Mistress of Justice

house.
    Alarmed, Taylor said, “How about the copiers?”
    The fingernails tapped. The operator squinted, tapped some more and stared at the screen. “Well, this’s damn funny.”
    “Nobody made any copies either.”
    “You got it.”
    Snap
.
    “Phones? Lexis/Nexis?”
    The clattering of keys. “Nothing.”
    Taylor asked, “You think the files were erased?”
    “Hold on a minute.” Her fingers tapped as noisily as her popping gum.
    Snap, snap …
    The young woman looked up. “That’s it. Erased. Must’ve had a software hiccup or something. The disbursement and incidental expense files for the past week’ve been deleted. Taxis, meals, copiers, even the phones. All gone.”
    “Has that ever happened before?”
    “Nup. Never.”
    Snap
.

     
    Sean Lillick stopped by Carrie Mason’s cubicle to say good morning to her.
    He could tell immediately how pleased she was to see him comply with the famous morning-after rule.
    They talked for a few minutes and then he said how much he wanted a cup of coffee and, as he’d expected, she was on her feet immediately and asking him, “How do you want it?”
    “Black,” he answered because even though he liked a lot of sugar it was cooler to say “Black.”
    “Sure. I’ll be right back.”
    “You don’t have to—,” he started to say.
    “No problem.”
    She trotted off down the hallway.
    Which gave him the chance to put her computer room access card back into her purse.
    That’s
what’d been so weird last night.
    The fact that the sex had been initiated by
her
.
    Because the whole point of calling her up was to get her over to his place, get her drunk, seduce her and when she was dozing afterward steal her access card, which would allow him to erase the telltale files of expenses—like the taxi he’d taken from the firm to the office of the plaintiff’s lawyer in the St. Agnes case, or the phone calls he’d made about the new lease with Rothstein. After he’d talked to Wendall Clayton earlier Lillick had realized that he
had
been pretty careless and needed to, as the partner had said, “snip some ends.”
    Hence, the grand seduction last night.
    Weird …
    Carrie now returned with the coffee and when she handed it to him their hands met and they looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. It took perhaps two seconds for the guilt to prod him into looking away and he said quickly, “Got a big project. Better run. I’ll call you.”

     
    Donald Burdick believed that bringing one’s first client into a law firm was the most significant milestone in the career of a Wall Street lawyer.
    Unlike graduation from law school, unlike admission to the bar, unlike being made partner—all of which are significant but abstract stages in a lawyer’s life—hooking a money-paying client was what distinguished, in his metaphor, the nobility from the gentry.
    Many years ago Burdick—a young, newly made partner at Hubbard, White & Willis—had just finished the eighteenth hole at Meadowbrook Club on Long Island when one of the foursome turned to him and said, “Say, Donald, I hear good things about you. Legal-wise, I’m saying. You interested in doing a little work for a hospital?”
    That had been on a Sunday afternoon and two days later Burdick had presented to the executive committee of the firm his first signed retainer agreement—with the huge St. Agnes Hospital complex in Manhattan.
    At nine-thirty this morning Donald Burdick sat in his office with the chief executive officer of St. Agnes, a tall, middle-aged, mild-spoken veteran of hospital administration. Also present were Fred LaDue, the senior litigation partner handling the malpractice case against the hospital, and Mitchell Reece.
    Three of these four appeared very unhappy, though for different reasons. Burdick, because of what he’d learned last night—that with the new witness St. Agnes would probably lose the malpractice trial, which would make the hospital throw its support to Clayton and the pro-merger crowd. The CEO, of course, because his hospital now stood to lose millions of dollars. Lawyer LaDue, because Burdick had summarily ordered that he stand down today and that a young associate Mitchell Reece, take over the cross-examination of the new witness.
    Reece, on the other hand, was calm as a priest though it was clear the man hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep. He’d been preparing virtually nonstop since Burdick and LaDue had briefed him last night around 9 P.M