Mistress of Justice Page 18

  The pretty boy was standing with a girl, another paralegal in the firm.

  Clayton didn't understand what Lillick saw in her. She seemed shy, timid, unassertive. A bit, well, rotund too.

  A consolation fuck at best.

  When they saw him coming they stepped apart and Clayton noticed, though he pretended not to, that they'd been fighting about something. The girl's eyes were red from crying and Lillick's otherwise pasty face was flushed.

  "Sean," the partner said.

  The boy nodded. "Hi, Wendall."

  "And you are? ..."

  "Carrie Mason."

  "Ah."

  "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Clayton said.

  "No. Not at all."

  Carrie said quickly, "We were just talking."

  "Ah. Talking. Well, if you'll excuse us, Carrie. Sean and I have some business."

  Neither of them moved. Lillick looked at the floor. Carrie cleared her throat and said, "We've got some documents to copy. For the SCI deal."

  Clayton didn't say anything. He just stared from one to the other.

  Lillick said to her, "Why don't you get started."

  She hesitated then hefted an armful of papers and walked moodily down the hall on her solid legs.

  Clayton said, "You'll be at my party tonight, won't you, Carrie? My place in Connecticut."

  The girl looked back and said to the partner, "Yeah, I'll be there."

  "I'm so pleased," the partner said, smiling.

  When she'd vanished, Clayton said to the young man, "We've got some problems. About the vote. I need some information. Good information. And I need it fast. The vote's day after tomorrow."

  It was, of course, the paralegals--and the support staff--who had the best access to information at the firm. As with the butlers and maids on Upstairs, Downstairs, the higher echelons of the firm babbled like schoolgirls in front of the hired help at Hubbard, White & Willis. This is why Clayton had swooped down on poor Lillick last year and began bribing him for information.

  Lillick swallowed and looked down. "I think I've already done enough."

  "You've been very helpful," the partner agreed smoothly.

  "I don't want to help you anymore." He looked in the direction Carrie had disappeared.

  Clayton nodded. There were times to push and times to placate. "I know it's been tough for you. But everything you've done has been for the good of everybody who works here." He rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. "We're very close, Sean, close to winning. And if we win, well, that'll be ... rewarding for the whole firm, you included."

  When the paralegal said nothing more Clayton said, "There've been some defections. I need any unusual phone calls that Burdick might've made. Travel plans. Anything like that. He's a desperate man and desperate men are his enemy's best friends. Know why? Because they make mistakes. You understand that?"

  "Yessir."

  "You're grasping it, you're committing it to memory?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Find something and it'll be worth a lot of money. I mean five-figure money."

  Clayton said nothing further but just leveled his eyes at the boy. After thirty seconds Lillick said slowly, "Let me look around. See if I can find something sort of helpful."

  "Ah, wonderful," Clayton said. "Actually, though, it really has to be very helpful. I don't have any time left for subtleties."

  Every color clashed.

  Taylor Lockwood looked over the apparel of the crowd milling in the living room of Wendall Clayton's country home in Redding, Connecticut. She saw plaid. She saw lemon yellow with orange. She saw lime shirts with red slacks.

  She saw madras!

  Her mother had told her about madras: In the ancien regime of the sixties, star-burst tie-dye marked the hippies; madras flagged the nerds.

  To be fair, the collision of hues was almost exclusively on the frames of the older lawyers. The younger crowd of associates were in chinos and Izod shirts or skirts and sweaters. A lot of pearls, a lot of blond hair, a lot of pretty faces.

  It was Sunday, around five-thirty, and Reece and Taylor had cruise-controlled their way here along the wide parkway in a car he'd rented. They had found Clayton's place after asking directions twice and, after they'd parked, had walked into the house without knocking. They stood, unnoticed, in the entrance foyer.

  "We're overdressed," she observed.

  Reece pulled his tie off and stuffed it in his pocket. "How do I look?"

  "Like an overdressed lawyer who lost his tie."

  He said, "I'll take the first floor. You take the second."

  "Okay," she said quickly. Then she hesitated.

  "What's wrong?" Reece asked.

  "We're kind of like burglars, aren't we?"

