Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice
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Authors: Paul Levine
FOOL ME TWICE
A JAKE LASSITER NOVEL
Paul Levine
Copyright © 1996 by Paul Levine
Cover design by Aaron Kowan
Ebook design by Rob Siders
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from
Nittany Valley Productions, Inc.
Smashwords Edition: January 2011
To the memory of my father, Stanley Levine,
who paved the way, then left too soon. There’s an empty chair at
the table.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of
Dade County Medical Examiner Dr. Joseph Davis, Associate Medical
Examiners Dr. Emma Lew and Dr. Bruce Hyma, Aspen attorney / skier
Gary Wright, and Miami attorneys Roy Black and Edward Shohat.
Special thanks to Colorado historian and miner Stephan Albouy, who
loved the land and kept the faith, even in death.
As always, I am indebted to my agent, Kris
Dahl, and my editors, Paul Bresnick and Tom Colgan, for their
guidance and support.
Have you a criminal lawyer in this burg? We
think so but we haven’t been able to prove it on him yet.
—
Carl Sandburg, “The
People, Yes”
I could win most of my cases if it weren’t
for the clients.
—
John Mortimer, “Rumpole
and the Confession of Guilt”
Contents
CHAPTER 1: IN THE SHADOW OF A
CORKSCREW
CHAPTER 2: THE SHYSTER, THE GRIFTER, AND
THE LANKY BRUNETTE
CHAPTER 8: MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY AND
MEANS
CHAPTER 13: A DOZEN DEADLY
THOUGHTS
CHAPTER 18: A TOOTH FOR A
TOOTH
CHAPTER 19: THE STORK AND THE
SNAKE
CHAPTER 22: MOBILE, AGILE, AND
HOSTILE
CHAPTER 23: WHERE DAYLIGHT MEETS
DARKNESS
CHAPTER 25: YOUR MONEY AND YOUR
WIFE
CHAPTER 26: A-THOUSAND-ONE,
A-THOUSAND-TWO
CHAPTER 27: A LOUSY JUDGE OF
CHARACTER
CHAPTER 28: NO WAY TO TREAT A
LADY
Chapter 1
In the Shadow of a
Corkscrew
Louis “Blinky” Baroso squirmed in his chair,
tugged at my sleeve, and silently implored me to do something.
Anything.
Clients are like that. Every time the
prosecutor scores a point, they expect you to bounce up with a
stinging rejoinder or a brilliant objection. This requires
considerable physical and mental agility, something like prancing
through the tires on the practice field while reciting Hamlet.
First, you’ve got to slide your chair back
and stand up without knocking your files onto the floor, and
preferably, without leaving your fly unzipped. Next, your
expression must combine practiced sincerity with virtuous outrage.
Finally, you have to say something reasonably intelligent, but not
so perspicacious as to sail over the head of a politically
appointed judge with a two-digit IQ. For me, the toughest part is
simultaneously leaping to my feet and veiling “objection” while
buttoning my suit coat. Sometimes, I slip the top button into the
second hole, giving me a cockeyed look, and probably distracting
the jurors.
Blinky’s eyes pleaded with
me.
Do something.
What could I do?
I patted Blinky’s forearm
and tried to calm him, smiling placidly. The captain of the
Hindenburg
probably
displayed the same serene demeanor just before touching
down.
“
Chill out and stop
fidgeting,” I whispered, still smiling, this time in the direction
of the jurors. “I’ll get my turn.”
Blinky puffed out his fleshy cheeks until he
looked like a blowfish, sighed and sank into his chair. He turned
toward Abe Socolow, who was strutting in front of the jury box,
weaving a tale of deceit, corruption, greed, and fraud. In short,
Honest Abe was telling the life story of Blinky Baroso.
“
This man,” Socolow said,
using his index finger as a rapier aimed directly at Blinky’s nose,
“this man abused the trust placed in him by innocent people. He
took money under false pretenses, never intending to perform what
he promised. He preyed on those whose only failing was to trust his
perfidiously clever misrepresentations.”
Socolow paused a moment, either for effect,
or to round up his adjectives. “What has the state proved this man
has done?” Again, the finger pointed at my presumably innocent
client, and the cuff of Socolow’s white shirt shot out of the
sleeve of his suit coat, revealing silver cuff links shaped like
miniature handcuffs. In prosecutorial circles, this is considered
haute couture.
“
The state has proved that
Louie Baroso is a master of deceit and deception,” Socolow
announced, answering his own question as lawyers are inclined to
do. “Louie Baroso is a disreputable, manipulative, conscienceless
sociopath who gets his kicks out of conning people.”
I thought I heard Blinky whimper. Okay, now
Socolow was getting close to the line. Still, I’d rather let it
pass. An objection would show the jury he was drawing blood. But
then, my silence would encourage him to keep it up.
“
This defendant is so
thoroughly corrupt and completely crooked that he could stand in
the shadow of a corkscrew,” Socolow said with a malicious
grin.
