Steve Martini - Double Tap

“I’ll have a Diet Coke.”

My eyes drift up over the top of the page to the guy in the dark blue trench coat at the counter.

“In the cooler behind ya. In cans.” Mac is busy cracking an egg into a stainless-steel mixing bowl, adding lemon juice, and beating it all with a metal whisk.

I’m working my way toward the bottom of the inside jump on the story when the bell over the door jingles behind me. I’m beginning to wonder if Harry has fallen in.

The customer at the cooler is looking my way. “You want a Coke?”

For a second I think he’s talking to me, then I realize he’s been joined by whoever it is that just entered.

“No. Not for me.”

I flip back to the second page to scan headlines as the footsteps from the door stop at the edge of my table. The guy’s stopped, probably to look at the menu on the wall over the counter. Then that feeling that always comes over you, something radiating from the sixth sense. No, he’s looking at me.

I look up just as he grabs the chair on the other side and slides it toward the open end of the table in the aisle.

“You don’t mind, do you?” He doesn’t sit. Instead he turns the back of the chair toward the table and puts his foot on it.

“I’m waiting for a friend. He’ll be back in a second.”

“This won’t take that long,” he says. “I just wanted to talk to you, give you a heads-up, before something bad happens. I’m a little worried that some of the stuff you’re getting into over at the courthouse is way off base. To tell you the truth, it’s not gonna do your client any good. And it’s possible that it could cause some real problems for you.”

The guy is big, six-three, maybe six-four, shoulders like a linebacker. His hair is dark, cut short, almost a buzz, but not quite. He is wearing aviator glasses, straight metal frames with a little clear plastic on the tip ends over his ears. I can make out just enough from the pupils behind the gray lenses to know that they are boring holes through me at the moment.

“Exactly what kind of stuff is it over at the courthouse that you’re worried about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, for starters. .” He pulls the newspaper out of my hands, leaving little tabs of torn newsprint between my thumbs and forefingers. Leaning with one foot on the chair, he closes the paper to the front page and starts to fold it up into a tight rectangle.

While he is doing this I’m studying his foot, which is almost in my lap. It must be a size thirteen. The rubber sole, heavy tread, covers the seat of the chair front to back. The high top of the tactical boot now exposed by the raised cuff of his gray polyester slacks doesn’t quite go with the dark turtleneck and the blue blazer.

When he’s finished folding, he leans down into my face, in close, invading my space, so that as he exhales I can smell his breath.

“This is what I’m talking about.” He pushes the folded paper into my chest with two fingers of his right hand. Even through the thick paper he somehow gets under my rib cage and triggers something in my diaphragm. Suddenly I’m struggling, trying to catch my breath. The pain is intense but I can’t move. It’s as if I’m paralyzed.

“I’m only gonna say this once, so listen.” He is down, right in my face now. “You’re nosing around in places you shouldn’t be. Sending out pieces of paper and looking for answers to questions you shouldn’t be asking.”

He takes his hand away and puts the folded newspaper on the table in front of me.

I gasp for breath.

The tight little rectangle of newsprint on the table displays only the headline and the story on Ruiz’s trial. He thumps the crinkled paper with his finger so that it sounds like metal hitting muffled wood. “This is what I’m talking about,” he says. “They say you don’t wanna believe everything you read in the newspapers. But this-this I would take to heart.” He lifts his foot off the chair and looks at his friend. “I think we’re done here.” He turns and walks toward the door.

His partner leaves a bill and some change on the counter for the Coke and swaggers toward me, his trench coat brushing the tables. “You wanna lean over, put your head between your knees. It’ll feel a lot better. I just hate it when he does that.” He’s smiling as he heads for the door.

Mac has his back to me as he mixes the salad. He’s missed the whole thing and doesn’t seem to be paying attention to either of them. A few seconds after I hear the jingle of the bell over the front door, Harry emerges from the back.

“Sorry it took so long.” Harry slides the chair out of the aisle to the other side of the table and sits.

I’m breathing again, but sweat is running down my face.

“Some young guy back there got jammed in the john with a bad leg. Says he caught some shrapnel in Iraq. He was trying to get out the back way to his car. Asked me if I could give him a hand. Clean-cut kid. Big guy. What are you gonna do?”

So there were three of them, one to stall Harry, the Good Samaritan.

Over lunch I tell Harry about the incident. My ribs are still sore where the guy stuck his fingers, trying to do a cavity search where there is no cavity. After telling Harry, we eat. I pick at my salad in silence and think about the comments made by Ruiz at our first meeting; his theory that Dale Kendal, his original lawyer, had been frightened off the case suddenly doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Sore as I am, we don’t have time to dwell on it. Harry wants me to report the incident to the judge, but we have no evidence, not even bruises. The man was an expert with pointed fingers.

In the afternoon Harry and I hit a rough patch in court. It is strewn with rocks and boulders in the form of Victor Havlitz and his lawyer, Wayne Sims. Sims is joined by three other attorneys from his firm. The press and the public remain locked outside, pieces of brown paper taped over the narrow window slots in each door so they can’t see in. I have asked that Ruiz be present this afternoon. The issues in dispute involve business matters that Madelyn Chapman was working on at the time of her death. They are key to our case, and Emiliano has a vested interest. I want him to know what is going on firsthand. Harry and I are getting desperate for something that we can get our teeth into.

The door leading from the courtroom to the holding cells opens and the phalanx of guards leads Ruiz like a dog on a leash to our counsel table. He is wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, something that will not be allowed once the trial starts and we are in front of the jury. His hands are manacled in front to a chain around his waist, and he is jingling from his ankles as he walks.

“Your Honor, I would ask that the restraints be removed from our client, at least while he’s in the courtroom.”

“Your Honor, may we approach?” Templeton is bounding down from his chair before Gilcrest can respond.

The judge tells him he can do it from there, since there is no one in the courtroom.

“I’d prefer it at the bench, Your Honor.”

“So be it.” The judge motions us forward.

Harry and I join Templeton and Sims in front of the judge.

“Your Honor, the defendant is highly skilled in certain martial arts. He has employed these both in training and in combat.” Templeton seems to know more about my client than I do. Ruiz could probably snap him in half by just looking. Maybe this is the reason Templeton wants to do the argument in hushed voices at the bench. More likely it’s because Ruiz knows that Templeton’s information, if not false, is at least overstated.

“There is considerable evidence in the file regarding his aptitude in these areas,” says Templeton. “The man is highly trained.” In whispered tones Templeton is trying out his argument in front of the judge, my guess is to see just how far Gilcrest will let him wander in the theoretical fields of Ruiz as “trained killer.” For months now the cops have been setting the stage for this as part of a major theme in their case.