The Anonymous Client

me.”
    “What?”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “I told you about it.”
    “No, not the damn case. I know all about the damn case. Tell me about you. Your first trial was over. Sheila Benton got acquitted.”
    “The charges were dismissed.”
    “Whatever.”
    Steve shook his head. “No. Big difference. If she’d been acquitted in court, I’d have got credit for it. I’d have had a law practice.”
    “Exactly. But she didn’t, and the cops grabbed all the credit, and then what?”
    “And then nothing. I didn’t have a law practice. But I still had Sheila Benton for a client. And she came into a lot of money. Not just her own trust fund, she inherited from her uncle too. And that was a straight inheritance, not bound up in trust. She’s worth millions.”
    Steve shrugged. “And she put me in charge of it. Complete power of attorney. At a substantial annual retainer. I rented an office, set up a practice, began to handle her affairs. Not very taxing work. But after years of driving a cab, not bad.
    “But it got boring. Sheila went off to Europe. What little work there was dried up. The job trickled down to about one letter or phone call per day. I hired a secretary to handle that. I stopped coming by the office. I figured I deserved the leisure time. Maybe I’d learn to play golf.”
    Steve rubbed his head. “What I really wanted, of course, was another case. Something I could sink my teeth into. Hell, just something to do. But I wasn’t going to get it because nobody knew about me, and those that did, from my first case, had to figure I was some sort of incredible asshole.
    “And then, out of the blue, I get it. But it’s not a case. It’s some outrageous, improbable, storybook fantasy that makes no sense whatsoever. I have no idea what’s going on, and my only immediate prospect is being disbarred.”
    “Which is great,” Judy said.
    Steve stared at her. “Huh?”
    “Hey, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Here you are, the embattled hero, fighting insurmountable odds. It’s a thoroughly glamorous position to be in.”
    “Judy, this is not a play.”
    “No, but it’s theatrical, and that’s where you shine. So stop crabbing, fuck Dirkson, and start fighting.”
    “For whom?” Steve cried in exasperation. “That’s the whole fucking problem. Give me someone to fight for, and I’ll fight for ’em. Then I can be aggressive. Do things. Right now, I’m on the defensive all the time.”
    “Oh, is that all?” Judy said. “No client, huh?” She reached under the table and fumbled in her purse.
    “What are you doing?” Steve said.
    “Just a minute,” Judy said. “Ah. Here we are.” Judy’s hand came up from under the table holding the torn half of a dollar bill. “There you are. I’m the client. Start fighting.”
    Steve gawked at her. “What the hell!”
    Judy shrugged and shook her head. “Can’t take a joke, can you?” Her other hand came up from under the table holding the other half of the dollar bill she had just torn. “Steve, the point is, it doesn’t matter who the client is. Fuck Dirkson. Get out there and kick some ass.” Judy smiled, cocked her head at him, and held up the two halves of the dollar bill. “Got any scotch tape?”

24.
    S TEVE W INSLOW SCRUNCHED DOWN IN the front seat of the rental car as Marilyn Harding’s Mercedes pulled out of the front gate of her mansion in Glen Cove. He gave her a couple hundred yards and pulled out after her.
    If Marilyn had any idea she was being tailed, she didn’t show it. She drove straight to the Long Island Expressway, and headed for New York City.
    He almost lost her at the Queens Midtown Tunnel. He didn’t want to be right behind her in line, so he picked another toll-booth. And, just as it was every time he picked a line in the supermarket, his line was slow. The guy in front of him didn’t have his money ready. When he got it out, it was apparently a twenty, because the tollbooth clerk looked at it for some time before slowly counting out the change, just as Marilyn Harding’s Mercedes disappeared into the tunnel. Then the guy wanted a receipt.
    Steve took a breath, restrained himself from hitting the horn. If he’d done that, the guy probably would have turned around and given him the finger, wasting more time. Instead, he pulled away slowly.
    Steve gunned the motor, lurched into the tollbooth, slapped his two dollars into the toll taker’s hand, gunned the motor again, and zoomed off. In the tunnel