Suspicion of Guilt (30 page)

Larry's head turned slightly toward Gail. What next?

"How much did Lauren Sontag pay the notary?" Gail asked.

Weissman lit a cigarette. "Lauren wasn't here."

"That's not what she told me," Gail said.

"I don't give a damn what she told you." He tossed the lighter to his desk, and the smoke boiled out of his lungs.

"Irving Adler also says Lauren was here," Gail said.

Weissman said to Larry, "I made you people an offer. I'd like a response."

Larry looked up at him and started to speak, but Gail broke in.

"I'm taking the notary's deposition. I want her to tell me under oath how much Lauren Sontag paid her to commit a felony."

"You're going to get sued for slander, you and the fucking partners of Hartwell Black and Robineau." Weissman glared down at Larry.

Gail spoke to him over Larry's head. "Once this case is filed, Alan, I can't keep it out of the news. What's the
Herald
going to do when it hears that a candidate for the Circuit Court is involved in a forgery?"

"Discussion's over." Weissman raised his hands. "That's it."

Larry stood up, hesitating. Gail followed Weissman to his desk, where he took another long drag on his cigarette. She played her last card.

"Lauren asked me—begged me—not to let you get hurt. She said you would try to protect her. She said you would lie for her and say she wasn't involved. But she was. She helped you. Now you're going to watch her torn to shreds by the State Attorney's Office? The Judicial Qualifications Commission?"

"Get the fuck out of my office." Alan Weissman swept a hand back over his forehead.

"I'm going to find out the truth, Alan. Count on it. Are you going to lose your license for Sanford Ehringer? Are you going to ruin Lauren Sontag to save your own ass? You can do better than two. Two's an insult."

He swung on her. 'Ten million is insulting, Ms. Connor."

"So give me another number."

Alan Weissman walked away, smoothing his hair back with both hands, again, again. Smoke spiraled from the cigarette between his fingers. Larry followed him to the windows. "Alan, maybe we can work something out. Nobody wants this to get nasty. We can find a way."

Gail said, "Ten's a bargain, Alan. I want an answer by tomorrow."

"I'm not talking to you!"

Larry said, "Gail. Let him have the weekend. He has to discuss it with Ehringer and the major beneficiaries. What can it hurt?"

For a while Alan Weissman stood with his back to the room, smoking his cigarette. Then Gail heard him say, "Get her out of here. I don't want her in here."

Larry looked around at Gail. She silently picked up her briefcase and left the room. She took the elevator down, leaning against the back wall, shaking. In the mirrors her reflections went away to infinity, a woman in a neat gray suit.

She stashed her briefcase in her car and waited inside with the door open. Larry came out a few minutes later. Pale. Tearing at the ragged flesh on his thumb, which had begun to bleed.

By now Gail was steadier. She got out of her car. "What did he say?"

"He'll let us know Monday."

"What do you think?"

His eyes wouldn't meet hers. Larry said, "He'll try to pull something together. Patrick will probably get his four million. I guess you won."

"I don't feel like it."

"But it's quite a victory." Larry was angry, she realized, because of his part in it. "Paul Robineau will be pleased as punch."

"I wouldn't have really done it, Larry. Sacrificed them like that, I mean."

"Why not? Can't be the kind of lawyer who's all talk and no action." He took out his car keys, looked at them. "I used to enjoy my profession. Now I don't know. I don't know if it's me or the age we live in. I'll never be much good at cutting people's hearts out. Even pretending I will." He found the right key. "I'll see you back at the office."

She nodded, and a black wind ran through her, howling.

Larry gave her a final, icy look. "I want this case closed."

Chapter Nineteen

As Patrick and Gail walked slowly toward Biscayne Boulevard discussing a possible settlement of the case, Eric Ramsay followed close behind. He had protested the danger on these streets, but Patrick had assured him some friends were looking out for them. Now, as they passed a row of boarded-up, graffitied storefronts, Gail saw what he meant: a young man watched from the comer, his foot propped on the bumper of a car. Another kept pace on the opposite side of the street, and a third brought up the rear. All of them wore sunglasses. She wondered what they might be carrying under their loose jackets.

