Mistress of Justice Read online

  When he was finished he spent another three or four minutes arranging the drapes so they looked nice. This was, after all, his purported job.

  He peeled off the gloves and walked out into the halls, which greeted him once again with their silence and their real, or imagined, disdain.

  "I suffer from the fallacy of the beautiful woman." The Lincoln Town Car limo crashed through the meatpacking district in the western part of Greenwich Village, near the river. Taylor leaned sideways to hear Thom Sebastian over the crackly sound of the talk show on the driver's AM radio.

  He continued, "Which is this: that because a woman is attractive she can do no wrong. You think, Christ, the way she lights a cigarette is the right way, the restaurants she picks are the right restaurants, the way she fakes an orgasm--pardon my French--is the right way so I must be doing something wrong. For instance, we're now on our way to Meg's. The club. You know it?" "Absolutely no idea."

  "There, my point exactly. I'm thinking: Jesus, I'm doing something wrong. Taylor is a primo woman but she doesn't know about this club. I've fucked up. I've got it wrong." Taylor smirked. "Does this usually work?" Sebastian paused then slouched back in the cab seat and lit a cigarette. "What?"

  "That line? The one you're using on me now?" Sebastian waited a few more seconds and must've decided there'd be no recovery from her busting him. "You'd be surprised at some of the lines I've gotten away with." He laughed. "The thing is women suffer from the fallacy of the man who knows what he's doing. We never do, of course." He gave her what might pass for a sincere glance and said, "I like you."

  They pulled up in front of nothing. A row of warehouses and small factories, not a streetlight in sight, only the distant aurora borealis of industrial Jersey across the Hudson River.

  "Welcome to my main club."

  "Here?"

  "Yep. I'm here six, seven nights a week."

  Sebastian led them through an unguarded, unmarked door into what looked like a Victorian bordello. The walls were covered with dark tapestry. The tables were marble and brass. Oak columns and sideboards were draped with tooling and floral chintz. Tiffanyesque lamps were everywhere. The uniform for men was tuxedo or Italian suits, for the women, dark, close-fitting dresses with necklines that required pure willpower to keep nipples hidden. The rooms were chockablock with high-level celebs and politicos, the sort that regularly make New York magazine and Liz Smith's columns.

  Sebastian whispered, "The three little piggies," and pointed out a trio of hip young novelists whom a Times critic had just vivisected en masse in an article called "Id as Art: The Care and Feeding of Self-Indulgence." Skinny women hovered around the threesome. Sebastian eyed the women with dismay and said, "Why are they wasting time with those dudes? Didn't they see the article?"

  Taylor said dryly, "You assume they can read." And bumped into Richard Gere. He glanced at her with a polite acknowledgment, apologized and continued on.

  "Oh my God." She gasped, staring at the man's broad back. "He's here."

  "Yes," Sebastian said, bored. "And so are we."

  The music wasn't as loud as at the previous club and the pace was less frantic. Sebastian waved to some people.

  "What're you drinking?" he asked.

  "Stick with R&C."

  They sipped their drinks for a few minutes. Sebastian leaned over again and asked, "What's your biggest passion? After handsome men like me, I mean."

  "Skiing, I guess." Taylor was circumspect about telling people her second career--the music--and was particularly reluctant to give a robbery suspect too much information about herself.

  "Skiing? Sliding down a mountain, getting wet and cold and breaking bones, is that it?"

  "Breaking bones is optional."

  "I did some exercise once," Sebastian said, shaking his head. "I got over it. I'm okay now."

  She laughed and studied him in the mirror. The lawyer didn't look good. His eyes were puffy and red. He blew his nose often and his posture was terrible. The coke and whatever other drugs he was doing were taking their toll. He seemed deflated as he hunched over his drink, sucking his cocktail through the thin brown straw. Suddenly he straightened, slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair. "Does anyone ever get lost in there?"

  She kept the smile on her face but didn't lean into him. She said evenly, "It's true that I had date failure tonight. But I still do things the old-fashioned way. Real slow." She eased away and looked at him. "Just want the ground rules understood."