  He recited quickly, "Burglary is entering a dwelling without permission with the intention of committing a felony." He gave her a fast smile. "We've got permission to be here. Therefore, it's not burglary."

  If you say so ...

  Reece disappeared and Taylor found the bar. The bartender was doing a big business with mugs of sweet, mint-laced Southsiders. Taylor shook her head at the offered drink and got a glass of Stag's Leap Chardonnay. Before the first sip a man was right beside her, gripping her arm.

  Thom Sebastian.

  She shivered, hearing in her mind's ear Sebastian's comment to Bosk, his warning not to get too interested in her, the dangers it implied.

  "Hey," the pudgy associate said, "you recovered okay?"

  "Recovered?"

  "From a night out with me."

  "Nothing to report to any official governmental bodies."

  "Excellent." His eyes were evasive, almost as if he had something he wanted to confess to her. After a glance around the room he asked casually, "You doing anything tomorrow night?"

  What was on his mind?

  "I think I've got some time free."

  "Maybe dinner?"

  "Sure," she said.

  "Great. I'll call you." He gazed at her, expressionless, for a moment and she believed suddenly, as she looked into his cryptic eyes, that if he was the thief he wanted to come clean with her.

  And if he confessed and produced the note? What then? she wondered.

  Reece or her father ... well, they would, of course, destroy Sebastian's life: force him into leaving the practice of law in New York. But her inclination would be to reward a confession with anonymity and to let him go.

  But, as she watched him walk down a corridor in search of more liquor, she realized that she was getting ahead of herself.

  Find the note first, then we'll consider justice....

  Taylor made her way through the hallway. As she did she noticed an older woman scrutinizing her carefully, with a look of almost amused curiosity. The woman reminded her of Ada Smith, Bosk's mother. Taylor tried to avoid her but once their eyes met and held, she felt the power of a silent summons and she remained where she was as the woman approached.

  "You're Taylor Lockwood," the woman said.

  "Yes."

  "I'm Vera Burdick, Donald's wife."

  "Nice to see you," Taylor said recalling the name from the newspaper article her father had just faxed to her. They shook hands. The woman must have seen the surprise in Taylor's face--surprise that the Burdick camp would be represented in enemy territory. Vera said, "Donald had business tonight. He asked me to come in his stead."

  "It's a nice party," Taylor said.

  "Wendall was kind enough to donate his house for the evening. He does the same for the summer associates in July. It's a sort of fresh-air outing for lawyers."

  Silence filled the small space between them.

  Taylor broke the stalemate with "Well, I think I'll mingle a little."

  Vera Burdick nodded, as if her examination of Taylor had produced all the information she needed. "A pleasure seeing you again, dear. And good luck."

  Taylor watched the partner's wife join a cluster of associates nearby. Good luck? As the woman's voice rose in lau
ghter Taylor started again for the stairs. She'd gotten halfway across the hall when she heard another voice--a man's voice, soft, directed at her. "And who are you again?"

  Her neck hair bristled.

  Taylor turned to look into the face of Wendall Clayton. She was, at first, surprised that he was only a couple of inches taller than she. Then she noticed that he was much more handsome up close than he seemed from a distance.

  And then her mind went blank. For three or four seconds she was utterly without a conscious thought. Clayton's eyes were the reason. They were the eyes of a man who knew how to control people, a man to whom it would be excruciating to say no, even if he made his demands with silence.

  A man exactly like her father.

  "Pardon?" Taylor asked.

  He smiled. "I asked who you were again?"

  She thought: The same person I've always been, no "again" about it, hotshot. Then she got lost in his eyes once more and didn't try a snappy comeback. She said, "Taylor Lockwood."

  "I'm Wendall Clayton."

  She said, "Yes, I know. I'd thank you for inviting me, Wendall, but I'm afraid I crashed. Are you going to kick me out?" She found a smile somewhere and slipped it on, reminding herself to resist the urge to call him "Mr. Clayton."

  "On the contrary, you're probably the only person in this crew worth talking to."

  "I don't think I'd go that far."

