Paul Levine - Solomon versus Lord

“Mah spies tell me you've been in the cooler again,” said the voice into the machine. “Stephen, ah've taught you to win with style and grace, not shenanigans and tomfoolery. And when are you bringing mah grandson down here?”

Down here being Sugarloaf Key, just north of Key West, Herbert's own private gulag, though considerably warmer than Siberia.

“Somebody's gotta teach that boy to fish, and it sure as hell ain't you.”

Granddad taking the boy fishing. Now there was a Norman Rockwell notion, Steve thought, not without some bitterness. Herbert Solomon was one of those men who became far better grandfathers than they ever were fathers. How much time did he ever spend with Steve? How many ball games? Track meets? Camping trips?

Steve knew he still resented his father for having placed career first, family a distant second. Herbert Solomon had become just what he wanted: a great lawyer and a great judge, before taking a great fall. Steve had other ambitions. Sure, he wanted to be successful, if he could do it his own way: no compromises, no political bullshit, no ass-kissing. So far, it hadn't exactly worked out.

“You couldn't hit a donkey in the fanny with a bass fiddle, much less outsmart a bonefish,” Herbert continued.

Nothing like nurturing support, Steve thought, grabbing the phone. “Hey, Dad, chill, okay?”

“Why didn't you pick up?” his father demanded.

“Because I didn't want to fight at seven in the morning.”

“Don't be such a pussy. What's this ah hear about Erwin Gridley tossing you in the pokey?”

“No big deal.”

“The hell it's not. You're a damn embarrassment.”

“I'm the embarrassment? I'm not the one whose picture was in the paper, cleaning out his office before he could be indicted.”

“Your picture's never been in the paper 'cause you handle pissant cases.”

“Gotta go now, Dad.”

“Hang on. What are you wearing to court today?”

“Jeez, I'm not ten years old. You don't have to-”

“No sharkskin suits, no diamond pinky rings.”

“Dad, nobody dresses like that anymore.” He already was in his uniform, a charcoal gray suit, straight off the rack, powder blue shirt, simple striped tie. Early on, he'd decided his actions drew enough attention without looking like a carnival barker.

“You got me on speaker, son?”

“No, why?”

Herbert lowered his voice as if he still might be overheard. “Your worthless sister called.”

Meaning Janice. Herbert's worthless daughter, Bobby's worthless mother, Steve's worthless sister. “Worthless” not so much an adjective as a new first name.

“She's out of prison,” Herbert continued.

“How'd that happen?” The last Steve had heard, his sister was doing a mandatory three years for a smorgasbord of drug and theft offenses. As for the boy's father? Spin the wheel of misfortune to figure out who that might be.

“She was evasive about it.”

“Imagine that.” Steve carried the handset into the living room so Bobby couldn't hear him. “How much money she ask you for?”

“Not a shekel.”

“You sure it was her?”

“She said something about making a big move, changing her life. Mentioned New Zealand, but knowing her, she might have meant New Mexico.”

Steve lowered his voice. “Did she say anything about wanting to see Bobby?”

“She did, but ah said you probably wouldn't let her.”

“After what she did to him, you're goddamn right I wouldn't.”

“That's what she figured. So you better stay on your toes.”

“What are you getting at?” But even as Steve said it, he knew exactly what his father meant. “You think she'd try to snatch Bobby?”

“Ah don't trust her or that pokeweed religion crowd she runs with.”

Steve couldn't disagree, so he didn't.

“You know what to look for,” Herbert continued. “Hang-up calls, someone tailing you, strangers hanging around. And don't let Bobby wander off.”

“Got it, Dad. Thanks. Sorry about before…”

Why the hell am I apologizing? He's the one who insulted me.

“Forget it. Let me talk to mah grandson.”

Steve headed back into the kitchen, gave the phone to Bobby, and checked on the paninis. But something was gnawing at him.

An old green pickup truck with tinted windows and oversize tires.

He had seen it this morning, just after dawn. He'd walked outside to pick up the newspaper before it was pelted by red, squishy berries from a Brazilian pepper tree. A green Dodge pickup streaked with mud was parked catty-corner across the street. The truck had pulled away in what seemed like too much of a hurry for six A.M. He tried to summon up the image. There was something about the pickup that stuck in his mind.

The lovebug screen fastened to the front bumper.

Meaning the pickup wasn't local. Lovebugs were an upstate phenomenon, orange-and-black insects that mate in midair and get squashed in flagrante delicto all over your metallic finish. And now that he thought about it, wasn't the truck there the other night when he brought Bobby home from getting ice cream at Whip 'N Dip? He couldn't quite remember, maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

Calm down. Don't get paranoid.

Okay, Janice is upstate; the truck's from upstate, which means.. .

Nothing. Nada. Gornisht. But the old man's right. Be aware. Stay alert.

Steve listened to Bobby chattering with his grandfather about fishing lures, and marveled at the progress he'd made. Ten months ago, when Steve rescued him-there was no other word for it-the boy would have been too timid to talk on the phone.

Steve had never told anyone precisely what happened that freezing night in Calhoun County. Not his father. Not Dr. Kranchick. And certainly not Zinkavich.

He wondered just how much Bobby remembered. They had never talked about it. Steve, though, recalled every moment, starting with the call from his sister.

Janice had been in one of those ecstatic states that always accompanied a change in her life, until she discovered she was the same old person without values, purpose, or goals. She'd just moved into a commune run by a whacked-out religious cult. The Universal Friends of Peace, or some burnout and loser name like that. They were tucked away in the woods somewhere in the Florida Panhandle. Best Steve could figure, the group believed that God resided in green leafy plants, especially cannabis. Orgies were believed to convey healing power, though Steve thought herpes was a more likely result.

In the beginning, Janice called every few weeks, usually to wheedle money out of him. Steve always spoke to Bobby, who seemed to be growing more withdrawn with each call. Steve was worried. Not about his sister, who, like a cockroach, could survive a nuclear blast. But there was Bobby, ten years old, shy and defenseless. Janice's mothering instincts, Steve knew, were on a par with rattlesnakes, and they eat their young.

Steve remembered the chill he felt the first time Janice refused to put Bobby on the phone. Doing chores, she claimed. The next time, Bobby had supposedly gone to town with her scuzzy friends. A week later, she said the boy just didn't feel like talking.

Steve had exploded at her: “Put him on the phone, goddammit!”

“Fuck you, little brother.”

“Are you stoned?”

“What are you, a cop?”

“C'mon, Janice. Where is he?”

“He's my kid. Mind your own fucking business.”

“I'm calling Child Welfare.”

“Lots of luck. They're scared shitless to come out here.”

“Then I'm coming up.”

“Try it. We got a barbed-wire fence and some speed freaks with shotguns.”

His imagination worked up one horrific image after another. Bobby lost or injured. Bobby sold for half-a-dozen rocks of crack. The next day, Steve flew to Tallahassee, rented a car, and drove west through the Apalachicola Forest, then down along the Ochlockonee River. It was January, and a cold front had roared south from Canada, dusting the Panhandle with snowflakes. He'd spent a day huddled in a blanket on a rise above the commune, where he watched through binoculars, looking for Bobby. Looking, but not seeing him.