“
Objection!” Now I was on
my feet, trying to button my suit coat and check my fly at the same
time. “Name-calling is not fair comment on the
evidence.”
“
Sustained,” said the
judge, waving his hand in a gesture that told Socolow to move it
along.
Unrepentant, Socolow shot his sleeve again,
fiddled with one of the tiny handcuffs, and lowered his voice as if
conveying secrets of momentous portent. “A thief, a con man, and a
swindler, that’s what the evidence shows. Both Mr. Baroso and his
co-defendant, Mr. Hornback, are guilty of each and every one of the
counts, which I will now review with you.”
And so he did.
***
My attention span is about twelve minutes, a
little more than most jurors, a lot less than most Nobel
prizewinners. I knew what Abe was doing. In his methodical,
plodding way, he would summarize the evidence, all the time
building to a crescendo of righteous indignation. While I was half
listening, scrupulously not watching Socolow so that the jurors
would think I was unconcerned with what he said, I scribbled notes
on a yellow pad, preparing my own summation.
I am not invited by Ivy League institutions
to lecture on the rules of evidence or the fine art of oral
advocacy. Downtown lawyers do not flock to the courthouse to see my
closing arguments. I am apparently one of the few lawyers in the
country not solicited by the television networks to comment on the
O. J. Simpson case, even though I am probably the only one to have
missed tackling him—resulting in a touchdown—on a snowy day in
Buffalo about a million years ago. I don’t know the secrets of
winning cases, other than playing golf with the judges and
contributing cash to their re-election campaigns. I don’t know what
goes through jurors’ minds, even when I sidle up to their locked
door and listen to the babble through the keyhole. In short, I am
not the world’s greatest trial lawyer. Or even the best in the
high-rise office building that overlooks Biscayne Bay where I hang
out my shingle, or would, if I knew what a shingle was. My night
law school diploma is fastened by duct tape to the bathroom wall at
home. It covers a crack in the plaster and forces me to contemplate
the sorry state of the justice system a few times each day, more if
I’m staring at the world through a haze induced by excessive
consumption of malt and hops.
I am broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, and
blue-eyed, and my neck is always threatening to pop the top button
on my shirts. I look more like a longshoreman than a lawyer.
A dozen years ago, I scored straight C’s in
torts and contracts after an undistinguished career as a
second-string linebacker earning slightly more than league minimum
with the Miami Dolphins. In my first career, including my days as a
semi-scholar-athlete in college, I had two knee operations, three
shoulder separations, a broken nose, wrist, and ankle, and turftoe
so bad my foot was the size and color of an eggplant.
In my second career, I’ve been ridiculed by
deep-carpet, Armani-suited, Gucci-briefcased lawyers, jailed for
contempt by ornery judges, and occasionally paid for services
rendered.
I never intended to be a hero, and I
succeeded.
On this humid June morning,
I was slumped into the heavy oak chair at the defense table,
gathering my thoughts, then disposing of most of them, while my
client kept twisting around, whispering snippets of unsolicited and
irrelevant advice. Each time, he leaned close enough to remind me
of the black bean soup with onions he had slurped down at lunch.
Nodding sagely, I silently thanked him for his assistance, all the
time staring at the sign above the judge’s bench:
we who labor here seek only the truth.
Sure, sure, and the check’s in the mail.
Philosophers and poets may be truth seekers.
Lawyers only want to win. I have my own personal code, and you
won’t find it in any books. I won’t lie to the judge, bribe a cop,
or steal from a client. Other than that, it’s pretty much anything
goes. Still, I draw the line on whose colors I’ll wear. I won’t
represent child molesters or drug dealers. Yeah, I know,
everybody’s entitled to a defense, and the lawyer isn’t there to
assert the client’s innocence, just to force the state to meet its
burden of proof. Cross-examine, put on your case, if you have any,
and let the chips fall where they may.
Bull! When I defend someone, I walk in that
person’s moccasins, or tasseled loafers, as the case may be. I am
not just a hired gun. I lose a piece of myself and take on a piece
of the client. That doesn’t mean I represent only innocent
defendants. If I did, I would starve. My first job after law school
was in the Public Defender’s office, and my first customers, as I
liked to call them, were the folks too poor to hire lawyers with a
little gray in their hair. I quickly learned that my clients’
poverty didn’t make them noble, just mean. I also got an education
from my repeat customers, most of whom knew more criminal law than
I did. Nearly all were guilty of something, though the state
couldn’t necessarily prove it.
These days, I represent a higher grade of
dirtbag. My clients are too smart to pistol-whip a liquor store
clerk for a hundred bucks in the till. But they might sell
paintings by a coked-out South Beach artist as undiscovered works
by Salvador Dali, or ship vials of yogurt as prize bull semen, or
hawk land on Machu Picchu as the treasure trove of the Incas. All
of which Blinky Baroso did, at one time or another. Sometimes
twice.
