Killer Smile

“Gentlemen! Marc, please! Sit down! I want this on the record! Mary? Where’s Mary?”

Under here. Mary wasn’t ready to come out yet. They weren’t hitting each other, and she needed a minute alone to think. She crouched under the table with her phone. Keisha wanted to meet her at five o’clock? How would she ever make that? She checked her watch. 4:35. The dep would go to until six, easy, and at this rate even later. And on top of it, Eighteenth amp; Walnut was ten blocks away.

“I never said I had a perfect marriage! And Courtney didn’t mean anything to me! At least I didn’t leave my wife and kids for her! I have some self-control, unlike you!”

“Oh, please! You just don’t have the balls to leave! You’ve been miserable for years, but it’s easy to stay! It’s simple! You’re just settling! You don’t know what real love is!”

“Don’t lecture me about love, Marc! Love is stickin’ by somebody, no matter what! Good times, bad times! You bailed on Linda when it got tough! Just like you bailed on me!”

“Mary? Mary!” Baker said, and the next minute his mustachioed face popped underneath the table, where she was on all fours with her cell phone. His eyes narrowed in professional anger. “Mary! Get off the phone and talk to your client! He’s out of control!”

“Shhh!” Mary said, hushing him with an index finger to her lips, and both lawyers fell silent for a minute.

“I didn’t bail on you, Jeff! You bailed on me! You’re the one who wants to dissolve the partnership! You sent me the termination letter!”

“Only because you’re never around! You showed no interest! I was carrying you! It was always her and the trips to Tortola! What, can’t the broad stay home for one second?”

“It’s Tortuga!”

“Same difference. Anyway I thought it was Tobago. You said Tobago.”

“Oh right.” A pause. The decibel level lowered above the table. “You’re right. It is Tobago.” An uncomfortable laugh emanated from the plaintiff’s side, followed by one from the defendant’s side.

“If it ain’t Jersey, I’m lost.”

“Me, too.” They both laughed again.

Awww. Mary came out from under the table, slipped her cell back into her purse, and straightened up on her side at the same time that Baker straightened up on his side. “Joe,” she said, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yes,” he answered, and his handlebar twitched in a way that suggested he was smiling. “Off the record,” he said to the court stenographer, who lifted his hands from the keys.

Mary put a gentle hand on Eisen’s shoulder. “Jeff, I think this marriage can be saved. Why don’t we end this deposition, and Joe and I drop out for a while? I think you and Marc should go to dinner and see if you can settle this thing. Go to that French restaurant you took me to. Smoke yourself silly.”

“Maybe,” Eisen said uncertainly, and across the table, Joe was nodding at his client.

“I agree. It’s a good idea, Marc. You two can resolve this thing without us. If you don’t, we can always continue the dep. You’re the plaintiff, it’s your call.”

Schimmel frowned so deeply that fissures appeared in his tan forehead like cracks in dry clay. Mary read his eyes. It wasn’t going to be that easy. He wasn’t sure, but she was. She had to get to Eighteenth amp; Walnut. Ten blocks in ten minutes. Keisha could be in trouble.

“Marc,” she said, talking across the table, “you’re the one who came to the deposition, when you weren’t going to. I think you did that because you were mad. So go out and yell at each other. Get it out of your system. Even a lawyer knows that peace is better than war, if you don’t make a habit of it.”

Marc looked at Eisen. Joe looked at Mary. Mary looked at her watch. 4:49. She had to go. Ten blocks in ten minutes, at rush hour.

In the next minute, Schimmel smiled and said, “So. You smokin’ again, Jeff?”

Mary grabbed her exhibits and ran.

Thirty-Five

Mary hit the humid air outside with her purse swinging from her shoulder. Her briefcase weighed down her arm; she’d packed it for a deposition, not a sprint. She launched herself into the rush-hour crowds of businesspeople, salesclerks, and students heading for the trains at Suburban Station, SEPTA buses, and the subway line. She’d been going with the flow in the down elevator, now she was swimming upstream. And she still couldn’t swim.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, please!” she said, wedging sideways through a sea of loosened ties, damp oxford shirts, sweaty silk dresses, briefcases, laptops, backpacks, bulging shopping bags, and a rolling Samsonite overnighter that she tripped over. She checked her watch on the fly. 5:10. “Excuse me, please!” she said, pressing forward to Chestnut Street.

She reached the corner of Fifteenth amp; Chestnut just as the traffic light turned red and stepped off the curb anyway. A bus headed straight for her, and she jumped back on, almost side-swiped by a poster of J. Lo in the shower. 5:16. Fifteen minutes late. Would Keisha wait? Could she wait? The light stayed red for so long it seemed intentional. So many buses roared down the street Mary couldn’t slip across. She waited on the corner, sweated though her navy jacket, breathed in acrid diesel exhaust, cigarette smoke, and fading Shalimar. It took a long business day to kill Shalimar. Go! She took off at the very next break in traffic, sprinting into the street against the light and hitting a wall of people at the other side.

“Excuse me! May I get through!” she kept saying, plowing through the crowd. 5:23. Hurry!

Mary hustled her way to the curb and barreled ahead, still going against the grain, bonking her briefcase on a cab driving the other way on an always-congested Fifteenth. She grabbed it back, ran across Sansom, then headed through the crowds for Walnut. Only one block more to go, then a few more uptown. You could walk the entire business district in Philly in half an hour. Mary was trying to fly it. 5:34. The crowd was noisy, laughing and talking, many yapping on cell phones as they hurried along. The air was thick with noise, heat, and smoke, and somewhere Mary heard her cell phone ringing. She reached for her purse, grabbed the phone, and opened it:

help me! keisha

Mary felt her heart leap into her throat. Keisha was in danger. Go, go, go! She bolted full-tilt through the crowd, shoving people aside with her shoulder. Her thoughts raced her footsteps, outstripping them. Why didn’t Keisha call the cops? Mary couldn’t think of a reason, but she wouldn’t take a chance. She raced to the corner of Walnut Street, flipped open the phone on the run, and pressed speed dial for emergency. The dispatcher answered, and Mary shouted, “Please help! There’s a woman being attacked at Eighteenth amp; Walnut!”

“Eighteenth amp; Walnut?” The woman’s voice was calm and even. “Does the attacker have a gun?”

“I don’t know! I’m not an eyewitness!” Mary huffed, almost out of breath. “She just messaged me on my cell! She may not be able to talk!”

“How do you know she’s being attacked?”

“She said she needs help, on the cell. Send a squad car! I’m on my way there now!”

“You’re in a car?”

“No, I’m running. Please!”

“Eighteenth amp; Walnut, that’s Rittenhouse Square. How do you know where she is?” The dispatcher asked, but her question got lost when Mary banged into a businessman.

“Watch it!” he yelled. “Hang up and walk!”

“I was supposed to meet her there, on the corner at five! I think somebody got to her first because I was late! Ask Detective Gomez from Homicide! He knows all about it!” Mary was only using his name to bolster her credibility. She knew the two departments couldn’t be more separate, and there wasn’t time for a referral.

“Okay, stay on with me. Can you stay on with me?”

“Sure, yes. Thank you! Please hurry! Send a car!” Mary sprinted past Burberrys, rounded an overflowing wire trash can in front of McDonald’s, and jumped over a smashed Big Mac wrapper, scattering a trio of pigeons. She was only two blocks away. Go, go, go! “Are you sending a car?”