Final Appeal (23 page)

“Fuckin’ A,” the man says, in a voice I almost recognize. He takes the paper and slips it into a pocket.

Who is this man?

I get my answer when he turns around. In one terrifying instant he passes in front of the bathroom on the way out. I don’t see his face clearly, but the mustache is a giveaway, as is the glint of an official marshal badge.

Al McLean.

My mouth goes dry. I hold my breath as I hear the outer door to chambers open, then close behind him. He jiggles the doorknob to make sure it’s locked.

McLean. Christ. And he was the one on duty the night Armen was killed. I wait in the bathroom a minute, not surprised to be perspiring. I wipe my forehead and tiptoe into the office. I want to know what McLean was looking at, and what he took.

I walk over to the polished desk, stand in the same position he did, and flick on the flashlight. Everything is upside down, all the papers and correspondence that tie a circuit judge to the outside world. In a stack on the middle pile is a group of yellow message slips, written in the careful script of Galanter’s secretary, Miss Waxman. The first two messages are from Judge Foudy and Judge Townsend.
PLEASE CALL BACK
, the secretary has checked. But the three messages after those are from Sandy Faber.

The reporter. The same one who’s been phoning me and everyone in our chambers. The latest message, recorded at 4:58, says
IMPORTANT
! in letters so perfect they could be printed.

What did Faber find out? And whose message did McLean take?

It could be Faber’s, since the three preceding it were from him. But it ain’t necessarily so; the odds are worse than a flip of the coin. I decide to check the phone log tomorrow; it will have copies of each message. It’s too risky to stay tonight.

I set the messages down the way I found them. Underneath is a small squarish envelope, its address the tiny Gothic typescript characteristic of only one institution: the Supreme Court of the United States.
Hobnob with the Supreme Court
, Artie said.
Position himself for the next appointment
. I open the stiff envelope.

What’s inside is a surprise.

A note from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, thanking Galanter for his recommendation letter on behalf of Ben Safer. Incredible. Ben doesn’t even clerk for Galanter. I read it again, then slip it back in the envelope. I stack everything up the way it was, three-inch messages on top, small cards under that, letters next, then briefs. Strict size order, calibrated to telegraph
CONTROL
.

Boy, am I going to hate working for Big Chief Galanter.

26

G
alanter’s office gleams in the morning light, all sparkling surfaces with sharp edges. Glass glistens in front of the many photos of him with other judges; his collection of rare books rots behind locked glass doors. Even the furniture is shiny, covered with a polished cotton in navy stripes. It’s more the domain of a corporate CEO than a judge with a public-record income of $130,000. I always thought Galanter had family money; I never knew it was money from the Family.

The problem is, he isn’t hiring.

“I have my own clerks,” he says, looking down at me from behind his desk chair. His cigar sits in a Waterford ashtray on the desk. “They’re all full-time.”

“But you get a part-time assistant as chief judge. It’s in the budget already, for the administrative work.”

“My law clerks can handle it until I hire one. Judge Gregorian waited several months to hire you, as I recall.”

“The Judicial Conference meets soon. You’ll need to be briefed.”

“I can read.” He thrusts my memo at me, a heavy hint to scram. I rise from the stiff-backed chair.

“I’d recommend that they get to the misconduct complaints first, then. There are eight backed up, and Washington likes us to stay on top of them.”

“Washington?”

“They monitor the complaints, even keep a report on their disposition by all the chief judges. You don’t want to make that list, it’s a black mark. In Washington.” I turn to go, hoping he’ll call me back. I get as far as the door, ten feet farther than I predicted.

“You say there are eight, eh?”

“Last time I looked. We set them aside to do
Hightower
, and they just kept on coming.”

“How long do they take?”

“The research, a while. Then we get the record and review it. That takes time too. At least a week per complaint.”

He puts his hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels. “I don’t have the space for you. I’m gutting your office when I move. It needs redoing.”

Fuck you very much. “I can work in your law clerks’ office.”

“No.”

Good thing I have a strong ego. “I can work in the library on the first floor.”

He examines his nails. “Of course, I would hire my own assistant eventually.”

“I want to get back to practice anyway.”

“I’d have no time to supervise you.”

