“Like golf,” says Golden Rod. They all laugh, except for Bitter Man.
I seize the moment to back toward the door. “It was a pleasure seeing all of you. I’d better get back to my office.”
“Back to the yoke, eh?” says Golden Rod. “Just slip it on and go plodding around in a circle.”
Berkowitz laughs. “Watch it, Jeremy. We don’t want an insurrection. See you later, Mary.”
“Sounds good,” I say casually, like I’m not at the man’s beck and call. I close the door and allow the mask to slip. I feel disgusted at myself. I was bought off too easily. And I still don’t know why Berkowitz was meeting with Lombardo, much less why he slugged him.
Delia’s not at her desk when I leave, and I’m sure it’s no accident. She would want to evade my very important question: Why did you set me up? I wonder about this on the way to the elevator, swimming upstream against the lawyers and secretaries flooding into Stalling to start the day. I stop down on Judy’s floor before I go back to my office.
Judy’s in the middle of her Zen-like brief-writing ritual. The trial record, marked with, yellow Post-Its, is stacked on her left, Xerox copies of cases are stacked on her right, and a lone legal pad occupies the middle of a newly immaculate desk. Judy slams down her thick pencil when she sees me. “Mary, I was worried about you! Everybody was worried about you. Where’d you go last night?”
“Angie’s convent.” I flop into the chair facing her desk.
“Christ!”
“Exactly.”
“Tell me about it.” She leans forward, but I wave her off.
“Did you get the notes from Ned?” I ignore the pang when I say his name.
“Yepper. I saw Lombardo, too.”
“So I heard.” We trade Lombardo stories. She applauds after mine.
“You got protection! What a good idea!”
“I know. You’re smarter than I am, why didn’t you think of it?”
She smiles. “You’d still better stick with me when you’re in the office, like Lombardo said.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. We’re together all the time anyway.”
“Right. So how are you going to get the files?”
“I can’t subpoena them until I start suit, and I can’t start suit yet because Lombardo won’t protect me.”
“Start suit? Who are you gonna sue?”
“The police department. Maybe the city.”
“Are you serious? For what?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet. It doesn’t matter. The complaint will be one page of civil rights bullshit, I only need it to be able to get the files. I’ll withdraw it as soon as I do.”
She nods. “Quite a plan.”
“And that’s only Plan B, the fallback. Plan A is me going down to AID and convincing them to give me the files. As the widow. I’ll get the documents sooner that way, if they’ll go for it.”
“What do you think you’ll find in the files?”
“The killer, ultimately. But for starters I want to see what similarities there are between Brent’s case and Mike’s. I’m going to try to get the other two files on open fatals too. Who knows what will turn up? It’s like any other case.”
“And you’re the client.”
“No. Brent is. And Mike.”
She looks concerned. “Are you going to be able to do this? Emotionally, I mean?”
“If you’re asking me do I look forward to reading those files, the answer is no. But I have to.”
“Okay,” Judy says, with a sigh. “Let me know what AID says on the phone, okay? I’ll go down with you. We can go through the files together.”
“Thanks, but you look busy enough. Very industrious, with the clean desk and all. What are you working on?”
She picks up her pencil. “TheMitsuko brief. If this argument’s accepted, it’ll make new law in the Third Circuit.” Judy tells me about her argument with the degree of detail that most people reserve for their children or their dreams the night before. She loves the law. I guess it’s her river.
Later, as I climb the busy stairwell to my office, what Judy said begins to sink in. I can’t imagine sitting at my desk reading the police file on Mike’s death or Brent’s. Open fatals, my husband and my friend. I’m kidding myself that it’s just like any other case. It’s harder than any other case, but it’s also more important. I’ll call AID when I get back to my office. Maybe I can get a meeting this morning.
But when I reach Gluttony, Miss Pershing is pacing in front of her desk in an absolute panic. “My goodness, where have you been? You didn’t come back yesterday the whole day, and you didn’t call! I left messages on your machine. I even tried your parents, but they didn’t know where you were. Now they’re waiting upstairs in the reception area for the deposition!”
“Who is? What deposition?”
“Your parents, they’re waiting.”
“My parents are upstairs?”
“They’re very worried. They wanted to see you the moment you arrived. And Mr. Hart! He’s upstairs with his lawyer now.”
“Hart is here for his deposition? Oh, Christ.” I didn’t notice a deposition inHart for today. I didn’t see a notice in the pleadings index, so I assume that nobody at Masterson noticed a dep, either. Maybe the notice got lost when the file was sent to Stalling. Or maybe somebody deliberately took it out.
“Miss DiNunzio, they’re waiting. All of them.” Miss Pershing’s thin fingers dance along the edge of her chin.
I steady her by her Olive Oyl shoulders. “Here’s what I need you to do, Miss Pershing. Get us a conference room and have Catering Services set us up for breakfast. Then call Legal Court Reporters, the number’s on the Rolodex. Ask them to send over Pete if he’s available. Pete Benesante, got that?”
“Benesante.” She’s so nervous she’s quivering, and it makes her look vulnerable. Her job is all she has. She’s me in thirty years.
“After you do that, take the Harts to the conference room for me. Tell them I’ll be right there. I have to see my parents first. Okay?”
She nods.
“Are they having a shit fit?”
She colors slightly.
“Excuse me. My parents. How are they?”
“They’re fine. They’re very nice people. Lovely people. They invited me over for coffee this Saturday. They said perhaps you’d be free as well.”
“Maybe, Miss Pershing. But right now we have to get moving. Welcome to litigation. This is called a fire drill.”
She looks nervous again.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“It’s in God’s hands.” She walks unsteadily out the door, chanting Benesante, Benesante, Benesante, like a Latin prayer.
I go through my drawer for the thinHart file and page through it quickly. As I remembered, the only papers in it are the complaint and some scribbled notes from the lawyer at Masterson who represented Harbison’s. I’ve seen the notes before, on the way to the pretrial conference with Einstein. They’re practically indecipherable, written in a shaky hand. I can make out sentences here and there-what I told Einstein about Hart’s rudeness to company employees-but most of it’s a mess.
Who took these notes? Who did we steal this case from, anyway? I flip through the notes, three pages long. On the last page is a notation: 5/10 CON OUT/FS 1.0 NSW. I recognize it as a billing code. Stalling’s is almost identical. The notation means that on May 10, the Masterson lawyer had a conference out of the office with Franklin Stapleton, Harbison’s CEO. Their conference lasted an hour. The Masterson lawyer must be NSW.
NSW. Nathaniel Waters?
Ned’s father.
27
“Everything’s ready, Miss DiNunzio,” says Miss Pershing, practically hyperventilating in the doorway to my office. “You have Conference Room C. Mr. Benesante’s on his way.”
“Thank you, Miss Pershing.” I stare at the notation. Is NSW Ned’s father? It would make sense, because only a megapartner would get an hour’s audience with Stapleton. Even Berkowitz has never met Stapleton. He deals with Harbison’s through the GC.