Now, as the day wound down, Deal sat in a fourth-floor courtroom, listening as his lawyer wrapped up his opening statement. He hoped this was a good idea. He’d let Jake talk him into it only because his debts were piling up so high, but now, listening to Jake’s best over-the-top, never-overestimate-the-intelligence-of-the-jury histrionics, he was having his doubts. Well, too late now. He didn’t know what strings Jake had pulled to get the case to court so fast, but here they were.
“An unprotected hazard!” Jake Lassiter thundered, moving closer to the jury box where he planted his 225 pounds like an oak among saplings. “A death trap! A terrifying plunge into darkness and fear!” Lassiter paused and studied the jury. By Miami standards, it was a typical collection of strangers: a tattooed lobster pot poacher, a nipple ring designer with a shaved head, a santero who chanted prayers to Babalu Aye during recess, a cross-dressing doorman from a South Beach club, and two Kendall housewives who nervously clutched their purses. “Thank heavens for John Deal’s extraordinary physical condition,” Lassiter proclaimed reverently, “and thank heavens for his fervent will to live.”
Not to mention a manatee named Booger, Deal thought. He hadn’t told Lassiter he’d been saved from drowning by a barnacle-encrusted sea mammal, then nursed back to health by a 102-year-old woman who brewed medicinal potions from swamp grass. And of course, he hadn’t mentioned the box.
The box.
The best he could figure, it must have been attached by the bungee lines to the manatee named Booger. Somehow Deal had gotten tangled in the bungee when he’d floated out of the Hog into the cold, wet darkness. It had all been too weird.
“The city of Miami recklessly maintained a hazard at its marina,” Lassiter told the jury. “The city breached its duty of reasonable care in failing to properly light the street and failing to warn of the sheer drop-off to a watery grave.”
“Objection, Your Honor!” shouted Russell B. Whittaker III. The city’s insurance lawyer jumped to his feet and tugged at his suspenders. “That’s closing argument, not opening statement.”
“Sustained,” Judge Manuel Dominguez announced gravely, then shot a look at the wall clock. He hated to miss the first game at Miami Jai-alai. “Move it along, Mr. Lassiter.” Maria, the court clerk and the judge’s favorite niece, held up eight fingers, alerting Lassiter to his remaining time. The judge’s secretary, Ileana Josefina Dominguez-Zaldivar, slipped into the courtroom from chambers and whispered something into the judge’s ear, though she probably didn’t call him “Your Honor.” Ileana was his older sister, and insisted on calling the judge Manuelito, even in court. Lassiter took a slow turn to gather his thoughts. Victor, the bailiff, sat in the back row of the gallery. A handsome if vapid lad, he was the judge’s son-in-law, and he was happy to be in uniform after flunking the police academy entrance exam twice and the firefighters’ test four times.
The courtroom door squeaked open. Britt Montero, the Miami News reporter with the luminous green eyes, peered in, didn’t find anything worthy of a two-column headline, and left. Back when Lassiter had been in night law school, having finally been cut by the Dolphins after a few undistinguished years on special teams, he had had a date with Britt, but she’d stood him up for a three-alarm fire.
He faced front. Time to crank it up again. “The evidence will show that John Deal is a building contractor of impeccable reputation who has been injured through no fault of his own,” Lassiter rumbled on. “You will hear the testimony of Dr. Irwin Scheinblum, a respected physician with forty years’ experience in two states.”
Deal smiled to himself. Hadn’t Lassiter called Scheinblum a senile, alcoholic quack who’d lost his license in Rhode Island—something about penile enlargement surgery that had resulted in a net loss—before hanging out his shingle on Coral Way? The courtroom door squeaked open again, and Deal glanced in that direction. The man who walked in looked familiar. Dark hair, short and muscular, with a mustache, a vaguely Hispanic look. Where had he seen him before?
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” Lassiter continued. “Dr. Scheinblum will describe Mr. Deal’s severe musculo-skeletal-ligamentous trauma.”