Part 20 (1/2)

”No. Take Mrs. Zide up to her bedroom. Bring bath towels and dry clothes. Is there other help around?”

”I will call the security guard,” Martina said.

”Yes. Do that. Goodbye, Connie.”

She coughed and spat water on the carpet. Then I backed out of the room, the house, and her life.

When I got home twenty minutes later, Toba stared and asked, ”What the h.e.l.l happened to you?”

”If I told you, you wouldn't believe me.”

”Try me-you never know.”

”I had to go to someone's house to talk to a witness in an extortion case. The woman fell backward into her pool. I jumped in and fished her out.”

”That sounds like something that could happen,” Toba said. ”Why shouldn't I believe it? Any man who would eat a whole banana would jump into a pool to save a woman who fell in backward.”

At the University of Florida, about the time we began the affair that would lead to marriage, I had discovered that Toba liked to eat parts of fruits and rarely the whole. In her fridge I often found half an apple, or a pear with a slice missing. When I reminded her of that, she always looked annoyed. Finally, one evening in my bachelor apartment, she said to me, ”Can I have a third of one of your bananas?”

I rolled my eyes and looked at her as if she were demented.

”Stop that,” Toba said. ”Do I make fun of you when you eat a whole one?”

Then I knew that I loved her and could make a life with her. She wasn't simply being cute or lovable; in the season of my youthful ardor she was exhibiting to me a sophisticated sense of justice, promising balance and good cheer. Ten years later, in the kitchen of our home, holding her in my arms against my wet and wrinkled suit, free from whatever spell Connie Zide had woven around my heart, I vowed in my heart to be truly good to her.

I called Connie the next day to ask if she was all right. She thanked me for rescuing her from the pool. ”I must have had too much sun.”

There was an awkward pause.

”Well, goodbye again,” I said.

”Yes. Goodbye again.”

I couldn't believe it was that simple.

A week later, one morning when I was in court, Solly Zide called and left a message with my secretary. I returned the call later that afternoon. I imagined only the worst.

Zide said, ”I was going to ask you to lunch to discuss this, but now I'm tied up for the rest of this week and the next. Anyway, it's not me you need to talk to.” He told me about the opening at Royal, Kelly, Green & Wellmet in Sarasota.

”If I were in your shoes,” he said flatly, ”I would take advantage of the opportunity. Nothing better will ever happen to you.”

Was that a threat? Did he mean that worse things could happen? Did he mean leave Jacksonville or else? I wondered but never asked. Would never have the chance to ask, either. The next time I saw Solly Zide was two months later at the benefit black-tie musicale. The host, in his white dinner jacket, was surrounded by guests. We spoke a few words as we pa.s.sed each other by the side of the pool, just a few feet from the spot where Connie had toppled in. Zide was crisp in his manner but not unfriendly. He had a lot on his mind, I a.s.sumed. There was no way of knowing what that was, although one day I was destined to find out. Seven hours later he was dead.

Chapter 19.

BELDON SHUFFLED ACROSS his office to dump some wilting red roses into the only wastebasket that had s.p.a.ce. Then he turned on me and said, ”You've got some f.u.c.king nerve, Jaffe.”

He had never called me by my last name before. There was a warning there.

Next to his diplomas and police department citations for bravery hung the motto of the Justice Department, proclaiming that the government wins its point whenever justice is done. I waved at it and said, ”If you believe that, you won't stand in the way of my representing Darryl Morgan.”

”You can't defend someone you once prosecuted!” Beldon snarled. ”You know that!”

”No, I don't. The State of Florida is an ent.i.ty. How can it claim confidentiality and privilege?”

”Cops told you everything they knew. Prosecution witnesses talked freely to you. You can't switch sides, d.a.m.n it!”

”Elroy didn't tell me then that he was lying. He told me twelve years later.”

”He's your client now, isn't he?”

”But now he's agreed to testify that he lied about hearing Morgan confess.” I didn't dare admit that I'd conned him into it by calling it part of the deal offered down in Sarasota. ”Beldon, I told you the last time we discussed this-it was not a fair trial.”

”And I disagreed. And what have you told me to make me change my mind? s.h.i.+t!”

”I think Floyd Nickerson perjured himself too.”

”Since when does 'think' count in a court of law?”

”I may have a witness.”

”Who?”

”I can't tell you.”

”Oh? Now we're being cute? Is this all a bluff? You bored down there in Sarasota?”

”Let me ask you a question,” I said. ”Why are you scared of this thing being retried?”

”Wait a minute!” Beldon yelped. ”Who's talking about a re trial here? We're talking about a motion, that's all. Justice might-just might-require a hearing before the judge, if only to save this dude from the electric chair and put him in Raiford for life. But if it ever comes to a whole new trial, there is no way that justice requires your presence. CCR can do it. Two or three people over at Kenny's office are capable of doing it. You are emphatically not the right man to do it. This is for a guy who likes to get off by himself and sniff dust and stick his nose in books.”

”Will you let me handle a motion and an appeal hearing?”

”You think I'm gonna say yes because we're friends?”

”The bayou dog who gave me my first job took me to lunch at The Jury Room and said, 'You're not supposed to win any friends at this kind of job.' ”

”So what will you do if I say no? Pout and cry?”

I locked eyes with him. ”I'll fight you all the way. I'll yell 'cover- up.' The Florida Bar will probably bring charges and try to kick me out. I'll fight them too. There'll be a big fuss in the newspapers and on TV. In the end I probably won't be able to do the case, but someone else will, and you'll look like an Uncle Tom who wanted to fry a black kid who shot a rich white entrepreneur. You'll look like s.h.i.+t. Come next election, you may lose.”

Beldon guffawed. ”You think I care if I look like s.h.i.+t and lose an election?”

”Probably not.”

”Well, you're wrong,” he said. He pointed a finger at me, and somehow his mood had changed. ”See, you don't know everything, do you?”He was silent for a few moments, thinking things over. ”Okay,” he said, ”I'll tell you. Horace Fleming's finally retiring next January, when he's eighty, and the governor wants to give me Horace's court. Still be three and a half years left on the term.”