States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

at me, her bearing so trusting, despite what she’s been through. “I’m sorry, girl. I have to go to work. We’ll go to the beach when I get home, okay?”

She lets out two high-pitched yips.

I hold out the leash. “Would you mind? I need to get to the courthouse.”

“Don’t worry about your little girl,” Vinnie says, fishing a treat from his pocket. “I’ll take care of her. Now you go grab that bozo by the balls.”

***

I text Gretchen to tell her to get over to the courthouse.

A few seconds later, she responds, “We’ll be there.”

“Any chance you could go a little faster?” I ask the taxi driver.

The driver is non-responsive. He’s ignoring me or, more likely, he doesn’t speak English. For some reason, the Yellow Cab company considers it brilliant marketing to hire drivers who speak no English and have no idea where they’re going. Whatever this one’s problem is, he’s driving like he’s visually impaired, all hunched forward on the steering wheel.

I stick my head through the smudged glass partition like an irate ostrich. “Hey, buddy. Can you help me out here? I’m gonna be late for court.” I say, jabbing my finger at the clock on the dashboard which has only one hand, stuck on three.

He tunes the radio to a station playing some kind of chanting, which sounds more like cats being strangled than music.

“Court. You know, the place where you go to pay speeding tickets? Not that you’ve ever gotten one of those,” to which the driver mutters a few words in a foreign language I don’t recognize.

I slump back onto the stained cloth back seat. Better not to think too hard about what might have gone on back here.

“Please go south by the beach and across Las Olas. Don’t take Sunrise, too much traffic during rush hour,” I say. Both my possible theories for the driver’s non-responsiveness, ignorance, and/or linguistic incapacity are invalidated by his continuing straight on the beach road, as requested.

“At least that’s something,” I say, and he flashes me a dirty look in the rear-view mirror.

To contain the knot of anxiety in my stomach, I belly breathe, the one suggestion made by my shrink, Dr. Fleming, that calms me, helps to bring my stress levels below those of a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, an expression used by my mother to describe her jangled nerves before hosting one of her society lady events with finger sandwiches and tea.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Repeat.

Outside, a tropical diorama drifts by. A hazy mirage. Rich abutting ramshackle. Beach kitsch next door to the Ritz. Gone are the crazy spring break days with wasted college students falling off motel balconies, replaced by luxury hotels where twenty-dollar watered-down drinks are as common as wet T-shirt contests used to be. The innocence of Connie Francis and George Hamilton in Where the Boys Are, all unceremoniously replaced by gold-chain-draped rappers and silicone-enhanced hotties.

I’m not against change, it’s inevitable, healthy even, but the wholesale substitution of the city’s character with ersatz class in the name of progress does make me sad. There’s something to be said for a cold Bud and a Philly cheesesteak at The Parrot, an iconic dive bar, the kind of joint where the old timers have occupied the same bar stools since the Nixon administration. The kind of place where the checks are accurate only for tourists and barkeeps charge the locals what they can afford. Or maybe I’m just getting old and nostalgic for a time that never was. I rub my stump, which is swollen from the heat.

As the taxi pokes along, I survey the morning parade along the beach. Guy dressed as a sailor with a squawking macaw on his shoulder, check. Geezer with skin like elephant’s hide walking with bronzed blonde in bikini that looks to have been constructed from dental floss, check—boy or girl? I’ve never been sure. European tourists wearing socks and sandals, check. And the tide still rolls in and out. Just another day in paradise.

At the summit of the drawbridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, a siren booms from the bridge-tender’s cabin and a steel arm descends silently in front of the taxi. The clenching jaws of the span rise and split apart to allow passage for a tall-masted sailboat. Below, a fleet of luxury motor yachts litters the marina like discarded origami, huddled together under the baking sun, most only used once in a blue moon, and otherwise left to bob in placid waters until their owners decide it’s time to come back and play with their toys.

Inching toward downtown on Las Olas Boulevard, we pass The Isles, fingers of land separated by waterways. Palatial homes rise from the coral-rock isthmuses with names like Lido Isle, Solar Isle, and the Isle of Capri. The Italianate nomenclature is responsible for the city’s moniker, the Venice of America, yet the canals are man-made and the architecture is more Mediterranean than Medicean, illusions of permanence built for show.

I ignore a stab of regret as we pass the entrance to Idlewyld Isle and switch my mind into tactical mode, much like I did when I was an MP. Enemy identified. Mission planned. Time to execute. Emotions are for sissies.

The driver rolls to a stop at the courthouse beside the concrete barricades erected after 9-11 to counter a terrorist attack, a laughable precaution given what they are protecting is a pressure cooker filled with vengeful, violent miscreants, many with nothing to lose, much like those the barricades are trying to keep out.

I go in through the main entrance in the old wing. Three doors to channel the masses: Attorneys, Jurors, and Visitors. As usual, there’s a jackass who thinks his hoodie and saggy pants will allow him to pass incognito through the Attorneys line. The deputy on duty is not having it, however, and the interloper is escorted to the back of the Visitors line.

I place my briefcase and purse on the belt of the metal detector and walk