Kill All the Lawyers (25 page)

"Hey, Uncle Steve. We started without you."

"Come in, Solomon." Kreeger's smile seemed sincere, as sincere as a wolf smiling at a lamb.

"What the hell's going on?"

"Your nephew is regaling me with his wizardry powers. Shall we try another one, Robert?"

"Go for it, Doc."

"How about my name? 'William Kreeger.' "

"Easy, 'cause it's got so many vowels, and I can make four words." The kid thought a second, then boomed: "WIRE ME RAGE KILL."

"Utterly delightful." Kreeger turned to Steve. "Robert was just telling me about the lovely Maria and the unfortunate incident that led to his coming here."

"She's a fox," Bobby said.

"Indeed, she is." Kreeger picked a wallet-size photo from his desk. "Lovely, isn't she, Solomon?"

"Where'd you get that?" It was a shot of Maria Munoz-Goldberg preening for the camera. Shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that stopped north of her navel. Her back was arched in a way that showed off her small butt. Except for the clothing, she could have been Amanda, posing for Kreeger seven years earlier.

"I gave it to Dr. Bill," Bobby said. "He's giving me advice on bagging Maria."

"Great. I'll come visit you in Youth Hall."

"Nothing bad or anything. The doc says to just be myself. Don't try to be cool or imitate the guys on the football team, because it won't work. We all have to be ourselves, because if we fake it, smart people see right through it, anyway."

"That's good advice," Steve admitted, leveling his gaze at Kreeger. "Sooner or later, the phonies get caught. And then all their lies, all their deeds come back to haunt them."

"How true," Kreeger said. "Now, Robert, what were we talking about when your uncle walked in?"

"You asked if I thought Maria was a little prostitot."

"What!" Steve was halfway out of his chair. "What kind of question is that for a twelve-year-old?"

"Oh, come now, Steve," Kreeger crooned. "You've seen those nubile little cock teasers around the Grove, haven't you?"

"Hey. I don't talk that way in front of Bobby."

"Obviously, you haven't read my essay on verbal honesty. Now, Robert, does Maria have any piercings?"

"A shiny thing in her navel," Bobby answered.

"And I take it she wears clothing that reveals her bare abdomen?"

"Sure.

"As I thought." Kreeger beamed. "A little prostitot."

"That's ridiculous," Steve said.

"We'll see. Robert, have you ever seen Maria's breasts?"

"Not unless you count looking through the window in the dark."

"Well, if you don't try something, she'll think you're gay."

"That's nuts!" Steve thundered. "Bobby, don't listen to him."

"I'm not gay," Bobby said.

Kreeger smiled. "I know that, Robert. But does Maria?"

"Hope so."

"Sounds to me like she really wants you to do her."

Steve leapt to his feet. "That's it. We're out of here."

"In that case, Robert will be detained at Youth Hall, pending mandatory testing."

Steve sank back into his chair.

"Maria never said anything about wanting to do it," Bobby said.

"She won't," Kreeger said confidently. "See, Robert, man is the hunter. For millions of years, man killed the game and took the female of his choice. The female always yields to the strong man. When she says no, she means maybe. When she says maybe, she means yes."

"Wrong!" Steve turned to Bobby. "No means no. Maybe means no. Yes
still
means no because you're too young."

"Bobby, why don't you let your uncle and me talk for a bit?" Kreeger suggested. "There's a bowl of fruit in the kitchen. And a box of chocolate chip cookies on the counter."

"Awesome. I'll bounce."

Bobby unspooled his legs and headed out.

After the office door closed, Steve got to his feet and leaned over Kreeger's desk. "You can tell the judge anything you want, but I'm not going to let you poison Bobby's mind."

"Relax, Solomon. I'm just testing the boy. I'm worried how Robert might react if Maria rejects him."

"What are you talking about?"

"The way Robert handles stress." Kreeger scribbled a note on a pad. "I'm quite concerned that the boy could become violent with her."

"What the hell are you writing down there?"

"Do you remember that girl who went missing down in the Redlands a few months ago? A boy in the neighborhood had a developmental problem similar to Robert's. The girl's body was never found, and the police lacked evidence, but I feel quite certain the boy was involved."

