Mistress of Justice

"Can you tell me if anyone checked out the files on that deal in the past few months?"

This was beyond her brain. The woman pulled the logbook out and thumbed through it quickly then held it open for Taylor to look at Taylor nodded. "I'd like to check it out too, if you don't mind."

"Surely."

Then a frown crossed Taylor's face. "I wonder if we could just consider one more file. This might be trickier."

"I live for challenges," Mrs. Bendix replied.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The New York State Department of Social Services worked fast.

After one anonymous phone call to the police the West Side Club became the front-page feature in the evening edition of every tabloid in the New York area.

Though gentlemen did not read such newspapers, Ralph Dudley made an exception this once, since the Times wouldn't have the story until tomorrow morning. He now sat at his desk, lit only by a single battered brass lamp and the paltry December dusk light bleeding into his office, and stared at the same article he'd already read four times. A half-dozen people were under arrest and two underage prostitutes were being placed in foster homes in upstate New York.

Good-bye Junie, Dudley thought.

He'd made one last trip to see her – just before he'd made the call to 911, which closed up the West Side Art and Photography Club forever.

"Here," he'd said, handing her a blue-backed legal document.

She'd stared at it, uncomprehending. "Like, what is it?"

"It's a court order. The marshal seized your mother's and stepfather's bank accounts and house and they've put the money into a special trust fund for you."

"I… Like, I don't get it."

"The money your father left you? The court took it away from your mother and they're giving it back to you. I won my petition."

"Whoa, like radical! How much is it?"

"A hundred and ninety-two thousand."

"Awesome! Can I -"

"You can't touch it for three years, until you're eighteen."

"Or whatever," she'd added.

"And you only get it if you go to school."

"What? That's fucking bogus."

It was also untrue. There were no strings on the money once she turned eighteen, as the trust officer would undoubtedly tell her. But she'd have a few years to think about it and might just try a class or two. Junie might just succeed at school, she was, he'd concluded, more savvy than half the lawyers at Hubbard, White & Willis.

She'd hugged him and then looked at him in that coy way that, before this, would've melted him. But he'd said he had to be going. He had an important meeting – with a pay phone. He'd looked at her for a long moment then kissed her on the cheek and left.

He wondered if Junie would say anything about him. She was, of course, in a position not only to destroy the delicate balance of his career, such as it was, but also to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

These possibilities he considered with remarkable serenity, sipping coffee from a porcelain cup. He weighed the odds and decided that she would say nothing. Although she'd been badly used by life and had the dangerous edge of those who learn survival skills before maturity, Junie was nonetheless motivated by a kind of justice. She saw essential good and essential evil, assigned her loyalty accordingly and stuck by her choice.

There were few adults with that perception Or that courage.

Also, Dudley chose to believe that the girl loved him, at least by her wary definition of that word.

Good-bye, Junie.

He now set the paper down and rocked back in his chair.

Reflecting that for once in his forty years as a lawyer he'd given up charming people and trying to win clients. Rather, he'd mastered a tiny bit of the law. In this small area of expertise he was now the best in the city restitution of parentally converted intestate distributions (though he himself preferred to think of the subniche as "saving teenage hookers' bacon".) And he was proud of what he'd learned and done.

Still, there was one more potential problem. Taylor Lockwood knew his secret.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number he'd been calling so often over the past two days that he had it memorized.

The main operator at Manhattan General Hospital answered. He asked to speak to the floor nurse about the paralegal's condition.

They'd been reluctant to talk about details but it was clear from the tone – as well as from the gossip around the firm – that the girl was near death.

Maybe she'd died. That would take care of all the problems.

But then an orderly came on the phone. The man listened to Dudley's question and replied in a cheerful voice, "Don't you worry, sir. Your niece, Ms. Lockwood, was discharged today. She's doing fine."

An electric charge shot through him at this news. He hung up.

With Clayton dead, she was the one person who could destroy his fragile life here at the firm. She was the one risk to his budding life as a real lawyer. So much of the law deals with risk, Dudley reflected, some acceptable, some not. On which side did Taylor Lockwood fall?

He rocked back, looking out the window at the tiny sliver of New York Harbor that was visible between the two brick walls outside his office.

As she left the firm by the infamous back door – no longer taped open, she noticed – Taylor Lockwood was aware of someone's presence near her.

She stepped onto the sidewalk of Church Street, which at one time had been the shoreline of lower Manhattan. Now a half mile of landfill had extended the island well into the Hudson and the harbor.

Pausing, she looked behind her.

This was a quiet street, with a few bad restaurants, a girlie bar (ironically next to the rear entrance to Trinity Church) and the dingy service entrances to a number of office buildings. The street was now largely deserted.

She noticed a few businesspeople hurrying to or from one of the gyms near here and some construction workers. A number of vans were parked on the narrow street, half on the sidewalk. She had to walk around a drapery cleaning van to step into the street and hail a taxi.

Of course, there were none.

Then, in the bulbous disk of a wide-angle rearview mirror on one of the vans, she noticed a man looking her way.

She gasped.

There was nothing ambiguous about the recognition this time.

It was the man in the baseball cap, the one who'd sat next to her in the coffee shop.

The killer, the thief.

Okay. He doesn't know you saw him. You can get out of this.

Shaking her head casually, as if discouraged that there were no cabs, Taylor turned slowly back to the sidewalk.

Then instantly reversed herself and, sprinting as fast as her still-weak legs could carry her, made straight for population.

She glanced back once and saw that the man had given up any pretense – he was ru

Still dehydrated and in severe pain from the poisoning, her muscles began to slow. Judging distances, Taylor realized that she wasn't going to make it to Broadway or one of the other heavily traveled streets before the killer reached her.

She stopped suddenly in the middle of the street and jogged down the concrete stairs to the Rector Street subway stop. This was better than the street anyway – not only would there be people on the platform but the token seller in the booth would have a hot line to the transit police. The killer wouldn't follow her here. He -

But he was following, grim determination – to kill her – on his face. A glance back showed that he'd picked up the speed, as if he could sense her fatigue and was moving in for the coup de grace.