Chapter 29
After the prelim, Judy hit the office running, with a lot of work to do. The trial was a few months away, but she had learned something at the prelim and there was no time to waste. Also she had other cases she’d been neglecting, not to mention a general counsel who would fire her any day now. Judy stopped at the reception desk in the entrance room of the firm.
“They in there?” she asked the receptionist, as she picked up her correspondence and thumbed through her phone messages. There were twenty in all. The Daily News, the Inquirer, the New York Times. The Coluzzi story was white-hot. She’d return the calls later on the cell phone, to keep the Coluzzis’ feet to the fire.
“Sure, they arrived about ten minutes ago.”
“Will you tell ’em I’ll be right in? I want to drop this stuff at my office.” “Sure.” “Thanks.” Judy tucked her things under her arm with her briefcase, powered past associates and secretaries to her office, only to find Murphy sitting behind her desk.
“Huh?” Judy said, and Murphy shot up self-consciously. Her dark hair was slicked back, her lips properly lined, and she wore a white silk T-shirt with a yellow skirt the size of a Post-it. Murphy looked wrong, not to mention naked, behind Judy’s desk. “What are you doing in my office?”
“I wasn’t snooping or anything.” Murphy stepped away from the desk quickly. “I was leaving you something.” “What?” Judy dumped her stuff on her already cluttered desk and walked around it. Next to a leftover coffee cup and some old correspondence sat the fresh draft of an article. It looked like Judy’s article, but it was finished. “That’s mine,” Judy said, reading her own mind.
“Yes. But I knew you’d be too busy to finish it, given the car bomb and all. I picked up the file and drafted it for you.”
Judy skimmed the top page of the brief. A one-paragraph introduction, a statement of the legal issues, a crisp analysis of the law. It was really good. “Where did you get this?” she asked, but Murphy thought she was joking.
“Make any corrections you want and pass it back to me. I’ll make Bennie a copy, and if she likes it, I’ll submit it.”
Then Judy got it. Murphy was trying to make her look bad in front of Bennie. Judy turned to the last page of the article. The proof would be on the signature line. Judy was just about to shout Aha! when she read it. It was her name on the papers, not Murphy’s.
“You don’t have to use it if you don’t like it.”
“Well, jeez, thank you.” Judy felt touched. Only Mary did things this nice, and she was a saint. Judy picked it up and put it in her briefcase. “I’ll look at it first chance I get.”
“Good.” Murphy moved to the door. “Anything else I can do?”
“Uh, no, thanks.”
“Thank me over lunch,” Murphy said, and she left.
Seated around the walnut table in the conference room, still in their best going-to-court polyester, were Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, Tony Two Feet Pensiera, and Mr. DiNunzio. They sat behind Styrofoam cups of office coffee, heat curling from each cup, and among the pencils and legal pads in the middle of the table sat a white bakery box the size of a briefcase. On the top it said, in script, Capaciello’s. “What’s that?” Judy asked, and Mr. DiNunzio smiled.
“Just a little something to thank you for what you’re doin’ for Tony.”
Tony-From-Down-The-Block nodded. “You think we’d come over empty-handed? That ain’t right.”
Feet looked cranky. “Open it already. We all got our coffee here. We been waitin’.”
“I’m on it, Coach,” Judy said. She pulled the box to her, broke the light string, and opened the lid, releasing a sweet smell. The box was stuffed with pastries, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Some large pastries were shaped like flowers of dough, some looked like clams with fruit embedded in them, and others were long slices of flaky cake. God knew what these were. Judy’s family ate doughnuts and brownies. “How nice of you. Thanks, gentlemen.”
“Hand me a sfogatelle, will ya, Jude?” Feet asked, and Mr. DiNunzio shifted forward on his chair.
“I’ll take the pastaciotti, please.”
“Gimme a crostata,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.
Judy looked bewildered at the box. “Is this a test? There’s not even a cannoli, so I could go by process of elimination.”
“No cannoli, sorry.” Feet frowned behind his Band-Aid bridge, which Judy was getting used to. In fact, she was starting to like it. Some glasses, Band-Aids could improve. “They didn’t have the chocolate chip. They don’t have the chocolate chip, I don’t buy cannoli.”
“Not all Italians like cannoli,” added Mr. DiNunzio. “People think we do, but we don’t.”
Tony-From-Down-The-Block rubbed his ample tummy. “Cannoli’s too heavy. If I eat one, I feel like I’m gonna blow up.”
Judy wanted to get on with it. “Okay, gentlemen, which one’s the what-you-said?”
Tony-From-Down-The-Block pointed, as did Mr. DiNunzio and Feet, but their wires kept getting crossed so Judy gave up and slid the box across the table. “You’re on your own. I called you here for a reason.”
“You got dishes?” Feet asked, pastry in hand.
“It’s a law firm, not a restaurant.” Judy grabbed a legal pad from the center of the table, ripped off the top three pages, and passed them out like plates. “Use these. Now to business—”
“Ain’t you eatin’, Judy?” It was Tony-From-Down-The-Block.
“No, thanks, I had lunch on the way over. A hot dog.”
“So? This is dessert.”
“At lunch?”
“People have rights.”
Judy blinked. “No thanks.”
He paused. “Well, if you ain’t eatin’, can I have my cigar?”
“No.” Judy stood up and went to the front of the conference room, while Mr. D and The Tonys munched away, poured coffee, and slid sugar packs around like bumper cars. The atmosphere was more family wedding than case conference, but Judy knew that would disappear when she started talking. She stood near the easel at the front of the room, which supported her delusion that, except for the pastry part, she was controlling this meeting. “Okay, here’s the problem,” she began. “Our firm has a great investigator, but he’s away and—”
“You want coffee?” Mr. DiNunzio was holding the pot in the air.
Feet nodded, his mouth full of mystery pastry. “We made fresh. The girl showed us how.”
“Feet, you’re not supposed to say ‘girl’ anymore,” Mr. DiNunzio said, placing his pastry carefully on his sheet of legal paper.
“Why not?” Feet shrugged. “Whatsa matter with ‘girl’? I like girls.”
“You don’t call them girls anymore. They’re women.”
“Hey, if she’s got her own teeth, she’s a girl.” Feet shoved his pastry into his mouth, and Judy cleared her throat as effectively as a substitute teacher.
“Gentlemen, listen up. We were just in court and we heard lots of testimony. Who can tell me the most interesting thing we heard this morning?” Mr. D’s hand shot up, and Judy smiled. Every teacher needs a pet. “Mr. D?”
“I didn’t know that Fat Jimmy heard Pigeon Tony say, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”
Judy nodded. “Very good, but it’s not the answer I’m looking for. Tell me why that was interesting to you, Mr. D. Did you hear Pigeon Tony say that?”
“Of course. We all heard it, didn’t we?” Mr. DiNunzio looked at the other two for verification and they nodded, sure. “I was just surprised that Fat Jimmy heard it. He never looks like he hears anything. I guess it was really loud.”