ADD PAPER, it says. The words blink red, like the old pinball machines that go tilt.
Damn it. Why am I the only one who refills this thing? I look in the cabinet next to the machine for a ream of paper, but it’s empty except for the torn wrapper. The law clerks never pick up after themselves. I slam the cabinet door and walk down the hallway back to chambers.
Then it hits me. I do an about-face and look up at the camera. It’s black and boxy, and looks back at me like a mechanical vulture perched above the judges’ elevator.
The camera’s on all the time, monitored by the federal marshals. It saw everything that happened in the hall last night and probably recorded it, like at ATM machines.
It knows if anyone came into chambers and saw Armen and me together. And it knows who they are.
7
His breast pocket bears a plastic plate that says R. ARRINGTON over the shiny five-star badge of the marshal service. His frame is brawny in its official blue blazer, and his dark skin is slightly pitted up close. “Lunchtime!” I say to him, making an overstuffed tuna hoagie do the cha-cha with a chilly bottle of Snapple lemonade. “All this can be yours.”
He does not look impressed. “No can do, Grace.”
The hoagie and the lemonade jump up and down in frustration. “All I want is two minutes. I look at the monitors, then I’m outta there.”
“There’s twenty monitors, Grace,” he says, sighing deeply. Maryellen, the cashier in the building’s snack shop, cocks her head in our direction. She may be blind, but she’s not deaf. I decide to be more quiet.
“Come on, Ray. You said only one monitor shows our hallway. How long can it take to look at a monitor?”
He folds his thick arms. “Maybe if you tell me why this matters.”
I glance at the jurors behind us buying newspapers, gum, and fountain soda. The ice machine spits chunks into a tall paper cup, and a juror plays mix-and-match to find the right size lid. He’ll never find it; I never can, and I have a J.D. “Let’s just say I want to check security.”
“Come clean, Rossi.”
I consider this. Ray is one of the few marshals who liked Armen; he’s also one of the few African Americans, which I suspect is no coincidence. “Tell you what. Get me in. If it pays off, I’ll tell you why.”
“What am I supposed to tell the marshals?”
“What marshals? You’re the marshal.”
“I’m a CSO, technically. A court security officer. I mean the marshals watching the monitors.”
“Tell ’em I’m checking security, that I’m the administrative law clerk to the chief judge.”
“Grace.” His somber expression reminds me of something I’d rather not dwell on. Armen is gone.
“Forget it, I’ll tell them something. I’ll handle it. Just get me in, I’ll owe you. Big-time.”
Suddenly he snaps his fingers. “I know what you can do for me.”
“Anything.”
“You can introduce me to your fine friend, the lovely Eletha Staples.”
“Eletha? Don’t you know her?”
“I’ve been workin’ here as long as she has, but she won’t give me the time of day. She seein’ anybody?”
I think of Leon, Eletha’s boyfriend, who gives her nothing but grief. “No.”
“Hot dog!” He rubs his hands together; it makes a dry sound. “Lunch. I’ll start with lunch, take it nice and easy. Can you set it up?”
“Deal.” I set the tuna hoagie and Snapple on the counter in front of Maryellen. At the last minute, Ray tosses in two packs of chocolate Tastykakes.
“What are you having today, Grace?” Maryellen says. Her cloudy eyes veer wildly around the room.
“Thanksgiving dinner,” I say to her and she laughs.
After we leave the snack bar, Ray leads me through a labyrinth of hallways to the core of a secured part of the courthouse. It would have been impossible to find this myself, and when I reach the barred entrance I understand why.
It’s a prison.
Sixteen floors from where I work, in the same building. It gives me the creeps. The sign on the barred door says: ONLY COUNSEL MAY VISIT PRISONERS.
We head down another hall, past a room with a number of empty desks in it, and open a door onto a small room, brightly lit by a ceiling of fluorescents. A wall of TV screens dominates the room, giving it a futuristic feel. There must be twenty-five black-and-white TV screens here, trained everywhere throughout the courthouse.
The monitors in the left bank flash on the stairwells at each floor of the building, and the large screens in the middle offer an ever-changing peek into the courtrooms. In 12-A there’s a young woman crying on the witness stand. In 13-A an older man is being sentenced. In 14-A a little boy is testifying.
“It’s like a soap opera, huh, Worrell?” Ray says amiably to the stony-faced marshal watching the screens. He’s a stocky middle-aged man in a black T-shirt that says UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE. It looks more like a get-up for Hell’s Angels, but I do not remark this aloud.
“Ugh,” the man says, his attention focused on the TV pictures of prison cells on the far right. Each cell is numbered and occupied by a man in street clothes, probably awaiting trial. They sit slumped or asleep in their cells; one is a black teenager in an oversized sweatshirt, just a kid. I think of Hightower.
“This is Grace Rossi, Worrell. She’s a lawyer, works for the appeals court. She wants to see—”
“I want to see the monitors,” I say with faux authority. “It’s a security check for the new chief judge.”
Worrell begins to laugh at one of the prisoners, a Muslim crouched over in prayer. “Say it loud, brother. You’re gonna need it.” Ray looks sideways at the monitor.
“Where’s the screen for the eighteenth floor?” I ask.
“That one.” He points to one of the screens. The bottom of the screen reads 16-B. In the high-resolution picture, a young secretary pauses to tug up her slip. Worrell chuckles. “They forget Big Brother’s watching.”
Of course they forget; I did. So did whoever came into our chambers, if anyone. I watch the picture flicker to 17-B. It’s a view of the hallway outside the judges’ elevator on the seventeenth floor. On the wall hangs a fake parchment copy of the Constitution. Our floor is next.
“Yeow!” Ray hoots as soon as the scene changes. Eletha is photocopying at the Xerox machine, her back to the camera. Her skirt clings softly to her curves, and with her back turned you can’t see how haggard she looks today. “Now ain’t that pretty?” he says, in a tone men usually reserve for touchdown passes and vintage Corvettes.
Worrell grunts. “She’s all right.”
Ray gives him a solid shove. “Listen to you, ‘She’s
“Right,” I say, preoccupied by the scene on the TV screen, which shows Eletha walking down the hall and into chambers. Bingo. The camera would have seen whoever came into chambers last night, wherever they came from. “Where’s the tape?”
Worrell looks at me blankly. “What tape?”
“The tape. The tape of what the camera saw last night.”
“We don’t tape.”
“What?”
“There’s no tape, lady.”
“I don’t understand.” I look at Ray for confirmation.
“I coulda told you that, Grace,” he says.
I don’t believe this. “At the MAC machine they tape. Even in the Seven-Eleven they tape.”
“Seven-Eleven’s got the money. This is the U.S. government. You’re lucky we got the goddamn judges.”
Ray looks embarrassed. “Downstairs we tape. The monitors at the security desk, they tape the stairwell and
