Mistress of Justice

  Hands gripped together. Silence. He wanted water but was afraid to reach for the glass.

  "Doctor, shall I repeat the question?"

  "I don't recall."

  "Well, I'm sure she recalls you. Why don't you think back to the St. Teresa Clinic in Nogales. Think back seven years ago. And try to recall if you had such a patient. Did you?"

  "It was all a setup! They set me up! The locals--the police and the judge--blackmailed me! I was innocent!"

  "Doctor," Reece continued, "please just respond to my questions." His tie was loose, his face was ruddy with excitement, and even from the back of the courtroom Taylor could see his eyes shining with lust.

  "On September seventeenth of that year, pursuant to a procedure for the removal of a nevus--that is, a birthmark--from Miss Corrones's leg, did you administer Ketaject to her and then, when you perceived her to be unconscious, partially undress her, fondle her breasts and genitals and masturbate until you reached a climax?"

  "Objection!" Marlow's lead lawyer was on his feet.

  The judge said, "Overruled."

  "No! It's a lie," the witness cried.

  Reece returned to the counsel table and picked up a document. "Your honor, I move to introduce Defense Exhibit Double G: a certified copy of a complaint from the federal prosecutor's office in Nogales, Mexico."

  He handed it to the judge and a copy to the plaintiff's counsel, who read it, grimaced and said in disgust, "Let it in."

  "So admitted," the judge intoned and looked back to the witness.

  Dr. Morse's head was in his hands. "They set the whole thing up. They blackmailed me. I paid the fine and they said they'd seal the record."

  "Well, I guess it's been unsealed," Reece responded. "Now, the report goes on to say that the reason Miss Corrones was aware you were molesting her was that you not only administered the wrong dosage of Ketaject but that you injected it improperly so that most of the drug didn't even reach her bloodstream. Is this what the prosecutor's report says?"

  "I--"

  "True or not true? Answer the question."

  "They set me--"

  "Is this what the report says?"

  Sobbing, the man said, "Yes, but--"

  "Wouldn't you say, sir, that you can hardly state my client is guilty of malpractice because of the improper administration of drugs when you can't even knock out a teenager enough to rape her?"

  "Objection."

  "Withdrawn."

  "They set me up," the witness said. "Just to blackmail me. They--"

  Reece turned on him. "Well, then, Doctor, did you at any time contact the law enforcement authorities in Mexico City or in the United States to report that you were being blackmailed?"

  "No," he raged. "I paid them the extortion money and they said I could leave the country and they'd seal the record. I--"

  "You mean," Reece said, "you paid the fine for your punishment. Like any other criminal. No further questions."

  Taylor found herself sitting forward on the edge of the pew. She now saw Reece's brilliant tactic. First, he'd gotten the jury's attention. Expecting petty bickering, they'd seen Reece befriend the witness, surprising them and getting them to sit up and listen. Then he got the man to say the magic word that, by rights, Reece or LaDue or anyone on the St. Agnes legal team would try never even to allow into testimony, let alone elicit themselves: "malpractice."

  And then, in a masterful stroke, he'd linked that characterization--that one magic word--to the witness's terrible behavior and completely destroyed his credibility.

  Taylor saw a gleam in Reece's face, a flushing of the cheeks, fists balled up in excitement.

  Reece turned. He noticed Donald Burdick in the back of the courtroom. The two men looked at each other. Neither smiled, but Burdick touched his forehead in a salute of respect.

  Taylor turned and looked at Burdick then behind him. Finally Randy Simms showed some emotion. His lips were tight and his eyes bored into the back of Donald Burdick's head. He rose and stepped out of the courtroom, which was utterly silent.

  Except for the sobbing of the witness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She stopped him in the hallway of the court.

  Reece smiled when he saw her.

  "How'd I do?"

  "How do you think? I'd say you mopped up the floor with him."

  "We'll see." Reece continued, "What most lawyers don't realize is that cross-examination isn't about being an orator. It's about having information. I called a private eye I've used out in San Diego and he dug up the dirt on the guy. Cost me--well, cost St. Agnes--fifty thousand. But it saved them a lot more than that."

