“Mary, jeez. It’s not… you gotta ask Sam, I can’t say any more.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s confidential.”
“What about this investigation could possibly be confidential from me? Brent was my friend. Mike was my husband.”
“Let me get my jacket off, okay? I just got in. Christ, you’re worse than that Amazon you sent over.”
“Amazon?”
“Your friend Carrier. She came in here last night and read me the riot act. What is it, you both on the rag?”
My blood boils over. “You got a house, Lombardo? A car? You like your job? Your pension?”
“What?”
“So how come you didn’t investigate this matter when I first made a report?”
“What are you talkin’ about, Mary? You never made a report!”
“The hell I didn’t, you must’ve lost it. So it’s your word against mine. Which would you believe — that the young widow is a filthy liar or that a city employee lost a form? Please. It’s not even close.”
“You would—”
“My memory is crystal clear. I came down to the station. We met. I told you about the car that was following me and my secretary. The next day he’s dead, hit by the same car I warned you about. You ever been sued, Lombardo?”
“What’s this all—”
“You were negligent, pal. You denied me my civil rights. I’m gonna take your shitty little house and your car. I’ll garnish every paycheck you ever get.”
“Don’t you threaten me!”
“I’ll make your life a living hell. I know how to do it, you understand? It’s my job. I’m a lawyer.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“Brent was gay, maybe that’s why you didn’t investigate. You can always tell, that’s what you said. And something else, something about your brother being ‘light in the loafers.’ I love that colloquial stuff. It’ll look so good in the complaint. It lends realism, don’t you agree?”
“You’re crazy!”
“A line like that, could be the newspapers will pick it up. In fact, why leave it to chance? I’ll send them a copy of the complaint — maybe ten copies, to play it safe.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Yes, you do. You do have to listen, Lombardo, and you will if you’re smart. What I need from you is protection. Low-profile confidential protection from whoever’s trying to hurt me. I want you to do your job, so I can do mine. I want you to watch me at Stalling—”
“Now how am I gonna do that?” he explodes. “They’d recognize me. I couldn’t pass for a lawyer!”
“Put somebody else on the inside. You figure it out.”
“You’re safe at work. Everyone’s around.”
“Waters is here, Lombardo. If he’s the one—”
“Oh, this is rich! Change your mind about your boyfriend?”
“I’m taking no chances. You have to watch me here.”
“No way. I’ll cover you on the outside, but that’s it! I’ll put my buddy on Waters — on the outside. You call me on the beeper when you leave and when you go in. You work only during business hours, when everyone’s around. Your Amazon friend, you stay with her. After work, you go straight home. You got it? For three days.”
“Two weeks.”
“Four days.”
“Ten days.”
“Seven,” Lombardo says, finally. “That’s it. That’s all I’m doing. I’ll be damned if I’ll put a tail on every nervous Nellie in this city! Goddamned!”
“Did you just cuss? In front of a lady?”
“I gotta go. I got a real job to do.”
“Not so fast. I need something else.”
“Jesus.”
“Information. Those files you told me about, the ones on Mike and Brent. Where are they now?”
“AID has ’em. I shipped ’em back. But you can’t get ’em.”
“Why not? They should be public record.”
“Not when the investigations are open. They’re not gonna give you an open file. Brent has all my notes, all the investigation notes, what leads they’re following—”
“That’s why I want it.”
“You can’t get it.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Seven days, Mary. That’s it.”
“And this is confidential, Lombardo. That we talked, that I’m investigating the files. All of it. I don’t want Berkowitz or anybody else at this firm to know about it. Understand?”
“I have better things to do.”
“Thank you. And have a happy day.”
Lombardo hangs up with a bang.
I hang up and exhale. So far, so good. While I’m still on a roll, I pick up the receiver and punch in four numbers.
“Mr. Berkowitz’s office,” Delia says.
“Hi, Delia, it’s Mary. Is he in yet?”
She hesitates. “Come on up.”
I bound up the stairs to Pride. Delia isn’t at her desk when I stalk to Berkowitz’s office, but the door is open slightly. I grit my teeth and burst in. And come face to face with the Honorable Morton A. Weinstein, the Honorable William A. Bitterman, and the Honorable Jeremy M. Van Houten, all of whom are sitting directly across from Berkowitz and looking rather startled.
“Oh… my. Oh.”
“Mary! Why don’t you come in and meet some of the hard-working members of the Rules Committee?” Berkowitz says heartily, as if I were expected. The three judges rise to their feet. In fact, they’re popping up and grinning, for me.
