Blood Relations (19 page)

Jerry Fine did not like defending people accused of sordid crimes like rape. He had a master’s degree in tax law and a CPA. He preferred financial crimes: tax evasion, embezzlement, or bank fraud. Cohen Kaplan’s clients did not commit rape. But Jerry Fine would defend this case, sordid or not. It would cost Klaus a quarter million for a trial, possibly twice that. Jerry Fine could think of no reason to enter a plea. He would assemble a team of private investigators and experts in forensic evidence, psychology, and jury selection. But first he had to discuss the case with Klaus. So far Klaus had only slapped him on the back and told him not to worry.

At an hourly rate of $300, sipping a second vodka and soda, and watching the naked girl climb the ladder and dive into the pool, Jerry Fine was in no particular hurry. As Little Richard gave way to the crooning of the - Platters, Fine took out his portable phone and conducted Some other business while Tereza and Klaus finished theirs.

Finally, Klaus came over and sank into the yellow butterfly chair beside Jerry Fine’s blue one. Tereza had already begun another argument with a blond woman in heavy, black-framed glasses. Her assistant designer. Or her interior decorator.

Klaus put a hand on Jerry Fine’s thigh. Fine had learned that Klaus wasn’t queer; he simply liked to touch people.

“Jerry, you know what? George Fonseca wants $50,000 and he will make the Duncan girl dismiss the case. What do you think?”

Is a felony, Jerry Fine looked at him, then said, “No. It called witness tampering. Besides, only a judge or the state attorney can dismiss a case.”

Klaus nodded in the direction of the man lifting weights. “You know what Franco says?” He moved closer to Fine and whispered, “Franco says we should put her in a bag and throw her into the ocean. We can use my boat.”

“For the love of God.”

“Why do you take so seriously everything, Jerry? I’m kidding!” He laughed. “Did you see the prosecutor, Samuel Hagen, at the bond hearing? More serious than you, even. Like a cowboy, so tough. Jerry, come to dinner with Tereza and me tonight. The Strand, okay? The art director of Vanity Fair will be there.” Klaus could make these abrupt turns in conversations.

Jerry Fine said, “Let’s go inside. We need to talk.”

Then Tereza came over, followed by the bald guy in black whining that he needed her signature. He made Jerry Fine’s skin crawl. Tereza looked down at Jerry through impenetrably dark sunglasses with rhinestones on the frames. She said, “Hello, baby,” then leaned over and kissed him on both cheeks. He could see straight down her shiny turquoise dress. It was one of her own creations, which she wore with white high heels and pink anklets.

Now the stereo was pumping out “Shake Your Groove Thing.” Two girls by the pool were doing some disco moves in their swimsuits. Tereza screamed, “Stop it!

Stop! Now!” The music went off. “I can’t stand that. it’s horrible.”

As she signed her name to six different pieces of paper, Tereza glanced at Jerry Fine. “Tell my idiot husband to pay the puttana bugiarda who says he raped her.”

“Jerry won’t let me.” Klaus slid his hand up his wife’s bare leg. “Jerry says it’s a crime to pay her.”

“How’much does she want?”

“I don’t know, Tereza mia. I haven’t talked to her. I haven’t sent anyone to talk to her.”

“Now it’s too late! Look what you have done!”

“Will You miss me when I go to jail?”

“No. You make me insane. I will be happy.”

“But you love me. Insanely.” Klaus pinched her thigh, “They have taken Your passport,” she pouted, “You can’t go to Paris with me. You can’t go anywhere. Non potrai andare da nessuna parte con me!”

He was laughing. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I like it here. The tourists are leaving, the weather is perfect. At this moment Miami is heaven. I could stay forever.”

Tereza turned her sparkly sunglasses toward Jerry Fine, “I tell you who is behind this. Claudia Otero. Feccia di una ragazza!” She spat out the words. “Claudia has her show the same night as me next week. I bet you she’s the arranger of this. Klaus, did the girl model for her? Maybe Claudia paid the girl to lie.”

Klaus shook his head. “No. Claudia likes dark models.

The girl was pale, and too much red hair.” Then he gunned. “Look at my wife, how excited she is.”

“Sta’zitto, Klaus.” Tereza grabbed Jerry F me’s arm.

“YOU know who she is, the bitch? Her sister Amalia is married to the Dade district attorney. What’s his name?”

Jerry Fine said, “Edward Mora? He,s the state attorney.”

“I Right, right. Amalia, his wife, is the sister of Claudia.

heard this from I forget where.”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“of course you see it,” Tereza said. “Claudia told the district attorney, her brother-in-law, to arrest Klaus.”

