Mistress of Justice

people.
    “What’re you drinking?” he asked.
    “Stick with R&C.”
    They sipped their drinks for a few minutes. Sebastian leaned over again and asked, “What’s your biggest passion? After handsome men like me, I mean.”
    “Skiing, I guess.” Taylor was circumspect about telling people her second career—the music—and was particularly reluctant to give a robbery suspect too much information about herself.
    “Skiing? Sliding down a mountain, getting wet and cold and breaking bones, is that it?”
    “Breaking bones is optional.”
    “I did some exercise once,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “I got over it. I’m okay now.”
    She laughed and studied him in the mirror. The lawyer didn’t look good. His eyes were puffy and red. He blew his nose often and his posture was terrible. The coke and whatever other drugs he was doing were taking their toll. He seemed deflated as he hunched over his drink, sucking his cocktail through the thin brown straw. Suddenly he straightened, slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair. “Does anyone ever get lost in there?”
    She kept the smile on her face but didn’t lean into him. She said evenly, “It’s true that I had date failure tonight. But I still do things the old-fashioned way. Real slow.” She eased away and looked at him. “Just want the ground rules understood.”
    He left his arm where it was for a noncommittal ten seconds, then dropped it. “Fair enough,” he said with a tone that suggested: all rights reserved.
    “You go out a lot?” she asked.
    “Work hard and play hard. By the time I burn out at forty-five …” His voice faded and he was looking at her expectantly.
    Tap, tap, tap.
    She saw his hand swinging against the bar. A brown vial.
    “You want to retire to the facilities with me? Build strong bodies twelve ways?”
    “Not me. I have to keep in shape for breaking bones.”
    He blinked, surprised. “Yeah? You sure?”
    “Never touch the stuff.”
    He laughed. Then put the bottle away.
    Just then another man appeared from the crowd and walked up to Sebastian though his attention seemed fixed on Taylor. He resembled Sebastian some but was thinner, shorter, a few years younger. He wore a conservative gray suit but bright red sunglasses, from which a green cord hooked to the earpieces dangled down the back of his neck.
    She noted Sebastian’s surprise when the young man approached.
    Sebastian said, “Hey, Taylor, meet my main man, Bosk. Hey, Bosk, Taylor.” They shook hands.
    “Will you marry me?” Bosk asked her in a slurred voice. He’d had a great deal to drink and she knew that beneath the silly Elton John sunglasses his eyes would be unfocused.
    “Oh, gosh,” she answered brightly, “I can’t tonight.”
    “Story of my life.” He turned back to Sebastian. “Hey, you never fucking called me back. We’ve gotta talk. He called and wanted to know where—”
    Bosk suddenly fell silent and as Taylor reached for her drink she observed in the mirror behind the bar two very subtle gestures by Sebastian, a nod toward her and a wag of his finger, whose only possible meaning was that the topic Bosk was raising was not to be discussed in front of her.
    Bosk recovered, though not very well, by saying, “What it is, I’ve still got some room on that New Jersey project if you’re interested.”
    “How leveraged?”
    Bosk said, “We’ll need to come up with probably six five.”
    “No fucking way.” Sebastian laughed.
    “Sea Bass, come on.…”
    “Three eight was the top, dumbo. I’m not going over three eight.”
    These figures might have referred to percentages or shares of stock or money, in which case, considering that the context was New York metro area business or real estate, they might be talking about hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
    And Alice thought Wonderland was topsy-turvy.…
    “Don’t be such a fucking wuss,” Bosk muttered drunkenly. Studying Taylor.
    Sebastian grinned and grabbed Bosk, swung him into a neck lock then rapped him on the head.
    Bosk broke away and shouted, laughing, “You’re a fucking cow chip, you know that?” He replaced his gaudy sunglasses. “Hey, you want to come out to Long Island for dinner on Friday? My mother’ll be out with her cook. Bunch of the gang. Brittany said she, like, forgives you for not calling.”
    An electronic pocket calendar appeared in Sebastian’s pudgy hand. He studied it. “Can do, dude,” he said at last. They