Mistress of Justice

She’d allowed herself one face-lift and had flown to Los Angeles to have a particular Beverly Hills surgeon perform the operation.
    She was now as she’d always been: attractive, reserved, stubborn, quiet. And virtually as powerful as the two men who’d influenced her life—her father and Donald Burdick, her husband of thirty-two years. Arguably she was
more
powerful in some ways than each of these men because people were always on guard with the masters of Wall Street, like Donald Burdick, but tended to get careless around women and be too chatty, to give away secrets, to reveal weaknesses.
    Burdick sat on the bed. His wife offered her back and he carefully zipped up the dress and hooked the top eyelet. The partner continued, “Clayton’s moving against them. It’s pretty clever, I have to admit. While Bill Stanley and Lamar and I’ve been taking on as much debt as we can to poison the merger Wendall’s been spending time with the clients, trying to convince
them
to pressure the partners at the firm to support the merger.”
    Vera too felt admiration for what Wendall was doing. Although a firm’s clients have no official vote in firm affairsthey ultimately pay the bills and accordingly can exert astonishing influence over which way the partners vote. She’d often said that if clients unionized against law firms it would be time for her husband to find a new line of work.
    “How’s he doing it?” she asked, curious to learn his technique.
    “Probably promising big discounts in legal fees if they support the merger. Those that still don’t go along with him—my clients or Bill’s, the ones who won’t support the merger in any case—we’re afraid he’s going to sabotage.”
    “Sabotage. Oh, my. What’s the vote so far?”
    “It’s closer than it should be.”
    “You’ve got the long-term lease with Rothstein, right?” Vera asked. “That should slow him up some. When are you signing it?”
    “Friday or the weekend,” he answered glumly.
    “Not till then?” She winced.
    “I know,” he said. “The fastest they could get the papers together. But it’s okay—Clayton doesn’t know anything about it. Then I’ve been talking to Steve Nordstrom.”
    “At McMillan Holdings,” Vera recalled. “Your biggest client. Steve’s the chief financial officer, right?”
    A nod. “I’m closer to him than I am to Ed Gliddick, the CEO. I’m going to get them to lobby some of the other partners against the merger.”
    “And Steve’ll agree?”
    “I’m sure he will. Gliddick’s in charge. But he listens to Steve. Wendall doesn’t know about that either. I’ve been excruciatingly discreet. I …”
    Burdick realized that he sounded desperate and hated the tone of his voice. Then he glanced at his wife, who was gazing at him with a savvy smile on her face. “We can do it,” she said. “Clayton’s not in our league, dear.”
    “Neither was that cobra on vacation last year. That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
    “But look what happened to it.”
    Hiking in Africa, Burdick had accidentally stepped on the snake in the brush. It had puffed out its hood and preparedto strike. Vera had taken its head off with a swipe of a sharp machete.
    Burdick found his teeth clenched. “Wendall just doesn’t understand what Wall Street law practice is. He’s crude, he bullies. He has affairs.”
    “Irrelevant.” She began on her makeup.
    “Oh, I think it
is
relevant. I’m talking about the survival of the firm. Wendall doesn’t have
vision
. He doesn’t understand what Hubbard, White is, what it should be.”
    “And how do you define ‘should be’?”
    Touché, Burdick thought. He grinned involuntarily. “All right, what
I’ve
made it. Bill and Lamar and I. Wendall wants to turn the firm into a mill. Into a big merger-and-acquisition house.”
    “Every generation has its own specialties. That’s very profitable work.” She set down the blush. “I’m not justifying him, darling. I’m only saying we should stay focused. We can’t make logical arguments against the nature of the legal work he wants the new firm to handle. We have to remember that the risk is that as part of the merger he’s going to burn the firm to the ground and then sow the ashes with salt.
That’s
why we have to stop him.”
    She was, as usual, right. He reached for her hand but the phone rang and he walked to the nightstand to answer it.
    Burdick took the call and listened in dismay as Bill Stanley’s