Jerry Fine smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m hungry,” Klaus said. “Let’s go to Nick’s at the marina.”

“You have a cook,” Fine said, annoyed. “If you’re hungry we can eat here.”

Tereza knelt and put her forehead on Fine’s shoulder.

“You have to do something about her, Jerry. Hire a private detective.”

Fine said, “Let me see if I follow this. You’re suggesting that your business competitor told her sister to tell the sister’s husband, the state attorney, to file this case against your husband, in order to put you out of business.”

“Yes. Why not?”

“No, Tereza. Trust me. No.”

“Who is saying these things against my husband?

You know who? Claudia’s friend, Sullivan. And she is forty-two years old and he still sleeps with her. You know him, Klaus. The model for Armani in Uomo this month.”

Klaus said, “I’m hungry.”

“Jerry, find out about this.”

To shut her up, he said, “Okay, Tereza.”

With a gasp, she noticed her watch. “Dio! I have to meet the buyers from Macy’s ten minutes ago!” She kissed Klaus on the mouth. “Ciao, caro.”

He reached up and squeezed her breasts. “Ciao, befla.

“Va bene. And Iamo. Let’s go.” She headed for the house, trailed by the blond woman and the fat homosexual in black.

Jerry Fine said, “Klaus, we need to talk.”

pedicured, but the sole was gray with dirt. “You know Klaus propped one bare foot on his knee. The toes were what? Miami was getting a little boring. Same, same, same. And now it’s very interesting.”

“I hope you find prison interesting, Klaus.”

“it won’t happen. Come on. Let’s go have lunch at Nick’s.”

“What do you mean, ‘It won’t happen’T’ “You worry so much.” Klaus began to rub Jerry Fine’s chest, a strong, side to side motion. Sweat broke out on Fine’s neck. He would have shifted away but this chair was shaped like a sack. Klaus said, “Tereza worries also. She is crazy. Claudia Otero this and that and so on. But you know what? When Tereza is crazy, she makes love like-oh, God, you should see.“Laughing, Klaus sprawled in his chair. “No, I won’t let you see that.”

Fine said, “Have you done something you don’t want to tell me about?”

“No, Jerry.” Klaus’s mouth twitched upward. “But I know something about a boutique soon to be in Havana, special to the tourists, next door to Benetton.”

“Moda Ruffini? I didn’t know you and Tereza wer Cuba.” e in

“Not us. Claudia. Don’t tell Tereza.”

“What in hell are you doing?” Fine could bear his voice rising. “I’m your lawyer. You pay me to worry. And I’m telling you. If you don’t get serious about this, Sam Ha gen is going to nail you to the fucking floor!”

Klaus laughed. “This is for me like a movie, so exciting,”

Jerry Fine tipped back his drink and finished it off.

From the door a young man in bicycle shorts yelled to get Klaus’s attention. “Du, Klaus, these Nervensdge von Vertreter ist wieder an der Tiir! Was soll which ihin sagen?

Klaus frowned but didn’t answer.

“What is it?” Fine asked.

“He wants to know if he should tell Marty Cassie to go away.”

“Who?”

Klaus shouted back at the young man, then said, “For you, Jerry, I’ll let him in. Marty Cassie put money, not so much, in the Grand Caribe, and he thinks now he’s my partner. After the redhaired girl made up those lies, Marty said he was a close friend of Hal Defucca, and nothing would happen.”

“Holy Christ. You didn’t bribe the City manager.”

Ruffini’s blue eyes widened in surprise. “No, never.”

Then he said, “It’s funny, Jerry. People do things for me all the time, and they ask for nothing. Isn’t that strange?”

It was the way the world worked at these heights, Fine thought. People of lesser status doing favors for those higher up, some kind of natural obeisance hard-wired into the human brain, perhaps. Or a hope that beauty, sex, and power could be vicariously obtained.

Hal Delucca, along with a few other gushing sycophants in city hall, had supported Klaus’s pet project, the Grand Caribe. Delucca himself had cut the ribbon on phase one. So far only a twelve-story time-share apartment building had been constructed. The model under glass in Klaus’s office showed a Caribbean-theme village with shopping, restaurants, water slides, a lagoon, and a mega-hotel. The village would be as much fun as the real Caribbean, but cleaner, with no guiltinducing Bahamians or Trinidadians gazing through the fence.

Klaus Ruffini squeezed Jerry’s knee. “I didn’t ask Marty Cassie to talk to Hal Delucca. He did it because he thinks he’s my partner, to help me.”

