Lisa Scottoline - Legal Tender

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Amazon.com Review
Philadelphia lawyer turned novelist (what a concept!) Scottoline has already won a best original paperback Edgar for Final Appeal. Now she might just nail down a hardcover one for her latest book – a lovely combination of high energy, imagination and nasty good humor mostly directed against lawyers. Her central character this time out is a definite keeper: Benedetta Rosato, "Bennie" to everyone but her mother, a towering blonde who rows to keep her body in shape and duels with the police on a daily basis to keep her legal talents sharp. Most of Bennie's clients have a gripe against the cops, so Philadelphia's finest are less than sympathetic to her cause when she becomes the chief suspect in the murder of her ex-lover and soon to be ex-law partner. Hiding out in a truly original way, Bennie uses (and abuses) a big law firm to help find the real killers; you'll find yourself laughing and gasping all the way.
From Publishers Weekly
The heroine of Scottoline's rambunctious fourth legal thriller (after Running from the Law) may change the way readers think about lawyers. Benedetta ("Bennie") Rosato, who narrates, is a ravishing six-foot blonde, one of two partners in a thriving law firm. In quick order, the foundations of her world come crashing down. Her partner and ex-lover, Mark, turns up murdered shortly after he tells Bennie that he is planning to dissolve the partnership. It's not surprising that she then becomes the cops' prime suspect. When the murder weapon is found in her apartment, Bennie goes underground. Then a drug company CEO is killed, and she is falsely accused of that death, too. A hilarious caper ensues as Bennie disguises herself as, variously, a hooker, a bag lady and a lawyer "from the New York office" of a staid old white-shoe firm. In the midst of all her woes, she must also deal with a new boyfriend and a mother who's facing electroshock therapy. The Perry Mason-like ending is a bit strained but doesn't spoil the fun. Bennie, a delightful heroine, deserves an encore; and, again, Scottoline merits a big round of applause. $200,000 combined ad/promo for Legal Tender and the simultaneous HarperPaperbacks edition of Running from the Law; simultaneous HarperAudio; author tour; U.K. and translation rights: Columbia Literary Agency; dramatic rights: Linda Hayes.

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The traffic light at the corner changed from yellow to red as I reached it. Goddamn it! I stayed in the left lane so if they ended up next to me, they’d be as far as possible from my face.

It was exactly what happened. I drove up to the light. They pulled up next to me, on my right. I kept my face straight ahead, but I could feel their eyes on me. Scrutinizing me, wondering. What’s a dressed-up redhead doing here in a new banana?

I had to do something. Hide in plain sight. It had worked, so far. “Officer,” I called loudly, leaning over to the cop in the driver’s seat. “Thank God you’re here! I wonder if you could help me. I think I’m really lost.”

“I think you are, too,” he said with a smile, and his partner laughed and hung up the radio. “What are you looking for?”

“I-95, going south. I took my cat to the vet, but I must’ve got off on the wrong exit on the way back.” I held Jamie 17 up by the scruff of the neck and she mewed on cue. “Isn’t she cute?”

He nodded without enthusiasm. “Go to the next light and take a left. Follow it out and take that all the way to 95.”

“Thanks.”

The light changed to green. The cops cruised ahead of me. I exhaled, resettled Jamie 17, and followed the cops, waving like a dork. We reached the light together, me and my police escort, and they went straight at the light. I took the left they’d prescribed and traveled down another street that seemed to get darker and more deserted the farther I went.

Then I spotted it. There, on the right. Parked at the curb after the line of lesser cars sat the gleaming red Porsche. The license plate saidLOONEY 1.

I lurched to a stop. The car was empty. I looked behind me. The cops were gone.

I parked in an empty space on the left side of the street, locked the doors and windows, and stroked Jamie 17 while I watched the Porsche. She purred softly, completely at peace in the middle of this hellish neighborhood.

I watched the Porsche from way down in my front seat, not knowing which building Sam had gone into. It was too dark to see much around the car, most of the streetlights were unlit. I slumped deeper in the seat. The cops had been too close a call. A wave of exhaustion washed over me. I tasted the bile still coating my teeth. Drained, I leaned back on the headrest.

No children were out at this hour, there were no games of jump rope. It was quiet and still. A hydrant leaked water into the street at the far end and it trickled down the filthy gutter under the Porsche. I wondered vaguely if I should’ve kept the gun Grady had offered me, but I was too tired to care. Where was Sam? I checked my watch. 9:15. I closed my eyes and waited, one hand resting on Jamie 17. I hadn’t slept in days. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on.