  He took her arm. She had never been touched in this way. His grip wasn't a disciplinarian's or a friend's or a lover's. In the contraction of the muscles was a consuming pressure of authority. As if he'd squeezed her soul. After a moment he lowered his hand.

  Clayton said, "Would you like a tour of the house?"

  "Sure.

  "It's an authentic 1780s. I--"

  "Taylor! You're here!" Carrie Mason trotted up to them.

  "Hello, Carrie."

  "Welcome." Clayton took Carrie Mason's hard-pumping hand. "Sean's not here?"

  Carrie hesitated and said, "No, he had something else to do." It seemed there was a darkness in her face.

  "Ah, maybe one of his performances."

  "Carrie," Taylor said, "Wendall was just going to give me a tour of his house. Join us."

  "Sure," the chubby girl said.

  Clayton didn't appreciate that they were now a threesome but his reaction vanished as Vera Burdick walked past.

  The woman stopped and extended a hand to Clayton.

  He smiled and shook it graciously, clasping hers in both of his. "Vera. How good to see you again. Donald made it, I hope."

  "Unfortunately not. That fund-raiser at City Hall?"

  "When the mayor summons you--" Clayton said.

  "The governor actually," she corrected.

  "--you better go."

  Taylor felt the tension between them like sparking wires. Vera Burdick clearly detested the partner, and while Clayton obviously returned the feeling, it was she who easily held his eye and the lawyer who looked defensively away as he made trivial conversation.

  In this tableau Taylor recognized a truth about Clayton: While the partner knew men and how to handle them, he was only comfortable with women he could sexualize or control as his lessers.

  She was nearly queasy, observing a man like this feeling threatened--a powerful man and, considering that he might have engineered the theft of the New Amsterdam note, one who was quite dangerous.

  "I'll leave you to your friends," Vera said, the disdain visible like breath on a cold spring day. A glance at Taylor and Carrie. A meaningless smile.

  Clayton said, "I hope Donald enjoys the fund-raiser."

  "Donald, you're white as snow. Damn it, man, you've got to get more fresh air. Brought your racket, I hope?"

  Burdick leaned against the railing of the penthouse suite in the Fleetwood Hotel in Miami Beach and looked at the cool disk of the setting sun. "More business than pleasure today, I'm afraid, Steve."

  Burdick was tired. The firm's private Canadair jet hadn't been available--some maintenance problem--and he'd had to fly down to Miami in a commercial airliner. First class, of course, but he'd still had to stand in lines and then there'd been a delay on the runway that put him an hour off schedule.

  He'd arrived exhausted but had ordered the car service to bring him directly here before checking in to a room.

  Steve Nordstrom, shaking martinis like an ace bartender, was the president of McMillan Holdings. He was thick and square, with gray hair trimmed so impeccably it might have been injection-molded in the company's Teterboro plant, and was wearing a purple Izod shirt and white slacks.

  "Drink?"

  Burdick didn't want alcohol but he knew he would take the offered glass from Nordstrom, a man of fifty, whose face was already in bloom from the damaged blood vessels.

  "How's the board meeting going?" Burdick asked.

  Nordstrom licked martini off his finger. He grinned happily. "We're cutting a melon this year, Donald. Three sixty-three a share."

  "Ah," Burdick said approvingly.

  "You read the Journal, you read the Times--everybody's cratering but us. Hey, tomorrow, we're meeting on the new industry association. You want to sit in?"

  "Can't. But tell your people to watch what they say. I told you that Justice is heating up again and Antitrust is looking at price-fixing. Don't even mention dollars. No numbers at all. Remember what happened in '72."

  "Always looking out for your client, Donald?" Nordstrom's question contained the silent modifiers "biggest" and "most lucrative."

  They sat down at a table. The bellboy, who had been waiting patiently, brought out lobster salads in half pineapples and set them on the balcony table. The men ate the salad and raisin rolls--the lawyer struggling to down the food, which he had no appetite for--while they talked about vacations and family and house prices and the administration in Washington.

  When they were finished eating, Burdick accepted another martini and pushed away from the table. "Which of our boys is down here helping you with the board meeting, Steve?"

