Mistress of Justice

fund-raiser at City Hall?”
    “When the mayor summons you—” Clayton said.
    “The governor actually,” she corrected.
    “—you better go.”
    Taylor felt the tension between them like sparking wires. Vera Burdick clearly detested the partner, and while Clayton obviously returned the feeling, it was she who easily held his eye and the lawyer who looked defensively away as he made trivial conversation.
    In this tableau Taylor recognized a truth about Clayton: While the partner knew men and how to handle them, he was only comfortable with women he could sexualize or control as his lessers.
    She was nearly queasy, observing a man like this feeling threatened—a powerful man and, considering that he might have engineered the theft of the New Amsterdam note, one who was quite dangerous.
    “I’ll leave you to your friends,” Vera said, the disdain visible like breath on a cold spring day. A glance at Taylor and Carrie. A meaningless smile.
    Clayton said, “I hope Donald enjoys the fund-raiser.”

     
    “Donald, you’re white as snow. Damn it, man, you’ve got to get more fresh air. Brought your racket, I hope?”
    Burdick leaned against the railing of the penthouse suite in the Fleetwood Hotel in Miami Beach and looked at thecool disk of the setting sun. “More business than pleasure today, I’m afraid, Steve.”
    Burdick was tired. The firm’s private Canadair jet hadn’t been available—some maintenance problem—and he’d had to fly down to Miami in a commercial airliner. First class, of course, but he’d still had to stand in lines and then there’d been a delay on the runway that put him an hour off schedule.
    He’d arrived exhausted but had ordered the car service to bring him directly here before checking in to a room.
    Steve Nordstrom, shaking martinis like an ace bartender, was the president of McMillan Holdings. He was thick and square, with gray hair trimmed so impeccably it might have been injection-molded in the company’s Teterboro plant, and was wearing a purple Izod shirt and white slacks.
    “Drink?”
    Burdick didn’t want alcohol but he knew he would take the offered glass from Nordstrom, a man of fifty, whose face was already in bloom from the damaged blood vessels.
    “How’s the board meeting going?” Burdick asked.
    Nordstrom licked martini off his finger. He grinned happily. “We’re cutting a melon this year, Donald. Three sixty-three a share.”
    “Ah,” Burdick said approvingly.
    “You read the
Journal
, you read the
Times
—everybody’s cratering but us. Hey, tomorrow, we’re meeting on the new industry association. You want to sit in?”
    “Can’t. But tell your people to watch what they say. I told you that Justice is heating up again and Antitrust is looking at price-fixing. Don’t even mention dollars. No numbers at all. Remember what happened in ’72.”
    “Always looking out for your client, Donald?” Nordstrom’s question contained the silent modifiers “biggest” and “most lucrative.”
    They sat down at a table. The bellboy, who had been waiting patiently, brought out lobster salads in half pineapplesand set them on the balcony table. The men ate the salad and raisin rolls—the lawyer struggling to down the food, which he had no appetite for—while they talked about vacations and family and house prices and the administration in Washington.
    When they were finished eating, Burdick accepted another martini and pushed away from the table. “Which of our boys is down here helping you with the board meeting, Steve?”
    “From Hubbard, White? Stan Johannsen is here and Thom Sebastian did most of the advance work last week. He’s covering the front in New York. I understand he didn’t make partner. What happened? He’s a good man.”
    Burdick looked out over the flat scenery at a line of cars shooting flashes of glare from the expressway. After a moment he realized he had been asked a question and said, “I don’t remember exactly about Thom.”
    He wished Bill Stanley were with him. Or Vera. He wanted allies nearby.
    Nordstrom frowned. “But that’s not what you’re here for, is it? About the board meeting.”
    “No, Steve, it’s not.…” Burdick stood and paced, hands clasped behind his back. “Hubbard, White’s been doing your legal work for, let’s see, thirty-five years?”
    “About that. Before my time.”
    “Steve, I’d ask you to keep what I’m going to tell you between you and me and Ed Gliddick. For the time