  "You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

  "Handling the cross? Yep." He hesitated a moment, and finally spoke, though whether it was what he'd originally intended to say or not she couldn't tell. "I sometimes feel bad for them--people like that witness--when I tear apart their testimony. But in this case it was easy. He was a rapist."

  "You believe he did it? What happened in Mexico?"

  He considered. "I chose to believe he did something wrong. It's a mind-set thing. Hard to explain but, yes, I believe it."

  Taylor reflected: You could certainly argue that their client, the hospital, had done something wrong too--destroying the plaintiff's life; and she wasn't sure if the rape, if it had actually occurred, undermined the legitimacy of Morse's opinion about that.

  She said nothing about any of this though and, indeed, she secretly envied Reece his fervent view of right and wrong. For her, justice wasn't quite as clear as that. It was a moving target, like the birds she'd watch her father hunt every fall. Some he hit and some he missed and there was no grand design as to which.

  "Listen," she said. "I've got some leads. Have time for lunch?"

  "Can't. I'm meeting one of the vice presidents from New Amsterdam. I've got to be at the Downtown Athletic Club fifteen minutes ago."

  He looked around. "Let's talk later. But tell you what: Come over to my place for dinner."

  "I'm playing Mata Hari tonight. What's tomorrow? Friday--how's that?"

  "Make it Saturday. I'm meeting with the bank people all day tomorrow and I'm sure it'll go into dinner." He fell silent as someone walked by, a sandy-haired man in coveralls, who glanced at them quickly and then continued on. Reece's eyes followed the man uneasily as he walked away.

  "Paranoid," he muttered with a smile, gave her hand a fast squeeze and then left the courthouse.

  On her way back to the firm Taylor's willpower faded, her lust for a fast-food burger won and she decided she'd get something to eat.

  This was how she found out that Mitchell Reece had lied to her.

  Instead of going back to the office she'd headed north, to a Burger King, and as she turned the corner Downtown Athletic Club, where he'd said he was going for lunch. She slowed, stung at first, then thinking, No, he probably meant another athletic club: the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South in Midtown.

  Only, if that was so, why was he disappearing into the Lexington Avenue subway stop? The train went uptown but there were no stops anywhere near the NYAC. And why was he taking a train in the first place? The rule on Wall Street was that if you went anywhere on firm business, you always took the car service or a cab.

  Taylor had had four or five serious relationships in her life and one thing about men that irked her was that their fondness for the truth fell far short of other appreciations. Honesty was her new standard for love and she didn't think that it was too much to ask.

  Reece, of course, was nothing more than her employer--but still the lie hurt; she was surprised at how much.

  Well, maybe his plans had changed--maybe he'd checked his messages, found the witness had canceled and was on his way to Tripler's to pick up a couple of new shirts.

  But on impulse she found herself pulling a token out of her purse and hurrying down the subway stairs.

  Why? she wondered.

  Because she was Alice. That was the only answer. A
nd once you slip into the rabbit hole, Taylor Lockwood had learned, you go where fate directs you.

  Which happened to be Grand Central Terminal.

  Taylor followed the lawyer, climbing up the stairs, skirting a small colony of homeless. She watched Reece buy a train ticket and walk toward the gates. She stopped.

  Squinting though the misty afternoon light that spilled across the huge cavern of the terminal, she caught a glimpse of him standing at a vending cart in front of a gate. A crowd of passengers walked between them, obscuring him.

  She jockeyed aside to get a better view. Then she laughed to herself when she saw what he'd bought.

  One mystery of Mitchell Reece had been solved.

  He was walking to one of the commuter trains carrying a large bouquet of flowers.

  He had a girlfriend after all.

  Digging another token from her purse, she descended once more into the piquant subway to return to the firm.

  Sometimes he felt like a juggler.

  Thom Sebastian was thinking of an off-Broadway magic show he'd seen some years ago.

  Sebastian remembered the juggler most clearly. He hadn't used balls or Indian clubs but a hatchet, a lit blowtorch, a crystal vase, a full bottle of wine and a wineglass.

