Kill All the Lawyers by Paul Levine Page A

knew all about STDs and condoms and even told Steve about a girl at Ponce de León Middle School who got pregnant.
    "After that, none of the girls would, you know, do it, but there were a lot more rainbow parties, not that I've ever been invited."
    "Rainbow parties?"
    "C'mon, Uncle Steve. Where the chicks all put on a different color lipstick and the guys drop their pants, and the idea is to get as many different colors on
    your—"
    "Jesus!"
    Now Steve paused outside Bobby's door, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. No tobacco, no pot. But something odd. A citrus scent. Oranges or tangerines.
    Steve knocked once and headed inside.
    Both kids had textbooks open. Wearing baggy shorts and a Hurricanes football jersey, Bobby was slouched in his beanbag chair. Maria was sprawled across Bobby's bed. She wore low-riding jeans with enough holes and shreds to give the impression she'd stepped on a land mine. A sleeveless mesh T-shirt revealed a lacy bra underneath. Her complexion was a rich caramel, and her bright red lipstick was as slick as fresh paint. A shiny rhinestone peeked out of her twelve-year-old navel.
    Bobby waved at Steve but kept talking to Maria, sounding like a little professor. "The Battle of Gettysburg was a big-time accident. Lee and Meade never said, 'C'mon, let's meet in this little town in Pennsylvania and have a big battle.' That's just where the Union decided to stop the Confederate advance. I mean, if they hadn't, Lee's army could have taken Philadelphia, and then maybe Washington, and the South would have won the war."
    "That'd suck," Maria said. "Hey, Mr. Solomon."
    "Hi, Maria. So what are you guys studying?"
    "Duh. Like calculus," Bobby said. Showing some spunk for his little hottie.
    "American history, Mr. Solomon. Bobby knows everything that ever happened."
    "It's no big deal," Bobby said.
    "It is to me." Maria smiled at Bobby. An inviting come-hither smile. The citrus aroma was stronger
    here.
    "What's that smell?" Steve asked.
    "Oh, probably my perfume, Mr. Solomon."
    Perfume! Bobby doesn't have a chance.
    "Boucheron," Maria continued. "My mom's."
    First they take their mothers' perfume. Then their birth control pills.
    Steve knew Maria's parents from a Neighborhood Watch committee. Eva Munoz-Goldberg, the proud daughter of an anti-Castro militant, frequently roamed the neighborhood, passing out flyers that called for bombing Venezuela and assassinating Hugo Chávez. As a child, Eva spent weekends with her father and a pack of cousins, trekking through the Everglades, shooting Uzis at cardboard cutouts of Fidel Castro. Later, they would all head home to grill burgers, drink Cuba Libres, and watch the Dolphins on TV. Recently, Steve had seen Eva piloting her black Hummer through Coconut Grove, an NRA bumper sticker pasted on the rear bumper.
    Maria's father, Myron Goldberg, was a periodontist with an office on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Myron's hybrid Prius sported bumper stickers for Greenpeace and Save the Manatees, and the most dangerous weapon he owned was a titanium root-canal shaft. The Munoz-Goldbergs were Exhibit A in South Florida's paella-filled melting pot of cross-cultural multiethnicity.
    Looking at the two kids lounging in the bedroom, Steve was certain he should lecture his nephew about exercising self-control in a time of raging hormones. Another thought, too. A contrary one. Could this little vixen be just using Bobby to pass her courses? As much as Steve adored his nephew, he had to admit the kid was not exactly a candidate for the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Basically, Bobby was a skinny, love-able loner in thick glasses who didn't fit into any of the cliques.
    "What's this about the high-water mark?" Maria asked, thumbing through the textbook. "It sounds like something that'll be on the test."
    "The High-Water Mark of the Confederacy," Bobby said, confidently. "It's where the tide turned the Union's way at Gettysburg."
    "Ooh, right." She scribbled a note.
    "Pickett's Charge,"