Mistress of Justice

True, they were, though Taylor was having trouble with her second. She'd drunk more wine than she'd intended at Clayton's and had not gotten much sleep, thanks to the dip in the reservoir – and Reece's presence in bed next to her.

She told Hemming about the Supreme Court case that required the pub to allow women in, for many years it had been a men-only establishment.

"Some achievement," Hemming muttered, looking at the carved-up bare wood tables, the wishbone collection growing a dark fur of dust and the crowds of young frat boys shouting and hooting. He glowered at a drunk, beer-spilling student stumbling toward them. The boy caught the huge man's gaze and changed direction quickly. With some true curiosity in his voice the detective asked Taylor, "Are we having a date?"

"I don't think so."

"Ah," he said and nodded. "How did the fingerprints work out?"

"Not bad. I'll send you a postcard."

"If you want I'll show you how to do planters."

"Vegetable prints?"

"Very good but no – feet, Ms. Lockwood."

"Taylor."

"Feet."

Taylor handed him the piece of paper with the information from the invoice she'd found in Wendall Clayton's desk. "John, have you ever heard of this company?'

He read, "Triple A Security? They're not around New York. But we can assume it's a sleazy outfit."

"Why's that?"

"It's an old trick to get in the front of the phone book – to have your listing first. Name your company with a lot of A's. You want me to check it out?"

"Can you?"

"Sure." A waiter carrying fifteen mugs in one hand swooped past and dropped two more, unasked-for.

"Would somebody from a security service – say, this disreputable Triple A outfit – commit a crime?"

"Jaywalking?"

"Worse."

"Stealing apples?"

"That category. More valuable than fruit."

He sat up and towered over her for an instant then hunched forward again. "At the big security firms, like our place, absolutely not. You commit a crime, you lose your license and your surety bond's invalidated. But these small outfits' – he tapped the paper – "there's a fine line between the good guys and the bad guys. I mean, somebody's got to plant the bugs that my company finds, right? And planting bugs is illegal."

"Any fu

"That's not a term of art in my profession."

"Say, hypothetically trying to run somebody off the road."

"Run somebody off…?"

Taylor whispered," the road."

Hemming hesitated a moment and said, "This sort of place – Triple A Security – yeah, you could possibly find somebody there who might be willing to do that. Worse too."

Taylor finished the bitter dark ale. She opened her purse, pulled out a twenty and signaled the waiter.

"Is there a Mr. Lockwood?" Hemming asked.

"Yes, but you wouldn't really like my father."

"Well, anything in the fiancé-boyfriend category. You know, those pesky fellows that tend to get there first?"

"Not exactly."

John Silbert Hemming said, "How about di

"Can't."

"I was going to let you take me out so you could deduct it."

She laughed and said, "I've got plans for the immediate future."

"Plans are what contractors and shipbuilders use."

"Some other time?" she asked. "I mean it."

"Sure," Hemming said. Then, as she started to stand, he held up a finger, which returned her to her seat. "One thing there's this friend I have. He wears a badge and works at a place called One Police Plaza and I was thinking maybe it's time you gave him a call. Just to have a chat."

Taylor replayed the drive through the foliage down to the reservoir last night and thought Hemming's was an excellent idea.

But she answered, "No."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

They walked together through Battery Park. Ralph Dudley's eyes were on the Statue of Liberty, rising from the harbor like a sister of the figure of blind justice. Junie walked silently beside him. He wanted to hold her hand but of course he did not. Like tourists, they were on their way to see the monument up close.

Dudley wondered how many people Junie's age knew the lines carved on the base of the statue, knew they were from a poem called "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Hardly any.

But, he also wondered, how many Wall Street lawyers knew it?

Not many of them either.

"Is it, like, cold on the boat?"

"You're saying like' again a lot. Remember, you were going to watch it."

"Whatever."

"I'm sure we can sit downstairs where it's warm. We'll get some hot chocolate."

"Or a beer," she muttered.

"Ha," Dudley said. "Come on over here for a minute."

He nodded to a bench and they sat down, Dudley wondering, as he had for a thousand times that year, why he was so taken with this little creature.

"Yo, so wassup?" she said. Sometimes she talked black and there was nothing he could say to get her out of this mode. He'd learned that it was best to ignore her affectations. They went away sooner or later.

"I've got some papers here. For you to sign. We couldn't do it in the firm."

She put her Walkman headsets on. He took them off her and smoothed her hair. She wrinkled her face.

"You've got to sign them."

"Like, okay."

He dug them out of his briefcase and handed them to her.

"Okay," she said, snapping her gum. "Gimme a pen."

Dudley reached into his jacket pocket and found that he'd accidentally picked up his Cross mechanical pencil. "Damn, I forgot mine."

"I, like, have one." She reached into her purse and pulled it out. But as she did a piece of paper fell to the ground. Dudley had picked it up and started to hand it back when he looked at the check.

He saw Junie's name.

He saw Taylor Lockwood's name.

His hand froze in midair between them.

Dudley looked at her with rage in his face. "What is this?

"I…"

"What the hell have you done?"

"Poppie?" she asked, dropping her Walkman. It broke apart on the asphalt.

"How could you?" he whispered. "How could you?"

The going rate to get Alice into the rabbit hole of a Manhattan apartment was a sob story.

Jed so stupid, Ralph Dudley's my uncle? And my aunt – that's his wife – passed away two years ago today and he was feeling really lousy. I wanted to make him di

She held up the Food Emporium bag as evidence.

Here's fifty for your trouble. Don't say anything, okay? It's a surprise.

Taylor Lockwood had dressed in her business finest, to allay the doorman's concerns. He looked her over, pocketed the money, slipped her a spare key and turned back to a tiny television.

She knew Dudley wouldn't be here. She'd run into him in the halls and he'd told her that he was taking the afternoon off to show Junie the Statue of Liberty. The sullen girl had been in the lobby, waiting for him. Taylor shivered at the thought of the two of them together. For the girl's part, she looked from Dudley's face to Taylor's and back again. And just seemed bored.

Taylor now walked inside and found that Dudley's apartment was much smaller and more modest than she'd expected.

Although she knew about his financial problems, she'd assumed that an elderly Wall Street law firm partner like Dudley would be living at least in simple elegance, jaded though it might be. In fact, the four rooms in the prewar building didn't not have much more square footage than her own apartment. The walls were covered with cheap paint, which blotched where it was thin and peeled where the painters had bothered to apply several coats. There was no way the windows would ever open again.