Mistress of Justice

a light to change on Madison Avenue, an animal rights activist had sprayed her mink with orange paint. His wife had grabbed the young woman’s arm and wrestled her to the ground, pinned her there until the police arrived.
    They hugged and she took his arm as they walked to the private entrance that led to the club reserved for the most generous patrons. Burdick had once calculated that, even adjusted for the charitable deduction, each glass of champagne here cost him roughly two hundred dollars.
    They let another couple go ahead of them so they could take an elevator alone.
    “St. Agnes?” Vera asked abruptly.
    “Mitchell won. Well, they dropped their settlement offer to five million. We’ll pay one. That’s nothing. Everybody at the hospital’s ecstatic.”
    “Good,” she said. “And the lease? Did you sign it up?”
    “Not yet. It’s on for Monday now. Rothstein … I
hate
dealing with him. And we have to keep everything hush-hush so Wendall doesn’t find out.”
    “Monday,” she said, troubled, then his wife glanced at her reflection in the elevator’s metal panel. She turned back to her husband. “I made some calls today. Talked to Bill O’Brien’s wife.”
    This was an executive of McMillan Holdings, which was Hubbard, White’s biggest client. The company was Burdick’s client alone and he took home personally about three million a year from McMillan.
    “Trouble?” Burdick asked quickly.
    “Apparently not. Wendall hasn’t approached them about the merger.”
    “Good,” Burdick said. “He doesn’t even know the board’s meeting in Florida this week or if he does he hasn’t made any rumblings about going down there.”
    Burdick had assumed that Clayton wouldn’t waste the time trying to sway McMillan since it was so firmly in the antimerger court.
    “But the board’s been talking among themselves. They’re wondering if the merger’d be good or bad for them.”
    “Bill’s wife knows that?”
    Vera nodded matter-of-factly. “She’s sleeping with one of the board members: Frank Augustine.”
    Burdick nodded. “I wondered who he was seeing.”
    Vera said, “I think you have to get down to Florida and talk to them. As soon as possible. Hold their hands, rally them against the merger. Warn them about Clayton.”
    “I’ll go this weekend. It’ll be a good excuse to missClayton’s party on Sunday. Last thing in the world I want to do is spend time in that pompous ass’s house.”
    Vera smiled. “I’ll go,” she said cheerfully. “One of us should be there, I think. Just to keep him a little unsettled.”
    And, Burdick thought as the elevator door opened, you’re just the woman to do it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    Ms. Lockwood:
    We cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to review your demo tape
.
    Taylor hurried to her apartment from her building’s mailroom, clutching three return envelopes from three record companies. She’d called Dudley and told him that she wanted to change before seeing him for dinner at his club in Midtown and that she’d meet him there.
    As she walked down the hallway she fantasized about the contents of the envelopes.
    It so captivated the initial screener that he sent it to our A&R department, where it made the rounds in record (forgive the pun) time. Your masterly reinterpretations of the old standards in juxtaposition with your own works (masterpieces in fusion) make the tape itself worthy of production, but we would propose a three-record project of primarily original material
.
    Enclosed you will find our standard recording contract, already executed by our senior vice president, and, as an advance, a check in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. A limousine will be calling for you.…
    Not able to wait until she got inside, she ripped the envelopes open with her teeth, all of them at once. The torn-off tops lay curled like flat yellow worms on the worn carpet behind her as she read the form rejection letters which were a far cry from the one that her imagination had just composed.
    The one that said the most about the music business, she decided, began with the salutation “Dear Submitter.”
    Shit.
    Taylor stepped out of the elevator and tossed the letters into the sand-filled ashtray next to the call button.
    Inside her apartment, she saw a blinking light on her answering machine, and pushed the replay button as she stripped off her coat and kicked her shoes in an arc toward the closet.
    Her machine had a number of