  He left his arm where it was for a noncommittal ten seconds, then dropped it. "Fair enough," he said with a tone that suggested: all rights reserved.

  "You go out a lot?" she asked.

  "Work hard and play hard. By the time I burn out at forty-five ..." His voice faded and he was looking at her expectantly.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  She saw his hand swinging against the bar. A brown vial.

  "You want to retire to the facilities with me? Build strong bodies twelve ways?"

  "Not me. I have to keep in shape for breaking bones."

  He blinked, surprised. "Yeah? You sure?"

  "Never touch the stuff."

  He laughed. Then put the bottle away.

  Just then another man appeared from the crowd and walked up to Sebastian though his attention seemed fixed on Taylor. He resembled Sebastian some but was thinner, shorter, a few years younger. He wore a conservative gray suit but bright red sunglasses, from which a green cord hooked to the earpieces dangled down the back of his neck.

  She noted Sebastian's surprise when the young man approached.

  Sebastian said, "Hey, Taylor, meet my main man, Bosk. Hey, Bosk, Taylor." They shook hands.

  "Will you marry me?" Bosk asked her in a slurred voice. He'd had a great deal to drink and she knew that beneath the silly Elton John sunglasses his eyes would be unfocused.

  "Oh, gosh," she answered brightly, "I can't tonight."

  "Story of my life." He turned back to Sebastian. "Hey, you never fucking called me back. We've gotta talk. He called and wanted to know where--"

  Bosk suddenly fell silent and as Taylor reached for her drink she observed in the mirror behind the bar two very subtle gestures by Sebastian, a nod toward her and a wag of his finger, whose only possible meaning was that the topic Bosk was raising was not to be discussed in front of her.

  Bosk recovered, though not very well, by saying, "What it is, I've still got some room on that New Jersey project if you're interested."

  "How leveraged?"

  Bosk said, "We'll need to come up with probably six five."

  "No fucking way." Sebastian laughed.

  "Sea Bass, come on...."

  "Three eight was the top, dumbo. I'm not going over three eight."

  These figures might have referred to percentages or shares of stock or money, in which case, considering that the context was New York metro area business or real estate, they might be talking about hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

  And Alice thought Wonderland was topsy-turvy....

  "Don't be such a fucking wuss," Bosk muttered drunkenly. Studying Taylor.

  Sebastian grinned and grabbed Bosk, swung him into a neck lock then rapped him on the head.

  Bosk broke away and shouted, laughing, "You're a fucking cow chip, you know that?" He replaced his gaudy sunglasses. "Hey, you want to come out to Long Island for dinner on Friday? My mother'll be out with her cook. Bunch of the gang. Brittany said she, like, forgives you for not calling."

  An electronic pocket calendar appeared in Sebastian's pudgy hand. He studied it. "Can do, dude," he said at last. They slapped palms and Bosk vanished.

  "Primo guy," Sebastian said.

  "He's a lawyer?"

  "Among other things. We go way back. We're doing some projects together."

  Projects ... as vague a euphemism as there was.

  "Like real estate?" Taylor asked.

  "Yeah." But she heard a lie in his voice.

  Taylor
turned back to her drink. "I'd like to do some investing. But I got one problem. No money."

  "Why's that a problem?" Sebastian said, frowning, genuinely perplexed. "You never use your own money. Use somebody else's. It's the only way to invest."

  "Hubbard, White lets you work on your own? Don't you have to clear it with somebody?"

  Sebastian laughed, a sharp exhalation of bitterness that surprised her. "We aren't on such good terms lately, Messrs. Hubbard, White and Willis and myself." He apparently decided to drop the fast-lane image. Deflated, he sighed and muttered, "They passed me over for partner." His lips tightened into a bleak smile and she got what she thought was her first real look at Thom Sebastian.

  "I'm sorry." Taylor knew that this would have been a devastating blow to him. Partnership was the golden ring young associates strived for. They worked sixty or seventy hours a week for years for the chance to be asked to join the firm as one of the partners--the owners.

  Taylor, on the trail of a thief, after all, sensed he might be revealing a motive to lift the promissory note--revenge--and wanted him to keep talking. She said, "Must've been tough."

