Golden Orange Read Free

place!”
    Writing once again, Chip said, “Judge Singleton is impressed with a good clean job history, Winnie. Give me yours before the police work.”
    â€œLifeguard, U.S. marine, street cop. That’s it,” said Winnie. “Three jobs in my whole life. None of which am I now young enough or fit enough to perform.”
    â€œThe judge will be impressed, I hope, by the fact that you’re voluntarily attending A.A. meetings,” the lawyer said.
    â€œBecause a your insistence. I’m not one a them .”
    â€œTell me, how many meetings have you attended since the ferryboat incident?”
    â€œFour, I think,” Winnie lied. “Altogether. More or less.”
    Chip Simon wrote: Has attended at least four meetings a week for past three months. At same time he looks for work. Then the lawyer wrote in caps: BAD BACK PREVENTS EMPLOYMENT.
    â€œBefore Tammy’s ambulance-chasing shyster crucified me with the spousal support and shanghaied my sailboat I had hopes of hiring on as a fishing boat skipper,” Winnie reminded him. “Put that down.”
    â€œI suggest we forget that divorce,” Chip said.
    â€œMaybe if she hadn’t been born in the Debbie Reynolds era she wouldn’t be such a pitiless crocodile. I never met a broad yet named Tammy wasn’t a nut cracker.”
    â€œIt would help if you could get a job, any job.”
    â€œWe’re going to court next Monday, Chip.”
    â€œAny job or even a prospect of a job. I can’t paint a complete portrait of Winston Farlowe without the materials. And I can’t introduce irrelevant information. By the way, did you know that lots of American baby boomers like you are named Winston? For Churchill, of course.”
    â€œWhat the hell’s relevant about that, Chip?”
    â€œJust an interesting aside.”
    â€œIs it relevant that I thought Tammy and me were happily married when in fact she was in the process of silkworming our Loveboat cruise and leaving me dead in the water?”
    The lawyer didn’t answer but wrote: Ship of Fools.
    â€œIs it relevant that she dumped me for the owner of a dental clinic who started out exploring her root canal and just kept moving south?”
    â€œVery little about your failed marriage is relevant. Now tell me, Win, have you reached the stage of drinking wherein you’re cold sober until a given drink? You know, the tenth, fifteenth or twenty-fifth, whatever? You know, when you never know which drink will turn off the torment and shut down the stress factor and give you alcoholic bliss?”
    At that moment, Winnie Farlowe knew that he hated his lawyer, Chip Simon. So while Chip gave his writing hand a rest to rev up the Testarossa, Winnie said, “If nothing I can say is relevant and if the judge decides to fire a broadside, what would he give me? Realistically? Me. An ex-cop. A person with a clean record. Only mistake I made was drinking rum!”
    â€œJudge Singleton despises drunk drivers and, by inference, will hate a drunk ferry pilot even more. I wouldn’t be shocked if he gave you three months in the county jail.” Chip was still revving the Testarossa.
    Just like that. Three months.
    Winnie nearly had his first midday visitation from the winged scavengers who ate his guts. Three months! The Orange County Jail! One of the most overcrowded lockups in California! A jail so jammed with the scum of the coast, not to mention inland Orange County, that the sheriff had actually been instructed by a U.S. District Court judge not to incarcerate more prisoners in the dangerously overcrowded facility. Three months!
    â€œI can’t do three months in jail, Chip!” Winnie said. “I can’t do three days !”
    The lawyer propped up a paper clip again, shook his head sadly, ran it down with his Testarossa and said, “Yes, life truly is unfair, isn’t it.”
    Then Winnie watched as Chip aimed the Testarossa at