Small Mercies (15 page)

“Fuck ’em, bro. They don’t know.”

He opens the door and strides to the elevator, not bothering to look into the offices he passes.

* * *

It was a small matter for a forgotten client. A regional bank, the type of client that had fallen out of favor with the firm’s management because really, how many billable hours could you squeeze from a backwater bank in Dover, Delaware? The bank had been acquiring other smaller banks around Delaware, trying to grow so they could compete with the big boys. Or, at least, survive. An employee had been tipping his friend about which banks were going to be acquired and the friend had bought the stock of those banks before acquisition and then sold them immediately after, netting himself a tidy profit, which he’d then split with his friend at the bank. Classic insider trading performed in outlandishly stupid fashion. As soon as the SEC got involved, the bank cut loose local counsel and called Dominic. Only Dominic had retired and the bank had been given Peter’s name instead.

So here they were.

The bank’s general counsel, a man named Wilson Temple, explained all of this to Peter in excruciating detail during a two-hour phone call. He stated several times that the bank had been founded in 1887 and each time, Peter wondered whether Mr. Temple had served as general counsel for the entirety of the bank’s existence. He pictured an ancient, withered shell of a man, hand shaking as he moved a magnifying glass over yellowed parchment.

“Of course, Peter, we aren’t entirely unconcerned about cost. In these trying times, a scattergood cannot prosper.”

Scattergood? Who was this guy? How the hell did he and Dominic ever meet? If the bank wanted to cut costs, it should keep Wilson Temple off the phone when the clock was running.

“So it would be appreciated if you staffed this matter very leanly, perhaps only yourself and a very junior associate.”

An image of Gina appeared in his head, soft and dreamlike.

“I’m sure we can accommodate you on that front, Mr. Temple.”

“Excellent.”

Another twenty minutes passed before Peter could extricate himself from the call. When he hung up, he exhaled and checked his e-mail in-box. Nothing pressing had streamed in. He looked at his schedule. Nothing pressing until a four o’clock conference call. He had a relatively open afternoon. He could get a little organized, clear his head, and maybe reconcile the internal conflict that had been fomenting in the three weeks since Gina Giordano had walked into his office.

Maureen was sipping tea from a large Styrofoam cup when he walked out of his office. She was always sipping tea, even in the dead of summer.

“Shit, Mo. What are you putting in that tea?”

“Language, Peter.”

“Your virgin ears.”

She put the cup down, gave him her serious look.

“What’s up?”

“I’m going to lunch. My usual.”

“Fancy.”

He looked down the hall to the closed door of Dom’s old office. He’d been gone since June. Didn’t feel completely right going to the diner without him.

“Miss your playmate?” Maureen asked.

“Yes,” Peter replied, honestly.

“What if your new playmate drops by?” she asked.

“New playmate?”

“Yeah, the one with the long black hair. The one who laughs at everything you say?”

Peter rolled his eyes.

“Good-bye, Mo.”

“Umbrella, Peter. It’s drizzling.”

“I don’t mind. I like the rain.”

“Bully for you,” she said and then turned back to her crossword puzzle.

* * *

The Splendid Diner was a greasy spoon joint on Fiftieth Street between First and Second avenues. Years earlier, Dominic had taken Peter here for his “welcome” lunch a few weeks after Peter landed at the firm. Peter was more than a little surprised—other people had been taken to Le Bernardin or Nobu or Sparks—until Dominic explained that since his heart attack, his wife had him on a strict low-cholesterol diet and the one thing he missed, really missed, was bacon and eggs. So he came here once a month to get his fix and he was sorry, really sorry, but he’d been on trial last month and missed his fix and he’d been dying for bacon and eggs and Peter was gonna have to fucking deal with it.

Dominic was the first person at the firm who made him feel comfortable. He wasn’t plastic. He was real. You could ask him about the Giants game. You could drop an f-bomb. He ate bacon and eggs in a shit-hole diner to avoid his wife’s wrath.

A waiter came to Peter’s booth. It had been a while, but he recognized Peter.

“You waiting for you friend?” he said in an accent Peter couldn’t place.

“No, just me today.”

“Same as usual? French toast with a side of sausage?”

“No. Two eggs, fried over easy, bacon, rye toast.”

