Dead Ringer (7 page)

“Wait just one minute.” Bennie felt herself stiffen. She didn’t want to discuss this with them. She had let herself get too close, somewhere between the pantyhose and the lo mein. They weren’t her colleagues; they were her employees. “I don’t agree that you have a right to know. As a matter of fact, you most certainly do
not
have a right to know. It’s my business. Literally.”

Judy’s cheeks turned as pink as her bangs, and Mary bit her lip. “Bennie, I’m not sure we have a right to know, but we want to know. It’s our burden to share.”

“Right,” Murphy agreed.

Bennie considered it, only reluctantly. “Okay, I do have a cash-flow problem. Ray Finalil is going bankrupt, and he didn’t pay us or his experts. St. Amien’s case is great, but frankly, he may come too late. I don’t know if I can keep the wheels on this thing until it settles, and there’s always a chance that it won’t settle at all.” Bennie gathered her papers and rose stiffly, stowing them quickly in her briefcase. “You don’t have to worry about your jobs for the next two months, but that’s all I can guarantee. At this point, that’s all I can promise you. Two months.”

The three associates looked thunderstruck, and Bennie was fairly sure none of them had considered her job in jeopardy until this very moment. She looked down, fumbling with the latch of her briefcase, willing the lump from her throat. Then she forced herself to meet their eyes dead-on and steeled herself to say what was best for them, and not what she wanted to say at all:

“So now you know. I think things will change when we settle this class action, but I’ve learned enough law this weekend to know that that may take a long time. I will understand if any one of you wants to leave. Feel free to put out your résumé. I wish you all the best and will give you nothing but the highest recommendations. And I will manage without you. So if you need to leave the firm, please go.”

“We don’t want to leave!” Judy blurted out, and Anne was shaking her head.

“No way. I just got here.”

Mary looked stricken; her lips parted. “I didn’t mean it that way, Bennie. Let’s just go to dinner. Forget about the whole thing. We have two great cases, in the class action and Brandolini, too. We can make it work. Bridge the gap somehow—”

“No, you guys go to dinner without me.” Bennie shook her head quickly. “I’m beat. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Thanks again, for everything.” She managed a fraudulent smile and headed for the exit. Her face felt hot, her mouth dry. Words she’d heard earlier that day flashed into her mind, about Amadeo Brandolini:
He had failed to support his family, or to protect them. It made him feel ashamed, as a man.
She understood now exactly how Brandolini had felt. The feeling wasn’t confined to men. She left the associates quickly, and without another word.

Outside the office, the night air was dark, humid, and cool. The streets were deserted even though it wasn’t that late. An empty SEPTA bus traveled down Chestnut Street, rocking from side to side with a hydraulic hissing. The bus didn’t bother to stop at the kiosk at the corner, since nobody was waiting there, but accelerated, belching gray exhaust into the street. Bennie took a right turn onto a side street to lose herself in the narrow colonial streets of the city. She usually took them for her walk home because she liked the different sights they afforded, an insider’s view. But tonight her route wasn’t a matter of preference. She simply felt like hiding. From her associates, from herself.

She headed down a backstreet too narrow for a streetlight. An almost complete darkness lay ahead of her, interrupted only by the pool of a mercury-vapor streetlight at the far end of the block. It must have rained hard while they were working, and the asphalt of the street glimmered slick and black. Her Sauconys squished on the wet sidewalk. Then she heard a funny sound right behind her.

She turned, but there was no one there. Maybe she was just tired. Stressed. Still, she picked up the pace, hoisting her heavy briefcase a little higher. Something made her glance again over her shoulder. But there was nothing there. Bennie, usually so fearless, felt suddenly uncomfortable.

Enough already. Loser
.

She held her head up and inhaled deeply. The wet air had a heavy odor that was hard to explain. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe it was something else, which she identified next. Cooking oil? She had walked northeast, far enough to find herself approaching Chinatown. The scent of saturated fats wafted down the block, spewed into the air by whirling fans atop a score of restaurants.

She walked on, and brightly lit signs with red lettering—PEKING DUCK, DIM SUM, SHANGHAI GARDEN—surrounded her, and she remembered she had only cereal to eat for dinner at home. Her dog could wait a little for his walk; she felt oddly that she needed to be around people. She ducked into one of the bigger restaurants, hoping to get a table quickly.

