JL04 - Mortal Sin by Paul Levine

that
farshtinkener
son-in-law of mine had written the contract like I said, I would’ve been paid at the wedding.”
    Just then, Cindy buzzed me on the intercom. She reminded me that clients were lining up in the waiting room. There was a young man from Hialeah who wanted to sue the striptease joint for his injuries in an oil-wrestling bout with Brenda the Battling Banshee.
    Mrs. Slutsky was still talking, mostly to herself. “Such a
nebbish
, that dentist.”
    Cindy was telling me that Alex Soto was waiting, too, arrested again for the Spanish lotto con. He buys lottery tickets, choosing the number that won the week before. By carefully changing the date, he’s left with what looks like a $7-million ticket. Then, claiming he’s an illegal alien—the only part of the scam that’s true—Soto convinces the mark to cash the ticket for him, asking for ten thousand dollars as good-faith money.
    “Okay,” I told Cindy. “No time to go out today. Better order me a cheeseburger and a shake.”
    Cindy made a sound like a cow in distress.
    “Is the whole world crazy or what?” Mrs. Slutsky asked.
    Summer had turned to fall, though you couldn’t tell the difference. It still rained every afternoon, steam rising from the streets after each thunderstorm. Fall became winter, and still it stayed warm. Christmas Day was 83 and muggy, with just the slightest breath of a breeze. The first cold front passed through on New Year’s Eve, and the natives welcomed it. Our tropical winter is ordinarily dry and pleasant, daytime temperatures in the 70s, the sky an azure blue. It is not a time to be locked inside conference rooms, studying documents and taking depositions, but H.T. Patterson was pushing the Tupton case to an early trial. We completed discovery in January, announced ready for trial at a calendar call on Valentine’s Day, and were scheduled to begin picking a jury the first Monday in March. Now I was trying to clean off my desk and clear out my mind prior to the battle.
    I was reading the morning paper and chomping a burger at my desk when Cindy walked in again. She’d recently gone blond, and I hadn’t gotten used to it. She’d straightened her hair, too, and wore it in bangs in front and long down the sides. Sort of a sixties’ look that made me think of Peter, Paul, and Mary, or at least of Mary. Today she wore a blue denim jacket with silver piping and matching jeans. Her earrings were Plexiglas squares. Embedded in each one was a condom still in its wrapper. A woman’s group sold the earrings at fund-raisers as a visual reminder of safe sex. In case of need, the Plexiglas opened and the condom popped out.
    My secretary may have looked ditzy to the world, but not to me. Everyone underestimated her. Cindy chewed gum, typed fast, and cracked wise, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
    Today Cindy was busy organizing files for the upcoming trial. I was gobbling some french fries while reading the local section of the paper. Another judge was indicted for taking kickbacks from lawyers appointed to represent indigent defendants. As a bonus, the judge ate on the lawyer’s tab at a fancy Italian restaurant in Coconut Grove. Fried calamari was the judge’s entree of choice, which prompted local columnist Carl Hiaasen to wonder if there were a
squid pro quo.
    I put down the paper and gestured to Cindy with my burger. “Want a bite?”
    She made a face. “You know I’m a vegan.”
    “I thought you were from Sacramento, not Vegas.”
    “A vegan, silly. A vegetarian who doesn’t eat animal products or use them in any way. No meat, milk, or fish. No wool, leather, or furs. No products that are the result of animal experiments.”
    “You don’t know what you’re missing,” I told her, wiping a glob of oil from my chin.
    Cindy looked as if she might blow lunch, if she ever had any. “The other day I was at the deli, and a man was eating a tongue sandwich. Can you imagine, eating an animal’s