Mistress of Justice

a closing without a pen. Donald Burdick had shot him a gruff glance and slid this very pen to him. “You should always be prepared, Wendall. Keep that one as a reminder.”
    Wendall Clayton put the pen away and helped the other men organize the documents while he dictated instructions for the copying and assembly of the execution copies to the
Surrender, My Love
woman. After the firm approved the merger tomorrow, these papers would be brought into the large conference room for the signing of the agreement with Perelli’s partners itself. Since so many people had to sign, the logistics of closing the deal were massive.
    A half hour later, walking back toward his office, Clayton stopped and turned quickly, aware of someone approaching fast from down a dark corridor.
    The person was making right for him.
    For a moment he actually thought that Donald Burdick had lost his mind and was about to assault him.
    But, no, it was Sean Lillick.
    The red-eyed paralegal raged at Clayton. “You fucked her! You son of a bitch!”
    “Quiet, you little shit!” Clayton whispered. John Perelli hadn’t left yet.
    “You fucked her!”
    “Who?”
    “Carrie Mason.”
    Clayton regarded the young man with some amusement. “And?”
    “How could you do it?”
    “Last time I looked, Sean, that girl was over eighteen and unattached.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Was she wearing your Art Carved engagement ring? A tasteful but small solitaire? I didn’t notice one.”
    “I don’t want your fucking sarcasm, Wendall.”
    So, the puppy has some teeth. He’d never seen them bared before.
    “Calm down, Sean. What the hell is she to you? She’s a fat little inbred preppy and you’re the point man of the avant-garde. Capulets and Montagues. You have nothing in common except gonads engorged by your differences.”
    “How could you treat her like that?”
    “I treated her very well. Besides, the word ‘consensual’ comes to mind.”
    “She was drunk. She thinks you used her.”
    “She’s an adult. What she thinks is her business. Not yours or mine.” Clayton glanced back toward the conference room. He lowered his face and asked, “What? Did you think you two were going to move to Locust Valley and have babies? For God’s sake, Sean. You’re not crazy. Go find some girl with a crew cut, pierced labia and dirty fingernails.”
    “I hate you.”
    “No you don’t, Sean. But even if you did your hatred is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you need me. Now, the merger vote’s tomorrow and I don’t have time for this. Learn a lesson, son: If somebody fucks your girlfriend the question isn’t who did it and how can I get even—it’s
why
did she want to? Think about that.”
    The boy fell silent.
    Clayton could still see the anger and bitterness in his face. In a calmer tone he said, “It happened once. She was drunk, I was drunk. I have no intention of ever seeing her again.” This was as close to a sincere apology as Wendall Clayton would ever come.
    Lillick seemed to realize this. He wasn’t pleased but Clayton saw that he’d pulled the rug out from underneath his rage.
    “I’ll tell her,” Clayton joked, “what a wonderful human being you are.”
    “I—”
    Clayton held up an finger. He said, “Tomorrow, early—in my office? We’ve got a big day tomorrow. We’ve got a thousand documents to get ready. The phalanxes will be marching through Rome.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
     
    North of Fourteenth Street, where Taylor Lock-wood had risen from the hot, pungent subway on her way to Mitchell Reece’s, the broad sidewalks were sparse.
    After she’d put Thom Sebastian into a cab Taylor had returned to her apartment, changed and was now on her way to report to Reece that one suspect had been eliminated—but that she still had no clue where the note might be, the note that he’d need in court tomorrow morning, a little over twelve hours from now.
    She zigged around patches of ice, remembering how her music teacher taught her to think of footsteps as musical beats. As she walked she’d break the spaces between the tap of the steps into half notes, quarter notes, eighths, triplets, dotted quarters and eighths, whispering the rhythms.
    One two and uh three four …
    A noise behind her, footsteps on the gritty concrete.
    She turned quickly but saw no one.
    A block farther. Now the streets were completely deserted. This area, Chelsea, near Sixth Avenue, containedsome residential lofts and cavernous restaurants. But this