Mistress of Justice

moment, a moment like this—when we sit, or lie, close together, muscles ticking, limbs at their most relaxed, bathed in the certainty of love. The absolute moment, when conversation soars, confidences are shared, coincidences between you and your lover pop up like crocuses in April.
    The absolute moment—when we forget that most loves aren’t forever, that most words are mere vibrations ofinsubstantial air, that most unions are a nest of comic and aching differences that no other animal in the world would tolerate, let alone desperately pursue.
    She eased back slightly, wiped the war paint of lipstick off his cheek. He glanced down at her empty glass. He stood up and filled both of theirs again and returned, sat down, slouching back into the leather, playing with the top button of his shirt. His hair was mussed. He tried to brush it back but the thick comma stayed put.
    “Know what?” he asked.
    “What’s that?”
    “I’m glad.”
    “About what?” Taylor felt it then, that unwinding feeling within her. Despite the keen warning to herself a moment ago, the spring had been set loose.
    Was it going to be good or bad? The time was coming soon, quick as a wet-leaf skid. Okay? Decide, good or bad? Decide fast, Alice; you’ve got about three minutes.
    “I’m glad we haven’t caught our thief yet. I like working with you.” His voice was husky.
    Reece held his glass up.
    Come on, this is the moment. Now. You going, or staying? You’ve still got the power. It hasn’t tipped yet. You can do it easy, diffuse the whole thing. Thank him for dinner. Stand up. That’s all it would take.
    One way or another, decide: In the end, is this good or bad?
    She lifted her glass too and tapped but as he sipped, some of the cognac spilled onto the front of his shirt.
    “Oh, hell,” he muttered.
    Come on, good or bad? Make it your decision. Choose.…
    “Here, let me clean it up,” she said.
    Good or bad?
    She thought that question to herself a dozen times in the space of five seconds or maybe two seconds or maybe just one but it never got answered; his mouth closed on hers and his hands—surprisingly large and strong for a bookishman—were covering her breasts and she felt the heat in his fingers as they then slid inside her dress, probing for fasteners.
    Taylor in turn sought the smooth cloth of his shirt, gripped it hard and pulled him down on top of her.
    Good or bad, good or bad …

     
    This Saturday night, late, Donald Burdick and Bill Stanley sat beside each other in tall-backed leather chairs and looked into the valet room of their private club on Broad Street.
    It was in that room that every morning one of the club employees would iron the
New York Times, International Herald Tribune
and
Wall Street Journal
for the members. This had been a perk ever since the club had been founded in the mid-1800s. At that time, of course, when New York City boasted more than a dozen papers, the valet was busy all day long. Now, however, with no evening papers of worth, the room was used at night only for its junction box, to which telephones on long wires were connected. When a call came in these phones were carried to members; cellular phones were, of course, forbidden in the club.
    Burdick and Stanley watched the poised black man, in a dinner jacket, now carrying one of these phones to Burdick, who took it with a nod of thanks.
    The conversation lasted only four minutes.
    Burdick absorbed the information, closed his eyes and, thinking that in Roman days the messenger would have been killed had he delivered news like this, nonetheless politely thanked the caller.
    He dropped the receiver into the cradle. The valet appeared instantly and removed the phone.
    “What the hell was that?” Stanley asked.
    “The lease,” Burdick said, shaking his head.
    “Oh, no,” Stanley grumbled.
    Burdick nodded. “He did it. Somehow Clayton deep-sixed the lease.”
    The caller had been an underling of Rothstein’s, the head of the real estate syndicate that owned the building where Hubbard, White & Willis was located. The syndicate had suddenly withdrawn from the negotiations for the expensive long-term lease and was going to let the current lease lapse.
    This meant that it would now make much more financial sense to merge the firm with Perelli and move into the Midtown firm’s space.
    Damn … Burdick clenched his fist.
    “Clayton’s
telling
Jews
what to do with their Manhattan real estate?” Stanley barked. There was no