Just past a tavern, where a faded green sign announced that pool was played within and the thud of rap music came through the high, barred windows, Patrick stopped walking. The next lot was vacant, and broken glass glittered among the scrubby weeds. At the back of the property two palm trees leaned drunkenly together, and toward the front a pile of trash was accumulating—palm fronds, rotting lumber, an old mattress, a smashed toilet.

"This is what I wanted you to see," Patrick said to Gail. "The city took it for taxes a few years ago. They'd let it sit like this forever, but we've started cleaning it up. I want you to negotiate the purchase." He was referring to the informal group that had already come together to work on the community renewal project—all of it contingent, of course, on Patrick's winning the case, or at least getting several million in a settlement.

Gail stood on the cracked sidewalk for a minute trying to visualize rows of vegetable plants and tropical fruit trees. Two blocks beyond, on Biscayne, was the garish yellow paint of the triple-X movie theater, the Reel Stuff.

Eric Ramsay said, "I don't see how you can grow enough here to feed the neighborhood."

"Not just one garden," Patrick explained. "Dozens. One for each block, everyone helping out. Kids, old folks, parents. All it takes is organization and some cash."

"And you think people will want to do this?"

"Of course they will," Patrick said. "People want to believe in something again. They're tired of handouts and hopelessness."

He walked farther into the weeds, and the breeze fluttered the hem of his white shirt. "It isn't only a garden, it's a metaphor. It represents the possibility of creating something from nothing. Using our own hands to sustain ourselves. The real enemy here isn't violence and drugs. They're only symptoms. The real enemy is outside: mass consumer culture. It tells the people they're meaningless so often that they believe it. Nobody lacks meaning who works in his own garden, so to speak. Or when he uses his own hands to create the things he needs for himself and his family. Or her family, as the case may be. Violence isn't natural to the human animal. It's a product of despair."

Eric bit the inside of his cheek, and his eyes danced with amusement. Hands in his pockets, he swung the toe of his wing-tipped shoe at a crushed beer can. It clattered into the weeds.

Gail looked at him coolly. "Check with the city. See what they want for the property. Okay?"

"Sure."

Patrick turned around, exultant. "Gail, we're going to do it! Miami is the perfect place to start. There's so much life here, so much renewal and possibility."

He had bought a new pair of glasses, wire-rims like the pair that Rudy Tillett had smashed across his cheekbone, which still had a Band-Aid on it. The glasses were the same but the clothes were different. The khaki trousers were gone, replaced by loose cotton slacks. They added weight to his tall, thin frame. The shirt, which had neither cuffs nor collar, was embroidered around the vee neck and down the front with white-on-white Arabic designs. A grandmother up the street had made it for him. Madame DeBrosse, his landlady, was doing his laundry for him now, and a pair of sisters brought him dinner.

Gail hoped that they would not be terribly disappointed if Patrick didn't harvest a crop from his metaphorical garden. She hoped that the three young men in sunglasses would understand.

"So what do you think, Patrick? The beneficiaries are meeting as we speak. To be honest, I doubt they'll go more than three million on their first offer."

He walked back through the weeds. Thistles stuck to his pant legs and his brown leather sandals. "No good. See if you can get them up to five, and make them pay the taxes."

"Hold it. Patrick, you told me on Tuesday that you would settle for four, and you didn't say anything about
net.
You're not a charity. You have to pay taxes. That means they'll have to give you over eight million dollars for you to come out with a net of four."

"Gail, if I have to pay taxes on four, I'll end up with less than
two.
That isn't enough. I've worked it all out. It's going to take five million—net—to do a first-rate job here."

His back to the empty lot, Eric Ramsay was studying the treeless, trash-strewn apartment building across the street. 'Two million is a lot of money. I'd be happy with two. But with five you could bulldoze everything north of Flagler Street."

"Eric, for God's sake."

"No, it's okay," Patrick said, smiling. "Not all the victims of society live in this neighborhood. We each despair in our own way."

Eric smiled back. "Not me. Count on it."

"The surest indicator of despair is not to know that you despair," Patrick said softly.

"Yeah? Well, you live your life, I'll live mine."

