Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor (26 page)

The day after the lecture, Lisa hung around
the student lounge, where several female students were sipping
coffee when one gestured toward a tall, short-haired blonde with
pouty lips who breezed in, sat down, crossed her long legs, and
pulled a cellular phone from her briefcase.

“Guess who’s cutting Truitt’s con law
seminar,” said one of the women, the apparent leader of the
group.

“Teacher’s pet,” another answered, a plump
young woman in round glasses. “God, he likes that Eurotrash,
just-back-from-Monaco look. Remember the research assistant last
year. Another shorthaired blonde.”

“Why go to class,” the first one said, “if
you can get briefed up close and personal?”

“He does like that lean and hungry look,” an
Asian woman agreed.

“I’m having fantasies about Sam Bam Truitt,”
the first woman said, “and they don’t have anything to do with the
due process clause.”

The other women giggled.

She turned toward Lisa. “We’re going to play
the desert island game. Are you in?”

“Sure. What are the rules?”

“We determine the world’s sexiest man by the
process of elimination. We start with two men, and you have to
choose who you’d rather be stranded with on a desert island. We
eliminate the other one and keep going. I’ll begin. John F. Kennedy
Jr. and Sam Truitt.”

“Ooh, tough one,” the plump one said. “Does
Truitt get a bonus for passing the bar the first time?”

“Up to you. It’s your fantasy.”

“I’ll take Sam Truitt,” Lisa broke in. “He
reminds me of a cross between Harrison Ford and Jeff Bridges.”

“No, he’s more wicked,” another said. “Like
Nick Nolte.”

“Yeah,” the plump one said, “and most of the
profs look like Pee-Wee Herman.”

More laughter, and Lisa moved on. The day she
returned home from Cambridge, she went to a trendy Georgetown
salon, Curl Up and Dye, and had her hair cut into a shorter,
layered “Princess Di.” She did it partly to look more professional,
like a network television anchor, and partly to appeal to Sam Bam
Truitt’s tastes.

If he’s attracted to me, it will be
easier.

But she was also attracted to him and
wondered if that would make what she had to do even more
difficult.

Now Lisa finished dressing, putting on the
white silk blouse, then a taupe-colored skirt, a below-the-knee
number with four darts that clung to her waist and flattered her
shape. She tucked the blouse under the narrow waistband of the
skirt, then stepped into closed Ferragamo pumps with three
inch-heels, maybe just a touch higher than necessary.

She lifted her chin and draped a double
strand of South Sea pearls around her neck—a gift from Max—latching
the chain carefully, then put on the matching earrings, a tasteful
single pearl on a solid gold post. She slipped into the blazer and
placed a silk pocket square in the breast pocket, smoothing it with
her hand. She put two extra copies of her curriculum vitae in a
soft-sided burgundy briefcase, imagining it stuffed with certiorari
petitions, legal pads, and weighty briefs.

“I’m going to get this job,” she sang out,
putting a tune to it. She was heading for the door when the phone
rang.

“I need a baby-sitter,” said the male
voice.

“Greg!”

“Just called to wish you luck. Today’s the
day, right?”

“In twenty minutes.”

“Go get ‘em. You’re the best.”

“Thanks, kid.”

In her mind’s eye, she still saw little Greg
Kingston in the Giants cap pounding his first baseman’s mitt,
asking her for a game of catch because Dad was away, stationed in
Germany or Florida or somewhere that sounded a million miles from
Bodega Bay. She pictured the white clapboard house up the hill,
gray smoke swirling from the chimney, Greg’s grandmother in the
kitchen baking fruit pies.

She remembered running out of her own house
one night, her drunken father diving for her legs as she flew off
the porch, his calloused fisherman’s hands clawing at her. She
stumbled and scraped a knee, then scampered up the hill where
Greg’s grandmother took her in and dribbled iodine on the wound.
For a time, at least, she’d found a haven from fear, a place where
she could close her eyes without fear of what she would see upon
awakening.

At twelve years old, she was Greg’s
baby-sitter but soon became part of the family. Greg’s mother had
long since taken off, and Tony was still on active duty, so the
skinny eight-year-old boy with the hair falling in his eyes became
the little brother she never had. Although he was now a handsome,
lanky twenty-three-old with a mischievous grin, he would always be
the kid wanting to play catch.

