Rough Justice

'You want this when?' Mary asked, vaguely aware that she was not the first employee in America to ask this question.

Marta checked her watch and felt an already familiar tightening in the pit of her stomach. 'It's almost four- thirty. I need your answer by seven o'clock.'

'Seven?' Mary moaned. Her head was spinning, her shoulders drooped. 'Less than three hours?'

'Stop complaining. You don't have to draft a complete brief. There're no cases to research. Read the file and search the newspapers. Take notes on what you find.'

'But the kind of search you're talking about could take days. A week. I have to write the motion in limine, about the prints on the car.'

'The motion can wait. It's not that important. It's a loser anyway.'

'But the rest of the exhibits have to go to the jury first thing tomorrow. This morning you told me—'

'Mary,' Marta interrupted, 'this discussion is taking longer than the fucking search. Just do it.'

'Fine.' Mary suppressed the BURN IN HELL YOU BITCH rising in her gorge and began scribbling on her pad as if some legal inspiration had suddenly visited her, like the Holy Ghost. Definitely not cut out for this profession, Mary wrote. Convent looking better and better.

Marta turned to Judy. 'Your assignment will take longer, so get going. I'll meet with you after Mary. Figure on having an answer for me by eight o'clock. That should be time enough.'

'Time isn't the problem.' Judy shook her head. 'This is a wild-goose chase. I'm not going to find anything. The assignment doesn't make sense.'

'I'll explain this one more time.' Marta held her tongue, but it was hard to check her urgency. A time clock ticked in her mind. She didn't have time to fuck around. 'The Commonwealth has come up with after-discovered evidence, something that proves that Steere didn't kill in self-defense.'

'How do you know this?' Judy asked.

'I can't tell you. It's confidential.'

Judy was more taken aback than angry. 'From us? We're all on the same side.'

'Just do it, Carrier. I don't have time to fight with you.'

Mary wrote on her pad, I could take Angie's old room in the cloister. It had that tasteful wooden crucifix. The view was over the cemetery, but I'm not fussy. Anything away from the ice machine will do.

'I don't want to fight either,' Judy said. The higher pitch to her voice evinced confusion, not defensiveness. 'I'm just trying to understand your thinking.'

'You don't have to understand my thinking. You have to do your job.'

'How can I do my job if I don't understand it?'

'Your job is to do what I say when I say it!' Marta shouted suddenly. Her face reddened and a vein in her neck threatened to pop. 'I told you what to do and where to go. That's all you have to know. That's what you get paid for.'

I look good in black, it's slimming. I don't even need a double bed. Or cable.

Judy fell into a startled silence. Erect out of control? Something was wrong. Marta seemed almost panicky, but Judy couldn't imagine why; the woman had just kicked butt in a huge murder trial. The newspapers and Court TV were touting her as the best criminal lawyer in the country. Judy would have expected Erect to be gloating right now. Usually they had to applaud if she farted.

'I want that answer, Judy.' Marta stood up and snatched her coat from the chair. 'And I want it before the D.A. files their motion tomorrow morning.'

'We can deal with it then,' Judy said, struggling with her bewilderment. 'The judge will give us time to respond to anything they file. He can't make any kind of ruling without hearing from the defense.' Judy's arms opened, palms up in appeal.

Mary thought Judy looked just like the Blessed Mother with her arms like that. To Mary, all associates looked like the Blessed Mother at one time or another. Like supplicants, pleading for mercy and finding none. She wrote, I'll take Judy with me to the convent. She'll have to give up ESPN and ESPN 2, though. Not to mention that vow-of-silence thing.

Marta tugged her trench coat angrily over her shoulders. 'Don't you get it? I'm not about to let those clowns blindside me. I didn't get where I am by letting a D.A. get it over on me. If they have something on Elliot Steere, I want to know it and I want to know it as soon as they do.'

'We don't have the resources they do! They have thirty lawyers on this case, plus the cops.'

'You have no choice!' Marta shouted, full bore. 'You have a job, now do it and shut up!'

Judy's face smarted as if she'd been slapped. She stood up and squared off against Marta on the other side of the table. 'What if I refuse?'

'Then you're off the case and you leave Mary to do your assignment and hers. By eight o'clock.'

Holy Mary Mother of God. Shoot me now.

6

Marta steered her rental Taurus into the blizzard blowing down Locust Street. Flurries flew at the windshield, the wipers beat frantically, and the defroster whirred loud as a blow dryer. Still, the windows stayed foggy. Traffic lurched to a standstill, stuck. Exhaust fumes formed noxious plumes all the way down the street. Marta glanced at the car clock. 5:35. Her fingers gripped the wheel and she honked her horn at the Subaru in front of her. 'Move it,