The waiter scurried off with the order, Dominic’s old standby. Peter took a sip of his coffee.

Maureen had noticed. Not only noticed but said something to him. That was probably significant. Since their initial meeting, Gina had made a habit of dropping by his office every afternoon, ostensibly to talk about what she was working on, but the work talk inevitably gave way to a flirty repartee that left him breathless and addled. She possessed a sort of beguiling sensuality; when he was in her presence, it was difficult for him
not
to think about touching her. Kissing her. Making love to her.

Even when he wasn’t with her, he was thinking about her a lot. Too much. Not in a sexual way. Well, not only in a sexual way. It was like he’d rediscovered an old friend. One he’d grown up with but who also understood his life now. Strange as it was to admit it, it wasn’t so different from how he’d felt all those years ago when he first met Dominic. A kindred spirit in a foreign land. Only this time he was the experienced, elder statesman and Gina was the wide-eyed protégée.

Yes, it’s exactly like your relationship with Dominic. Except for the fact that you want to drape Gina over your desk and fuck her senseless.

The voice—the pragmatic, caution-urging voice—hadn’t grown softer with the passing weeks. If anything, it had gotten louder, developed a sarcastic and crass tone. He’d been arguing with it for the better part of a month.

He wasn’t a cheater, he told it; he didn’t have the stomach for it. He’d had opportunities to cheat, the surreptitious invitations that every married man detects. From bored neighbors with their suburban malaise and come-hither eyes. From his wife’s friends who chased their broods around his pool in revealing bathing suits, flaunting their reclaimed bodies right in front of him. Nothing explicit. Subtle little gestures that indicated a willingness, a restlessness. He’d never pursued any of them.

And he’d spent countless hours on various cases with a fair share of young, fetching female associates—working late hours, traveling together, lots of tension begging for release—and he’d never given them more than a passing thought. Not in that way.

You’re making my case for me.

He loved his wife. Sure, they didn’t have as much sex as they used to, as much as he would like, but he didn’t blame Linds. It was more his fault than hers. Long hours and unreasonable clients left him tired and irritable. The little energy he had left over was sucked clean by the kids. Six nights out of seven, he wanted sleep or the mind-dulling torpor that a few glasses of really good red wine provided. They’d settled into a routine, one that didn’t prioritize sex, and you couldn’t blame them. It was clichéd, but it was clichéd for a reason. He and Lindsay had been dating since their second year of law school. They’d gone through the humping frenzy of early love, the safe experimentations of settled monogamy, the clinical coitus of attempted procreation, the semi-abstinence of two pregnancies, the sleep-deprived sparsity of two infancies, the temporary revitalization afforded by procedural infertility. Sex was an important part of marriage, but it was elusive, inconsistent. They’d had peaks and valleys. Were presently in a valley and had been for some time.

So what? What they had together was more important than sex. A true companionship strengthened by their run together through the daunting fire of parenthood. Whenever anything happened to him, the first person he wanted to tell was Lindsay. She helped him noodle through problems of every sort: with work, with his family, with the kids. He’d even been tempted to tell her about Gina, as bizarre as that sounded, because there was very little he didn’t share with Lindsay. It felt odd to be thinking about something so much and not telling her.

Agreed. Very odd indeed. Like maybe a warning sign.

He loved his children, Amanda, nine, and Henry, six. He didn’t see them as much as he wanted, but when he did, they brought him joy. Amanda was a whirlwind, a precocious, intelligent girl who never ran out of energy or questions. A daughter was a marvelous wonder for a father; she opened a different place in his heart. Henry was quiet and thoughtful; he seemed to be attuned to a different world entirely. He hadn’t yet shown much interest in sports, but that might come with age. Even if it didn’t, who cared? He was a good kid. He reminded Peter of Bobby. A quieter, brighter version of Bobby.

He liked his life. He wasn’t going to throw it away in some predictable midlife crisis, wasn’t going to be one of those guys.

Then don’t. Find another associate for this case, an obeisant, fastidious drone, preferably one who wears ties.

How was that fair? Gina lost out on a good case—one that would have client contact, would involve witness prep and testimony, actual lawyering—because she was attractive? Because he had a temporary case of puppy love?

