the picture, and I flip the top page of the phone log over.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, reading the four preceding telephone messages, recorded in carbon copies. All four are from Sandy Faber. I counted only three messages from Faber on Galanter’s desk, so that means the one McLean took was from Faber too. “I hope it’s not broken.”
“It came apart,” she wails.
“I feel terrible.” I flip a page back, then another. A bunch of judges. Cavallaro and the other Mob names would be farther back, presumably before the
“That’s all right, I have it.” Waxman finishes gathering up the frame, and when she straightens up, her eyes are glistening with tears.
I feel awful. “Let me fix it, Miss Waxman. If I can’t, I’ll replace it. I’ll buy you fifty, I swear.” I take the assembly from her with a gentle tug.
“It doesn’t matter. I can get another,” she says, ashamed of her reaction.
“Let me try.” I replace the piece of plastic in the square well, then put the photo over it and close the back. One of the brass clips has gotten bent, so I bend it back with a thumb. I breathe a sigh of relief for my immortal soul. “There you go. I really am sorry.”
She turns it over in her hands. “Why, it’s good as new!”
“It wasn’t hard.”
“I could never have done that.”
“Of course you could have, Miss Waxman.” I touch her shoulder, soft in a nubby chenille sweater. “Maybe we can have lunch sometime.”
A look of horror skitters across her face. “Oh, no, I eat at my desk.”
“Every day?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The phones. I have to get the phones.” She nods.
“Can’t the law clerks get the phones? We take turns in our chambers, so everyone can have lunch.”
“Judge Galanter doesn’t think law clerks should answer the telephone.”
“Why?”
She looks blank. Ours is not to question why.
He wants to keep the calls confidential, I bet. “I guess he has his reasons.”
She purses her lips, inexpertly lined with red pencil. “He says you don’t need a legal education to answer a telephone.”
I wince at the insult to her, but her expression remains the same. “We’ll see about that, Miss Waxman.”
She smiles uneasily.
I spot Artie making copies at the Xerox machine on my way back to chambers. “Just the hunk I want to see.”
“The Artman. Making copies. Copy-rama,” he says, lapsing into an old routine from
“How are you doing, handsome?”
“Gracie Rossi. Single mother. Former lawyer. Very horny.” He grins and makes another copy.
“I get it. Now cut it out.”
“You’re no fun,” he says in his own voice. He flips a long page over and hits the button. “What are you doin’ in the enemy camp?” He leans over confidentially. “Find any evidence?”
“Not yet. Listen, you busy tonight?”
“Me? It’s atrophied, babe. It’s fallen off. It’s lying in the parking lot across the street. You know that speed bump? That’s it.” He laughs.
“Artie, you’ll be okay. You’ll fall in love again.”
“I’m not talkin’ about love, Grace. I’m over love. I’m talking about jungle fuckin’.”
I pretend not to be shocked, it dates me. Besides, I have something to accomplish. I need to talk to Winn, face-to-grimy-face. “Listen, since you’re free, how about you come to my house for dinner tonight? You can even bring your side-kick.”
“She broke up with me. Had a crush on my friend, what can I say? I had her body, not her heart.” He shakes his head. “Can you believe I loved her for her
“You’re growing up. Anyway, I meant Shake and Bake.”
“The Shakester. The Shakemeister. Shake-o-rama,” he says, singsong again. “Real smelly. Schizophrenic.”
“Wash him up first, okay? So he doesn’t terrify Maddie. Or Bernice.”
“The Madster. Little cutie. In the first grade.”
“Artie, stop.”
He comes back to reality and hits the button. “You really want me to bring Shake and Bake?”
“I thought it would be nice. Do my part, sort of.” White lie number 7364.
“Is your kid ready to meet the oogie-boogie man?”
“I married the oogie-boogie man, pal.”
He smiles. “What are you makin’ for dinner?”
“What do you care? I can beat Frosted Flakes.”
“Hey, last night I had Cocoa Krispies, from the Variety Pak. You know those little boxes?”
“Maddie likes those, too. So come to dinner. You can have Lucky Charms for dessert.”
“You want to make me a good-bye dinner?”
“Good-bye? I didn’t say that.” I feel a pang: too many good-byes lately.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m outta here. Headin’ for the junk blondes in NYC. I picked out a crib this weekend.” He doesn’t look so happy about it. “This is the lease.”
“So when do you go?”
“Next week. Cravath’s taking me early.”
“You’re in the army now.”
“Tell me about it.” He looks at his lease with contempt. “You have to be a lawyer to understand this friggin’ thing.”
“You
“Suckers.” He laughs. “So will you look this over for me?” He holds up the lease, a standard form.
“The landlord always wins. That’s all you have to know.”
“That’s just what Safer said.” He shakes his head. “What a dick. He’s in there, sittin’ by the phone.”
“Why?”
“Waiting for that call from Scalia.”
“They call?”
“Except for Rehnquist. He got turned down once, so he makes his secretary call.”
I think of the letter I saw on Galanter’s desk. “Think he’ll get it?”
“The Eight Ball says yes. Isn’t that so lame?”
“It’s a toy, Artie, remember?”
He looks at me, dead serious all of a sudden. “It’s always right, Grace.”
I almost laugh: $150 an hour. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Later, after work, we drive to my house together. Artie sits in the front seat and Winn sulks in the back, in an apparent psychotic funk because Artie made him take off his rain bonnet. When we reach the expressway, Artie turns to the news station for the basketball scores, but Winn wants the Greaseman, another misogynist with a microphone. He reaches between the seats and presses the black button for the Greaseman’s station.
“On!” he says. “We want the Greaseman.”
Artie punches the KYW button. “No Greaseman. Greaseman sucks.”
“Greaseman. Greaseman!”
“Be good, Shakie,” Artie says.