"You can't insulate yourself from the rest of the world, Eric." Patrick went on, "You grew up privileged, didn't you? Not a worry. Do you ever look around you? Most of the world isn't so lucky."

"Hey, that's not my fault, is it?" Eric's face was getting pink. "You try to make people feel guilty. I'm not guilty, I was born into this world like everybody else. And I see things for what they are. This city is a cesspool. If I were you, I'd take the money and get out. Nothing you do is going to make any difference."

Patrick was still smiling. "But, Eric, this is the exact response that society creates in some of the young people here. If you were poor, you wouldn't be a lawyer, you'd be robbing tourists or looting electronics stores."

The muscles in Eric's neck tensed, and his broad face flushed.

"Would you both stop it?" Gail said. She frowned at Eric and grabbed Patrick's elbow, turning him back toward the counseling center. They walked. "Listen, Patrick. You've got to be reasonable. Going to trial is risky."

"I don't want to back down, Gail. They forged Aunt Althie's will. There are principles involved here, you know."

"So we go down slugging."

"Oh, Gail." He groaned. "Go down? I don't want to lose. I can't lose. Do you know who wants an interview with me? The
Miami Herald"

She stopped walking. "You weren't supposed to publicize this."

"I didn't," he said. "But how could I keep people from finding out? Everybody in the neighborhood is talking about it."

"That would explain why Liz Lerner called me this morning."

"Who's she?" Patrick asked.

"She writes a legal gossip column. I told her I don't talk about my cases. Certainly not this one."

"If the reporter shows up, what should I say to him?"

They started walking again. Gail said, "I'm going to have our P.R. people contact you." When he laughed, she said, "It's serious as death, Patrick. The judge is going to be influenced by his opinion of you, whether he admits it or not. We can't afford any mistakes in how you are portrayed in the media."

"All right, all right."

"No speeches," she said. "Don't discuss the case. Just smile and talk in generalities. Wear a normal shirt. And get a haircut."

"Just be myself, in other words."

They walked for a while in silence. Patrick said, "Do you really think we might lose?"

Gail had told him about Carla Napolitano—the whole story, which he had found greatly amusing. She said, "Weissman and Lauren Sontag and the witnesses to the will might get their stories straight enough so that a judge could buy it, if he was looking for a reason to rale against us. We've got the document examiner, but even he says he can't swear that Althea Tillett didn't sign the will. He can only swear that three of the six signatures don't look like hers." Gail shook her head. "You want the sad truth? We could be in trouble."

Patrick said, "Rosa Portales."

"Who?"

"Rosa Portales is Aunt Althie's housekeeper. She lives on the grounds. She would know what Aunt Althie did with her will. Why didn't I think of this before?"

"The will before the August will?"

"Yes."

'The one that gave you the fifty bucks to join the ACLU? What if it still exists?"

"It's got to be gone, torn up, burned," Patrick said. "If Aunt Althie didn't do it herself, then Rudy and Monica would have, when they went through her things and found it." Patrick made a smile in Eric Ramsay's direction. "Gail and I are going over to Miami Beach. I'll be glad to have someone drive you back downtown."

They had taken a taxi here, Eric not wanting to risk his Lexus again, but coming with Gail anyway, for her own protection, he had said. Gail checked her watch. "I don't know."

"Come on," Patrick said. "We'll find Rosa. Besides, you want to see the place, don't you? Aren't you even curious?"

They took Patrick's old brown Mazda across the Venetian Causeway, grumbling along at a steady thirty-five miles an hour. Patrick had both hands on the wheel, squinting through the cracked windshield. Gail rolled down the window; the air conditioner was broken.

"Do you think I was too hard on Eric?" Patrick asked.

"Poor Eric. He doesn't know what to do with you," Gail said. "You're not the typical client." She hung her arm out the window. She had on a tailored dress today, cooler than a suit. "Maybe he's my fate. You once said that fate sends certain people into our lives to test us."

He looked at her curiously. "I don't remember that."

"You said it. So I get a six-foot, four-inch tax jock in a pinstripe suit and a Lexus." She lifted her chin to get the breeze on her neck. "You know, Patrick, if we do win this case, it wouldn't be morally wrong of you to get the AC fixed."