"I want to find Nadia."

"Why? So you can ask about Steve and her?"

She shook her head. "Purely professional. It's always been our strategy to find her."

"Haven't you been listening? Our strategy has changed. No Nadia."

She got out of the rocker, pulled her short-shorts down a bit from where they had been riding up into her crotch. "Elena called me. She wants to meet us tomorrow night after work. Said she thinks Nadia might talk to us on the phone."

"Not interested."

"Suit yourself. I'll go alone."

"You're letting your personal feelings interfere with your judgment."

"You do your thing, I'll do mine."

"Damn it, Victoria. It doesn't work that way. The case has one boss. Me. We have one strategy. Mine."

"If you change your mind, I'm meeting her on Tenth Street Beach."

"In the middle of the night."

"When she gets off work, four a.m."

"It's just a few blocks from Anastasia. Alex Gorev has to know that Elena and Nadia are friends. He could have Elena followed."

"I'll let you know what I find out."

"I won't be there to protect you," I said.

"I don't need you."

And with that, Victoria Lord hopped off my back porch, wobbled just a bit on those long legs, turned at the corner of the house, and was gone.

-27-.

The Cemetery and General Custer By 7:00 a.m., I'd had my coffee-actually Cafe Bustelo espresso-and was jogging south on LeJeune Road, thinking about Victoria Lord, about Steve Solomon, about the mysterious Elena, and about the missing Nadia. Today's problem was simple. I should be working on getting discovery from the state attorney. Instead, I was worried about Victoria and trying to decide what to do tonight.

If Solomon was a problem client-and he was-Victoria was an unreliable cocounsel. Refusing to take orders. Going off on her own mission. What she planned could be dangerous for her . . . and the case. Right now, breathing hard, my running shoes thudding against the pavement, I was worried more about her than State v. Solomon.

Jeez, what does that say about me? As a lawyer and a man?

I decided to push her out of my thoughts and concentrate on my strained breathing and aching body. I was wearing a nylon swelter sweat suit with elastic cuffs at the wrists and ankles to increase my body heat. I was trying to sweat out the champagne and vodka and the general toxins of my life.

Let me make it clear: only a madman does this in Miami in the summer, which runs roughly from May until Halloween. Even early in the morning, the heat rises from the pavement like steam from a New York City subway grate. As Yogi Berra reportedly said, "It's not the heat, it's the humility."

I pounded along, passing El Prado and Hardee, then crossed the bridge over the waterway and onto Cocoplum Circle. Rivers of sweat rolled down my back into the crack of my butt.

I turned right, heading west on Sunset. A gray Range Rover followed me around the circle and slowed to match my jogging pace. I remembered a similar vehicle at the gas station and then on the Julia Tuttle the night I met Elena at the Russian church. I squinted and tried to see into the heavily tinted windows but couldn't make out the driver. It could have been a man, a woman, or a well-trained chimpanzee. Then, instead of passing me, the Range Rover squealed into a U-turn and headed east on Sunset. Staring back into the morning sun, I couldn't make out its license plate. The driver could have been one of Gorev's thugs following me, hoping I'd lead them to Nadia. Or maybe one of State Attorney Pincher's investigators, trying to spook me. Whatever, there was nothing I could do about it.

I kept plodding along, passing Almansa and Mindello, then hanging a left on Erwin Road, and there it was.

The Pinewood Cemetery. It's where I go to think.

One of the great little secrets of South Florida: Miami and its surrounding towns are young. We don't celebrate much in the way of history. There aren't any three-hundred-year-old churches or quaint houses dating from the Revolutionary War. But we have the Pinewood Cemetery, which holds the remains of our pioneers from the mid-nineteenth century.

It's not a cemetery of manicured lawns. It's a natural forest of scrubby palms, casuarina pines, and gumbo limbo trees with their twisted trunks and limbs. As a result, the place is almost entirely in the shade, and on windy days-which this one was not-a good breeze would whistle through the trees.

