States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

a strand of lint from his sleeve. “You’re relentless, Grace, you know that? You drive a hard bargain.”

I affect a coquettish smile. “I learned from the best.”

“And, if it’s not too much to ask, maybe you could suggest that Gretchen send over a retainer. Let’s say…ten thousand? By noon tomorrow.”

He drums the fingers of both hands on the table for what feels like forever, before saying, “Okay, you win. I’ll talk to Gretchen. But as for the car—I’m holding on to that for the time being. Percy left that old rust bucket with me for a reason.”

I scrape my chair back, anxious to leave before he changes his mind. “I can live with that.”

At the door, I glance back at Manny, his head lowered. “Please forgive me.”

I duck outside into the soul-sucking sauna that is August in South Florida, hoping that one day, not too far in the future, I won’t have to apologize for my behavior. Or ask forgiveness.

Chapter 4

The screen door to the Star Bar and Grill flaps in the night breeze, playing “now you see it, now you don’t” with the hulking, barbed-wire-topped walls of the Broward County Jail across the street—four concrete bunkers, spitting distance away from each other, built to house five thousand but always overbooked.

The Star, the community center for defense lawyers on the way to or from the jail has a sign on the door warning, “Cops and Prosecutors Enter at Your Own Risk.” The Star is the only legitimate business in the neighborhood. At least if you don’t count the Booty Call, the strip joint next door, and the St. Vincent Mission on the corner that offers free hot meals to all comers. Cheap booze, an espresso machine, and lax enforcement of the no-smoking ban. The lone food item on the menu is a medianoche, a Cuban ham and cheese sandwich with pickles, and the only entertainment a vintage jukebox that takes a kick or three to get the 45s to drop.

I shoulder open the door and head for my usual perch, the barstool nearest the exit and tonight, the farthest from two bedraggled suits, ties askew, heads craned back, watching a fishing show on a circa 1975 TV mounted high in a corner.

“Grace!” Jake’s hand waves at me from the kitchen pass-through. “Be right with you.”

Besides owning the Star, Jake is an on-again, off-again investigator and all-around muscle for defense lawyers, or whoever can pay him enough. Jake knows the streets. He also makes a mean martini. Or so I’ve heard.

I climb onto the red leatherette stool and drop my backpack atop the sea of sunflower seed shells carpeting the cracked linoleum floor. Pepitas, as Manny calls them. Just the thought of him makes my blood boil. Still, he did come through in the form of Gretchen’s driver delivering a cashier’s check for ten grand this afternoon with the word “retainer” printed on the memo line. It’s a start, I guess. But the thought of another guilty client, so close on the heels of the wife beater, is discouraging.

Jake slips behind the bar, dish towel slung over his shoulder. “Drop shot?”

“Roger that. And make it a double.”

“Good Lord, how can you sleep with all that caffeine?”

“Clear conscience,” I say with a wink. “And I’m not here to sleep.”

“Yeah, well, why are you up here so late, Counselor?”

I motion with my head in the direction of the jail.

“Yeah, who’s the scumbag?”

I shake a scolding finger at him. “Client, Jake, client.”

He turns his back to ready my regular poison, yanking on the levers of a brass espresso machine as big as a garden shed. Honest Abe’s Bail Bonds is emblazoned on the back of the tight, black T-shirt, which does little to hide his muscular physique. He’s tall and far from clean cut. A blond, sun-bleached mop hangs to his shoulders. Not my type, not that I have a type. I make it my business to keep to myself these days, unlike Jake, who makes it his business to know everything that could be of value about anyone who comes through the door. And then there’s the fact that Jake was once a cop. Talk is that he went bad. Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t, but all cops, good or bad, have something to hide.

“Who be the client?”

I stare at the shiny parade of liquor bottles assembled on the back bar until Jake drops the shot glass filled with steaming espresso into a pint of Coca-Cola and sets it in front of me. The viscous liquid bubbles up as the tiny glass makes a tinkling sound when it hits bottom. I take a swig and exhale.

“Zoe Slim.”

He takes a step back. “The one who killed the dude at that fancy school? You’re her lawyer?”

“You seem surprised.”

“La-di-da. Moving on up the food chain, are we? Not that you’re not a good lawyer and all. With all that family money you’d have thought they’d get some shark.”

“So, I’ve been told.”

“You never know, maybe she didn’t do it,” he says, wiping down the bar. “I mean why would a kid like that kill someone? Rich. Pretty. A life of luxury. Only poor people kill people, right? What would be the point?”

“Thank you for your wisdom and humor, Mr. Philosopher Bartender. And that’s exactly why reason isn’t a defense, isn’t it? One thing we both know for certain is that you can never really know what a person is capable of, no matter who they are.”

I survey the den-like space, but I can’t fool myself. I’m stalling going across the street to visit Zoe Slim. “Where are the storm troopers tonight? I assume your shindigs are still the best place to weather storms north of Key West.”

“No doubt, but Ophelia’s gonna be a bust. Not even a Cat 1 hurricane. Just some tropical shower. Spoiled what could’ve been a rockin’ good time in here.”

“No chance for violent death and mass destruction is always a downer, I suppose.”

“Three months left in hurricane season,