SKIN TIGHT by Carl Hiaasen

“I don’t care if it’s a fucking Black and Decker, let’s just do it.”

“Scar tissue is tricky,” Rudy persisted. “Some skin reacts better to sanding than others.” He couldn’t help remembering what had happened to the last doctor who had screwed up Chemo’s face. Getting murdered was even worse than getting sued for malpractice.

“One little step at a time,” Rudy cautioned. “Trust me.”

“Fine, then start on the chin, whatever,” Chemo said with a wave of a pale hand. “You’re the doctor.”

Those magic words.

How Rudy Graveline loved to hear them.

Compared to other law firms, Kipper Garth’s had the overhead problem licked. He had one central office, no partners, no associates, no “of counsels.” His major expenses were billboard advertising, cable, telephones (he had twenty lines), and, of course, secretaries (he called them legal aides, and employed fifteen). Kipper Garth’s law practice was, in essence, a high-class boiler room.

The phones never stopped ringing. This was because Kipper Garth had shrewdly put up his billboards at the most dangerous traffic intersections in South Florida, so that the second thing every noncomatose accident victim saw (after the Jaws of Life) was Kipper Garth’s phone number in nine-foot red letters:

555-TORT

Winnowing the incoming cases took most of the time, so Kipper Garth delegated this task to his secretaries, who were undoubtedly more qualified anyway. Kipper Garth saved his own energy for selecting the referrals; some P.I. lawyers specialized in spinal cord injuries, others in orthopedics, still others in death-and-dismemberment. Though Kipper Garth was not one to judge a colleague’s skill in the courtroom (not having been in a courtroom in at least a decade), he knew a fifty-fifty fee split when he saw it, and made his referrals accordingly.

The phone bank at Kipper Garth’s firm looked and sounded like the catalog-order department at Montgomery Ward. By contrast, the ulterior of Kipper Garth’s private office was rich and staid, lit like an old library and just as quiet. This is where Mick Stranahan found his brother-in-law, practicing his putting.

“You don’t knock anymore?” said Kipper Garth, eyeing a ten-footer into a Michelob stein.

“I came to make a little deal,” Stranahan said.

“This I gotta hear.” Kipper Garth wore gray European-cut slacks, a silk paisley necktie and a bone-colored shirt, the French cuffs rolled up to his elbows. His salt-and-pepper hair had been dyed silver to make him look more trustworthy on the billboards.

“Let’s forget this disbarment thing,” Stranahan said.

Kipper Garth chuckled. “It’s a little late, Mick. You already testified, remember?”

“How about if I agree not to testify next time?”

Kipper Garth backed away from the next putt and looked up. “Next time?”

“There’s other cases kicking around the grievance committee, am I right?”

“But how do you—”

“Lawyers talk, Jocko.” Stranahan emptied the golf balls out of the beer stein and rolled them back across the carpet toward his brother-in-law. “I’ve still got a few friends in town,” he said. “I’m still plugged in.”

Kipper Garth leaned his putter in the corner behind his desk. “I’m suing you remember? Defamation, it’s called.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. “Mick, I know why you’re here. Chloe’s been killed and you’re afraid you’ll take the fall. You need a lawyer, so here you are, looking for a goddamn freebie.”

“I said don’t make me laugh.”

“Then what is it?”

“Who’s getting your malpractice stuff these days?”

Kipper Garth started flicking through his Rolodex; it was the biggest Rolodex that Stranahan had even seen, the size of a pot roast. Kipper Garth said, “I’ve got a couple main guys, why?”

“These guys you’ve got, can they get state records?”

“What kind of records?”

Christ, the man was lame. “Discipline records,” Stranahan explained, “from the medical board.”

“Gee, I don’t know.”

“There’s a shocker.”

“What’s going on, Mick?”

“This: You help me out, I’ll lay off of you. Permanently.”

Kipper Garth snorted. “I’m supposed to be grateful? Pardon me if I don’t give a shit.”

Naturally, thought Stranahan, it would come to this. The pertinent papers were wadded in his back pocket. He got them out, smoothed them with the heel of one hand and laid them out carefully, like solitaire cards, on Kipper Garth’s desk.

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