The Law of Second Chances (22 page)

“For what? Next Monday, when it gets sapped all over again? Seize the day, Jack. Live in the moment.” She proceeded to swim away from the boat. Jack could do nothing but follow.

After lunch, they took the dinghy out and explored a little. In one of the offshoots between the river and the lake—“mangrove corridors,” Jack called them, because they were bordered on both sides by mangroves with an occasional tall pine here and there—they came upon a partially sunken houseboat lying on its side. The boat was two stories high and very large. Pat spied two gators resting nearby and an osprey high atop one of the pines. A cormorant was swimming close to the gators, seemingly oblivious to their presence, and Pat worried about its safety.

“I hope that cormorant doesn’t get too close to the gators.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jack said. “What’s meant to be in nature is meant to be.”

“I never thought about it quite that way,” she replied. “I guess you’re right.”

“Rudy told me about this houseboat,” Jack remembered. “I never thought I’d actually find it. It looks exactly as he described it.”

“Don’t you wonder sometimes about the stories behind wrecks like this?” Pat asked. “Just imagine, a murky swamp in the dead of night. Gator-infested waters. Maybe it was a gambling boat. Or even better, a brothel.”

“Maybe so,” Jack replied, leaning back in the dinghy with his feet hanging over the side, letting the boat drift aimlessly. It didn’t get any better than this. “I’ll bet the osprey knows the whole story. He can see everything from up there.”

“I think you’re right,” Pat replied, looking up at the majestic bird, its proud white chest protruding, framed by dark brown wings.

They made love that night—carefully, rocking along to the rhythm of the great Okeechobee. Afterward, they both slept soundly.

On Sunday morning before dawn they took the dinghy to the cove they had adopted as their own, for their own special sunrise service. They spent the rest of the morning there as well, swimming au naturel, arriving home in the early afternoon just in time for Jack to jump in the car and drive to Fort Lauderdale to pick up Charlie.

“Thank you, God,” Jack said as he drove down the two-lane road that led to the airport. “I know this week was a gift from heaven.”

31

Luis Melendez called Sal Paglia the day after his visit to Benny. He’d first had to digest everything over a few scotch and sodas before he could revisit it with anyone. Luis rarely drank. He was very disciplined after the drug years of his youth. Benny’s diatribe, however, had taken a toll on his psyche.

“My son has agreed to your representation,” Luis told Sal after Hazel got him on the line.

“Good. Good,” Sal said. “How’d the meeting go?”

“It went.”

“Not good, huh?”

“No. He’s got good reason to be angry.”

“Well, maybe we can do something for the both of you by getting him out of jail. By the way, I’ve got a mortgage broker coming in here to meet with us tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock to get the paperwork done on your refinancing. Be sure to bring your tax returns and everything else on that sheet I gave you so he can get started right away.”

Luis sensed a tone of desperation in Sal’s voice and he was right. Sal was scared. He had already given three thousand bucks to his loan shark, Beano Moffit, who had visited him rather unexpectedly a few days before.

“Give me one reason why I don’t break your legs,” Beano had asked at the time. Sal loved that about shylocks—they always made it sound like it hurt them more than you when
they broke your body parts into pieces. Just to be sure he remained intact, he’d given Beano three thousand reasons not to break his legs. But he knew the reprieve wouldn’t last for long. He needed Luis’s money. He also needed to tell somebody about the heat he was getting from Beano, so he called his good friend, Sergeant Al Borders of the NYPD.

“Al, don’t ask me any questions, okay? I just want you to know that if something happens to me, Beano Moffit is behind it.”

“No. Sal. Don’t tell me you’re into Beano.”

“I’m not telling you anything, Al. I’m just saying, if I turn up missing or something, you tell the powers that be to put the heat on that prick.”

“Don’t say anything else, Sal. Consider it done.”