I padded across the floor of pine needles and sprawled out on a wooden bench in front of the grave of a veteran of the Spanish-American War.

Thinking.

Regardless what I told Victoria-"I won't be there to protect you"-how could I not be? Generally, the beach is safe. Still, at night, there are robbers and rapists and the occasional Miami Beach cop who gets drunk and runs over sleeping (or screwing) tourists in a four-wheel ATV. Really. It happened not long ago.

I should have been thinking about the case. Figuring how and why Nadia snookered Solomon into riding shotgun. Was it her plan to rob Gorev all along? Did Solomon know? And if she brought the gun, how did Solomon end up shooting Gorev?

To hell with it. I don't know the answers and on this sweaty morning, I don't care.

I eased up from the bench and prepared to jog back home and take a cold shower. Or, at least, cool. Our tap water doesn't really get cold. Before leaving this peaceful place for the real world, I passed a couple of old headstones, one a Confederate soldier from Tennessee and one a Union soldier from Massachusetts. Then the tiny gravestones of infants, "Baby Girl Mary" and "Baby Boy James." So common in those days and so damn sad.

A troubling thought came to me. Maybe it was the cemetery. Maybe it was my having been thrashed the night before last. Or even my feelings for Victoria, which I had yet to explore, much less express, even to myself.

Why am I so worried about Victoria? Why is she in the forefront of my mind instead of the case?

Okay, let's look at this logically. Nothing is more important in the practice of law than this: the client comes first.

In theory and in practice, that's always the way I've behaved. Many years ago, I stood in the central courtroom of the old federal courthouse, a place of gilded chandeliers, marble pilasters, wooden wainscoting, and a ceiling of stars. The words ornate and stately don't begin to describe the place. On that day, I took the oath of admission to the Florida Bar promising to support the Constitution.

I took the words seriously. Still do. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel means-in my opinion-damn good counsel. A lawyer who will take a punch for his client and maybe dish out a couple, too. In this regard, Solomon and I are alike. He's proud to have been held in contempt for his clashes with prosecutors, judges, and witnesses. What was it he said to me that first day?

"A lawyer who's afraid of jail is like a surgeon who's afraid of blood."

I criticized him then. Maybe it was his brash and boastful manner, but certainly not his theory of the practice, with which I agree. But now, here I was thinking about his lover . . . instead of his case. Here I was, drawn to Victoria Lord in a way that violated my principles. At least I could pat myself on the back for not succumbing to her whiskey-induced come-on. Oh, the self-loathing that would have caused!

But what about tonight-so late that it would be almost dawn tomorrow-and Victoria's plan to meet Elena on the beach? How could I let her go alone?

After all these ruminations, I made a decision. I have a Florida concealed firearms permit. But then, who doesn't? We have about nine hundred thousand residents licensed to carry concealed weapons, tops in the nation. Take that, Texas!

Anyway, I own a nine-millimeter Beretta. So tonight, very late, I planned to place it in a shoulder holster inside a lightweight sport coat, saddle up my old steed, and follow Victoria to the beach.

For some reason, I thought of General George Armstrong Custer in his buckskins, riding across the Montana plains that day in 1876. In my mind, I saw the general, a Colt .45 on his hip, six hundred soldiers with rifles under his command. I imagined him thinking, What could go wrong?

-28-.

Playing Poker with the Feds An hour after leaving the cemetery, I traveled 138 years into the future. Which is to say, I drove the fifteen miles to my office on South Beach. I don't have fancy digs. No deep carpet or marble tile and certainly no oceanfront view. I'm on the second floor of a landlocked building above a Cuban restaurant called Havana Banana. Climbing the stairs each day, the aroma tells me what the lunch special will be. Today, carne asada, basically a skirt steak marinated in olive oil, garlic, and jalapeo. I love it.

Jorge Martinez, the owner, will send a platter up the stairs, without my even asking. Of course, I never charge him when fighting the Health Department over repeated sanitary violations. Years ago, I saved him from personal ruin with exceedingly wise advice when his first restaurant went belly-up.

