Mistress of Justice Read online

  Boy's eyes. Indignant, hurt, scared boy's eyes.

  "You went through Mitchell Reece's file cabinet sometime recently. Why?"

  A furrow ran through his bloody forehead as he frowned. He sniffed. "What are you talking about?"

  Taylor said brutally, "Fuck it, Thom, I can get you out of here or I can make sure they book you. That'll be the end of your life in New York. Now, it's your call."

  He wiped tears from his cheeks. "Mitchell does trial work for New Amsterdam. I handle a lot of their corporate work. I probably needed some files he had."

  "You've been in his safe file?"

  Sebastian frowned again. "That thing he's got in his office with the locks on it? Yeah, a few months ago I got some files out of it, some settlement agreements from a secured-loan suit a couple of years ago. I needed them. It wasn't locked and Reece was out of town on business. What's this all about?"

  "You know New Amsterdam pretty well?"

  "What's this--"

  "Answer me," she snapped.

  "Know them?" He wiped his face with a tissue and looked at the blood. He laughed bitterly. "I've worked for them for years! I baby-sit them! I hold their hands and walk them through the deals. While Burdick's collecting their fucking check I'm the grunt doing all the work for them. While Fred LaDue takes 'em out to dinner and plays tennis with them I'm the one who's up till three A.M. doing the documents. I'm their lawyer." He sighed. "Yeah, I know them pretty well."

  Taylor looked into his eyes and she believed him. But she persisted. "You were in the firm on Saturday night, a week ago. You lied to me about it. You snuck in through the back door."

  "How did you know that?" he asked. But his voice faded as he noticed her gaze grow cold again. "I'm sorry. Yeah, I was there. I did lie ... but I had to. Look, when I got passed over for partner I decided to start my own firm. That's what Bosk and I're doing. Dennis Callaghan's doing the real estate for us, brokering some office space downtown. I just don't want anybody at Hubbard, White to know yet. That's why I lied."

  "Prove it."

  Numb, he pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. "Dennis? It's Thom. I'm putting somebody on the line. Tell her exactly what you're doing for Bosk and me."

  She took the phone and said simply, "Go ahead."

  Callaghan hesitated a moment then told her the same thing Sebastian had. "Okay, thanks." She disconnected and handed Sebastian back the phone.

  "Why'd you get all that information about me? The stuff under your desk blotter."

  Another blink. Another dip of the head. "You showed up in my life all of a sudden. You were just there and I didn't know why. You were ... interesting. I liked you. I was trying to find out about you. That's what I do--I'm a lawyer. That's how I work."

  She looked over the miserable fat boy and knew he was innocent. He glanced at her once but had to look away quickly as if he were frightened by what he saw.

  An odd feeling swept through her. Her face burned; she felt queasy. And she understood that for the first time in her life she'd done what her father would have done, what Mitchell Reece would have done: She'd been brutal in victory.

  Power.

  That was what she sensed. Sebastian, defeated in front of her, bloody and fearful as a child, was hers. The cops were hers. The sensation was exhilarating.

  "Can you tell me what's going on?" he asked.

  "No," she replied firmly. "I can't." She stood up. He looked uneasily at the cops.

  "It's okay," she said. "You can go home."

  "I can--"

  "You can leave. It's all right."

  Sebastian rose to his feet slowly and she took his arm to steady him. They started toward the door.

  The hooker watched them leave and said cynically, "My, my, this be some justice system we got ourselves. Anybody gotta ciggie?"

  Late Monday evening--the merger vote a mere fifteen hours away--Wendall Clayton sat in a conference room across across from John Perelli.

  Fatigue had settled on Clayton like a wet coat. But, unlike Perelli, Clayton had not loosened his tie or rolled up the sleeves of his white, Sea Island cotton shirt. He sat the way he had been sitting for the past four hours: upright, only occasionally lowering his head to rub his bloodshot eyes or to stretch.

  Beside him sat Randy Simms and another of Clayton's young partners. Perelli too had several of his lieutenants here.

