"Touch him again, I'll rip out your throat," Steve said.

"Try it," Thigpen sneered.

Bobby crouched on his haunches in the dirt, a hand over one eye.

"It's gonna be okay, kiddo," Steve promised. "We'll go home in a minute."

"The f.u.c.k you will." Taking one last step, Thigpen swung the jack handle. Steve slid to the side, the handle just missing his ear. He flicked out a hand and tossed the dirt into Thigpen's face, closing his eyes.

"f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k!" Thigpen clawed at his eyes, and Steve kicked him squarely in the groin. Thigpen doubled over, and Steve locked both hands together and swung them up, hard, connecting with the man's nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch of cartilage and a spray of blood. Thigpen collapsed, moaning, one hand clutching his face, the other his crotch.

Steve limped to the truck and leaned on it for support. "Jan, what the h.e.l.l?"

"I just wanted to see my Bobby for a little bit. I wouldn't hurt him. . . ."

Bobby ran to Steve, wrapped his arms around him. "Can we go home, Uncle Steve?" He wouldn't look at his mother.

"You bet, kiddo."

Thigpen got to one knee, mumbled something about the sword of G.o.d, collapsed flat in the dirt. In the distance, a police siren wailed.

"I would have brought Bobby back, honest," Janice gabbled. "I woulda had to. Rufe didn't want to take him along."

"Where you going?"

Janice pulled at her ponytail. "Away somewhere. After Bobby's case is over. This lawyer, Zinkavich, got us out of jail for helping him."

"You're the Fink's reb.u.t.tal witness?"

"If that's what it's called, guess so."

"What are you going to say, that I lost your Barbie collection playing poker when we were kids?"

"That you're violent and unstable and do drugs. That you beat me up when you kidnapped Bobby. That he'd be better off in state custody."

"Zinkavich believe that s.h.i.t?"

"I told him I knew your dealer. I could set it up so he could bust you for possession right in the courtroom, real dramatic like."

"How the h.e.l.l could you manage that?" But even as the words came out, he knew. "Thigpen didn't break into my house to steal anything, did he? He was planting something."

"Crystal meth in the lining of your briefcase. But you came home too early. You f.u.c.ked it all up."

"Jesus, Janice. This is low. Even for you."

"Which is why I want to make amends now."

The siren grew louder.

"Make 'em quick," Steve said.

She seemed to be trying to form her thoughts. Twenty years of a.s.sorted powders, pills, and weeds can play havoc with the brain cells. "I got a deal for you, Stevie. How much is my little Bobby worth to you?"

"Everything I've got plus everything I can beg, borrow, and steal."

"About what I had in mind," Janice Solomon said.

9. I will never break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time . . . unless it's for someone I love.

Thirty-six.

THE MEASURE OF A MAN.

A cold wind whistled through the avocado trees, chilling Victoria. She was shivering, even though she wore an ankle-length black leather swing coat over a cashmere sweater and jeans. She hoped Bruce wouldn't say anything about the leather. He should just be happy she hadn't pulled out one of her mother's fox boas or mink hats.

Now, where was he?

She was standing in the farm's staging area, a cleared five-acre parcel between two avocado groves. Tractors growled by, kicking up dust. Trucks filled with straw churned between rows of trees, workers with shovels and pitchforks following, chattering in Spanish. Generators roared as men set up portable lights and heaters. In the adjacent grove, sprinklers with rotating arms fifty feet long turned endless circles. Black smoke from the smudge pots curled into the air, and the whir of giant fans blew hot air into the groves. The sun had set an hour earlier, and the low, scudding clouds were lit a surreal orange from the fires in the smudge pots.

Where are they?

Bruce would be busy all night, and she was looking forward to spending time with the Solomon Boys. Maybe Bobby could work with them on the source gram: "The woman is perfected."

What did Charles Barksdale mean?

Was there something he was saying about Katrina they could pick up?

Over speakers mounted on poles, a song played, something with an upbeat Afro-Cuban beat. It took her a second to remember the name: "Maracaibo Oriental." She was swaying to the music, mostly to keep warm, when she saw Steve and Bobby walking toward her, emerging from the black haze.

"OmiG.o.d, Steve, what happened?"

He tried to smile through a swollen lip. b.l.o.o.d.y sc.r.a.pes tracked down his face as if an angry lover had dragged her fingernails from forehead to mouth. Victoria looked at Bobby, saw the welt-the hue of a ripe plum-under his right eye, and abandoned Steve.