You suspect that the feelings are mutual. You hope they are.

He was fooling himself. She was twenty-six, beautiful, and engaged. He was forty, gone lumpy, and going gray. Married with two kids. Maybe she wasn’t flirting with him. Maybe she was a flirt, full stop. His ego was probably causing him to misinterpret her gestures.

The waiter dropped a plate in front of Peter and refilled his coffee.

“You need anything else?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Peter lifted his fork, creased opened the egg’s yolk, and watched the yellow run over the plate. He lifted a pepper shaker with his free hand and gently tapped the metallic top with his index finger, ushering tiny black flakes onto the eggs. He lowered the shaker and grabbed a piece of toast. He dabbed the butter-drenched toast into the flecked yellow and bit it. He’d watched Dominic do this a hundred times, savoring the small ritual of preparing his forbidden pleasure the way he liked it. He wondered what Dominic would advise him to do in this situation.

Call him. Call him right now and lay it out for him. All of it. You know what he’ll say.

“You’re wrong,” he said aloud. Two construction workers sitting at a table nearby turned their heads. Peter put a hand up in apology.

“Sorry. Arguing with myself.”

“Who’s winning?” said one of the guys, an enormous black man whose gut was trapped below the table. He laughed at his own joke and his stomach heaved, threatening to overturn the table. The other guy rolled his eyes for Peter’s benefit. They went back to their food. Peter picked up a piece of crisp bacon, snapped it in half, and put the two ends in his mouth.

The voice was wrong. If he’d learned anything from Dominic, if his entire relationship with Dominic carried a lesson, it was this: look out for your own. Dominic had said as much, had said precisely that, in fact, in this very diner.

“Look out for your own. No one else will. They’re too busy looking out for their own.”

He didn’t mean it in an ethnic or racial sense. Dom had recruited another young associate, Michael Morton—a black kid from the Bronx, had gone to Dom’s old Catholic high school—to the firm. He’d ended up on the corporate side so Dom could help only so much, but the guy eventually landed an in-house position at one of Dom’s biggest clients. Dom had written a sterling recommendation for Dave Hwang—an Asian kid from Queens, the son of immigrants—and helped him secure a position as a U.S. A in the Eastern District.

“Your own” meant something different to Dom: people who came from similar circumstances. Kindred spirits. A kid from the outer boroughs or a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh or Chicago or St. Louis. Or Sydney, Australia, for that matter. Someone who’d worked to get to the firm. Someone who hadn’t been handed things.

If Gina didn’t fit that definition, no one did. An Italian girl, the daughter of a firefighter, from Staten Island no less. A little rough around the edges, needed some mentoring, a little guidance. Who was gonna look out for Gina at Lonigan Brown? Him or no one. This was bigger than Peter and his petty lustfulness.

He waited a tick for an objection from the killjoy voice. His temples pulsed with blood, but he heard nothing. He took a sip of his coffee, decided to lay out some guidelines.

He would not cross any lines. He would keep everything professional. He would leave this all where it belonged: in his head.

He finished his meal in haste, paid the bill, and walked back to the firm, satisfied by the thoroughness of his internal debate. Maureen was on her lunch break when he got back to his office, but he closed his door anyway before buzzing Gina and asking her to come see him. He did a quick inventory: teeth were clean, the hair combed, the tie straightened. The gut, well, he couldn’t do anything about that. Maybe show her a picture of him in college, in pads and cleats, two hundred and ten pounds of muscle. He slipped two Altoids into his mouth and waited.

She knocked and he called her in, his open hand indicating where she should sit. He swiveled to the side and looked at the wall as he spoke. He gave her the details quickly and watched as she struggled to take proper notes. Her smile faded as she wrote, her mind struggling to do two things at once: accurately record what he was saying and comprehend what it meant. A skill every lawyer needed to learn.

Good. She needed to know that if they were working together, it would be all business.

He talked for fifteen minutes, culling Wilson Temple’s dissertation down to a brisk recitation of the salient facts. A few times, his peripheral vision caught the flip of yellow paper after Gina’s furious jotting had filled it with writing. When he finished, he swiveled back to face her and grabbed one of the black stress balls that littered his office. He flipped it idly between his hands as he waited for her to finish writing.