"Bobby's not violent. In case you forgot, you're the homicidal one, Kreeger."

"So you keep saying." Kreeger rested his hand on the desk, on Maria's photo. "Do you think Robert would mind if I kept this?"

"Yeah." Steve walked toward the window. "And so would I."

Kreeger slipped on a pair of reading glasses and studied the photo. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Way too long. Finally, he said: "Juicy one, isn't she?"

"Sick, Kreeger. Sick and twisted."

Kreeger closed his eyes and murmured: " 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta.' "

Quoting Nabokov's famous opening lines, admitting his own predilection for pubescent girls. Almost as if he were the patient and Steve the psychiatrist. Did he want help?

"You need to talk about it, is that it?" Steve said, coming back to the desk. "All these years, you've carried this around. Maybe you needed to talk about it when I defended you. Maybe I missed the signs."

Kreeger chanted, as if praying: "Lo-lee-ta. A-man-da. Ma-ri-a." Then he laughed, the cackling laugh of a rooster. "You think Robert's popped Maria's cherry yet?"

Steve didn't even try to hide his disgust. "You don't want help. You just want to wallow in the filth."

"Or have you beat him to it, Solomon? Bird-dogging your nephew's little hoochie?"

"They should send your sick ass to Raiford. You killed Nancy Lamm so you could be with her daughter."

"You know better than that." Kreeger's smile was as sharp as a knife blade. "Or don't you believe a naked woman? Amanda killed her mother, and I took the fall for her. Just as you would have done."

"What does that mean?"

"Let's say that young Robert got rough with Maria and the poor girl died."

"What sick fantasies are you working on now?"

"Just a hypothetical question, Solomon. If Robert killed Maria, wouldn't you do anything to keep him out of prison? Wouldn't you even take the rap for him?"

"That's not what happened with Nancy Lamm. That's just the story you sold a thirteen-year-old girl to keep her in your bed. What drugs did you have her on when you convinced her she killed her mother?"

"Now that I think about it," Kreeger mused, "there is one big difference between the two of us. I admit who I am, and you pretend to be someone completely different than who you are."

* * *

Back in the car, Bobby knew he was in for a goofy lecture. Uncle Steve seemed petrified that any day Bobby would be knocking boots with Maria and she'd get pregnant, which was weird, because so far he had kissed her exactly three times, including once when he missed and ended up with her earlobe in his mouth.

"You know I'd never steer you wrong?" Steve said, before they'd driven a block.

" 'Course I do."

"So you'll listen to me and not that freak Kreeger?"

"Yep."

"You remember what I told you about girls and sex?"

"Have I ever forgotten anything, Uncle Steve?"

"So say it."

"C'mon, it's so dorky."

"Say it, kiddo."

No way around it,
Bobby thought, firing out the words. "It shows maturity to keep your purity."

"Attaboy."

"Did you, Uncle Steve? Keep your purity?"

"None of your business."

"That's what I thought."

The "purity" line was so unlike his uncle, Bobby figured he got it from one of those books piled up in the living room.

Raising the Adolescent Boy. Problems with Puberty. Teenagers: An Owner's Manual.

As if I'm a puppy.

Uncle Steve always seemed scared something bad would happen to him.

As if I'm breakable.

Probably because of Mom and the dog shed and a bunch of stuff he didn't even remember.

"Be home before dark."

"Don't put that can of beans in the microwave."

"If your mother calls, I want to know about it."

Sometimes, Bobby wanted to shout:
"I'm not a baby, Uncle Steve."

Just now, Dr. Bill treated him like a man. Talking about booty like that. Not trying to game him with "purity" and "maturity."

Of course, Uncle Steve hated the guy. Which was weird, because Uncle Steve fessed up that he was the one who cheated back in the murder trial. Driving over here today, he said the doc was dangerous. But he said the same thing about Mom, and Bobby didn't see that at all. Uncle Steve was just so mixed up about all of this. So Bobby decided to keep some secrets. He wouldn't tell Uncle Steve all the things Dr. Bill said. Especially the last thing, right before Uncle Steve came into the room.