  Simms and the other young man were on the executive committee of Hubbard, White. Burdick had rallied hard to keep them off but Clayton had maneuvered their elections through, though Burdick had retained control. Before them were drafts of a document, the merger agreement, spread out like a patient under a surgeon's careful eyes.

  Clayton glanced outside the door at a young woman, a secretary from a freelance legal services staffing firm. The woman knew every major word processing system in the United States, could take dictation and could keyboard 110 words a minute. These skills were fetching her forty-two dollars an hour though at the moment she was being paid that fee solely to sip coffee and read a battered paperback called Surrender, My Love.

  He wondered if he'd still have the energy to fuck her in an hour or two, after the final negotiations were completed. Clayton thought it might be dicey; he was utterly exhausted.

  Perelli wore half-rim glasses, low on his nose. He looked up and stared into Clayton's eyes. "I should tell you--my people aren't happy about your demand. About ousting Burdick. Even with the giveback."

  "What're you saying?" Clayton asked coolly.

  "He could sue. Older man, EEOC. He could make a mess."

  "We're lawyers. Our job is to make messes go away."

  "We'd prefer to keep him for a while. Say, a year. Phase him out."

  Clayton laughed. "You don't phase people like Donald Burdick out. Either he's in charge or he's gone completely. That's his nature."

  Perelli pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  The gesture explained that there'd been considerable rebellion in the ranks at Perelli's firm over Burdick. And Clayton knew that he had to act immediately.

  "If you want Hubbard, White--Burdick has to go," he continued casually. He gestured in an aristocratic way toward the window, outside of which Wall Street at night glistened. "If you want Burdick, John, go find yourself another firm."

  "You'd walk?"

  "And not look back."

  Perelli's assistants shifted uncertainly in their chairs.

  A moment passed and not a cell in Wendall Clayton's face revealed the electric tension he felt.

  Finally Perelli laughed. "Goddamn, you and I're going to make some serious fucking money together." He and Clayton shook hands with finality.

  Perelli stood and stretched. "You going to use a special pen to sign the merger agreement, Wendall? Like the President does?"

  "No, I'll just use this old thing."

  He displayed a battered Parker fountain pen, one he had used for years. Not long after Clayton had started at Hubbard, White he found himself at a closing without a pen. Donald Burdick had shot him a gruff glance and slid this very pen to him. "You should always be prepared, Wendall. Keep that one as a reminder."

  Wendall Clayton put the pen away and helped the other men organize the documents while he dictated instructions for the copying and assembly of the execution copies to the Surrender, My Love woman. After the firm approved the merger tomorrow, these papers would be brought into the large conference room for the signing of the agreement with Perelli's partners itself. Since so many people had to sign, the logistics of closing the deal were massive.

  A half hour later, walking back toward his office, Clayton stopped and turned quickly, aware of someone approaching fast from down a dark corridor.

  The person was making right for him.

  For a moment he actually thought that Donald Burdick had lost his mind and was about to assault him.

  But, no, it was Sean Lillick.

  The red-eyed paralegal raged at Clayton. "You fucked her! Yo
u son of a bitch!"

  "Quiet, you little shit!" Clayton whispered. John Perelli hadn't left yet.

  "You fucked her!"

  "Who?"

  "Carrie Mason."

  Clayton regarded the young man with some amusement. "And?"

  "How could you do it?"

  "Last time I looked, Sean, that girl was over eighteen and unattached." He lifted an eyebrow. "Was she wearing your Art Carved engagement ring? A tasteful but small solitaire? I didn't notice one."

  "I don't want your fucking sarcasm, Wendall."

  So, the puppy has some teeth. He'd never seen them bared before.

  "Calm down, Sean. What the hell is she to you? She's a fat little inbred preppy and you're the point man of the avant-garde. Capulets and Montagues. You have nothing in common except gonads engorged by your differences."

  "How could you treat her like that?"

  "I treated her very well. Besides, the word 'consensual' comes to mind."

  "She was drunk. She thinks you used her."