Bitter Man, the closest, grasps my hand with clammy fingers. “I know Miz DiNunzio, Sam. She was my research assistant on that article I published on federal court jurisdiction. I believe I sent you a reprint. It was in the Yale Law Journal.”
Berkowitz nods sagely. “I remember, Bill.” He has no idea what Bitter Man is talking about.
“In fact, I bet I know more about Miz DiNunzio than you do,” Bitter Man says.
“Oh, really?”
“I know she’s an alto, for example. Quite a good alto at that. Am I right, Miz DiNunzio? An alto?” Bitter Man’s puffy lips break into a cynical smile.
I nod. You asshole.
“You mean like in singing?” Berkowitz asks. “How do you know that, Bill?”
My chest erupts into prickly blotches.
“I don’t know if I should say, Sam. Should it remain our little secret, Miz DiNunzio?”
Einstein steps in to save me, his distaste for Bitter Man evident. “Don’t let Brother Bitterman get to you, Ms. DiNunzio. We can dress him up, but we can’t take him out. You and I met just the other day, didn’t we? On the Hart case?” He clasps my hand warmly.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You made a nice point in a tough spot.”
Berkowitz places a heavy arm around my shoulders. His pinstriped jacket reeks of cigarette smoke. “I’m not surprised, Morton. Mary is one of our finest young lawyers.”
I try to edge away from Berkowitz, blushing deeply. It erupts at my hairline and rushes straight down my chest, like lava down a volcano. I feel awkward and confused. I want to fuck back at him, but he’s co-opting the shit out of me. Anger is almost elbowed out of the way by Pride.
“Have you met Judge Van Houten, Mary?” Berkowitz says, giving my shoulders another squeeze. “He was appointed to the bench last year to replace Judge Marston.”
“I’m the rookie,” quips Van Houten, shaking my hand with a self-assured grin. His features are small and even, and his hair is as smooth and tawny as butterscotch. Good-looking, if you go for those Ken types. Judy calls him Golden Rod, because the scuttlebutt is that he gets around. Now I see why. “We were just discussing the issue of note-taking by jurors,” he says. “It’s the sort of thing that gets the academics all excited.”
“At least something does,” says Berkowitz, with a loud laugh. He slaps me on the back so hard I expect my contacts to take flight. Golden Rod thinks this is a real hoot t
oo.
Einstein looks at them with tolerance over his little half-glasses. “You see, Mary, we conducted a survey to determine the bar’s view on the practice of note-taking by jurors. Unfortunately, we’re having a tough time coming up with a conclusion, because the findings were so diverse.”
“What a surprise,” Bitter Man says.
Einstein ignores him. “We have a meeting with the chief judge at noon today, so we should have learned something by then.”
“We learned one thing, right, gentlemen? Next time — don’t ask!” Berkowitz explodes into laughter and so does Golden Rod.
Bitter Man shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Miz DiNunzio, why don’t you share with us your view of the practice? Do you think jurors should be permitted to take notes during trial?”
The question catches me off guard. “I… uh…”
Einstein scoffs. “Come on, Bill, you’re not going to cross-examine her, are you? Court’s adjourned, for God’s sake.”
I look stupidly from Bitter Man to Einstein, waiting to see if I’m to perform. There’s so much tension between them, I don’t want to take sides.
“Now, Morton, don’t underestimate the woman,” Berkowitz says. “I’m sure she has an opinion. Don’t you, Mary?”
The three judges look at me expectantly. I do have an opinion, but it might not be the right opinion, which is Berkowitz’s. A week ago I would have avoided the question, but that was before I became the New Me. Now I say what I really think, possibly committing career hara-kiri:
“I think they shouldn’t. It distracts them. Their job is to hear the evidence and the testimony, then do a sort of rough justice.”
Einstein smiles.
Golden Rod smiles.
And, most importantly, Berkowitz smiles.
Yes!
“They don’t know shit from Shinola,” mutters Bitter Man.
“That’s my girl!” Berkowitz says. “We report that Mary DiNunzio thinks jurors should not be permitted to take notes during trial. Now we can get on to more important subjects.”
“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. “The Mitsuko 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 in Hart 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.
“Afte
r 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 thin Hart 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.
“Also, there’s someone on the telephone.” She frowns at the message slip. “It’s a Miss Krytiatow… Miss Krytiatows.…” She looks up, exasperated. “Her first name is Lu Ann.”
Everywhere That Mary Went Page 20
