Free The Attorney by Steve Martini Page A

morning there is more congestion on the sidewalk than in the street. Two women in white walking shoes and spandex shorts hustling buns of steel are passed by a young girl, a rocket on Rollerblades, showing a little skill and a lot of skin in her thong bikini. A guy in baggy-surfers on a skateboard strutting his stuff jumps some steps and rides the crest of a stair rail until he loses it.
    The board purls out from under him, and in my rearview mirror I watch as it embeds itself in the side of a car going the other way.
    Circus maximus.
    History has it that the old Spaniards in their galleons first set foot in California on or near this spot, not on the spit of land, but on the beach across from it, soldiers, Jesuit missionaries, and a handful of horses. One gets the sense that they might have turned around and reboarded their boats for home if they could have glimpsed four hundred years of Western progress. There is little doubt that the natives wore more clothes and had more sense than some of the current inhabitants.
    A half mile down is the marina. I pull into the parking lot and bring Lena to a jolting stop against the concrete curb. Mary gave me vague directions. There are several main docks running perpendicular to the island. Jutting out from these like fingers are slips for the smaller, more maneuverable boats. The bigger vessels like Jonah's are moored at the end of the large docks, on the outside, at least that's what Mary told me.
    From the parking lot the marina is a forest of aluminum, masts from sailboats, and radar antennas in containers like hatboxes hoisted on sticks. There is the occasional work boat, and a good fleet of sport fishers, more activity on the dock than I would have credited to the middle of the week; crews and charters either coming in or on their way out. There are people on the docks pushing carts with gear and supplies.
    The Amanda would be fair sized, according to Jonah, forty-two feet with a flying bridge. I step from the car and use one hand to shade my eyes like a visor to scan the end of the docks. Within a minute I identify at least a half dozen boats that fit the bill. Near one of them there is a lot of activity, a fish the size of a small car is being hoisted on heavy gear out of the back of the boat. It's drawing a small crowd, though from this distance I can't make out faces.
    I take a chance and head in that direction, down the angled metal bridge that connects the floating dock to the parking lot. It's low tide and I drop ten feet down the ramp. Once there I lose my vantage point, though I can still see the fish's tail, like a delta wing, hanging from the hoist.
    I work my way in that direction, passing a gray-haired couple living out their dreams pushing groceries to their boat, Another guy is hosing down the side of his vessel.
    "I'm looking for Jonah Hale." He looks at me, shrugs his shoulders.
    Shakes his head.
    "Don't know him," he says. "Looking for a charter?"
    "No, thanks. Another time." I pick up my pace and reach the end of the dock where it dead-ends in a long
    "T." The larger vessels are tied up here, on the outside. As soon as I clear the steel pilings that anchor the dock, I see her. Stenciled in black letters across the stern, the name: amanda There's a small crowd milling on the dock next to the vessel.
    The center of attention is the fish on its rolling hoist, and the man standing in front of it, posing for pictures. Around him, fishermen hoist cans and bottles of beer, toasting their friend's success. Jonah doesn't see me. He's standing next to the fish.
    They're trying to weigh it and having trouble. The hoist doesn't seem big enough. It's the biggest marlin, or swordfish (or maybe they're both the same) I've ever seen. What I know about fish you couldn't cook.
    Jonah's wearing fishing togs, an old shirt and suspendered pants stained with the remnants of the giant fish. He has started to gut it with a knife the size of a machete, enduring a lot of backslapping