After Luis had been to the office and the paperwork was completed on the refinancing, Sal took a trip downtown to see Benny. They met in the same room where Benny had spoken with his father. Sal was determined to make things go smoothly.

“Benny, I’m Sal Paglia, the lawyer Luis Melendez hired to represent you. First thing I want to tell you—Luis is paying the freight, but you are my client. I’m working for you, not him. I’ve got experience in this stuff and I’ve got a plan, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. Second item—I do the talking. You don’t tell me nothing unless I ask. If I ask a specific question, you give me a specific answer. The reason I tell you this is because if you tell me something, I have an ethical obligation not to put on evidence that contradicts what you told me. Understand?”

Benny nodded. At this point, he simply didn’t care. Sal continued to explain, despite Benny’s nod. “You see, the less you tell me, the greater leeway I have in defending you. Got it?”

“Sure,” Benny replied. Trying as best he could to tune Sal out.

“Third item,” Sal continued. He was on a roll now—he’d had a few cups of coffee before showing up at the prison. “Bail. I don’t think I’m going to get you out of here anytime
soon. That stiff you smoked—I mean, allegedly shot—was a high roller. Anytime you smoke—and I’m just talking hypothetically, you understand?”

“I understand.” Benny felt the need to say something just to slow Sal down a bit. The lawyer was like a runaway freight train.

“Anytime you smoke a high roller, all hell breaks loose. So to make a long story short, that’s why you ain’t gettin’ out of here anytime soon.”

“Gotcha. Anything else?” Benny had had his fill of Sal.
This is who my old man entrusts my life to? I’m getting fucked all over again
.

“Oh yeah. I just want to tell you I’ve got a plan to get you out of here. I’ve been over the public defender’s files in detail, and I see some things we can work with. I’m going to hire a world-famous medical examiner from California to testify on your behalf. I’ve used him before. He’s great. His name is Dr. Donald Wong—you may have heard of him. So don’t worry, we’re working on a defense for you.”

Those last words made Benny feel a little better. Sal had reviewed the files and actually had a plan. Benny’s cautious optimism wasn’t entirely unwarranted, either. As goofy as Sal was, he knew how to get people off.

“The thing is,” Sal cautioned, “getting this guy is going to take some time. Like I said, he’s a big shot. He’s got to clear his calendar not only to do his investigation but also to testify at trial. So you’re going to be in here for a while.”

“How long?” Benny asked.

“Six months to a year.”

Benny shrugged his shoulders. “I ain’t got nothing better to do,” he said.

Sal had Benny sign a bunch of papers before leaving, including a contract of representation and a waiver of speedy trial. The lawyer gave Benny some final words of encouragement before he left.

“And don’t worry about the death penalty. They got it in New York, but they never use it.”

32

Even though Charlie was back in town and he needed the time to prepare for Henry’s hearing, Jack decided to make the trip to Miami for Pat’s Monday morning chemotherapy treatment. Pat had not slept the night before and she was having severe pain again, which was unusual; her pain generally subsided when she started chemotherapy. Jack wanted to talk to Dr. Wright about it in person.

“This is not a good sign, Mr. Tobin,” Dr. Wright told him when he described Pat’s pain. “It means that the tumors are withstanding the chemotherapy and are growing again. We won’t know for certain until we do the scans, which are scheduled for next week. I’m going to prescribe ten milligrams of Oxycontin for her to take once a day, and I’m going to give you a prescription for Percocet, which you can give her anytime she has pain. I’ll be calling your local doctor to coordinate all this.”

“We don’t have a local doctor.”

“I have records from a local doctor who was treating your wife.”

“That would have been Dr. Hawthorne. We stopped going to him because he failed to realize that Pat had a serious problem, even though she was complaining of pain for nine months.”

Dr. Wright didn’t respond. Jack didn’t blame her. He was a lawyer, after all, and his words could easily be taken as a prelude to a lawsuit. “I’ll make a few calls today and find
someone local for your wife. I think we’ll also set up her chemotherapy locally after next week. She doesn’t need to be making this trip. I’ll call you later this afternoon with your new doctor’s name.”