"Declare bankruptcy," I told him.

"But my lifelong dream is Escargot-to-Go."

Finally realizing that fast-food snails would not launch a thousand franchises, he folded his cards and opened Havana Banana, which is reasonably profitable when not dispensing salmonella with the quesadillas.

Entering the door at the top of the stairs, I discovered my longtime secretary, Cindy, missing from her cubicle. No surprise. She often headed for the beach when I was late getting in. But I wasn't expecting to find a woman in the two-chair waiting area. She wore a business suit in charcoal gray. Solid gray. Not even a pinstripe. And sensible black pumps. A plain leather briefcase at her feet. About forty, short brown hair that didn't need much tending. I get a few walk-in clients, but my well-honed instincts told me she wasn't a felon.

"Mr. Lassiter?" It was part question, part accusation.

Fortunately, I'd worn a navy sport coat over my khakis and striped long-sleeved shirt. Some days, I come into the office in flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a T-shirt with the slogan "Officer, I Swear to Drunk I'm Not God." So sue me.

"That's me, unless you're a process server."

"I'm Deborah Scolino. Assistant US Attorney."

"Ah, I was hoping you were a bank robber or, at the very least, an embezzler."

That did not get a smile from AUSA Scolino.

"Can we talk?" she said.

I ushered her into my inner sanctum. A plain office. Desk, a leather chair for me, a set of bookshelves with never-read legal treatises, and two client chairs with stiff backs. No certificates on the wall. I keep my law school diploma on the bathroom wall at home. It covers a crack in the plaster and reminds me of the tenuous connection between the law and justice every time I pee.

I settled behind my desk. She sat primly in one of the client chairs covered in real imitation leather.

"Miami Beach police say you caused quite a ruckus at Club Anastasia the other night," she said.

"Do they now?"

"Apparently you are searching for a Bar girl named Nadia Delova."

"You mean your CI? The ill-trained young woman you wired and sent into a Russian mobster's inner sanctum?" Taking a shot at it. Who else could it be but the woman sitting across from me?

She gave me a deadpan look they must teach in federal bureaucrat school. "I can neither confirm nor deny that Ms. Delova was ever a confidential informant for the federal government."

"But the fact you're here means that the investigation didn't die with Nicolai Gorev."

"I can neither confirm nor deny any such investigation ever existed."

"Now you're looking into his brother Alex."

"I can neither-"

"And maybe Benny the Jeweler."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She had stopped neither confirming nor denying, and her eyes blinked twice. I would like to play poker with this woman.

"Benny the Jeweler," I continued, my fishing line dangling in the water. "Quite a piece of work."

He may well have been. I really didn't know.

"Just how much do you know about Benny?" she asked, unable to resist.

Not a helluva lot, but your expression just told me he's a big piece of the Gorev puzzle.

I love this part of the game. AUSA Scolino thought she was asking me a question, but instead she was answering one of mine. I decided to rebait the hook.

"Benny and B-girls and diamonds. It's a helluva story."

And that was pretty much all I knew about it.

"You know about the diamonds?" If Ms. Scolino had been nonplussed before, now she seemed downright dumbfounded.

"Doesn't everybody?" I said, winging it.

"Of course not. Do you know how the diamonds get to Miami?"

"Actually, that's of very little concern to me."

I was starting to put together the pieces. Jeweler. Diamonds. Russians. And Scolino's question: "Do you know how the diamonds get to Miami?" That was likely the evidence she wanted Nadia to get from Nicolai Gorev.

This wasn't some penny-ante wire fraud investigation about Bar girls and credit cards. This was diamond smuggling.

I needed more information. Starting with who the hell was Benny the Jeweler and where do I find him? I went fishing again.

"Would it be okay with you if I talked to Benny the Jeweler?" I asked.

"Absolutely not."

"Not that you could stop me."

"No, you could go to his . . ."