The restaurant bustled with suburban families and couples, raising the noise level and steaming up the front window. It wouldn’t be the peaceful meal Bennie had pictured. She was turning to leave when a waiter in a black jacket grabbed her elbow. “One seat at bar,” he said, urging her with a pushy little yank.

“Is it ready now?”

“Right now,” the waiter replied, and Bennie followed him through the packed restaurant to a seat at the bar, which was busy since this was one of the few Chinese restaurants with a liquor license. The waiter read her mind. “You want drink?”

“Please, yes. A glass of zinfandel.” The waiter nodded and took off, and Bennie set her briefcase at her feet and glanced around. The lights were low, but she could make out some familiar faces at a long table in the back of the restaurant. There was Judge William Tepper, of the federal district court, his glasses reflecting the tiny white lights at the center of the table, near a huge pu-pu platter. Next to him sat Judge Lynne Maxwell, also of the district court, then Judge Lucien Favata and Judge Ernest Calhoun Eadeh. It was a huge party, full of judges from the Eastern District bench. Judges often lunched in Chinatown because it was so close to the courthouse, but Bennie wouldn’t have expected to see them here on a Sunday night.

Damn
. She looked away, but thought better of it. The St. Amien complaint would be randomly assigned to one of these judges. She should start politicking if she wanted to be approved as class counsel. And her seat was close enough to the table that she couldn’t avoid being seen. In fact, Chief Judge Kathryn Kolbert was already motioning to her to come over.

“Bennie, Bennie, over here!” the chief judge was calling. She was in her late sixties, with frosted hair cropped in a chic layered cut, and she wore her laugh lines with pride. Bennie had always admired Judge Kolbert, who came from an era when women burned bras and promoted other women, which made her almost extinct.

Bennie got up, put on a smile, and wedged her way to the table of judges. “Well, here’s quite a brain trust! What brings you all together? Splitting the atom?”

Chief Judge Kolbert laughed, waving a manicured hand at the head of the table. “It’s Ken’s birthday. He’s the big six-oh today.”

“Sixty, can it be?” Bennie asked, smiling at Judge Kenneth Sherman. She genuinely liked Judge Sherman, though she could never bring herself to call him Ken. Judges for her held a certain mystique and they always would, even without their robes. They were true public servants, making far less than they could have in private practice, for the good of everyone. She bowed slightly from the waist, trying to summon some dignity in her khaki shorts. “Congratulations, Judge Sherman!”

“Ms. Rosato, one of my favorite Democrats!” Judge Sherman exclaimed, and Bennie laughed.

“That’s right. Now don’t die on me, Judge. It’s only you, me, and the chief on the home team.”

“You got that right!” Judge Sherman laughed, and so did the others, good-naturedly. Everybody knew that the string of Republican presidents, starting with Bush senior, had changed the face of the federal judiciary, making it older, whiter, and more conservative. But the appointments were generally smart and fair, and evidently had a decent sense of humor. Even if they didn’t realize that sisterhood is powerful.

“Well, I don’t want to disturb you,” Bennie said. “I’ll leave you to your revelry. Enjoy!” She left with a short wave and a round of good-byes and went back to her seat at the counter, where the waiter greeted her with her glass of wine. She sat down, nursed her wine, and tanked up on the fried things they brought free while she memorized her draft complaint. Her only other choice was looking at all the happy people around her, who undoubtedly paid their long-distance bills. When her meal came, she finished it quickly and left the restaurant.

Bennie emerged into the night, and the air had thickened, heavier with an expectant humidity. She pulled her sweatshirt closer around her and glanced up at the sky, opaque with storm clouds, and moonless. It was going to rain again, from the look of it, any minute. She looked around for a cab but there was none in sight. The sidewalks were empty. Philadelphians stayed home on Sunday nights, and every other night. It was only one of the things she loved about her hometown.

She turned west toward her neighborhood and picked up the pace. If she had to walk home, she would. It would take only a half an hour. But her stomach felt uncomfortably full, and she couldn’t shake the spooky feeling she’d had before. She didn’t hear a noise, but she glanced back anyway. A drizzle came on, spitting at first and then harder, with cold raindrops pelting the parked cars and city streets.

Bennie tilted her head down and hurried down the street.

