Mistress of Justice

out a place where he and I could go listen to some music. Jazz or Cuban or something.”
    “I’d be happy to.” The young woman sat on the bed and picked up an entertainment guide. Her skirt hiked up high. “If that’s all right with him.”
    “I’d appreciate your input,” Gliddick said.
    Simms said, “We’re off-duty now, Jean, how ’bout you fix yourself a drink. And another one for Mr. Gliddick too.”
    “Thanks, Randy. I believe I will.”
    “I’ll be back in about an hour,” Simms said.
    “That’d be fine,” Gliddick replied, setting the file on the table and watching Jean scoot pertly off the bed and walk to the bar. Somehow her shoes had come off in the process.
    Moral decision …
    As Simms was about to step through the door, Gliddick said, “One thing, Randy?”
    The tall lawyer turned.
    “Maybe you could call first—before coming back to the room?”
    “Not a problem, Ed.”

     
    At 10 P.M ., as Reece was accelerating south onto the highway that would take them from Clayton’s Connecticut home back to the city, Taylor stretched out in the reclining seat of the rented Lincoln.
    She was listening to the moan of the transmission. The flabby suspension swayed her nearly to sleep. She’d told him about Clayton’s blackmailing Dudley and then about the invoice she’d found.
    “ ‘Client-directed’ security services?” Reece asked. Then he nodded. “A euphemism for industrial espionage. Good job, finding that. How much was it for?”
    “Two thousand a month.”
    “That’s pretty low for stealing a note. Maybe it’s for spying on people for the merger.”
    “Did you hear the talk at the party? My God, these are first-year associates and all they were talking about was the merger. Wendall’s out on a limb. If he doesn’t get it through he’s lost a lot of credibility.…”
    Reece laughed. “Ha, if he doesn’t get the merger through he’s lost his
job.…”
He looked over and caught her in the midst of another huge yawn. “You okay?”
    “I used to sleep.”
    “I tried it once,” Reece said, shrugging. “It wears off.”
    He reached over and began massaging her neck.
    “Oh, that’s nice.…” She closed her eyes. “You ever made love in a car?”
    “Never have.”
    “I never have either. I’ve never even been to a drive-in movie.”
    Reece said, “One time when I was in high school, I—Jesus!”
    A huge jolt. Taylor’s eyes snapped open and she saw a white car directly in front of them. It’d veered into their lane. Reece swerved onto the shoulder but the Lincoln slipped off the flat surface and started down a steep embankment.
    “Mitchell!” Taylor screamed and threw her arms up as trees and plants raced at them at seventy miles an hour. The undercarriage scraping and groaning, metal and plastic supports popping apart. Then brush and reeds were flashing past the car’s windows.
    Reece called, “That car, that car! He ran us off the road! He ran us—”
    He was braking, trying to grip the wheel as it spun furiously back and forth, the front tires buffeted by rocks and branches. The car slowed as it chewed through the underbrush, the buff-colored rushes and weeds whipping into the windshield.
    Taylor’s head slammed against the window; she was stunned. She felt nausea and fear and a huge pain in her back.
    Then they were slowing as the slope flattened out. The car was still skewing but the wheels started to track, coming under control.… She heard Reece say reverently, “Son of a bitch,” and saw him smile as the car started a slow skid on the slippery vegetation. Thirty miles an hour, twenty-five …
    “Okay, okay …,” Reece muttered to himself. He steered carefully into the skids, braking lightly, regaining control, losing and then regaining it. “Okay, come on,” he whispered seductively to the huge Lincoln.
    The car slowed to ten miles an hour. Taylor took his arm and whispered, “Oh, Mitchell.” They smiled at each other, giddy with relief.
    But as she looked at his face his smile vanished.
    “God!” He shoved his foot onto the brake with all his weight. Taylor looked forward and she saw the brush disappear as they broke out of the foliage and dropped over aridge, onto a steep incline that led down to the huge reservoir, a half mile across, its surface broken with choppy waves. The locked wheels slid without resistance along the frost and dewy leaves.
    “Taylor!” he called. “We’re going in, we’re going in!” With a last