  "After they told me, I tried to convince myself I didn't really want to be partner. I mean, Christ, you can make more money at real estate or investment banking. I said, 'Fuck it. Who needs them? It's just a bunch of old men....' Well, that's what I told myself. But, damn, I wanted it bad. I've worked all my professional life to get my name on the letterhead of Hubbard, White & Willis. And this is what they do to me."

  "Did they tell you why?"

  His pale jaw, round with fat, trembled. "Bullshit. I mean, finances was what they said. 'Effecting economies,' if I may quote. But that wasn't the reason." He turned to her and said, "See, I don't fit the Hubbard, White mold."

  "What's the mold?"

  "Ha, that's the catch. They can't tell you; they just know whether you've got it or not. And that prick Clayton didn't think I had it."

  "Wendall Clayton? What did he have to do with it?"

  "I'm not one of his chosen few. Most of the partnership slots this year got filled with his boys and girls. Look at that asshole Randy Simms."

  She had a vague memory of a young, square-jawed blond partner.

  "Randy Simms III," Sebastian spat out. "The 'third,' " he mused bitterly. "But, hey, he's gotta be the end of that family line though. I'm sure the guy doesn't have a dick."

  "But Clayton's not even on the executive committee," Taylor said.

  He laughed. "What difference does that make? He's got ten times more power than Burdick or Stanley think. He's going to ramrod the merger through."

  "The merger?" she said. "That's just a rumor. It's been going around for months."

  Sebastian looked at her and detected no irony. He snorted. "Just a rumor? You think that, then you don't know Wendall Clayton. Two months from now, you won't be able to recognize our firm...." His voice dwindled. "I should say, your firm. Ain't mine no more."

  "What're you going to do?"

  He was about to say something but grew cautious. She could sense he was selecting his words carefully. "Oh, I'll get a new job. Probably go in-house, become chief general counsel for a client. That's what happens to most senior associates after they cut your balls off."

  Okay, Taylor told herself. Go for it.

  "Then why're you working so hard?" she asked. "If I got passed over I sure wouldn't be working holiday weekends."

  A brief hesitation. "Weekends?" he asked.

  "Yeah, you were in the firm on Sunday morning, weren't you?"

  He took a long sip of his drink then said, "Me? No. I was here all night. I left about three, when they were getting ready to close."

  She frowned. "That's funny. I was doing some billing for ... who was it? I don't remember. Anyway, I saw your key card number. You came in real early on Sunday." He looked at her for a long moment. His face was completely blank but she sensed that his thoughts were grinding hard and fast. Then he nodded in understanding. "Ralph Dudley," he said angrily.

  "Dudley? The old partner?"

  "Yeah, Grandpa. Yesterday he dropped my key off in my office. He said I left it in the library and he'd picked it up by mistake on Friday. He must've used it on Sunday."

  She couldn't tell whether to believe him or not.

  Agitated at this news, Sebastian fished in his pocket and found the little vial. He held it up. "You sure?" She shook her head and he looked toward the men's room. "Excusez-moi."

  After he disappeared, Taylor motioned the bartender over to her and said, "You working last Saturday night?"

  He normally didn't get questions like this. He polished glasses. But finally he said, "Yeah."

  "Was Thom in here from one to three or so on Sunday morning?"

  "I don't remember."

  She slid two twenties toward him furtively. He blinked. This only happened in movies and the man seemed to be considering how his favorite actor would handle it. The bills disappeared into tight black jeans. "No. He left around one--without a girl. That never happens. If he's by himself usually he closes the place. He's even slept here a couple times."

  When Sebastian returned he took Taylor's purse and slipped it around her--over one shoulder and under the other arm, the way paranoid tourists do. "Come on. I'm wound, I'm flying like a bird. I gotta dance...."

  "But--"

  He pulled her onto the small floor. After fifteen minutes, her hair was down, streaming in thick, sweaty tangles. Her toes were on fire, her calves ached. Sebastian kept jerking away in time to the reggae beat, eyes closed, lost in the catharsis of the motion and music and the coke. Taylor collapsed on his shoulder. "Enough."

  "I thought you were a skier."