"Bobby!"

"We kicked some major a.s.s," the boy said.

Victoria gently cradled his chin, examining the shiner. "Does it hurt?"

"A little." He added hastily: "Nothing I can't handle."

She kissed a fingertip and gently ran it under Bobby's eye. "Better?"

"What about me?" Steve asked. "I've got teeth marks on my b.u.t.t."

"And not for the first time, I bet." She brushed Bobby's hair out of his eyes. "Now, what major a.s.s did you kick?"

With each one interrupting the other, uncle and nephew gave her the short version of the s.n.a.t.c.h, the chase, the wreck, and the combat.

"n.o.body ever ran as fast as Uncle Steve," the boy said. "Like a world record."

"Bobby was very brave," Steve said. "If he hadn't tackled Thigpen-"

"I smashed him. Then, ka-pow! Uncle Steve kicked him in the nuts."

"Wow," Victoria said.

"When I grow up, I'm gonna be just like Uncle Steve."

With the story winding down, Victoria said: "So it was Thigpen who broke into your house. It had nothing to do with the Barksdale murder or the security video."

"Correct," Steve said.

"Meaning you might have been right all along about Katrina being innocent. Manko, too."

"Don't sound so surprised."

"But we still don't have the proof."

"Last time I checked, the burden of proof was on the prosecution."

She laughed. "When did you start believing the letter of the law? An adulterous wife is in the room when her rich old hubby strangles to death. That pretty much shifts the burden."

"'The woman is perfected,'" Steve said. "The answer's gotta be there."

"Maybe." Her mind drifted back to Steve's account of chasing down Janice and Thigpen. "So that's all your sister wanted, to see Bobby for a few hours?"

"And to tell me she's Zinkavich's reb.u.t.tal witness."

"Did you ask what she's going to say?"

"She's going to bad-mouth me. What more do we need to know?"

Odd that he brushed it off that way, she thought. Something wasn't ringing true. She glanced at Bobby, who turned away. What was going on? What wasn't Steve telling her?

Steve wanted to tell her the truth.

But could she handle the truth?

If he told Victoria about Janice's illegal proposal and his equally illegal response, she'd quit Bobby's case. Probably even report him to the Florida Bar. Was that a look of suspicion a moment ago? Or just his guilty conscience playing tricks?

What he planned to do could cost him his license, if it didn't land him in prison. Not the kind of risk he'd take for just anyone.

Still, this went far beyond trampling legal niceties. He'd never bribed a witness before. But then, he'd never been this desperate. Winning custody of Bobby wasn't a legal skirmish; it was his life.

"So tell me what you want," he had said to his sister as they stood by the smashed truck.

"I hate helping that f.u.c.k Zinkavich," she said. "He treats me like I'm some low-life criminal."

"Imagine that."

"So I figured I could screw him over instead of you."

"I'm listening."

"He got me and Rufe out of prison, but we're on parole, so he still could violate us and send us back."

"Not unless you do something stupid."

"They find one joint in our truck, we're back in the can. Hang out with known felons, same thing. Parole's a b.i.t.c.h. That's why we gotta get away, Rufe and me."

"What's that got to do with me?"

"You gotta give us a hundred thousand dollars."

"I don't have that kind of money. In fact, I don't have any kind."

"What about your big murder trial?"

"My client's money is tied up. I don't get a dime unless we win."

That was the truth. Katrina had agreed to pay them two hundred fifty thousand dollars, but it would be collectible only if she was acquitted. An unfortunate technicality in the law doesn't let homicidal wives inherit their husbands' estates.

"You could hit up Dad."

"Mom's medical bills drained him. He's tapped out, living on his pension."

"There's got to be someone else. Someone who'll lend you the bread."

Who would he ask? He didn't have a clue. "What do I get for my money?"

"Me and Rufe disappear and never testify."

It won't work, Steve thought. Kranchick's testimony would still bury him. "Your leaving town's not good enough. If I pay you, you've got to stay and testify."

"How's that gonna help you?"

"When Zinkavich puts you on the stand, you won't give his answers. You'll give mine."

Victoria was watching Steve, kneeling in the dirt, tying Bobby's shoestrings. There's something he's not telling me, she thought.

His sister is going to sandbag him, and he doesn't seem concerned. Zinkavich already has Kranchick and Thigpen, and now this. Steve should be ranting, cursing, pawing the ground, plotting a counterattack. But he seems nonchalant about the whole thing.