  "From Hubbard, White? Stan Johannsen is here and Thom Sebastian did most of the advance work last week. He's covering the front in New York. I understand he didn't make partner. What happened? He's a good man."

  Burdick looked out over the flat scenery at a line of cars shooting flashes of glare from the expressway. After a moment he realized he had been asked a question and said, "I don't remember exactly about Thom."

  He wished Bill Stanley were with him. Or Vera. He wanted allies nearby.

  Nordstrom frowned. "But that's not what you're here for, is it? About the board meeting."

  "No, Steve, it's not...." Burdick stood and paced, hands clasped behind his back. "Hubbard, White's been doing your legal work for, let's see, thirty-five years?"

  "About that. Before my time."

  "Steve, I'd ask you to keep what I'm going to tell you between you and me and Ed Gliddick. For the time being, at least. No bullshit between us."

  "Never has been." The businessman looked the partner over coyly. "This's about the merger, I assume?"

  "Yes. And there's more to it than meets the eye." Burdick explained to him about Clayton and his planned massacre after the merger was completed.

  Nordstrom said, "So you'd be out? That's crap. You've made the firm what it is. You are Hubbard, White."

  Burdick laughed. "I hate to put it this way, Steve, but McMillan is our largest single source of revenue."

  "Well, you give us good service. And we're happy to pay for it."

  "So when you or Ed talk, partners at the firm listen."

  "And you want me to talk against the merger."

  "It'd be bad for you and bad for dozens of other clients. Wendall Clayton has no vision of what a law firm should be. He wants to turn us into some kind of assembly line. Profit's all he thinks about."

  Nordstrom picked up a fat piece of lobster and sucked it clean of dressing, then chewed and swallowed it slowly. "What's the time frame?"

  "Clayton ramrod
ded the merger vote through early. It'll be this Tuesday."

  "Day after tomorrow? Fuck me," Nordstrom said. "That man is crazy." He probed for more lobster. He settled for raisins. "Ed's in a dinner meeting right now but he should be free in an hour or so. I'll have him call and we'll have after-dinner drinks. About ten or so? By the pool over there. Don't worry, Donald. We'll work something out."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Clayton moved them quickly through his old manse like a tour guide goosed by a tight schedule.

  It was a rambling house--big, though the rooms themselves were small and cockeyed. Beams were uneven, floorboards sprung. Much of the furniture was painted in drab Colonial colors. The gewgaws were of hammered tin and wicker and carved wood.

  He led them upstairs. Taylor pretended to be studying portraits of horses, Shaker furniture and armoires while in fact she looked for places where he might have hidden information about Hanover & Stiver or the note. She glanced into a small room that seemed to be an office and saw a desk.

  "Are you with us, Taylor?" Clayton asked and she hurried to join them. He continued the tour. "... Mark Twain's house, the house he died in, isn't far from here."

  "Are you a Son of the American Revolution?" Carrie asked.

  Clayton spoke with a feigned indignity that rested on real pride. "The Revolutionaries? They were newcomers. My family was one of the original settlers of Nieuw Nederlandt. We came over in 1628."

  "Are you Dutch?"

  "No. My ancestors were Huguenots."

  Taylor said, "I always got those mixed up in school--the Huguenots and the Hottentots."

  Clayton smiled coldly.

  Ooooh, doesn't like potshots into the family tree.

  "The Huguenots were French Protestants," he explained. "They were badly persecuted. In the 1620s Cardinal Richelieu ordered a siege of La Rochelle, a large Huguenot town. My family escaped and settled here. New Rochelle, New York, by the way, is named after La Rochelle."

  Carrie asked, "What did your ancestors do when they got here?"

  "There was considerable prejudice against the Huguenots, even here. We were barred from many businesses. My family became artisans. Silversmiths mostly. Paul Revere was one of us. But my family were always better merchants than craftsmen.... We moved into manufacturing and then finance though that field had largely been preempted by ... other groups." For a moment he looked wily and Taylor suspected he was suppressing an opinion about early Jewish settlers.

  "My family," he continued, "ended up in Manhattan and stayed there. Upper East Side. I was born within a five-block radius of my father's and grandfather's birthplaces."