"Be a man, Robert. Take what you want. Maria will love it. Trust me. I know."

SOLOMON'S LAWS

11. I won't lie to a lawyer's face or stab him in the back, but if I have the chance, I'll look him in the eye and kick him in the
cojones
.

Thirty-Two

DEFROSTING THE

FROZEN CHOSEN

"You spanked a naked woman?" Victoria couldn't believe this was happening again.

"Not in the way you mean," Steve replied. "It wasn't a
Story of O
deal."

"She rubbed her breasts in your face?"

"Technically, only one breast."

"And you did absolutely nothing to invite the attention?"

"Not a thing, Counselor."

"Your mere presence provokes women to fling off their bath towels and squash their breasts in your face?"

"One woman, one breast," he specified, as if a court reporter were taking it all down.

They were in Steve's Mustang, the radio tuned to the sports talk station. Steve turned up the volume, intending to cut off her questioning, she figured. Victoria listened a moment as a caller complained in grave tones that the University of Miami's touted new wide receiver might, in fact, run the forty-yard dash a tenth of a second too slowly.

She punched a button, turning off the radio. "You were crazy to sneak around in Kreeger's bedroom."

"I was hunting for evidence and I found it."

"You mean the naked pictures? Or the naked woman?"

"I'm gonna nail Kreeger for sexual battery. Amanda was a minor. Extended statute of limitations, relaxed rules of evidence. I can get him, Vic!"

"And how will you persuade her to cooperate? Shower with her next time?"

"All I have to do is convince her that she didn't kill her mother."

"That's all?"

"And that Kreeger's not protecting her. She's protecting him."

"And how exactly will you do this?"

"I'm working on it."

He cut across two lanes and headed up Brickell Avenue, instead of taking I-95 to the Miami Beach fly-over.

"Where are we going?" Victoria asked.

"I've got a settlement conference. You can take the car."

"What settlement conference? There's nothing on the calendar."

"Sachs versus Biscayne Supermarkets. The butt-sticking case."

"They're willing to settle, even with an intervening tortfeasor?"

"No one says 'intervening tortfeasor' as sexily as you. In fact, no one else says it at all."

Something wasn't ringing true, she thought as they drove through the canyon of high-rises, home to Miami's cliff-dwelling lawyers and bankers. "So what's the offer?"

"Nothing yet. But I'll have
mucho dinero
by noon."

So unlike Biscayne Supermarkets, Victoria thought. They fought every slip and fall, no matter how long the banana peel had been rotting on the floor. And this case had even trickier liability problems. Harry Sachs, one of Steve's "repeat customers," as Cece called him, had used the supermarket's rest room and ended up stuck to the toilet seat, which had been coated with Krazy Glue by a prankster. Paramedics used a blowtorch to melt the glue, and the seat peeled off, along with a semicircle of Sachs' butt skin.

"I'm surprised you're getting any offer."

"You know how persuasive I am, Vic. Rolly Ogletree will write me a check before lunch."

Funny, Victoria thought. She'd seen Rolly at motion calendar last week and he'd talked about a fishing trip he had planned for this week. Costa Rica. But she kept quiet. Why would Steve lie about something like that?

He pulled the car to a stop in front of the State Trust Building, a high-rise at Calle Ocho and Brickell. "Wish me luck." He leaned over and kissed her. As he opened the car door, ready to hop out, she said: "Where's your file?"

"You know me, Vic. I don't need no stinking files."

"Uh-huh."

"I keep everything right here," he said, pointing to his head.

He was lying about the Sachs case, she decided. Lying about a conference with Rolly Ogletree. For someone who twisted the truth so often, he wasn't very good at it.

"Good luck, Steve."

Victoria came around to the driver's side, taking her time, watching Steve bound up the steps of the State Trust Building. Sure, that was where Ogletree & Castillo, P.A., maintained its office, defending an array of tight-fisted insurance companies. But something was wrong. She pulled out into traffic heading toward the bridge that would take her downtown, and then across the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. But on impulse, she hung a right onto Brickell Key Drive and parked against the curb.

Okay, Victoria, what are you doing? Surveillance on your boyfriend?