Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice Read Online Free PDF Page A

“We have Absolut, and I could
drop a twist into it.”
    Jo Jo wrinkled her mouth into a frown. “How
about a San Pellegrino, no ice?”

    “ Club soda okay?” Mickey
asked, his eyes shifting to me. We both knew he had San Pellegrino,
but he’s entitled to some fun, too.
    She shook her head. “Sodium. No can do.”
    Life can be so difficult.
    She started to ask about chardonnay by the
glass, and I was still thinking about my possible reply to her
belated professions of ardor, but just then the front door opened,
letting in a blast of sunlight. Ernie Cartwright, the
ninety-year-old bailiff, stood just inside the door, squinting in
the darkness, calling my name.
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Honor Among
Theives
     
    Waiting for a verdict, I try to think of
anything but what is going on inside the jury room. I try to be
philosophical. No use worrying. I’ve done everything I can do to
win; now it’s up to six strangers to tell me whether I’m worth a
damn.
    It works, too, until the knock on the door
awakens the bailiff, who summons the judge, who sits forlornly in
his chambers missing half the evening card at the jai alai fronton.
The judge is either reading court files, or more likely, haggling
on the phone with his bookie, mistress, or his cousin, the bail
bondsman who kicks back a percentage of bond premiums.
    The judge orders the bailiff to retrieve the
lawyers from the Gaslight Lounge where they are getting shitfaced,
something the judge is precluded from doing either by the Canons of
Judicial Ethics or his duodenal ulcer.
    When the bailiff comes calling, I tighten
up. Helpless. In the game I used to play, you chased the
butterflies by hitting someone. I did double duty on kickoff and
receiving teams, so I was assured of physical contact and a grass
stain within the first seven seconds or so.
    Now, there was no one to hit. I once let a
witness slug me in court, just to prove his dangerous propensity
and help my client, a doctor accused of killing his patient with a
deadly drug. The best I could do now was to whack Blinky across the
back and tell him to look innocent when the jury filed in.
    Riding up to the fourth floor, Blinky Baroso
was silent and seemed a shade paler than an hour earlier. We were
joined in the elevator by Blinky’s one-woman fan club. Nobody
invited her along; she was just there.
    H. T. Patterson was already in the
courtroom, pacing in front of the bench, hands clasped behind his
back. He stood all of five six, and that’s including three-inch
heels on his ostrich skin cowboy boots. I admired Patterson’s
style, white linen suit and all, but I’ve always thought the dress
code for lawyers should require sharkskin suits and rattlesnake
boots.
    “ Good luck, Jacob, and may
Providence smile on you and all who are dear to you,” Patterson
intoned. Before attending law school, Patterson had been a preacher
at the Liberty City Baptist Church, and the singsong of his
holy-rolling sermons stayed with him.
    “ I’m not sure about
Providence,” I replied, “but I’ll take a smile from number
five.”
    “ Ah, the lady bus driver.
You seated her because she’s African American, and you still adhere
to the old saw about minorities distrusting authority.”
    “ Right.”
    “ You left her on, despite
the fact that she seemed to have an attitude.”
    “ Right again. What are you
trying to tell me?”
    “ Only this, Jake. Throw out
the book. Go with your instincts. She’s a woman who’s driven a
million miles for Metro, and her hemorrhoids are flaring
up.”
    “ Hemorrhoids?”
    “ Did you not notice the
pillow she carries with her each day?”
    I hadn’t.
    “ She works overtime to
support her children. She has to deal on a daily basis with rude,
tired, angry people who have lost their cars and maybe their homes.
So we come into court with a pretty white boy who’s never done an
honest day’s work and a fat con man who’d steal cookies from the
Girl Scouts, and you expect her to be