The Daily Novel

When I got home, Tati was anxiously waiting for me. She was delighted to see me come home early. I guess she must have seen the expression of victory in my face, because she congratulated me. She had everything packed already, including her cooking utensils, china, and service. She was very picky when it came to cooking, and since she cooked by recipes, she needed her usual measurements. Some of our friends who did not know us well thought that we were Hasidic Jews; it didn’t bother me.

On the way to the highway, we stopped at the local market to buy some snacks and water for the trip. The owner, an old but witty native Floridian, joked with me about how absurd it was for someone who lives on a Key to go on vacation to another Key. I answered that it was not that absurd, considering that the Key where we were going was not inhabited by grumpy fishermen pretending to be savvy businessmen, but in fact it was the other way around. We laughed, and he wished me a good trip.

His wish came true. The drive was very pleasant. I drove all the way nonstop. Tati was in great spirits and talked all the time, which I appreciated. Although the scenery is beautiful, the drive from Miami to the Keys can be a treacherous drive, one that I had made many times by myself when I had cases down there.  When we got to our houseboat, we found a bottle of Dom Perignon in the fridge. I wanted to open it and have a toast, but Tati had other plans. She had ordered the champagne to make mimosas for breakfast. Wasted champagne and wasted Florida orange juice. Go figure.

The houseboat was not a palace, but it was comfortable. It had a large kitchen with a small fridge and a range, one bedroom with a queen size bed, and a small living room with a sofa, a reclining chair and a big TV set. There was also a DVD and CD player, and a satellite dish; most of that we would never use. The bathroom had a toilet that was exactly under the shower; space was a scarce commodity there. However, my favorite feature of the houseboat was the terrace. It had a couple of wicker chairs and a little round table, and it was right on the water, facing the Atlantic Ocean. While Tati finished unpacking, I sat there, looking at the sea, unwinding. Life had been good to me that day.

Saturday morning I was awakened by the smell of cinnamon rolls and the sound of a mixer. My wife was making crepes and preparing the mimosas. I tried to help, but she dismissed me, so I went to the terrace and waited for her. I just sat there, looking at the serene morning sea. There were boats already sailing out of the inlet. An albatross was flying toward the sea, and the seagulls were pecking at the bits of fish that a boat had discharged near the pier. Tati came outside with breakfast; it was delicious. I could see that she was also enjoying herself.

The rest of the morning we spent walking around the pier. At around noon, Joshua called me on my cellular phone.  He had just left Miami and wanted to know how to get to our place.

“You can’t miss it, buddy,” I told him. “It’s in Islamorada, right next to the Tikki Bar. Houseboat row Number 7.”

I figured that it would take him about an hour and a half to get there, so we went to the pier to buy fresh seafood for dinner. We bought ten pounds of stone crabs; they were really fresh. We then went back to our place to wait for our guest. At almost 2:00 Joshua arrived. He was accompanied by a gorgeous girl, not older than twenty. He introduced her as Ana.

In addition to being very pretty, Ana turned out to be very friendly. She and Tati connected immediately, and I was very relieved. They stayed for dinner, which Ana helped make, and after dinner Joshua and I went out to the terrace while the women sat in the living room, talking. I had a glass of Johnnie Walker, and Joshua was drinking beer.

“It is nice here, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah, and I needed it too.”

“When I get out of this mess, I may consider moving down here. Miami is getting on my nerves, especially all the nasty people….”

“Speaking of which,” I said, “why do you think the State would target you?”

“That’s irrelevant, Sam. The fact is that I behaved like an idiot and now have to pay the piper, that’s all. I mean, I should have known what was at stake. I don’t wanna sound like I’m justifying myself, because what I did was unjustifiable, but you think about it, my first mistake was allowing the Johnston case to drag on for two years. We all know that a case has to be finished in six months or less, otherwise pitfalls appear. So I went way over the line with Johnston. Then you start feeling bad for the guy, you think you’ve neglected him, and you start making concessions. You know how many times I visited that guy in jail?”

I shook my head No while I took a sip of my drink. “More than sixty times. I have the receipts from the visit slips to prove it. And then you get close to your client, which is a no-no. He starts talking about his family, his life; I mean, what are you gonna talk about? There is only so much that you can talk about a case, even if it’s murder. And then one day he asks for a favor; you initially think it’s preposterous, but then you soften a little bit. What’s a pack of cigarettes going to do to anyone? No big deal. Besides, if you get caught, you say that you didn’t know. And why are you gonna get caught? I swear that in my years of practice I have never taken a case involving introduction of contraband into a jail; never mind taken, I have never heard of a case involving introduction of contraband! That’s one of those sections of the code that are deleted on purpose from the manuals because they are never enforced. Yes, I’ve had clients in jail who have been sent to isolation because they have received contraband, but that’s always been the extent of it; no one has ever been charged criminally. But that’s human folly—thinking that what hasn’t happened will not happen. But here I am, charged with introduction of contraband into a jail facility. Someone should yell bingo.”

