Free Everything on the Line by Bob Mitchell Page B

into matches, like some heavyweight boxers do on their way to the ring?”
    Odi Mondheim takes a second chomp out of his sandwich, mustard oozing from within the mass of meat and into his cup of coleslaw. Ira Spade bites into his sour pickle, salty juice squirting onto his lap.
    The two men look at each other and, in unison, contort their moist lips into Dick Cheney sneers.
    * * *
    The four piercing dark brown eyes of Jack and Ira Spade stare directly ahead.
    Mentor and protégé are seated in the cavernous living room of the Spade Palm Beach Gardens compound on a lush rust-colored couch adorned by thirteen ornately embroidered throw pillows.
    Methodically positioned on the nearby glass-and-metal coffee table are $36,800 worth of knickknacks. On all four walls, and between windows looking out on many of the 20,000 acres of the estate, hang original chefs d’oeuvre by Turner, Whistler, Picasso, Klee, Mirò, and Warhol, in addition to ornately framed, blown-up black-and-white photos of Vince Lombardi, Woody Hayes, and General George S. Patton.
    The four Spade eyes are trained on Jugular , a videotaped documentary of a day in the life of a lion family in sub-Saharan Africa that Ira had bought for Jack as one of his many object lessons.
    “Looka that, willya?” Ira barks as Daddy Lion catches up to a fleeing hartebeest, digs its claws into the antelope’s haunches, and sinks his fangs deep into its hapless neck.
    “Survival of the fittest!” Ira crows, “that’s what this is all about. That friggin’ lion, he’s fast and agile and smart. He’s got that long, bushy mane that is fierce and scary, and he’s been training all his life just for this moment. Look at that focus, that desire… those eyes !”
    Jack looks.
    Ira plays the last fifteen seconds in reverse, replays the pursuit and capture. “Now looka that goddam antelope. He’s just flailin’ around, no plan, no strategy, no trickery. Look at how disoriented he is. He’s just reacting out of pure fear. Man, he’s a loser !”
    Jack nods.
    “You’d think,” Ira goes on, “that these antelopes would get smart. I mean, the lion has been training since he was a little cub to track down prey and finish ’em off. D’ya think those antelopes have been training since birth to escape those lions, to come up with some tricky strategy, some plan to confuse ’em, some fancy footwork to tire ’em out?”
    Jack looks up at his father with those antelope-in-the headlights eyes.
    “No way!” Ira answers himself. “These hartebeests are losers, and they’ll always be that way. Because they aren’t the fittest or the smartest, and they’re not even close to being as mentally tough as those lions. Losers, all of ’em !
    “Now, lookee here,” Ira says as the video cuts to another day and another kill. “See that little antelope who’s sorta limping?”
    Jack nods.
    “Well, that loser is sick,” Ira says, “which means he’s got a weakness, he’s vulnerable. And take one wild guess who’s gonna pounce on that weakness and go for the kill.”
    “The lion!” Jack says to make his father happy.
    “Bingo!” Ira says as the lion on the screen pounces on the little limping antelope and makes quick work of it. “Survival of the fittest!”
    As the lion gnaws on the little antelope’s neck and Ira is about to bring his lecture to a conclusion, Avis Spade walks in from the kitchen with a tray of hors d’oeuvres for the boys.
    “I thought you guys would—”
    “ Shhhhh! ” Ira scolds his wife. “Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something important ?”
    The boys continue to watch the kill as Avis stands transfixed, the tray of canapés shaking above her trembling hands, her mind transported elsewhere.
    There’s little Avis Silver being shhhhh ed by her father, Karl, when she tries to ask him a question while he reads his morning San Francisco Chronicle . And a few years after that, on her thirteenth birthday, there’s Avis again being shhhhh