Mistress of Justice

being, at least. No bullshit between us.”
    “Never has been.” The businessman looked the partner over coyly. “This’s about the merger, I assume?”
    “Yes. And there’s more to it than meets the eye.” Burdick explained to him about Clayton and his planned massacre after the merger was completed.
    Nordstrom said, “So you’d be out? That’s crap. You’ve made the firm what it is. You
are
Hubbard, White.”
    Burdick laughed. “I hate to put it this way, Steve, but McMillan is our largest single source of revenue.”
    “Well, you give us good service. And we’re happy to pay for it.”
    “So when you or Ed talk, partners at the firm listen.”
    “And you want me to talk against the merger.”
    “It’d be bad for you and bad for dozens of other clients. Wendall Clayton has no vision of what a law firm should be. He wants to turn us into some kind of assembly line. Profit’s all he thinks about.”
    Nordstrom picked up a fat piece of lobster and sucked it clean of dressing, then chewed and swallowed it slowly. “What’s the time frame?”
    “Clayton ramrodded the merger vote through early. It’ll be this Tuesday.”
    “Day after tomorrow? Fuck me,” Nordstrom said. “That man is crazy.” He probed for more lobster. He settled for raisins. “Ed’s in a dinner meeting right now but he should be free in an hour or so. I’ll have him call and we’ll have after-dinner drinks. About ten or so? By the pool over there. Don’t worry, Donald. We’ll work
something
out.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
     
    Clayton moved them quickly through his old manse like a tour guide goosed by a tight schedule.
    It was a rambling house—big, though the rooms themselves were small and cockeyed. Beams were uneven, floorboards sprung. Much of the furniture was painted in drab Colonial colors. The gewgaws were of hammered tin and wicker and carved wood.
    He led them upstairs. Taylor pretended to be studying portraits of horses, Shaker furniture and armoires while in fact she looked for places where he might have hidden information about Hanover & Stiver or the note. She glanced into a small room that seemed to be an office and saw a desk.
    “Are you with us, Taylor?” Clayton asked and she hurried to join them. He continued the tour. “… Mark Twain’s house, the house he died in, isn’t far from here.”
    “Are you a Son of the American Revolution?” Carrie asked.
    Clayton spoke with a feigned indignity that rested on real pride. “The Revolutionaries? They were
newcomers
. Myfamily was one of the original settlers of Nieuw Nederlandt. We came over in 1628.”
    “Are you Dutch?”
    “No. My ancestors were Huguenots.”
    Taylor said, “I always got those mixed up in school—the Huguenots and the Hottentots.”
    Clayton smiled coldly.
    Ooooh, doesn’t like potshots into the family tree.
    “The Huguenots were French Protestants,” he explained. “They were badly persecuted. In the 1620s Cardinal Richelieu ordered a siege of La Rochelle, a large Huguenot town. My family escaped and settled here. New Rochelle, New York, by the way, is named after La Rochelle.”
    Carrie asked, “What did your ancestors do when they got here?”
    “There was considerable prejudice against the Huguenots, even here. We were barred from many businesses. My family became artisans. Silversmiths mostly. Paul Revere was one of us. But my family were always better merchants than craftsmen.… We moved into manufacturing and then finance though that field had largely been preempted by … other groups.” For a moment he looked wily and Taylor suspected he was suppressing an opinion about early Jewish settlers.
    “My family,” he continued, “ended up in Manhattan and stayed there. Upper East Side. I was born within a five-block radius of my father’s and grandfather’s birthplaces.”
    That touched Taylor. “You don’t see that much anymore. Today, everybody’s spread all over the world.”
    “You shouldn’t let that happen,” Clayton said sincerely. “Your family history is all you have. You should keep your ancestry and be proud of it. This year I’m steward of the French Society.…”
    Carrie, of the front row in law school, blinked. “Oh, I’ve heard of that. Sure.”
    Clayton said to Taylor, “After the Holland Society it’s the most prestigious of the hereditary societies in New York.”
    The chubby paralegal was impressed but another need intruded. “Say, Mr. Clayton, where’s the little girls’