The motion requested an emergency court order freezing all the assets of Dr. Rudy Graveline, including bank accounts, certificates of deposit, stock portfolios, municipal bonds, Keogh funds, Individual Retirement Accounts, and real estate holdings. Submitted to the judge with Kipper Garth’s motion was an affidavit from the Beachcomber Travel Agency stating that, on the previous day, one Rudolph Graveline had purchased two first-class airplane tickets to San Jose, Costa Rica. In the plea (composed entirely by Mick Stranahan and one of the paralegals), Kipper Garth asserted that it was Dr. Graveline’s intention to flee the United States permanently.
Normally, a request involving a defendant’s assets would have resulted in a full-blown hearing and, most likely, a denial of the motion. But Kipper Garth’s position (and thus the Nordstroms’) was buttressed by a discreet phone call from Mick Stranahan to the judge, whom Stranahan had known since his days as a young prosecutor in the DUI division. After a brief reminiscence, Stranahan told the judge the true reason for his call: that Dr. Rudy Graveline was a prime suspect in an unsolved four-year-old abduction case that might or might not be a homicide. Stranahan assured his friend that, rather than face the court, the surgeon would take his dough and make a run for it.
The judge granted the emergency order shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. Kipper Garth was astonished at his own success; he never dreamed litigation could be so damn easy. He fantasized a day when he could get out of the referral racket altogether, when he would be known and revered throughout Miami as a master trial attorney. Kipper Garth liked the billboards, though. However high he might soar among the eagles of Brickell Avenue, the billboards definitely had to stay …
At ten forty-five, Rudy Graveline arrived at his bank in Bal Harbour and asked to make a wire transfer of $250,000 from his personal account to a new account in Panama. He also requested $60,000 in U.S. currency and traveler’s cheques. The young bank officer who was assisting Rudy Graveline left his office for several minutes. When he returned, one of the bank’s vice presidents stood solemnly at his side.
Rudy took the news badly.
First he wept, which was merely embarrassing. Then he became enraged and hysterical and, finally, incoherent. He staggered, keening, into the bank lobby, at which point two enormous security guards were summoned to escort the surgeon from the premises.
By the time they deposited Rudy in the parking lot, he had settled himself and stopped crying.
Until one of the bank guards had pointed at the fender of the car and said, “The hell happened to your Jag, brother?”
Perhaps it was the euphoria of the legal triumph, or perhaps it was simple prurient curiosity that impelled Kipper Garth to drop by the Nordstrom household during his lunch hour. The address was in Morningside, a pleasant old neighborhood of bleached stucco houses located a few blocks off the seediest stretch of Biscayne Boulevard.
Marie Nordstrom was surprised to see Kipper Garth, but she welcomed him warmly at the door, led him to the Florida room, and offered him a cup of coffee. She wore electric-blue Lycra body tights, and her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a girlish ponytail. Kipper couldn’t take his eyes off the subject of litigation, her breasts. The exercise outfit left nothing to the imagination; these were the merriest-looking breasts that Kipper Garth had ever seen. It was difficult to think of them as weapons.
“John’s not here,” Mrs. Nordstrom said. “He got a job interview over at the jai-alai fronton. You take cream?”
Kipper Garth took cream. Mrs. Nordstrom placed the coffee pot on a glass tray. Kipper Garth made space for her on the sofa, but she moved to a love seat, facing him from across the coffee table.
Kipper Garth said, “I just wanted to bring you up to date on the malpractice case.” Matter-of-factly he told Mrs. Nordstrom about the emergency court order to freeze Dr. Graveline’s assets.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means his money won’t be going anywhere, even if he does.”
Mrs. Nordstrom was not receiving the news as exuberantly as Kipper Garth had hoped; apparently she could not appreciate the difficulty of what he had done.