The next time I checked my watch it was 11:30. I’d fallen asleep. I woke up scared. I felt my body, my chest. I was safe. Jamie 17 was walking around, scratching in her box. The street was still dark, but the Porsche had vanished.

“Goddamn it!” I said, hitting the steering wheel. I started the car, flicked on the lights, and pulled out of the parking space. I drove to where Sam’s car had been parked and squinted up at the deserted houses. Then I looked down on the sidewalk.

It was Sam. Huddled, fallen, the figure of a man lying at the curb. Even though I couldn’t see him clearly, I knew who it was.

“Sam!” I called, panicked. I twisted the steering wheel to the curb, yanked up the brake, and jumped out of the car.

“Sam! Sam!” I knelt down when I reached him and touched his forehead. It was covered with sweat, blood, and pavement dirt. I threw myself on his chest, listening for a heartbeat.

His eyelids fluttered and he grinned crazily. “‘Assault and Peppered.’ 1965,” he said, as his eyes closed again.

“I can’t believe they took my car,” Sam moaned, while I held an ice pack over his eye.

“You have bigger problems than your car.”

“No, I don’t. How can I be Porscheless?”

“Many of us manage to. You can too.”

“No, I can’t. They can take my money, they can take my watch, they can even take my bone marrow. But don’t take my Porsche.” Sam sighed as he slouched on the lid of the toilet seat in his tiny bathroom. Dirty clothes overflowed the wicker hamper and Tasmanian Devil towels lay heaped in a soiled bunch next to the toilet. The white tile walls were gray and dingy, the shower curtain was spotted with black mildew. Sam’s neat haircut was stiff with blood, and his pink Polo shirt was torn and sullied. It was hard to tell which was in worse shape, Sam or his bathroom.

“What’d you expect, in that neighborhood?”

“I expected to say hello and leave.”

“You went up there to say hello? Here, hold the ice pack,” I said, taking his hand and putting it atop the plastic cap.

“You could ask nicer.”

“I could, but I won’t.” I wrung a grimy washcloth into a sink covered with caked blobs of Colgate, and turned on the faucet for hot water. Jamie 17 watched every move, sitting neatly on the wet and cluttered counter. “So that’s why you were up there, in Beirut? You were visiting a friend?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the friend’s name?”

“Mike.”

“Mike? How come I never heard of him?”

“He’s a new friend.”

“Mike the New Friend. Is this a cartoon character or a real person?”

“A real person.”

I waited for the water to get hotter. “And this real person would leave you on a sidewalk, bleeding? After some other friends beat you up and stole your car?”

“He’s not a good friend.”

“No, not at all. ‘Mike the Bad New Friend.’ 1952.” Steam came off the tap water so I ran the washcloth in it, then pressed it to Sam’s raw forehead.

“Ouch!” He reared back, letting the ice pack fall to the floor.

“Ouch, what?” I yelled. “Ouch, how stupid do you think I am? Ouch, why are you lying to me? Ouch, what kind of friend are you supposed to be?”

“What? What?” He looked for the ice pack like a befuddled drunk, but I had no sympathy.

“You’re lying, Sam. You’re lying about why you were up there. You lied about money and about Mark. You lied about everything!” My voice echoed harshly in the tiled bathroom, and Sam covered his ears.

“ ‘The Yolk’s On You.’ 1979, I think.”

“It’s not funny, Sam. I could’ve been caught, saving you. And downstairs, trying to explain to the doorman!” I threw the washcloth on the counter, and Jamie 17 jumped. “Level with me. What were you doing up there?”

“You got an Acme portable hole? An Acme time-space gun? An Acme deluxe high-bounce trampoline? Or how about spring boots, any make or model?”

My temper ticked like a cartoon time bomb. “I want the truth, Sam.”

“Ooh. ‘Nothing But the Tooth.’ That was Porky.”

Before I knew what I was doing I had exploded, grabbing Sam by both arms and pushing him easily against the wall. As surprised as I was at my own violence, I wasn’t about to let him go. “This is not a cartoon, Sam. I want the truth.”

“Bennie, please!” he croaked, blue eyes wild and unfocused without his glasses. He struggled but he was too weak to escape my grip.

“You’re in real trouble, Sam. So am I. What the fuck were you doing in that neighborhood?”

“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want anyone-”

“Is it drugs?” I tightened my grip until tears formed in Sam’s eyes. It wasn’t pain, it was something else. Humiliation. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I had to know. Not only for Sam’s sake, but for Bill’s.

“All right, all right.” A tear formed in the corner of one eye and rolled down his mottled cheek. “Yes, drugs. Heroin.”

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