Read Online SSC (2011) The Road to Hell by Paul Levine - Free Book Online

sometimes, it was business. There were small-claims suits over a botched modeling portfolio, an apartment with a leaking roof, and a dispute with a roommate over who was the recipient of a diamond necklace bequeathed by a grateful thief who had enjoyed their joint company during a rainy Labor Day weekend. And, of course, the name changes. She had been born Maureen Corcoran on a farm somewhere in the Midwest. A mutt name and a mutt place, she said long ago. So she changed her name and place whenever she deemed either unsuitable. She called herself Holly Holiday during one Christmas season, Tanya Galaxy when she became infatuated with an astronaut at Cape Canaveral, and Star Hampton when she dreamed of a Hollywood career.
    Finally, she asked me to make it official: Maureen would become Gina.
    “ It goes well with Florio, don’t you think?” she had asked. “And Nicky likes it.”
    Nicky.
    What was he doing today? Making money, I supposed. Wondering whether he was going to get sued by the estate of one Peter Tupton. Maybe worrying about his wife, too. Had Gina said she was going to see her lawyer?
    Their lawyer, now. I could see Gina cocking her head, asking Nicky if it wouldn’t be sweet to hire Jake Lassiter. You remember Jake, don’t you, darling?
    Sure, he remembered.
    * * *
    Before he was filthy rich, Nicky Florio used to hang around the practice field. He was hawking someone else’s condos then, and he’d deliver an autographed football at each closing. If he couldn’t get Griese, Csonka, Kiick, Warfield, or Buoniconti, I’d sign my name. And theirs.
    Nicky was a great salesman. He pretended to love football, always looking for the inside dope on the team. Injuries, mostly. How had practice gone? What was Shula’s mood? I’d give him a tip now and then, knowing what he was up to, but I never bet on games. Well, seldom. And I never bet against us.
    * * *
    Nicky probably balked when she mentioned me. I need another lawyer like I need another asshole. Besides, your old boyfriend’s just an ex-jock with a briefcase.
    He was right. I don’t look like a lawyer, and I don’t act like a lawyer. I have a bent nose, and I tip the scales at a solid 223. My hair is too long and my tie either too wide or too narrow, too loud or too plain, depending on the fashion of the times. I’ve hit more blocking sleds than law books, and I live by my own rules, which is why I’ll never be president of the Bar Association or Rotary’s Man of the Year. I eat lunch in shirtsleeves at a fish joint on the Miami River, not in a tony club in a skyscraper. I laugh at feeble lawyer jokes:
    How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?
    His lips are moving.
    And I do the best I can to inflict the least harm as I bob and weave through life. Which made me wonder just what the hell I was doing with Gina yet again.
    If Nicky had said no, Gina would have waited, then tried again. When the neighbor sued over the property line, Give Jake a chance . I picture Nicky Florio running a hand through his black hair, slicked straight back with polisher. He’d squint, as if in deep thought, his dark eyes hooded. He’d shrug his thick shoulders: Sure, why not, he can’t screw it up too bad. Putting me down, building himself up. Hire the wife’s old boyfriend, something to gloat about at the club, tell the boys how he tacks a bonus onto the bill, like tossing crumbs to a pigeon. To Nicky, I was a worker bee he could lease by the hour. He could buy anything, he was telling me, including Gina.
    Well, who’s got her today, Nicky?
    Was that it, I wondered, my infantile way of striking back? Hey, Lassiter, old buddy, what are you doing in bed with Maureen, Holly, Star, Gina? Don’t you have enough problems, what with the Florida Bar on your back? What would the ethics committee say about bedding down a client’s wife?
    With all the single women available, what are you doing with a married one? South Beach is chock-full of unattached women, leggy models from New