  "Exhausted." She was gasping.

  His brow arched and the surprise in his eyes was genuine. "But we haven't eaten yet."

  Taylor said, "It's one A.M. I've been up for nearly twenty-four hours."

  "Time for penne!"

  "But--"

  "Come on. One plate of darling little squigglies of pasta in alfredo sauce with cilantro and basil, one teeny endive salad, one bottle of Mersault."

  Taylor was weakening.

  "Belgium endive! ..." Then he lowered his head. "Okay." Sebastian the negotiator was now speaking. "How's this for a deal? We have dinner and you can tell me about the Pine Breath Inn in Vermont or wherever the hell it is you ski and we'll call it a night. Or I can take you home now and you'll have to fight off my frontal assault at your door. Few women have been able to resist."

  "Thom--"

  "I take no prisoners."

  She lowered her head on his shoulder then straightened up, smiling. "Does this place have spaghetti and meat balls with thick red sauce, a la Ragu?"

  "I'll never be able to show my face there again. But if you want it I'll force the chef to make it."

  She sighed, took his arm and together they made their way toward the door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The alarm clock wailed like a smoke detector.

  Taylor Lockwood opened one eye. Was this the worst headache of her life? she wondered.

  She lay still for five minutes while the votes rolled in. Yes, no?

  Sitting up decided the contest--a clear victory for the pain. She slammed her palm down on the alarm then scooted gingerly to the edge of the bed. She still wore her panty hose and bra; the elastic bands had cut deep purple lines into her skin and she was momentarily concerned that she'd have permanent discolorations.

  Oh, man, I feel lousy....

  Taylor's one-bedroom apartment was small and dark. It was located in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a dark, Gothic building distinguished only by the prestige of the street it was located on and its reputation for being the place that New York's Judge Crater was supposedly on his way to when he disappeared seventy years before--still an open case on the NYPD books.

  Her parents had offered to send her whatever furniture she wanted from their eight-bedroom house in Chevy Chase or from one of their summe
r homes but Taylor had wanted this apartment to be exclusively hers. It was furnished post-collegiate--Conran's, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn. A lot of fake stone, Formica, black and white plastic. A huge pillow sofa. Canvas chairs that, looked at straight on, seemed to be grinning. A number of interesting pieces from the Twenty-sixth Street flea market on Sixth Avenue.

  The bedroom was the homiest room in the place, decorated with lace tulle, art deco lamps and old furniture--battered but loaded with personality--a hundred books, souvenirs from the trips young Taylor took to Europe with her parents.

  On the wall was a large poster--one of Arthur Rackham's sepia illustrations of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

  The picture wasn't like the Disney cartoon or the original Sir John Tenniel drawings but was a masterful work by the brilliant artist. It showed an alarmed Alice lifting her hands to protect herself as the Red Queen's playing card soldiers flew into the air.

  The caption read:

  At this the whole pack rose up into the air,

  and came flying down upon her.

  The framed poster had been a graduation present from her roommates at Dartmouth. Taylor loved the Carroll books, and Alice memorabilia were sure bets as birthday and Christmas presents. There were many other Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass artifacts throughout her apartment.

  Taylor sent her tongue around her parched mouth; she didn't enjoy the trip. She staggered into the bathroom, where she downed two glasses of water and brushed her teeth twice. She squinted at the clock. Let's see, Sebastian had dropped her off at about four. Do the math.... Okay, we're talking about three and a half hours' sleep.

  And, more troubling, it turned out that she'd largely wasted her time. Thom Sebastian had denied being in the firm on Saturday or Sunday and had remained tight-lipped about his dealings with Bosk though he'd continued to talk bitterly about the firm's decision to pass him over. He'd had no response when she'd casually mentioned Hanover & Stiver, Inc.

  She kneaded her belly, which swelled slightly over the top of her panties, recalling that there were a hundred fifty calories in each cocktail.... She squeezed her temples. Her vision swam.

  A blinking red light across the room coincided with the throbbing in her head. It was her answering machine, indicating a message from last night. She hit the play button, thinking it might be a call from Mitchell Reece, remembering his asking her if it was okay to call her at home.