“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You made a nice point in a tough spot.”

Berkowitz places a heavy arm around my shoulders. His pinstriped jacket reeks of cigarette smoke. “I’m not surprised, Morton. Mary is one of our finest young lawyers.”

I try to edge away from Berkowitz, blushing deeply. It erupts at my hairline and rushes straight down my chest, like lava down a volcano. I feel awkward and confused. I want to fuck back at him, but he’s co-opting the shit out of me. Anger is almost elbowed out of the way by Pride.

“Have you met Judge Van Houten, Mary?” Berkowitz says, giving my shoulders another squeeze. “He was appointed to the bench last year to replace Judge Marston.”

“I’m the rookie,” quips Van Houten, shaking my hand with a self-assured grin. His features are small and even, and his hair is as smooth and tawny as butterscotch. Good-looking, if you go for those Ken types. Judy calls him Golden Rod, because the scuttlebutt is that he gets around. Now I see why. “We were just discussing the issue of note-taking by jurors,” he says. “It’s the sort of thing that gets the academics all excited.”

“At least something does,” says Berkowitz, with a loud laugh. He slaps me on the back so hard I expect my contacts to take flight. Golden Rod thinks this is a real hoot too.

Einstein looks at them with tolerance over his little half-glasses. “You see, Mary, we conducted a survey to determine the bar’s view on the practice of note-taking by jurors. Unfortunately, we’re having a tough time coming up with a conclusion, because the findings were so diverse.”

“What a surprise,” Bitter Man says.

Einstein ignores him. “We have a meeting with the chief judge at noon today, so we should have learned something by then.”

“We learned one thing, right, gentlemen? Next time-don’t ask!” Berkowitz explodes into laughter and so does Golden Rod.

Bitter Man shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Miz DiNunzio, why don’t you share with us your view of the practice? Do you think jurors should be permitted to take notes during trial?”

The question catches me off guard. “I…uh…”

Einstein scoffs. “Come on, Bill, you’re not going to cross-examine her, are you? Court’s adjourned, for God’s sake.”

I look stupidly from Bitter Man to Einstein, waiting to see if I’m to perform. There’s so much tension between them, I don’t want to take sides.

“Now, Morton, don’t underestimate the woman,” Berkowitz says. “I’m sure she has an opinion. Don’t you, Mary?”

The three judges look at me expectantly. I do have an opinion, but it might not be the right opinion, which is Berkowitz’s. A week ago I would have avoided the question, but that was before I became the New Me. Now I say what I really think, possibly committing career hara-kiri:

“I think they shouldn’t. It distracts them. Their job is to hear the evidence and the testimony, then do a sort of rough justice.”

Einstein smiles.

Golden Rod smiles.

And, most importantly, Berkowitz smiles.

Yes!

“They don’t know shit from Shinola,” mutters Bitter Man.

“That’s my girl!” Berkowitz says. “We report that Mary DiNunzio thinks jurors should not be permitted to take notes during trial. Now we can get on to more important subjects.”

“Like golf,” says Golden Rod. They all laugh, except for Bitter Man.

I seize the moment to back toward the door. “It was a pleasure seeing all of you. I’d better get back to my office.”

“Back to the yoke, eh?” says Golden Rod. “Just slip it on and go plodding around in a circle.”

Berkowitz laughs. “Watch it, Jeremy. We don’t want an insurrection. See you later, Mary.”

“Sounds good,” I say casually, like I’m not at the man’s beck and call. I close the door and allow the mask to slip. I feel disgusted at myself. I was bought off too easily. And I still don’t know why Berkowitz was meeting with Lombardo, much less why he slugged him.

Delia’s not at her desk when I leave, and I’m sure it’s no accident. She would want to evade my very important question: Why did you set me up? I wonder about this on the way to the elevator, swimming upstream against the lawyers and secretaries flooding into Stalling to start the day. I stop down on Judy’s floor before I go back to my office.

Judy’s in the middle of her Zen-like brief-writing ritual. The trial record, marked with, yellow Post-Its, is stacked on her left, Xerox copies of cases are stacked on her right, and a lone legal pad occupies the middle of a newly immaculate desk. Judy slams down her thick pencil when she sees me. “Mary, I was worried about you! Everybody was worried about you. Where’d you go last night?”

“Angie’s convent.” I flop into the chair facing her desk.

“Christ!”

“Exactly.”

“Tell me about it.” She leans forward, but I wave her off.

“Did you get the notes from Ned?” I ignore the pang when I say his name.

“Yepper. I saw Lombardo, too.”

“So I heard.” We trade Lombardo stories. She applauds after mine.

“You got protection! What a good idea!”

“I know. You’re smarter than I am, why didn’t you think of it?”

She smiles. “You’d still better stick with me when you’re in the office, like Lombardo said.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard. We’re together all the time anyway.”

“Right. So how are you going to get the files?”

“I can’t subpoena them until I start suit, and I can’t start suit yet because Lombardo won’t protect me.”

“Start suit? Who are you gonna sue?”

“The police department. Maybe the city.”

“Are you serious? For what?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet. It doesn’t matter. The complaint will be one page of civil rights bullshit, I only need it to be able to get the files. I’ll withdraw it as soon as I do.”

She nods. “Quite a plan.”

“And that’s only Plan B, the fallback. Plan A is me going down to AID and convincing them to give me the files. As the widow. I’ll get the documents sooner that way, if they’ll go for it.”

“What do you think you’ll find in the files?”

“The killer, ultimately. But for starters I want to see what similarities there are between Brent’s case and Mike’s. I’m going to try to get the other two files on open fatals too. Who knows what will turn up? It’s like any other case.”

“And you’re the client.”

“No. Brent is. And Mike.”

She looks concerned. “Are you going to be able to do this? Emotionally, I mean?”

“If you’re asking me do I look forward to reading those files, the answer is no. But I have to.”

“Okay,” Judy says, with a sigh. “Let me know what AID says on the phone, okay? I’ll go down with you. We can go through the files together.”

“Thanks, but you look busy enough. Very industrious, with the clean desk and all. What are you working on?”

She picks up her pencil. “TheMitsuko brief. If this argument’s accepted, it’ll make new law in the Third Circuit.” Judy tells me about her argument with the degree of detail that most people reserve for their children or their dreams the night before. She loves the law. I guess it’s her river.

Later, as I climb the busy stairwell to my office, what Judy said begins to sink in. I can’t imagine sitting at my desk reading the police file on Mike’s death or Brent’s. Open fatals, my husband and my friend. I’m kidding myself that it’s just like any other case. It’s harder than any other case, but it’s also more important. I’ll call AID when I get back to my office. Maybe I can get a meeting this morning.

But when I reach Gluttony, Miss Pershing is pacing in front of her desk in an absolute panic. “My goodness, where have you been? You didn’t come back yesterday the whole day, and you didn’t call! I left messages on your machine. I even tried your parents, but they didn’t know where you were. Now they’re waiting upstairs in the reception area for the deposition!”

“Who is? What deposition?”