Mistress of Justice (38 page)

The opposing counsel began the formalities: “Your honor, I move for dismissal of—”

“Mitchell!” a woman’s voice called from the back of the courtroom.

The judge looked up, glaring at the intrusion. Everyone in the gallery and the jury box swiveled to watch Taylor Lockwood hurry down the aisle.

“It’s customary to ask permission before shouting in my courtroom, young lady,” the judge snapped sarcastically.

“Forgive me, sir. I need to speak to plaintiff’s counsel for a moment.”

Hanover’s lawyer said, “Your honor, I—”

The judge waved him silent and nodded Taylor forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“I
am
sorry, your honor,” Taylor Lockwood said.

Judges were public servants, catering to the will of the people, but as her father had reminded from a young age, you could never be too deferential to jurists or, as he put it even to grade-school Taylie, you could never kiss too much judicial ass.

She walked to Reece and handed him an envelope. Inside was the promissory note, looking as mundane and matter-of-fact as the copy he’d showed her at their first meeting.

Mitchell Reece took out the document and exhaled slowly.

“Your honor, at this time the plaintiff would like to introduce Exhibit A.” He handed it to the opposing counsel, who looked at Taylor with a gaze of distilled hate. “No objection.” He returned the note to Reece’s unsteady hands.

Reece walked back to his favorite space, in front of the jury box. “Your honor, before continuing with my case, I first must apologize to the court and to the jury for this delay.” He smiled contritely. The six men and women smiled
or nodded back and forgave him; the interruption had added an element of drama to the case.

“Fine, fine, Mr. Reece, let’s move this along,” the judge grumbled, his chances for a fast escape to golf or tennis ruined.

“One moment, your honor.” The Hanover & Stiver attorney bent toward one of his clients, probably Lloyd Hanover, Taylor guessed, to judge from his slick, tanned appearance, which matched what Reece had told her of him. After a bit of conversation the attorney stood up. “Approach the bench again? With opposing counsel?”

The judge gestured them up. The defense lawyer said, “Your honor, my clients would like to present a settlement offer to the plaintiff.”

The judge lifted an eyebrow to Reece. Taylor’s father had also taught his daughter that settlement was the Holy Grail of judges. Burdened by an endless workload, they infinitely preferred the parties’ agreeing to work out their differences rather than slugging it out at trial. The judge might even be able to get in nine holes today.

“We’ll entertain it,” Reece said stiffly.

The lawyer moved closer to Reece and whispered, “Look, you can get a judgment entered for the face value of the note plus interest but there’s no way there’ll be enough cash left in the company to collect that much by the time you enforce it. Not to mention your legal fees’ eating up a lot of the rest.”

“A number,” Reece said. “Just give me a number.”

“I—”

The judge: “Give him a number.”

“Sixty-five cents on the dollar.”

Reece said, “Eighty cents on the dollar. U.S. cash, not negotiable instruments or assets or tangible property, even gold.”

“We’re trying to be cooperative. But we have to be realistic,” Hanover’s lawyer said. Then he added ominously, “The money just won’t be there in a few months.”

“Then we’ll just have to go a-lookin’,” Reece said
cheerfully. “Now, Lloyd Hanover personally guaranteed the debt. I’m ready to interrogate—excuse me,
depose
—every one of his relatives and every business associate of his for the past ten years to find out where he hid the money.”

“He didn’t hide—”

“We’ll look into every deal he’s ever been involved in, every charity he ever gave money to, his kid’s college funds.”

“He’s completely innocent of secreting funds if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Reece shrugged. “Dismissal without prejudice. Eighty cents on the dollar. Cash. And we close within one week. If not, then Lloyd Hanover and everybody he’s ever known won’t have a minute’s peace.”

The lawyer held his eye for a moment and strode back to his client, who listened, gave a searing look to Reece then whispered something to the lawyer.

When the man returned he said, “Agreed.”

Reece nodded and said, “We’ll execute the stipulation now.”

“We don’t want to take the court’s time. I suggest—”

“I think his honor would prefer to spend a few extra minutes now rather than risk being back here in a few weeks for a full-fledged trial. Am I right about that, your honor?”

“You are, Mr. Reece. Write out the stipulation by hand and we’ll get it signed up.”

The defense lawyer sighed and scurried back to give the bad news to the client.

After the paperwork was completed hands were shaken among comrades, glares delivered between opponents and the courtroom emptied.