Trying not to look behind her.

6

Monday morning, Bennie stepped off the elevator into the reception area of her firm and stood confounded by the sight. Cardboard boxes filled the room, stacked like toy building blocks. There had to be thirty of them, heaped on the carpet and piled atop the coffee table and chairs. What was all this? She tucked her newspapers, bag, and briefcase under her arm, went over to the nearest box, and read the shipping label. NORTH CAROLINA HAMMOCKS (2). She lifted up the second page of the bill for the order line, and it read BENEDETTA ROSATO.
What
?

Bennie went puzzled to the next box, from Neiman Marcus, and skimmed the white shipping bill. CASHMERE SWEATERS, TWO. BENEDETTA ROSATO. She hadn’t ordered any cashmere sweaters. She turned to a long, skinny box from Smith & Hawken. GARDEN SHOVELS (2), from France.
Imported shovels?

Bennie realized what had happened, just as the secretary appeared. Marshall Trow was a bright-eyed woman in a blue cotton maternity dress. Bennie turned to her. “Can you believe this shit?”

“You off the curse diet?”

“Fuck yes! It’s my credit cards, right? Whoever has my wallet must have used them before we canceled the cards.”

“Right, but don’t sweat it. You’re not liable for the charges. I called some of the vendors and they verified that your Visa and AmEx cards were used for the purchases. Remember, the credit card companies let me cancel your cards, but only the cardholder can find out about the recent purchases. I told you to call them, in my E-mail. Did you?”

“Didn’t get a chance. Sorry.” Bennie had been too busy working. She hadn’t even replaced the Filofax. All her money, about fifty bucks from her underwear drawer, was stuffed in a Ziploc bag. “I have no time to deal with this, Marsh.”

“I’ll file a report with the police and call FedEx to come get these boxes. I’ll call about your driver’s license.”

“Thanks.” But Bennie didn’t get one thing. “Why would somebody buy all this stuff on my cards and
send
it to me? Why not just keep it? What’s the point?”

“It must be a prank.” Marshall fingered the paintbrush end of her light brown braid. “Somebody thinks this is funny, like sending twenty pizzas to your house. They want to jerk your chain.”

“Well, let ’em laugh.” Bennie hoisted up her briefcase, bag, and newspapers. “Onward and upward. How was your weekend?”

“Fine, thanks. Jim and I took it easy, but the baby didn’t. He’s movin’ and groovin.’ Only two weeks to go.” Marshall rubbed her very pregnant tummy. “It’s great news about the new class action. We’re playin’ in the bigs now, huh?”

“Trying to.” Bennie had finished St. Amien’s complaint last night and she’d have to file it this morning. They’d meet at eleven o’clock to review it, but she couldn’t wait to file. She wanted to get ahead of the curve on the lead counsel thing. “Marshall, can you fill out a civil cover sheet for me to file with the St. Amien complaint?”

“It’s already on your desk, for your signature.”

“What a woman,” Bennie said, meaning it. She didn’t know if Marshall would decide to come back to work after the baby was born. It would be a terrible loss for the firm, if there still was a firm. “Now all I have to do is find the hundred and fifty bucks for the filing fee.”

“I got it out of petty cash. There’s three dollars and two cents left.”

“You anticipate my every need. Will you marry me?”

“No.”

“Is it because I walk like a man?”

“What?” Marshall’s pretty forehead wrinkled.

“Forget it. Any messages?”

“Not yet,” she said. It was Marshall’s considerate way of saying
Nobody calls here anymore.
“Who’s going to file the complaint?”

“I am. I want Carrier and Murphy to keep working on the class-action research, and DiNunzio’s on Brandolini, so I’ll file it. You know my mantra.”

“Eat two, they’re small?” Marshall smiled crookedly. She had the intelligence, loyalty, and sense of humor God reserved for legal secretaries, because they needed it more than anybody else.

“No. ‘If you have more time than money, do it yourself.’ Let me check my E-mail, then I’ll go.” Bennie headed for her office, then stopped. Marshall must have talked to the associates about the conversation last night. She told them everything. She was the one in the office with Warmth and Personality. Bennie turned back. “Marshall, you know the story about the firm’s finances, but the associates don’t. Or didn’t, until last night. I think I surprised the shit out of them. I mean, the crap.”