“I don’t need supervision, just a paycheck.” A sympathetic note, to make him feel like the regent he thinks he is.

“Miss Waxman?” he calls out the door. His oppressed secretary materializes at the other entrance to his office; she’s probably been hovering there, waiting for him to bark. A civil service retirement is the only reason this sweet-faced soul would stay with such a tyrant. “You two have met, haven’t you?” Galanter says.

“Sure. Hello, Miss Waxman.”

Built like a medium swirl of soft ice cream, she nods at me but says nothing.

“Give her the drafts as you finish them, then I’ll take it from there. If I need you, I’ll call.”

“Fine.” I start to go, then do Peter Falk as Columbo. “Where should I put the drafts so I don’t have to bother you? I used to put them in a box on our secretary’s desk.”

He looks at Miss Waxman. “Miss Waxman, make a place on your desk for a bin.”

She nods.

“I could show you what I mean, Miss Waxman,” I say to her.

She glances at Galanter for permission, and he dismisses us with a wave that says: Women, so concerned with the details! Then he picks up the phone. “Close the door,” he says.

I close the heavy door and meet Miss Waxman at her desk in front of the door to the law clerks’ office. Next to her computer keyboard is the phone log I need to see, with the standard four message slips to a page. Galanter couldn’t have gotten too many calls this morning, so the copy of the message McLean took should be on the top page.

“I thought it would help if I knew where to put the papers,” I say, moving closer to the open log book. “I don’t know how you do things here.”

She nods slightly. Her bangs are arranged in tiny spit curls around her face; an aging Betty Boop, down to the spidery eyelashes. “We do them the way the judge wants them,” she says in a soft voice.

I look at the log. The top four messages are: Judge Richter at 9:00, Judge Townsend at 9:15, Chief Judge Wasserman of the Second Circuit at 9:16, and one at 9:20 from Carter at the Union League. Damn; a busy morning. It’s not on the top page; it must be on the page underneath. I touch the spot next to the log. “Do you think it should go here? It just might fit.”

“If you think that’s okay, Miss Rossi.”

“Please, call me Grace.”

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

“Please. We’ll be working together.”

She nods deferentially; the master-slave relationship, she understands it perfectly. This I can’t abide. “Where would
you
like to put the box, Miss Waxman? It’s your desk, after all.”

“I don’t know.” Her brow knits with worry, cracking her pancake makeup into tectonic plates. Sometimes free will is not freeing. “I just don’t know. Whatever you think, Miss Rossi. Grace.”

I pat the surface near the log again and spot a photograph of a wicker basket full of silver toy poodle puppies, with frizzy gray pompadours. “Maybe here?”

“No!” she blurts out. “But, I mean, if you want to.”

“No, that’s all right. Whatever you want.”

She touches her cheek. “It’s just that…my dogs are there. Their picture. I like to see them when I work.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hide the picture.”

“But still, if you—”

“Please, I understand. I have a dog too.” And now I have an idea. A wonderful, nasty, awful idea. I feel like the Grinch. “It’s a big dog, though.”

“I like big dogs too,” she says. Interest flickers in her pale gray eyes.

“Actually, I adopted Judge Gregorian’s dog, Bernice.”

“You did? I heard she was given to the Girl Scouts.”

“No. She was at the Morris Animal Refuge.”

A horrified gasp escapes her lips. “Why, that’s a
dog pound
.”

“I know.”

She gazes at me with an awe better directed at Madame Curie. “Well, aren’t you kind!”

I look away guiltily and pick up the dog picture. Its frame is flimsy, from a card shop. The puppies look at me with abject trust, like their mistress. “They’re so cute, Miss Waxman.”

She beams with a mother’s pride. “They do all sorts of tricks. I taught them. They’re smart as whips.”

“They look it.” Coal-black eyes, little button noses.

“This one grew up to be a champion.” She points at the one in the center, but how she can tell them apart I’ll never know; each one looks as yappy as the next. “That’s Rosie, my baby. My champion.”

“A champ? Really?” I take an invisible deep breath and let the picture slip from my fingers. It hits the carpet and the frame self-destructs on impact. I feel like shit on toast, but it had to be done.