On the way home, Pat was almost giddy as she talked and laughed up a storm. The drugs did that to her. For Jack, considering what he had heard from the doctor that day, it seemed almost surreal.

Jack maintained a separate office in Bass Creek away from home, even though he no longer had any clerical help. He still liked the ritual of going to the office. It was quiet, and he could shut everything else out and do his work. He had four days left to prepare for Henry’s hearing.

On Tuesday night when he returned home, Pat was still in bed. He had come to expect this for the first couple of days after chemo, but when she was still in bed on Thursday, he began to worry.

“She’s not eating either,” Charlie told him. “I can barely get those protein drinks in her. She’s losing more weight.” By this time, all her hair had fallen out. Things were happening very fast, and Jack wasn’t sure what to do. Dr. Wright had given him the name of another local doctor, but they were scheduled to be in Miami on Monday and to see Dr. Wright then anyway.

“I think we’ll just do the best we can until Monday,” he told Charlie. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re right. She seems to be comfortable, and we probably wouldn’t be able to get an appointment with the local doctor before Monday.”

He called Judge Fletcher’s office and told her secretary the problem.

“I can’t start until Tuesday with my wife in her present condition. The judge has set aside the week for this hearing, but I don’t think it will last for more than three days anyway.”

“I’m sure the judge won’t have a problem with the delay, Mr. Tobin. So, unless you hear different from me in the next
fifteen minutes, you can notify your witnesses that we’ll start on Tuesday.”

Next, Jack called Henry to let him know about Pat’s condition and the reason for the delay. Up to now, he had not told Henry about Pat’s cancer.

“Jack, I know you’ve had your reasons for not telling me about your wife’s condition. I even think I know what those reasons are. From now on, though, keep me abreast of everything. Pat told you to stick with me; now I’m telling you that her medical condition has priority over my hearing. I don’t care if you have to delay the hearing for a year, Jack—make sure Pat gets well.”

It was a long weekend. Pat did not get out of bed once, even though Charlie and Jack constantly encouraged her to do so. She wasn’t eating either. It was a chore just to get her to take a few sips of her protein drink through a straw.

“We’ve got to change something,” Jack told Charlie outside Pat’s room. “This particular chemotherapy treatment doesn’t seem to be working.”

Charlie agreed. “We’ll take it up with the doctor on Monday,” she said.

On Monday morning, Pat had a CT scan and an ultrasound. In the afternoon, Dr. Wright examined her. Jack took her to both appointments in a wheelchair because she was too weak to walk.

“I’m okay, Jack. I’m just tired,” she told him. It was the same thing she’d been saying to him and Charlie all week.

“I’m going to put her in the hospital for a few days,” the doctor told Jack and Charlie after the examination. “She needs some IV fluids to get her stabilized and a blood transfusion. Her red blood count is low.”

A blood transfusion
. The words hit Jack like a sledgehammer.

“It’s not unusual, Mr. Tobin,” the doctor explained. “Patients on chemotherapy often have to have blood transfusions. What’s troublesome is that she is not eating, she’s losing
weight—and she’s in pain. The scans will tell us what we need to know, and we can set a game plan from there. Okay?”

Unable to say anything, Jack just nodded. “You can go in and visit her if you want. I’m having an ambulance take her to the hospital.”

Jack was about to follow the doctor into Pat’s room when Charlie grabbed his arm and held it.

“You can’t go in there looking like that, Jack,” she told him. “Pat will know the doctor gave you bad news. Get yourself together. And remember, it’s our job to keep her spirits up.”

33

Jack hardly slept that night worrying about his wife. Wofford could tell there was a problem as soon as he walked in the restaurant where they had arranged to meet.

“What the hell happened to you, Jack? You look terrible.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t get much sleep last night. My wife is in the hospital. She has cancer.”