do mine. I want you to watch me at Stalling-”
“Now how am I gonna do that?” he explodes. “They’d recognize me. I couldn’t pass for a lawyer!”
“Put somebody else on the inside. You figure it out.”
“You’re safe at work. Everyone’s around.”
“Waters is here, Lombardo. If he’s the one-”
“Oh, this is rich! Change your mind about your boyfriend?”
“I’m taking no chances. You have to watch me here.”
“No way. I’ll cover you on the outside, but that’s it! I’ll put my buddy on Waters-on the outside. You call me on the beeper when you leave and when you go in. You work only during business hours, when everyone’s around. Your Amazon friend, you stay with her. After work, you go straight home. You got it? For three days.”
“Two weeks.”
“Four days.”
“Ten days.”
“Seven,” Lombardo says, finally. “That’s it. That’s all I’m doing. I’ll be damned if I’ll put a tail on every nervous Nellie in this city!Goddamned! ”
“Did you just cuss? In front of a lady?”
“I gotta go. I got a real job to do.”
“Not so fast. I need something else.”
“Jesus.”
“Information. Those files you told me about, the ones on Mike and Brent. Where are they now?”
“AID has ’em. I shipped ’em back. But you can’t get ’em.”
“Why not? They should be public record.”
“Not when the investigations are open. They’re not gonna give you an open file. Brent has all my notes, all the investigation notes, what leads they’re following-”
“That’s why I want it.”
“You can’t get it.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Seven days, Mary. That’s it.”
“And this is confidential, Lombardo. That we talked, that I’m investigating the files. All of it. I don’t want Berkowitz or anybody else at this firm to know about it. Understand?”
“I have better things to do.”
“Thank you. And have a happy day.”
Lombardo hangs up with a bang.
I hang up and exhale. So far, so good. While I’m still on a roll, I pick up the receiver and punch in four numbers.
“Mr. Berkowitz’s office,” Delia says.
“Hi, Delia, it’s Mary. Is he in yet?”
She hesitates. “Come on up.”
I bound up the stairs to Pride. Delia isn’t at her desk when I stalk to Berkowitz’s office, but the door is open slightly. I grit my teeth and burst in. And come face to face with the Honorable Morton A. Weinstein, the Honorable William A. Bitterman, and the Honorable Jeremy M. Van Houten, all of whom are sitting directly across from Berkowitz and looking rather startled.
“Oh…my. Oh.”
“Mary! Why don’t you come in and meet some of the hard-working members of the Rules Committee?” Berkowitz says heartily, as if I were expected. The three judges rise to their feet. In fact, they’re popping up and grinning, for me.
Bitter Man, the closest, grasps my hand with clammy fingers. “I know Miz DiNunzio, Sam. She was my research assistant on that article I published on federal court jurisdiction. I believe I sent you a reprint. It was in theYale Law Journal.”
Berkowitz nods sagely. “I remember, Bill.” He has no idea what Bitter Man is talking about.
“In fact, I bet I know more about Miz DiNunzio than you do,” Bitter Man says.
“Oh, really?”
“I know she’s an alto, for example. Quite a good alto at that. Am I right, Miz DiNunzio? An alto?” Bitter Man’s puffy lips break into a cynical smile.
I nod. You asshole.
“You mean like in singing?” Berkowitz asks. “How do you know that, Bill?”
My chest erupts into prickly blotches.
“I don’t know if I should say, Sam. Should it remain our little secret, Miz DiNunzio?”
Einstein steps in to save me, his distaste for Bitter Man evident. “Don’t let Brother Bitterman get to you, Ms. DiNunzio. We can dress him up, but we can’t take him out. You and I met just the other day, didn’t we? On theHart case?” He clasps my hand warmly.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You made a nice point in a tough spot.”
Berkowitz places a heavy arm around my shoulders. His pinstriped jacket reeks of cigarette smoke. “I’m not surprised, Morton. Mary is one of our finest young lawyers.”
I try to edge away from Berkowitz, blushing deeply. It erupts at my hairline and rushes straight down my chest, like lava down a volcano. I feel awkward and confused. I want to fuck back at him, but he’s co-opting the shit out of me. Anger is almost elbowed out of the way by Pride.
“Have you met Judge Van Houten, Mary?” Berkowitz says, giving my shoulders another squeeze. “He was appointed to the bench last year to replace Judge Marston.”
“I’m the rookie,” quips Van Houten, shaking my hand with a self-assured grin. His features are small and even, and his hair is as smooth and tawny as butterscotch. Good-looking, if you go for those Ken types. Judy calls him Golden Rod, because the scuttlebutt is that he gets around. Now I see why. “We were just discussing the issue of note-taking by jurors,” he says. “It’s the sort of thing that gets the academics all excited.”
“At least something does,” says Berkowitz, with a loud laugh. He slaps me on the back so hard I expect my contacts to take flight. Golden Rod thinks this is a real hoot too.
Einstein looks at them with tolerance over his little half-glasses. “You see, Mary, we conducted a survey to determine the bar’s view on the practice of note-taking by jurors. Unfortunately, we’re having a tough time coming up with a conclusion, because the findings were so diverse.”
“What a surprise,” Bitter Man says.
Einstein ignores him. “We have a meeting with the chief judge at noon today, so we should have learned something by then.”
“We learned one thing, right, gentlemen? Next time-don’t ask!” Berkowitz explodes into laughter and so does Golden Rod.
Bitter Man shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Miz DiNunzio, why don’t you share with us your view of the practice? Do you think jurors should be permitted to take notes during trial?”
The question catches me off guard. “I…uh…”
Einstein scoffs. “Come on, Bill, you’re not going to cross-examine her, are you? Court’s adjourned, for God’s sake.”
I look stupidly from Bitter Man to Einstein, waiting to see if I’m to perform. There’s so much tension between them, I don’t want to take sides.
“Now, Morton, don’t underestimate the woman,” Berkowitz says. “I’m sure she has an opinion. Don’t you, Mary?”
The three judges look at me expectantly. I do have an opinion, but it might not be the right opinion, which is Berkowitz’s. A week ago I would have avoided the question, but that was before I became the New Me. Now I say what I really think, possibly committing career hara-kiri:
“I think they shouldn’t. It distracts them. Their job is to hear the evidence and the testimony, then do a sort of rough justice.”
Einstein smiles.