  From time to time, Sebastian thought of that show, of the tension that wound your guts up as the man would add a new object and send it sailing up in an arc, a smile on his face, eyes at the apogee. Everyone waited for the metal to cut, the torch to burn, the glass to shatter. But nope, the man's no-sweat smile silently said to the audience: So far, so good.

  Sebastian, sitting in his office this afternoon, feeling depleted, coked out, 'phetamined out, now told himself the same thing.

  So far, so good.

  When he had learned that Hubbard, White & Willis had chosen not to make him a partner Thom Sebastian had held a conference with himself and decided after considerable negotiation to cut back on his working hours; he was going to relax.

  But that didn't work. Clients still called. They were often greedy, they were occasionally bastards, but a lot of times they were neither. And whether they were or not was irrelevant. They were still clients and they were scared and troubled and needed help that only a smart, hardworking lawyer could give them.

  Sebastian found to his surprise that he was physically incapable of slowing down. He continued at a frantic pace, his hours completely absorbed by two refinancings, a leveraged buyout, a revolving credit agreement.

  By his own real estate transactions, by his special project with Bosk, by his girlfriends, by arranging buys with his drug dealer, Magaly, by his family, by his pro bono clients, all in motion, all spinning, all just barely under control.

  So far ...

  He desperately wanted sleep and that thought momentarily brought to mind another: The brown glass vial hidden in his briefcase. But it was no more than that--a passing image. Sebastian did not even consider slipping into the men's room to partake. He never did drugs within the walls of Hubbard, White & Willis. That would be a sin.... so good.

  He closed the door to his office then pulled a manila envelope out of his desk. He removed the computer printouts and began to read--all about Ms. Taylor Lockwood.

  He found the information fascinating. He jotted a few notes and hid them under the blotter on the desk then fed the printouts themselves and the envelope through the shredder in his office.

  Sweeping the phone from the cradle, Sebastian dialed her number from memory.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, Taylor ..."

  He heard tension and anxiety in his own voice. This was bad. Take charge.

  "Thom?"

  "Yeah. How you doing?"

  "Fine, but guilty. I'm finishing a Whopper."

  With any other woman he'd have jumped on that line with both feet and flirted relentlessly. But he resisted and said casually, "Hey, you survived an evening with me. Not a lot of girls can make that claim. Oops, women. Meant to say 'women.' Have I offended you yet?"

  "You're not even on the radar screen."

  "I'll try harder." In fact he wasn't really in the mood to joke but he forced himself to maintain a certain level of patented Sebastian banter. "You realize that we're leaving for the airport in a half hour."

  "And the 'we' would be who?"

  "You and me."

  "Ah. Our elopement. Your friend Bosk was first in line. You can be best lawyer."

  Damn, she was fast. He'd run out of jokes. "Listen, speaking of your betrothed, I'm going out to dinner in the Hamptons tomorrow with him and a few other folks."

  "I remember you mentioning that."

  She had? That was interesting. Why'd she been paying attention to their offhand comments? "Hey, it's totally last-minute, I know, but any chance you'd like to come? It'll give me the chance to kill him so that I can move to the number one spot."

  "Chivalrous."

  He added gravely, "I have to warn you ..."

  "Yes?"

  "It's not a stretch limo."

  "That's not a deal-breaker. What's the occasion?"

  "It's Take Someone to Dinner in the Hamptons Day. You do know about that, don't you?"

  "I saw the card rack at Hallmark. I thought I'd have to celebrate by myself with popcorn and the tube."

  "How 'bout it? Leave early, five-ish. We'll be back by midnight, one."

  "Fair enough. Dress?"

  "Business."

  "Cool," she said. "I'll come by your office."

  Sebastian set down the receiver and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply. He relaxed.

  The motion of his imaginary juggler slowed. Unnecessary thoughts fell away. Projects that weren't immediate dissolved. The image of the Chinese-American girl he'd picked up last night and would be meeting at The Space tonight vanished. Some technical financial aspects of his project with Bosk rose then faded, as did a nasty, dark portrait of Wendall Clayton. Finally Sebastian was left with two thoughts, tossing them around slowly. One was the loan agreement he was working on, spread out on his desk before him.