“You know, Josh?” I said, “I understand what you’re saying, the part about you behaving like an idiot, but what I don’t understand is why they would set you up like that? It surely wasn’t because they thought you were corrupt! There has to be something else. You must have rubbed someone the wrong way, because they came after you with a vengeance. Do you know how much money and time they must have spent just to set a trap for you? This reeks of personal vendetta. Think about it!”

“Honestly, Sam, there is nothing I can think of. The only case I have against that idiot prosecutor is the Johnston case, and Detective Pescatore has always had a good relationship with me. I’ve poked fun at his golf game, but that wouldn’t be a reason to hunt me down like that.”

“No, I agree. And Pescatore is a nice guy. But there must be something, and I’m going to find it, you can count on it.”

“I don’t know if that would help the case, Sam, but I’m ready to face the consequences. I don’t wanna go to jail, obviously, but other than that, I’m not afraid. I will probably be disbarred anyway, based on conduct alone, and that hurts. Other than that, I think I’ve accepted my fate.”

I was not so sure that he wanted to know the truth. I think more than anything he wanted closure, as if with the case pending something even more horrible could happen. I could see the pain in his face, although his demeanor was still stoic. The lessons he had learned in the trenches of the criminal justice system were paying off at that time of adversity. I tried to cheer him up and said,     “Come on, nothing has been lost so far. Even the Florida Bar may be lenient on you when they find out what really happened. Come on, we’re on a vacation here, we’re supposed to be having fun.”

“Yeah,” he said, “let’s have fun.”

He finished his beer, got up, and went inside. Tati and Ana were immersed in conversation about art and music. Joshua went to Ana and kissed her on her cheek. Then he grabbed her hand and said, “Let’s take a stroll by the pier!”

Ana looked between embarrassed and undecided, so Tatiana got up and said, “Yeah, let’s!”

We all got out and started walking toward the pier. Joshua had picked up Ana and was carrying her in his arms; she was laughing, kicking, and screaming. Tati and I were walking behind them, embracing each other. I said to her,     “They look in love, don’t they?”

“Well, she’s head over heels about him. She thinks that he’s the best thing since sliced bread.”

“Does she know about his problem?” I asked her.

“I don’t think she knows, because she said something about you being his mentor, but she didn’t say anything about you being his lawyer.”

“Me, his mentor?” I laughed. “Maybe he doesn’t want to scare her away, which I’d understand.”

Tati pinched me in the back. They had reached the end of the pier, and we were getting closer to them. Joshua pointed to the sky and said: “See that constellation? That’s Orion, the Hunter. The reddish star in the upper left is Betlegeuse; the bluish star at the lower right is Rigel. The three lined-up stars form his belt, and the other stars descending from the belt trace his sword. That fuzzy light close to the belt is the Orion’s nebula; if we had my telescope I would show you what a beautiful sight that is. And of course,” he said, turning a little to his left, “every hunter has a dog, so that bright star behind Orion is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which represents the diamond in the collar of Orion’s dog, Canis Major. Orion gave a diamond to his dog, instead of giving it to his woman. Smart guy!”

Ana punched him jokingly in the arm and said, “What you don’t know, ignoramus, is that he had given her many and bigger diamonds before.”

“Wrong, milady,” he said. “She had run off with another guy, and then she shot him with an arrow and killed him.”

“Wow, that sounds tragic,” Tati interjected.

“It’s only mythology” I said.

“Yes,” Joshua replied, “but sometimes fiction resembles reality all too well.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Luckily it’s only sometimes. By the way, where did you learn about all that?”

“I’ve been places, Sam, remember?”

Suddenly, we heard a splash in the water, toward the middle of the pier. We ran over to see up close. The water was churning with fish, jumping in the air; they were being followed by a large barracuda. Ana looked terrified. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Big fish eating little fish,” I said, anticipating Joshua’s response.

He looked at me with a smile and said, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

They stayed with us until almost midnight. They still had about an hour and a half to drive to get to Key West. After a prolonged goodbye with promises to meet again, they left. Ana was waving good bye until the car disappeared. We went back to our houseboat and went to sleep.

Sunday was a very uneventful day. Breakfast of sushi at the Tikki Bar, seafood buffet for lunch at the Whale Harbor Inn, and dinner on the terrace. The rest of the time we spent tanning ourselves by the pier, or resting in the houseboat. I had made reservations for a fishing trip but cancelled it at the last minute. We went to bed early. Monday at 6:00 a.m. we left for Miami.