In the courthouse rotunda, the New Amsterdam vice presidents and executives clustered together, enjoying their relief. Taylor followed Reece to a small vestibule that contained public phones, which unlike most in the city were in old-fashioned booths with closing doors. He pulled her inside one and kissed her hard. After a moment he released
her and leaned back. “What on earth happened? Where were you?”

“I was almost through searching Clayton’s office but he came in early to take care of some last-minute things for the merger. I hid in the bathroom.”

“Jesus. What happened then?”

“About nine or so he had to use the john. But I unscrewed the lightbulbs before he got there. So he went up the hall. When he did I grabbed the last stack of paper and ran down to my cubicle with them. I found all of this in the envelope the note was in.”

Reece took the sheets of paper that Taylor offered. Shaking his head, he looked at them closely. A copy of a letter to the
National Law Journal
. “Re: Careless Security Costs Firm Client.” The letter blamed Burdick and the executive committee. There was also a typewritten list with the names of several other clients and cases that Clayton was going to sabotage while, presumably, shifting the blame to Burdick.

From her purse Taylor then took a small tape recorder and held up a tiny microcasette. “This was in the envelope too.” She inserted the cassette into the player and hit a button. They heard Reece’s voice, thick with static, talking to her about the promissory note. She shut it off.

“Son of a bitch,” Reece said. “He bugged my office. That’s how he knew we were after him. He’s known all along. He …” Then Reece paused and looked at his watch. “Oh, no.”

“What?

“The firm’s voting on the merger any minute now. We’ve got to tell Donald about this. It’ll change everything.”

He grabbed the phone and dug in his pocket for some change.

Perpetual motion does exist.

In business, in fact, where the mere laws of science
mean zip compared with the power of greed and ambition, it’s one of the essential principles.

Donald Burdick sensed the undercurrent of this energy surrounding each partner as he or she entered the big conference room. Mostly they were uneasy. They lingered at the door, pretending to leave messages with the conference room secretary, pretending to wait for comrades so they might enter with human shields, or at least with allies to deflect the glare of the partners representing the other side of the merger issue from theirs.

As always, few of the younger partners would make eye contact with Burdick but this morning he felt this evasion was due not to distance in social station but to hostility on the part of his opponents and shame in the hearts of those who had betrayed him.

The Danish pastries on the Limoges china, the coffee in the sterling urn were practically untouched. Burdick, looking down, reviewed a loan document that did not need reviewing. He heard conversations about the Jets and Giants, about concerts, about vacations, about closings, about the faux pas of opposing counsel, about the Supreme Court’s latest excursions to Olympus, about rumors of other law firms breaking up.

Finally, at eleven o’clock, Burdick started to call the meeting to order. He was about to ask for a quorum vote when:

“Excuse me,” said Randy Simms, whom Donald Burdick couldn’t help but picture as a handsome leech.

“Yes?” Burdick drew the word out threateningly.

Simms said, “We’re not all present.”

Eyes coursing leisurely around the table, Burdick said, “But we have a quorum.”

“Well, Mr. Clayton isn’t here.”

“Either we have a quorum, in which case the meeting proceeds, or we do not, in which case it doesn’t. Whom that quorum is made up of is not, to my memory, an issue of any concern in
Robert’s Rules of Order.”

“I’m just thinking that it might be appropriate—” But the slick young sycophant’s words were interrupted by a bold knock. The door opened and Burdick’s secretary walked inside with a sealed envelope. Ignoring everyone in the room, the older partner took it, slit the seal open with his gold pen and read the note. He handed it to Bill Stanley, who blinked in surprise.

Burdick said, “If you’ll excuse us for a moment please. There’s something that needs attending to. We’ll adjourn for fifteen minutes. Bill, you come too.”

Donald Burdick was as angry as Taylor had ever seen him. He glanced at her and she looked away from his towering fury.

They sat in Burdick’s office. Bill Stanley was on the couch, a fat ankle resting on a fat knee, and read over the papers Taylor had found in Clayton’s office.

Stanley muttered, “What a stupid, stupid thing to do.”

But Burdick was venting at Reece. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the note?”

Reece said, “It was a judgment call. I didn’t want word to get out. I had my own way of handling it.”

“You almost lost the case,” Burdick spat out. “You almost got yourselves killed.”

Reece withstood the anger easily. “Clayton wasn’t going to hurt us. I’m sure the car incident was just to scare us. As far as losing goes, well, yes, I took that chance.”

“You risked our client because you were afraid you’d lose your job.”