  "She's an adult. What she thinks is her business. Not yours or mine." Clayton glanced back toward the conference room. He lowered his face and asked, "What? Did you think you two were going to move to Locust Valley and have babies? For God's sake, Sean. You're not crazy. Go find some girl with a crew cut, pierced labia and dirty fingernails."

  "I hate you."

  "No you don't, Sean. But even if you did your hatred is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you need me. Now, the merger vote's tomorrow and I don't have time for this. Learn a lesson, son: If somebody fucks your girlfriend the question isn't who did it and how can I get even--it's why did she want to? Think about that."

  The boy fell silent.

  Clayton could still see the anger and bitterness in his face. In a calmer tone he said, "It happened once. She was drunk, I was drunk. I have no intention of ever seeing her again." This was as close to a sincere apology as Wendall Clayton would ever come.

  Lillick seemed to realize this. He wasn't pleased but Clayton saw that he'd pulled the rug out from underneath his rage.

  "I'll tell her," Clayton joked, "what a wonderful human being you are."

  "I--"

  Clayton held up an finger. He said, "Tomorrow, early--in my office? We've got a big day tomorrow. We've got a thousand documents to get ready. The phalanxes will be marching through Rome."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  North of Fourteenth Street, where Taylor Lockwood had risen from the hot, pungent subway on her way to Mitchell Reece's, the broad sidewalks were sparse.

  After she'd put Thom Sebastian into a cab Taylor had returned to her apartment, changed and was now on her way to report to Reece that one suspect had been eliminated--but that she still had no clue where the note might be, the note that he'd need in court tomorrow morning, a little over twelve hours from now.

  She zigged around patches of ice, remembering how her music teacher taught her to think of footsteps as musical beats. As she walked she'd break the spaces between the tap of the steps into half notes, quarter notes, eighths, triplets, dotted quarters and eighths, whispering the rhythms.

  One two and uh three four ...

  A noise behind her, footsteps on the gritty concrete.

  She turned quickly but saw no one.

  A block farther. Now the streets were completely deserted. This area, Chelsea, near Sixth Avenue, contained some residential lofts and cavernous restaurants. But this particular street was the home of professional photographers, printers, warehouses and Korean importers. At night it was empty, a gloomy, dark, functional place, and she felt another chill of uneasiness.

  One and two and three and--

  Suddenly the scenery vanished as the arm went around her chest and a hand clamped over her mouth.

  She screamed.

  The man started to drag her into the alley.

  Goddamn, no ...

  She struggled to free herself but managed only to force her attacker to fall, still clutching her fiercely around the neck. They landed on some boxes and tumbled to the slick cobblestones. The man ended up on top of her and knocked the breath from her body. Choking, gasping, she threw her hands over her face, unable to call for help.

  The man rose to his knees. Taylor took this chance to twist away, smelling rotting bean sprouts and chicken bones and garlic from restaurant trash. She saw a fist rise up, about to come plunging down toward her face.

  But anger detonated within her and, still breathless, she pushed hard with her legs, slamming into the man's hip and knocking him against a wall. Taylor grabbed the first thing she could find as a weapon--a piece of jagged concrete--and staggered to her feet, about to swing the sharp stone.

  Her hand paused as she heard the man's sobbing. The raspy voice wheezed between the sobs. "Why, why, why? ..."

  "You!" she whispered.

  Ralph Dudley wiped his face and stared at her at her in raw hatred. He didn't pay any attention to the rock in her hand. He stiffly rose, walked to an overturned trash drum and sat on it, gasping for breath. "Why did you do it?"

  "Are you out of your mind?" She pitched the rock away and began brushing her coat off, rubbing at the oil and grease stains. "Look at this! Are you crazy?"

  The old partner stared blankly at the ground. "I followed you from your apartment. I don't know what I wanted to do. I actually thought about killing you."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You followed me. You bribed my ... You bribed Junie to find out about me. Then I asked an associate if he'd seen you in my office and he said you had."

  Taylor shrugged. "You lied to me, Ralph. You lied about being in the firm a week ago Saturday."

  "So?" He smoothed his mussed hair, examined his damaged coat.

  "What were you doing in the firm?"

  "It's not any of your business."

  "Maybe not. But maybe it is. What were you doing?"

