Rough Justice

'Maybe he said. Give me a break here. I'm trying to figure this out. What did he say about the errands? Can you remember?'

Bean closed his eyes as he thought. His eyelids fluttered, slightly greasy.

'Didn't you ask him, 'Why you need a shave today, Eb?' 'Why are you all dressed up today, Eb?' '

'Hush now and let me think. You an impatient, impatient woman.'

Bennie clammed up.

'Eb used to say somethin' 'bout 'inspection,' ' Bean said slowly, and opened his eyes.

'Building inspections?'

'Maybe that was it.'

Bennie was thinking of Steere's city properties. They would have to be inspected every year. Steere's violations were notorious. Somebody had to be looking the other way. Somebody who was working the angles and got paid in cash. 'That was when?'

'You're takin' me back now.'

'Twenty, thirty years?'

'Maybe. I don't remember.'

'When was the last time you saw Eb?'

'Don't know. I los' track of him. Heard he los' his place, moved away. Drinkin' all the time. Don't know where he is now. Ain't seen him.'

Bennie paused, debating whether to tell Bean what had become of Darning. She couldn't tell him that Eb was the homeless man Steere killed. The information was privileged, and Rosato & Associates was in unethically deep shit as it was. But she couldn't just leave him in the dark. 'Bean, I'm sorry, but I think Eb may have been murdered.'

'Thas' too bad,' he said, but Bean's expression didn't change. It was strange to Bennie because the man had a huge heart.

'You don't seem that upset.'

'I ain't upset. I ain't surprised neither.'

'Why?'

'It happens.'

'Murder?'

Bean nodded, and Bennie did feel silly. 'The killer won't get away with it.'

Bean just smiled.

'He won't. Not if I can help it,' she said, then caught herself. What was she saying? Steere was her client, a Rosato client. Bennie's firm was being paid to get him off. Wait a minute. Was that what had happened? Was that why Mary had been shot? Why Marta disappeared? Were they working to get to the bottom of Darning's murder, with a mind to hanging Steere? Their own client?

Bennie couldn't let that happen. Not to her firm, not to her practice. It could ruin them all. If Steere was a killer, it wasn't the job of his own lawyers to bring him to justice. That would be a betrayal, a violation of the ethical duty that made the most sense to her. Loyalty.

Bennie had to put a stop to it. She stood up, grabbed her coat, and slipped it on. 'I gotta go, Bean. Thanks a lot for the information.'

'It's still snowin' out there. Why don't you set until it slows up?'

'No thanks.'

'I could trim that mop on your head.'

'Gotta run,' Bennie said as she hit the cold air.

34

Judge Rudolph pondered the bad news propped up on his elbow next to his snoring wife, reluctant to leave the warmth of his king-size four-poster. The judge had been fast asleep when he got a call from his law clerk telling him that two of Steere's lawyers were missing or shot and security guards had been murdered. Christ, if it wasn't one thing it was another. Judge Rudolph knew he had a terrible night ahead and it would begin as soon as his bare toes hit the cold hardwood floor. He had some concern for the lawyers, but he had to keep his focus clear. What about his elevation to the Court?

'How long, Lord?' Judge Rudolph muttered to himself as he swung his skinny legs out from under the white baffle comforter. His feet chilled on contact with the hardwood floor that Enid refused to cover with anything as plebeian as a rug. He scurried to the bathroom in his boxer shorts and stood shivering on the rag bath mat. It was too cold in this damn house. Enid kept the thermostat at 68 degrees, and his toes were blue half the time. The judge hugged himself to get warm and wiggled his feet on the bath mat. He wasn't moving off that rug. The tile floor would be ice.

The judge inched the bath mat over to the toilet with his toes. He'd have to get to chambers and deal with this mess. The snowstorm howled outside the bathroom window. He'd call the sheriff to drive him in. Not even a blizzard would stop him. It would take more than an act of God to keep Harry Calvin Rudolph from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

The judge lifted the seat up. It would take a minute since that go-round with his prostate. But he was okay, he was fine, he still had a long career ahead. Breathe in, breathe out. Reeeee-lax, like the doctor said. Say it slow, 'Reeeee-lax.' Then it came, with his thoughts.