  The other was Taylor Lockwood.

  He pulled the agreement toward him and looked at the words with a grave intensity. But ten minutes passed before he started to read them.

  For Donald Burdick there was no square in New York City more beautiful than that at Lincoln Center.

  The buoyant fountain, the soaring white rock architecture, the energetic Chagall ... these all came together as a testament to the power of culture and moved him now, as they always did. It was especially stunning on fall nights like this, when the concert halls radiated their rich glow into the misty dimness of the city.

  Burdick, his hands in his cashmere coat pockets, paced slowly in front of the fountain. It was chilly but waiting inside the Metropolitan Opera, where he and his wife had tickets for Stravinsky later that night, would undoubtedly require him to speak to any number of other box holders, who like him were major patrons of the arts and arrived early for dinner in the private dining room.

  At the moment he didn't want to be distracted.

  He glanced up and saw the Silver Cloud ease to the curb and Sergei leap out to open Vera's door. She stepped onto the pavement in her sable coat. He remembered how a few years ago, as Vera had waited for a light to change on Madison Avenue, an animal rights activist had sprayed her mink with orange paint. His wife had grabbed the young woman's arm and wrestled her to the ground, pinned her there until the police arrived.

  They hugged and she took his arm as they walked to the private entrance that led to the club reserved for the most generous patrons. Burdick had once calculated that, even adjusted for the charitable deduction, each glass of champagne here cost him roughly two hundred dollars.

  They let another couple go ahead of them so they could take an elevator alone.

  "St. Agnes?" Vera asked abruptly.

  "Mitchell won. Well, they dropped their settlement offer to five million. We'll pay one. That's nothing. Everybody at the hospital's ecstatic." br />
  "Good," she said. "And the lease? Did you sign it up?"

  "Not yet. It's on for Monday now. Rothstein ... I hate dealing with him. And we have to keep everything hush-hush so Wendall doesn't find out."

  "Monday," she said, troubled, then his wife glanced at her reflection in the elevator's metal panel. She turned back to her husband. "I made some calls today. Talked to Bill O'Brien's wife."

  This was an executive of McMillan Holdings, which was Hubbard, White's biggest client. The company was Burdick's client alone and he took home personally about three million a year from McMillan.

  "Trouble?" Burdick asked quickly.

  "Apparently not. Wendall hasn't approached them about the merger."

  "Good," Burdick said. "He doesn't even know the board's meeting in Florida this week or if he does he hasn't made any rumblings about going down there."

  Burdick had assumed that Clayton wouldn't waste the time trying to sway McMillan since it was so firmly in the antimerger court.

  "But the board's been talking among themselves. They're wondering if the merger'd be good or bad for them."

  "Bill's wife knows that?"

  Vera nodded matter-of-factly. "She's sleeping with one of the board members: Frank Augustine."

  Burdick nodded. "I wondered who he was seeing."

  Vera said, "I think you have to get down to Florida and talk to them. As soon as possible. Hold their hands, rally them against the merger. Warn them about Clayton."

  "I'll go this weekend. It'll be a good excuse to miss Clayton's party on Sunday. Last thing in the world I want to do is spend time in that pompous ass's house."

  Vera smiled. "I'll go," she said cheerfully. "One of us should be there, I think. Just to keep him a little unsettled."

  And, Burdick thought as the elevator door opened, you're just the woman to do it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ms. Lockwood:

  We cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to review your demo tape.

  Taylor hurried to her apartment from her building's mailroom, clutching three return envelopes from three record companies. She'd called Dudley and told him that she wanted to change before seeing him for dinner at his club in Midtown and that she'd meet him there.

  As she walked down the hallway she fantasized about the contents of the envelopes.

  It so captivated the initial screener that he sent it to our A&R department, where it made the rounds in record (forgive the pun) time. Your masterly reinterpretations of the old standards in juxtaposition with your own works (masterpieces in fusion) make the tape itself worthy of production, but we would propose a three-record project of primarily original material.