  "I love that girl."

  Taylor said nothing.

  "She makes me feel so alive. I hate it that she's in that business. She does too, I know she does. But she doesn't have any choice."

  In her mind she saw the cheap red plastic napkin ring.

  Poppie ...

  Taylor's fear had changed into pity. The desires to flee, to slap him, to put her hand on his shoulder and comfort him were balanced.

  He lifted his head; the cold light, shining down from above, hit his narrow face and made him look deranged and cadaverous. He started to speak then lowered his face into his hands. A dozen cars crashed over a pothole in the street next to them before he spoke. "Why did you do it?"

  "Do what, Ralph?"

  "Tell Wendall Clayton about us."

  "I didn't tell Clayton anything."

  "Somebody ..." He wiped his face again. "Somebody told him."

  "Oh, please ..." Taylor laughed. "That law firm is like Machiavelli's villa. Everybody's got spies."

  "But why did you go to the West Side Club? Why did you follow me?"

  "There are problems at the firm. I needed to know where some people were at a certain time. I got the feeling you were lying to me so I followed you after dinner. Now, tell me what you were doing at the firm."

  He shook his head.

  Just as she had with the cop who'd arrested Sebastian, Taylor now lowered her head and said, "Ralph, I can put you in jail for a long time--because of that girl. And I'll do it if you don't cooperate. No bullshit. Tell me what you were doing in the firm."

  The look of hatred in his face chilled her but he finally said, "Junie's father died two years ago and left her some money. But her mother and stepfather're keeping it all tied up. They're trying to get it for themselves. I've been spending every weekend and half my nights at the firm, learning trusts and estates and fiduciary law. I'm going to get the money back for her." He wiped tears. "I couldn't tell anybody at the firm because they'd find out she's not my granddaughter and then ... they might find out the real situation. Besides, I've borrowed against my partnership d
raw so much the firm'd fire me if they knew I was spending my time on a project that wasn't making Hubbard, White any money."

  He looked up, wretched and lost. "I'm really not a very good lawyer. I can charm people, I can entertain clients ... but this is the only real law I've done in years."

  "Prove it to me."

  He said stiffly, "I don't think I owe you anything more."

  Once again the same dark power she'd felt before filled Taylor Lockwood's heart and she whispered harshly, "Prove it to me or I go to the cops."

  A wounded animal, Dudley hesitated. Then he glanced down, opened his briefcase. Shoved it toward her.

  She knew little about trusts and estates law but it was clear that these documents--petitions to the Surrogate's Court, copies of cases and correspondence--bore out what he'd told her.

  "You were in the firm early Sunday morning after Thanksgiving."

  "Yes" he answered as if he were a witness under cross-examination.

  "You used Thom Sebastian's key?"

  "Yes. I didn't want anybody to know I was in that night. I got there about one-thirty. After I'd been to the West Side Club."

  She asked, "Where were you in the firm?"

  "Just the library and my office. The rest room. The canteen--for some coffee."

  "Did you see anyone else there?"

  Dudley rocked slowly back and forth on the trash can, under the rain of harsh streetlight. His breath popped out in small puffs as he worried the tear in his coat. "As a matter of fact," he answered, "I did."

  The loft door was open. She paused in the hallway, seeing the trapezoid of ashen light fall into the corridor. Taylor felt a jab of panic. In a burst of frightening memory she remembered the white car driving them off the road and, though at the time she believed the thief had intended only to scare them, she thought for an instant that the man had come back and killed Mitchell. She ran to the door and pushed inside.

  He was lying on the couch, wearing blue jeans and a wrinkled dress shirt. His hair was mussed and his arms lolled at his sides. His eyes stared unmoving at the ceiling.

  "Mitchell?" she asked. "Are you all right?

  He turned on his side slowly and looked at her. A faint smile. "Must've dozed off."

  Taylor crouched next to him and took his hand. "I thought ... you were hurt or something."

  She felt the slight pressure of his hand on hers. He looked at her jacket and jeans. "What happened to you?"

  Taylor laughed. "Little wrestling match."