“You’re telling me Delucca went to the state attorney?”

“He said no, he didn’t. But now I look bad to the city of Miami Beach because of Marty Cassie, and I don’t get my zoning approved. Look. Here he is.” Klaus settled into his chair.

Coming across the terrace was a man in his late thirties dressed in open-weave shoes, linen slacks, and a green silk shirt. He carried a small leather pouch and a portable telephone. His eyes were hidden behind expensive tortoise-shell sunglasses. He ducked under the edge of the canopy. “Klaus! How’s it going?”

“Say hi to Jerry Fine. Jerry’s my lawyer.”

“Hi.” Marty Cassie shook Fine’s hand.

Klaus smiled up at him. “How is Uta, your fantastic and beautiful wife?”

Cassie hesitated, then said, “We split up. You didn’t know?”

“Oh, that is so sad.” Klaus laid a hand on Jerry Fine’s arm. “Uta was sleeping with another man. A model, very young and blond and good-looking. Of course Marty would throw her out.”

Marty Cassie’s face twitched. “Klaus, have you got a minute? This is business.”

“Sure. Talk. Jerry knows all my business. I hire Jewish lawyers, Marty. Very sharp.- Klaus waved toward a chair.

“Sit.”

Marty Cassie pulled up a plastic pedestal chair upholstered in blue-and-white stripes. His ponytail curled at his collar. He put his ba under g and telephone on the terrace floor, then dropped his sunglasses to his chest, dangling from their cord. His eyes looked as if he’d stayed out all night in a smoky bar.

“A couple of things,” he said. “First, I’ve got people to take care of on the Grand Caribe brochure._Th@ photographer’s been hounding me for days. Bitch, bitch, bitch. “How much?” Klaus said.

“With her, the printer, the production people … five grand.”

:‘Okay. I get you a check before you leave.”

‘Great,” Marty said. “Now, the other thing-”

Klaus smiled. “YOU know what? The city commission will vote next week on the zoning. They will tell me no because now I’ve been falsely accused of raping that redhaired model. A terrible thing! You said the city manager would help me. You promised.”

“I know, I know. Hal tried, but the state attorney took it the wrong way. Hal says Mora filed the case for spite, the Cuban bastard. I did my best for you, Klaus. Look, they haven’t voted yet. I could talk to them for you.”

“I’m thirsty. Dominique!” Klaus shouted. A woman at an umbrella table across the terrace put down her copy of Vogue and uncrossed her legs. She wore leopard print toreador pants and a gold bikini top. “APporte-moi un coca, ma petite, et le M46me pour mon copain. Marty, You should see the Coke machine. It works on nickels.

Why did You come, Marty? To tell me what I know already?”

“It’s about the rental property you wanted. Let’s iron out the details, then I can do the Contract and bring it back for you to sign.”

:‘What rental property?”

‘The apartments, Klaus. The Englander.”

“I don’t recall this.”

Jerry Fine knew what property. So did Klaus. The tax department at Cohen Kaplan had said Klaus could buy it if he wanted, but it was overpriced.

Marty Cassie’s nervous smile reappeared. “The Englander. Sixteen-unit on Drexel Avenue, held at present in the name of Tolin Associates. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all week.”

“Ahhh.” Then Klaus shrugged. “I don’t know. With my T’

other problem, which you said you would fix, I’m not in the mood anymore.”

“You wanted it, Klaus. It’s perfect. The location, everything.”

Klaus’s bare foot bounced on his knee. “But the property belongs to someone else. You have only ten percent, so why do you care?”

‘I told you all about this.”

“Tell me again so Jerry can hear.”

He made a little shrug in Fine’s direction. “I have ten percent. My partner Frank Tolin has the rest. He owes me money. He says he can’t pay-which is a lie, by the way.

So we’ll settle up when the apartments are sold. My own partner. We were supposed to be in fifty-fifty, and he screwed me down to ten percent.”

Klaus looked at Jerry Fine. “I find out that four years ago the building caught on fire. Jerry, would you advise me to buy a building like that? It might collapse, don’t you think so?”

Marty Cassie protested. “It was rebuilt, Klaus. New roof, everything. It’s in great shape. Back to the original art deco design.”

Dominique came clattering out in her black high heels and toreador pants with two green glass bottles of CocaCola. Marty said thank you, then set the bottle on the terrace.

Klaus said, “Okay. Maybe I do want the building.”

“It’s a good deal, Klaus.”

“If I buy the building, what would you do for me?”

:‘Do?”

‘Do you think I’m a nice guy?” He smiled.