“Oh! Oh!” Miss Waxman exclaims, hands fluttering to her rouged cheeks. She bends over instantly to rescue the picture, and I flip the top page of the phone log over.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, reading the four preceding telephone messages, recorded in carbon copies. All four are from Sandy Faber. I counted only three messages from Faber on Galanter’s desk, so that means the one McLean took was from Faber too. “I hope it’s not broken.”

“It came apart,” she wails.

“I feel terrible.” I flip a page back, then another. A bunch of judges. Cavallaro and the other Mob names would be farther back, presumably before the
Canavan
argument, but I don’t have time to look now. I turn back to the top page. “Here, Let me help.”

“That’s all right, I have it.” Waxman finishes gathering up the frame, and when she straightens up, her eyes are glistening with tears.

I feel awful. “Let me fix it, Miss Waxman. If I can’t, I’ll replace it. I’ll buy you fifty, I swear.” I take the assembly from her with a gentle tug.

“It doesn’t matter. I can get another,” she says, ashamed of her reaction.

“Let me try.” I replace the piece of plastic in the square well, then put the photo over it and close the back. One of the brass clips has gotten bent, so I bend it back with a thumb. I breathe a sigh of relief for my immortal soul. “There you go. I really am sorry.”

She turns it over in her hands. “Why, it’s good as new!”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“I could never have done that.”

“Of course you could have, Miss Waxman.” I touch her shoulder, soft in a nubby chenille sweater. “Maybe we can have lunch sometime.”

A look of horror skitters across her face. “Oh, no, I eat at my desk.”

“Every day?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The phones. I have to get the phones.” She nods.

“Can’t the law clerks get the phones? We take turns in our chambers, so everyone can have lunch.”

“Judge Galanter doesn’t think law clerks should answer the telephone.”

“Why?”

She looks blank. Ours is not to question why.

He wants to keep the calls confidential, I bet. “I guess he has his reasons.”

She purses her lips, inexpertly lined with red pencil. “He says you don’t need a legal education to answer a telephone.”

I wince at the insult to her, but her expression remains the same. “We’ll see about that, Miss Waxman.”

She smiles uneasily.

I spot Artie making copies at the Xerox machine on my way back to chambers. “Just the hunk I want to see.”

“The Artman. Making copies. Copy-rama,” he says, lapsing into an old routine from
Saturday Night Live
. “At the Xerox.”

“How are you doing, handsome?”

“Gracie Rossi. Single mother. Former lawyer. Very horny.” He grins and makes another copy.

“I get it. Now cut it out.”

“You’re no fun,” he says in his own voice. He flips a long page over and hits the button. “What are you doin’ in the enemy camp?” He leans over confidentially. “Find any evidence?”

“Not yet. Listen, you busy tonight?”

“Me? It’s atrophied, babe. It’s fallen off. It’s lying in the parking lot across the street. You know that speed bump? That’s it.” He laughs.

“Artie, you’ll be okay. You’ll fall in love again.”

“I’m not talkin’ about love, Grace. I’m over love. I’m talking about jungle fuckin’.”

I pretend not to be shocked, it dates me. Besides, I have something to accomplish. I need to talk to Winn, face-to-grimy-face. “Listen, since you’re free, how about you come to my house for dinner tonight? You can even bring your side-kick.”

“She broke up with me. Had a crush on my friend, what can I say? I had her body, not her heart.” He shakes his head. “Can you believe I loved her for her
mind? Me?
It’s gorky.”

“You’re growing up. Anyway, I meant Shake and Bake.”

“The Shakester. The Shakemeister. Shake-o-rama,” he says, singsong again. “Real smelly. Schizophrenic.”

“Wash him up first, okay? So he doesn’t terrify Maddie. Or Bernice.”

“The Madster. Little cutie. In the first grade.”

“Artie, stop.”

He comes back to reality and hits the button. “You really want me to bring Shake and Bake?”

“I thought it would be nice. Do my part, sort of.” White lie number 7364.

“Is your kid ready to meet the oogie-boogie man?”

“I married the oogie-boogie man, pal.”

He smiles. “What are you makin’ for dinner?”

“What do you care? I can beat Frosted Flakes.”