When she was in law school and had broken off
with Max, Lisa returned home to visit Greg and found Tony there. He
was nineteen years her senior, though still slightly younger than
Max. She caught Tony’s look when they said hello.

No, I’m not the baby-sitter anymore.

She could still remember the feeling when
their eyes locked. It was intense and immediate. Spontaneous
combustion, the moment charged with electricity, and best of all,
it was mutual. She recalled that first night, a full moon over the
Pacific, wine and cheese on the bay in an old Boston Whaler.
Sitting at anchor, the wind rippling across the water, they became
lovers, their desire for each other unquenchable. Even now, with
eyes closed, she could hear the anchor line stretching tight as a
violin string and see the flashing channel buoy, keeping time with
her heart.

The physical soon became more, and while the
lust quotient never wavered, they grew together until they belonged
to each other in a deep, encompassing way that she had never known.
What was it about Tony that was so different? His honesty and
decency, his capacity for giving more than he took. He loved to
have her around, to listen to her, to share his dreams, his hopes,
his fears. Their rapport was natural, their bond unbreakable.

My God, I didn’t know such a man
existed!

Life, which once had been so bleak and gray,
became a kaleidoscope of luscious colors. She had a family.

A man to love, a kid brother, Jesus, even a
grandmom baking cherry pies. If only it could have gone on
forever.

Now, Tony was gone, but the boy was still a
part of her life, and she adored him. Just hearing Greg’s voice, so
much like his father’s, sent waves of anguish through her.

“Where are you, Greg?” she said into the
phone.

“Miami.”

Damn. When’s he going to give it up?

“I thought you were going back to school this
semester.”

“I got a job driving a forklift.”

“Where?”

“Atlantica. I’m in the engine shop.”

No! You’re going to foul up everything.

“Greg. When are you going to drop this? It’s
been nearly three years. A bomb brought down the plane. Your dad’s
dead, and there’s nothing you can do to change it.”

There was a silence on the phone, and she
recoiled at the sound of her own words. But it was true, wasn’t it?
What difference did it make what caused the crash? Dead was
dead.

“I’ve been drinking beer with some of the
guys in maintenance,” he said, after a moment, “keeping my mouth
shut but listening, picking up dirt. The incompetence around here
is pretty amazing.”

“Legally, it’s irrelevant,” Lisa said. “It
doesn’t matter if all the mechanics were drunks with two left
thumbs—”

“It’s not just them,” he interrupted. “You
ought to hear how they talk about Max Wanaker. Dad thought he was a
real turd, too.”

She never told Greg that his father might
have had other reasons for despising Max. “Greg, I don’t think it’s
healthy for you to still be obsessed about the crash.”

“We deal with our loss differently. You can
close your eyes to it, but he was my father.”

“I loved him!” Lisa shot back, “and all this
does is twist a knife into the wound.”

“I’ve got to find out what really
happened.”

She listened while Greg ran through a list of
what he’d been investigating the past three years. They’d been
through it all before.

Her mind wandered. She didn’t want to
acknowledge it, but the kid was right. Ever since the accident, she
had repressed it, trying not to think about her loss. She forced
herself to forget his face, his smile, the way she felt in his
strong arms. God, how she missed him! Her lover, her hero, her
pilot.

What she had just said to Greg was the God’s
honest truth.

Tony Kingston was the only man I ever
loved.

SAM TRUITT CAME OUT OF HIS CHAMBERS to
greet her. He was wearing a blue oxford cloth buttoned-down shirt
with a green tie that he wasn’t sure matched. The tie had little
orange patterns shaped like the state of Florida, a gift from the
governor to the first Floridian ever to sit on the Supreme Court.
Truitt had left his suit coat in his chambers, purposely setting an
informal tone, trying to put the young woman at ease. He’d shaken
enough sweaty palms the last few weeks to know just how much
pressure his young charges were feeling.

Truitt made a mental note to put his suit
coat back on when he went out to lunch. A memo from the chief that
very morning announced with considerable distress that certain
justices had been seen in the corridors in their shirtsleeves.
Truitt toyed with the idea of putting on a powdered wig and flowing
robe for his promised meeting with His Holiness.

