“It’s already on your desk, for your signature.”
“What a woman,” Bennie said, meaning it. She didn’t know if Marshall would decide to come back to work after the baby was born. It would be a terrible loss for the firm, if there still was a firm. “Now all I have to do is find the hundred and fifty bucks for the filing fee.”
“I got it out of petty cash. There’s three dollars and two cents left.”
“You anticipate my every need. Will you marry me?”
“No.”
“Is it because I walk like a man?”
“What?” Marshall’s pretty forehead wrinkled.
“Forget it. Any messages?”
“Not yet,” she said. It was Marshall’s considerate way of saying Nobody calls here anymore. “Who’s going to file the complaint?”
“I am. I want Carrier and Murphy to keep working on the class-action research, and DiNunzio’s on Brandolini, so I’ll file it. You know my mantra.”
“Eat two, they’re small?” Marshall smiled crookedly. She had the intelligence, loyalty, and sense of humor God reserved for legal secretaries, because they needed it more than anybody else.
“No. ‘If you have more time than money, do it yourself.’ Let me check my E-mail, then I’ll go.” Bennie headed for her office, then stopped. Marshall must have talked to the associates about the conversation last night. She told them everything. She was the one in the office with Warmth and Personality. Bennie turned back. “Marshall, you know the story about the firm’s finances, but the associates don’t. Or didn’t, until last night. I think I surprised the shit out of them. I mean, the crap.”
“I would say so.” She snorted. “They were in a tizzy this morning, but they’ll be okay.”
“How bad were they? Did you distribute Prozac?”
“No, they’re fine. It’s good to share information like that with them. They’re old enough, they should know the kind of pressures that the firm is under.” Marshall’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one I’m worried about. They said you didn’t eat dinner with them, that you were really upset when you left. Are you okay? You look tired this morning.”
“I worked late, and I wasn’t upset. I wanted to draft that complaint. I’m fine.”
“You can’t do everything alone, Bennie.” Marshall clucked. “What’ll you do when I have a real baby to take care of?”
“God knows,” Bennie answered, then went off to be her own messenger.
A half an hour later, she had arrived at the United States Courthouse, which rose like a red-brick monolith among the historic halls and the new Constitution Center. Lawyers, court employees, jurors, and judges flooded into the courthouse this morning, typically busy for a Monday, when new juries were impaneled. Inside, new security measures had forced the slicing up of the courthouse’s formerly generous marble lobby into glass chutes that funneled people to the metal detectors. Bennie joined the back of the line, ending up not far from the courthouse entrance, and was just about to jockey for a faster lane when she felt a hand on her arm. It was Chief Judge Kolbert, but today she appeared stiff in a trim tweed suit, carrying an accordion briefcase.
“Long time no see, Chief,” Bennie greeted her. The lawyers in front of her glanced back, jealous. Knowing Chief Judge Kolbert was the legal equivalent of knowing Madonna.
“Good morning, Bennie,” the judge replied, but her freshly made-up face wrinkled so deeply her foundation cracked. “I gather you have a rather large headache this morning.”
“No, not really. Why do you say that?”
“Your conduct last night.” The chief judge leaned over, scented with Shalimar and annoyance. “You had had quite a lot to drink at the restaurant. You certainly tied one on.”
“What?” Bennie asked, surprised. “I had only the one glass of wine.”
“Please. You disappoint me. Judge Eadeh told me he saw you, in the crowd at the bar. You made quite a scene. He told me they asked you to leave.”
“That’s not true!” Bennie felt slapped in the face. The lawyer in front of her glanced back to see who was making a fool of herself in front of Madonna. “Nobody threw me out, Judge! What are you talking about?”
“I’m not going to argue with you about it.” The chief waved hello at a passing group of lawyers, then returned her attention to Bennie, her whisper thinned to a hissing. “I’d advise more prudence in public. I know you were on your own time, as were we, but really, everybody noticed. You are well known and you represent all of us.”
“But, Judge, I didn’t get thrown-”
“Judge Eadeh saw you, and so did Judge Sherman. Are you saying they were lying?”
Judge Sherman, too? “No, of course not, but they must have made a mistake. The bar was crowded. Maybe it was someone who looked like me, but it wasn’t me, I swear it!”
“Bennie, I tell you as a friend. If you have a drinking problem, attend to it. Now, I must go.” The chief judge pivoted on her patent pumps and left bearing her briefcase.
Bennie stood stunned, her face aflame. What was the judge talking about? She hadn’t had more than one glass. She hadn’t made any scene. She hadn’t been thrown out. The line shifted forward, and she shifted with it, on autopilot. She couldn’t understand it. There had been a crowd at the restaurant’s bar. Maybe someone in the bar area had made a fuss, and the judges had mistakenly thought it was her. Maybe it was someone who looked like her. That had to be it. But what could she do about it? Go to each judge and explain? Excuse me, Judge, I’m not an alcoholic?
Bennie passed though the security checkpoints, shoving her briefcase and bag onto the conveyor belts and flashing her laminated court ID, completely preoccupied. There must have been some sort of misunderstanding, simple as that. Best to let it go. Say nothing, and pray that St. Amien’s complaint wasn’t assigned to a judge who thought she needed Alcoholics Anonymous. It gave a whole new meaning to the term “judicial intervention.”
Bennie grabbed the escalator to the second floor, and by the time she reached the blue rug of the landing, she had another theory. She’d said it herself earlier, the thought coming out of its own volition: Maybe it was someone who looked like me. Because there was someone who looked like her. It was possible that Alice, her twin, had come back to Philly. They looked identical, but Bennie hadn’t seen Alice since the day she’d left town two years ago, and given Alice’s lifestyle, Bennie had even wondered if she were still alive. Alice hadn’t wanted a twin, and Bennie hadn’t either-after she’d met hers. The two women hadn’t grown up together, and one had become a lawyer, while the other had become a criminal. It had all come out in court, when Bennie defended Alice on a murder charge. Was Alice back in town? And why would she be in the same Chinese restaurant last night?
Bennie walked distracted down the corridors of the building, through a warren of bright white halls and past the door to the United States marshal’s office, flanked by framed movie posters of Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp and Tommy Lee Jones in U.S. Marshals. Evidently everybody was having trouble separating fiction from reality this morning. Bennie walked on, considering her situation. It couldn’t have been Alice in the restaurant, could it? She hadn’t seen her there, and she would have noticed her doppelgنnger eating dim sum. It seemed impossible, or at least unlikely. No reason to jump to conclusions. Alice had no business in town, and she’d said she’d never come back. The judges had simply made a mistake. They did that all the time, whenever they ruled against Bennie. She tried to laugh it off, but she wasn’t laughing.