Rough Justice

That's what his boss had said, but he failed to add that falling on your sword was vastly overrated as a career move. Plus you're the one that has to go to work the next day with your spleen in your hand.

'Tom! Tom! The blankets! And the pacifiers!'

Tom rummaged on a flowery chair until he found two pink blankets that were too light to keep even a doll warm. He ran downstairs with them and stopped when he saw the devil sitting on the stair, finger still embedded. 'Hey, little dick,' Tom said under his breath. 'Find any diamonds?'

'Mom!' the kid wailed, and ran screaming.

Tom ran down to the living room where putrid, sulfurous smells arose from the screaming and crying. The air reeked of yellow baby shit, like mustard gas, and he detected a wheaty new stench, puked-up formula. The babies vomited like volcanoes— gastric reflux, according to his mother-in-law— and the lava on Tom's shoulder was already rancid. The house was so damn hot and his mother-in-law wouldn't let him open a window— Are you crazy? —because of the draft on the twins. Tom handed the battle-ax the blankets and fled on foot.

'You forgot the pacifiers. I said pacifiers!'

Tom veered left and hustled back to the stairway. He knew he was supposed to be happy but he wasn't. Everything had changed overnight. His wife had blown up like a balloon. His house was swollen with people. His career had been warped out of shape by the Steere case. He'd been working like a dog for a year now, unfortunately the same time as Marie got pregnant. He knew there would be some point when he would feel happy, but that time hadn't happened yet.

Tom raced across the nursery to the two pink dressers against the unpainted wall and tore open the first drawer by its bunny knob. Inside were itty-bitty undershirts and little hooded sleepers. He mushed them around. The twins wailed louder, shrill cries of the colicky floating up from the depths.

'Tom, the pacifiers!'

He dashed to the two Toys '' Us bags beside the two cribs. The white bags bulged like Santa's sack. A long receipt was stapled to the bag and Tom looked at the sticker in shock. Two hundred bucks!? He ripped into the bag. Two animal mobiles to make the babies calm. Two black-and-white cubes to make them smart. Two blue bunnies to make them sleepy. Two pacifiers to shut them up.

'Tom, hurry!'

Tom tore out of the room with the pacifiers and raced down the stairs. How would they afford two kids on his salary? Twice as many tuition bills. Double the doctor bills. Twice the clothing bills. Two weddings. Tom handed off the pacifiers, his wallet reeling.

'Tom! Get a water bottle!'

Tom ran to the kitchen where Marie sat at the table, engulfed by her sister and father. She winked at Tom from the center of their freckled circle. Everybody in Marie's family winked like they had Tourette's. Tom winked back and twisted on the tap. He had long ago stopped recognizing his wife, whose slim body vanished with their sex life. Marie had retained enough water to fill a swimming pool. Tom ran a shaking index finger under the tap.

'Tom! Tom! In here!'

Tom spun on his wingtips like a gyroscopic father. He didn't know where the sound was coming from, which demand to meet, the twins or the Macy's-balloon wife's or the bitchy mother-in-law's. Tom! Tom! Tom!

'Tom! The phone! The office!'

'Shit.' The office? The jury? The judge? The pacifiers? Tom left the water running and raced into his study, where the two other devils were drawing on his briefs with a crayon. SHIT FUCK PISS, they were writing. 'Sean, Colin, stop that,' Tom said. He took the crayon out of Sean's hand and gave him a scissors, then handed Colin a letter opener and shooed them both out of the room. Tom picked up the bottle, uh, the phone. 'Hello?'

'TOM!' boomed a man's voice over a speaker-phone. It was Bill Masterson, district attorney of the City of Philadelphia. Masterson's basso profundo echoed like the Wizard of Oz. Tom went weak in the knees. Oh, no. The only time Masterson called his assistants was to fire them. 'Tom, you're not here!' Masterson bellowed.

'I will be. I'm on my way.'

'I'm in, but you're not. I don't get it. Where are you, Moran?'

'At home.'

'Why are you there? Get your ass here!'

'Uh, they're still plowing me out.' Tom squinted out the window. Two cops were directing a snowplow down his street. The blade had fallen off the first plow and they had to jerry-rig another. 'I'll be right in.'

'Why the fuck were you there in the first place?'

'My wife had twins, sir.'

'I don't care. Get in here. Steve told me you'd be here an hour ago.'

'They sent a car for me, but it couldn't get through—'

'I don't care. You shouldn't have left the office.'

'I thought I had time. The jury was out.'

'I don't care. Don't you get it? Why the fuck did you leave the office?'

'To check on my wife and babies.'

'I don't care. Why do you think I care?'

Tom broke a sweat. The twins howled in the background. 'Tom!' someone yelled. 'TOM!'

'Tom!' Masterson barked. 'You tried Steere, yes?'