Part 12 (2/2)
”Forget him. Who's the other?”
”My sister.”
”Where is she?”
”She lives in Orlando.”
”Was she here in Sarasota those three days before the cops picked you up with that cocaine in your trunk?”
”If she says she was, who's to say she wasn't?”
”You're out of your mind, Elroy. Forget it.”
The steamed oysters arrived. I let Elroy ramble for a while, offering theories of what might have accounted for the cocaine being in the trunk of the car, while I dipped the oysters and chunks of sourdough bread in hot melted b.u.t.ter and drank cold beer.
”That's it?”
”Yeah ... Well, you're the lawyer. You tell me what to do.”
”Depends on your love for adventure. You want to go to trial or cut a deal?”
”I tell you about my pulse bladder?”
”Yes, you did. Let me lay this out for you as simply as I can. You have no witnesses worth a fart in a hurricane. You gave the cops probable cause to search the car. If you go to trial, what can you say? You didn't know the cocaine was there? Before you do that, I have to tell you that a fingerprint expert will take the stand and swear that your prints were on that paper bag and at least two of those plastic Baggies. And when that happens, you can stick a fork in your a.s.s, Elroy, because you're done. You and your pulse bladder are headed to Raiford for a twenty-year bit.”
”Okay, okay . .. you made your point.” Elroy began to pick nervously at the skin of one thumb. ”So what's the deal you can get me?”
”I spoke to Charlie Waldorf, the state attorney for this district. He got on the horn to Robert Diaz, the state attorney in Miami. They know you over there. They know who you work for. Guys named Alfonso Ramos and Marty Palomino, right? I'll give you the bacon without the sizzle, Elroy. They want your friend Ramos really bad. You give them Ramos, you do a nickel. Give them Ramos and Palomino together, you walk away laughing.”
”I can't do that,” Elroy said quietly.
”Why not?”
”They'll inch me.”
”I told you, there's a federal witness protection program. The state can tap into it.”
Elroy mulled that over for a minute. ”Where would I go?”
”Far away. California, Oregon, maybe North Dakota.”
”Yeah, but Florida's where my friends are, my sister and her kids.”
”Okay. If you turn Waldorf down and plead guilty, he'll go for fifteen years. You probably won't do more than three or four at Raiford. Plenty of time for your friends and your sister to visit.”
”I'll die in there!” Elroy whined. ”This thing I got could turn to cancer.”
”Then take the deal. Save yourself. You've done it before.”
Elroy nodded gloomily. He had hardly tasted his Bud. ”I don't wanna go somewhere and freeze my a.s.s off. California sounds okay, but f.u.c.k North Dakota.”
”There's another part of the deal,” I said, making up my mind how to deal with this lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
”What's that?”
”The business in Jacksonville twelve years ago, with that guy Darryl Morgan. You'll have to retract that testimony.”
”Are you kidding?”
”Before the same court, whatever judge is presiding.”
”I should go up there, face a perjury rap? No f.u.c.king way.”
”The statute's run on your old testimony. They couldn't prosecute you if they wanted to.”
Elroy considered this. ”When?” he asked.
”Soon. First you provide an affidavit. Then you testify. Then you give them Ramos and Palomino. Then you go into the program. Then California,” I said, ”unless you'd prefer North Dakota.”
”Let me think about it.”
”Elroy, you have no choice. It's part of the deal.”
It wasn't, of course. Neither Charlie Waldorf nor his counterpart in Miami would have stood still for that. I was lying to one client in order to save the life of another one-maybe. No matter how much I tried to justify it on that basis, I knew beyond any doubt that I had no right as a lawyer to do it.
And I didn't give a d.a.m.n.
I knew a bit about things such as laserless holograms, DNA replication, Pica.s.so's blue period, igloo construction, Van Allen belts, virtual reality, even gout. But I did not know how to talk to my own son.
On Sunday night when Alan returned home from Captiva, I faced him with what his mother had overheard.
”I don't yet know how to handle this,” I said. ”So let's both of us ponder it awhile. Then you come and talk to me. Cards on the table, no bulls.h.i.+t.”
Monday was a holiday. Alan sulked by the pool, working his way through two packs of cigarettes, while I took Toba sailing in the sloop, aptly named Dreamboat. She slept three comfortably and was small enough to sail single-handed, even though she had no winches, radio, or radar. I hoisted sail and took the tiller; Toba, wearing only the bottom half of a bikini, spread an air mattress and stretched out on the bow.
The bay gleamed bluely in the sun. I headed north on a broad reach toward Whale Key, about an hour away, where I anch.o.r.ed about fifty yards off the lee sh.o.r.e. Few boats would pa.s.s by here. I lowered the sails, tied them loosely on the boom, then dropped a wooden ladder off the stern.
Toba knew exactly what I was doing.
The marital bed after a while can become boring; there seems a limited amount of things for the same two people to do there. Long ago I had studied the Kama Sutra and decided that most of it was silly. Could I really maneuver into those positions without a muscle spasm? Can I nibble on her earlobes and suck her toes and talk dirty and still keep a straight face? But I understood the need for variety, to make the manifestation of conjugal love and hormonal need a bit more memorable than merely the component sequential movements of a routine act. There had to be more to it than driving a golf ball properly off a tee so that it soared true for two hundred yards or more. (That also was an act composed of interlinked sequential movements.) And of course there was more to it. If you connected properly, as sometimes happened with the golf ball, the result was thrilling.
But with us now, that didn't happen often. In fact, lately it happened more often at the golf tee, which was why on certain weekends, weather permitting, I cast off the lines at the dock and sailed Dreamboat to Whale Key, or White Key, or the relatively empty waters off Bay Isles. I had learned a long time ago-and not only from my wife-how stimulating that change of venue could be.
Today a rare white heron stalked the shallows near the key. The sun beating down on Toba's bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s tended to make her feel lascivious. When she was lascivious, so I tended to be-and vice versa. That circle with no beginning that makes so many good things possible.
I dove in, and Toba followed. The coldness of the water stunned us a little. We were quickly back on board, reaching for towels.
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