. What's it to you?”

“Get me the case and there's a referral fee in it for you.”

“It's illegal to solicit a case,” she chided.

“You think Alan Dershowitz waits for the phone to ring?”

She stopped at the courtroom door. “Why on earth would I recommend you to anyone?”

He struggled for an answer, but didn't have one. She entered the courtroom with a smug look. As the door closed in his face, Steve's mind raced. How could he convince Victoria he had the stuff to help her newly widowed friend? And even if she believed he was the best lawyer in town, which he wasn't, why would she hustle the case for him?

Suddenly, the answers to both questions were obvious.

He'd change his approach. No more bickering, no more insults. When they resumed the Pedrosa trial, he'd show his kinder, gentler side. But he still had to win. She wouldn't send a case to a loser.

So I have to win nice.

It sounded good, he thought. Except for one little flaw. Maybe if his cockatoo-smuggling client were innocent, he could win nice. But as even a myopic judge or sleeping juror could see, Amancio Pedrosa was as dirty as a birdcage floor.

The next morning was gray and cold, at least by Miami standards. Clouds the color of old nickels pushed down from the north, winds kicked up, palm fronds ripped loose from trees. Yesterday, the bird-smuggling trial had slogged along. Victoria had put on her case, Steve had minded his manners. He had even kept half his promise. He was playing nice; he just wasn't winning. Trial would resume at ten A.M. He should be spending the time preparing for court, but there were domestic duties to attend to first.

In his drafty bungalow on Kumquat Avenue in Coconut Grove, with Jimmy Buffet singing “License to Chill” on a CD, Steve grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and whipped up papaya smoothies. An unusual breakfast, but his nephew, Bobby, chose the menu. That was their deal; the kid would eat everything on the plate as long as he got to pick the food.

No matter the weather, Bobby wore baggy shorts and a Florida Marlins T-shirt. He was skinny, with pipe-stem arms and legs and sandy hair that stood straight up, as if he'd just stuck a finger in an electrical outlet. Rounding out the picture as the class uber-nerd-if he actually went to Carver instead of homeschooling-was a double track of shiny braces and thick black glasses that were always smudged and cockeyed.

Bobby could not find his way home from the park three blocks away, but he could repeat everything he heard or read. Verbatim. As a result, Steve could never win an argument about current events, baseball statistics, or whether he had promised a trip to Disney World exactly seventy-eight days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes ago. The doctors called it echolalia, the flip side of the boy's disability.

Recently, Bobby had found an Italian cooking site on the Internet and had become obsessed with grilled sandwiches. To accommodate his nephew, Steve bought a panini grill, which he used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Now, as Steve constructed Bobby's sandwich with the care of Michelangelo sculpting a statue, the boy stood alongside, making sure he didn't take any shortcuts. If the cheese melted over the edge of the bread or if the ridged grill marks were uneven, Bobby would scream, bang his head against the counter, and wrist-flick the sandwich across the kitchen like a Frisbee.

“The ciabatta fresh?” Bobby asked.

“You bet.”

“The ham Black Forest?”

“Nothing but.”

“The cheese ricotta?”

“Sheep's milk. Just like you told me, kiddo.”

From the intensity of Bobby's look, Steve might have been separating plutonium from uranium. Only when the sandwiches emerged from the press-ham and cheese blended into a luxurious melt, bread crusty with symmetrical grill marks-would the boy relax. While this was going on, with Jimmy Buffet advocating living for the weekend and jumping off the deep end, the phone rang. Fairly certain it wasn't the Key West troubadour inviting him fishing, Steve let the machine pick up:

“This is Herbert T. Solomon. Recovering lawyer.” Re-koven loy-yuh.

Steve's father had been born in Savannah, and though Herbert Solomon had not lived in the Deep South for half a century, he still spoke in a mellifluous, musical drawl. The accent, Steve believed, was purposeful and exaggerated, Herbert's calling card. In his father's scrapbook was a faded newspaper clipping describing one of his closing arguments as a “melodic hymn to the angels, folksy as a farm, sweeter than molasses, soulful as a prayer.” Steve's own courtroom style, should it ever be described at all, would be likened to a grenade exploding in a septic tank.