He approached the young woman, who sat
demurely in a chair in his outer office. “I’m Sam Truitt.” He
smiled and extended his hand, getting his first look at her.
Startled by her beauty, he nonetheless maintained a judicial
demeanor.

She rose from the chair and gave him a
polite, how-are-you smile. “I’m Lisa Fremont” said the stunning
woman in the navy double-breasted blazer. Her handshake was firm,
dry, and warm. She had a fair complexion, eyes nearly as blue as
her blazer, golden red hair, and what appeared to be a great figure
underneath the conservative outfit.

No way will I hire her. No fucking way. Too
good looking. Way beyond attractive. Connie would kill me.

“I see you’ve met Eloise,” he said, gesturing
toward his secretary, a plump woman in her sixties who was perched
in front of a word processor, eyeglasses dangling on a rhinestone
chain looped around her neck. “Elly was with me in private
practice, at legal services, at Harvard, and now here. She keeps
track of my appointments, corrects my misspellings, and warns me
when I have gravy on my tie.”

“At Harvard, you didn’t wear a tie,” Eloise
said, without looking up from her keyboard, her voice disapproving.
“Blue jeans and chambray shirts, you looked like a cowboy in a
Marlboro ad.”

“Elly remembers when I couldn’t find the
courthouse door.”

“His first trial was a pro bono criminal
case,” Elly said, momentarily stopping her typing. “His presumably
innocent client stuck a firecracker into the ear of a friend.”

“A couple of drunks in a bar,” Truitt
explained.

“Boys will be boys,” Lisa said, easily
working her way into the story.

“Exactly,” Eloise agreed. “So here’s young
Scrap—that was his nickname before he got so high and
mighty—dancing around the courtroom like Fred Astaire,
cross-examining the victim.” She dropped her voice a couple of
octaves and sang out, “Isn’t it true, Mr. Fiore, that you suffered
no permanent injuries?”

“And the witness looks at me,” Truitt broke
in, “and says—”

“I beg your pardon,” Lisa interrupted,
cocking her head and putting a hand to her ear.

Truitt looked at her in astonishment.

“That’s right!” he said, impressed.

The story was meant to loosen up the
applicant as well as test for a sense of humor. This was the first
time anyone had the courage or intuition to beat him to the punch
line. It did not occur to Sam Truitt that Lisa already knew his
often-told tale from reading an obscure legal newspaper that had
profiled him.

If only you weren’t so distractingly,
maddeningly beautiful I could be as chaste as one of the chief’s
monks in the monastery, but with my reputation, he’d still think I
was shagging you.

Nearly all the 532 resumes Truitt had
received were from qualified candidates. Top students from the best
law schools, they could all write, research, and analyze. For his
three clerks—he was entitled to four but wanted a smaller
staff—Truitt sought a team with camaraderie. They’d have to put in
long hours, but they should also be able to have a beer together.
He admired hard workers, and perhaps because of his own background,
appreciated those who did not have a law school education handed to
them as a legacy. He also wanted at least one woman, and someone
from west of the Mississippi.

So far, he had hired two men. Victor Vazquez
came to Florida from Cuba with his parents on
the 
Mariel
 boatlift, attended Miami High, worked
two jobs at Tulane, then earned a free ride at the University of
Michigan Law School, where he was editor in chief of
the 
Law Review
. Next was Jerry Klein, whose IQ was off
the charts and who had dropped out of medical school to enroll at
Yale Law because he thought it would be fun. He won the job by
telling Truitt that the only difference between the two professions
was that lawyers merely rob you while doctors rob you and kill you,
too.

“I think W. C. Fields said that,” Truitt
responded, testing the chubby young man.

“Actually it was Chekhov.”

“I know,” Truitt told him. “I just wanted to
see if you’d correct me. You’re hired.”

Either Klein had chutzpah, or he lacked the
natural instincts to be wary of correcting his boss. Either way,
Truitt liked him. He sensed that Lisa Fremont had the same
self-confidence. Only difference, the obese, pimply Klein looked
like a sausage stuffed into an ill-fitting suit. This goddess
standing before him looked as if she just stepped off the cover
of 
Cosmopolitan
.