Justice Hunter (6 page)
B
y the time Hunter got to San Kee Duck House, the Mecca of Chinese restaurants in Philly’s Chinatown neighborhood, Sheila was already seated and drinking a Tsingtao beer straight from the bottle. The place was jam-packed, typical for a Friday night. The line of famished patrons was out the door. Acting important, he squeezed his way past, the incensed eyes burning into his neck like Chinese stars. He did manage a flirtatious smile from an anorexic coed who assuredly had no intention of eating anyway. As he entered, the crack of butcher knives carving into crispy, caramel-colored ducks filled the steamy air, blending into the frenetic chatter of conversation and blaring overhead televisions.
Sheila welcomed him with a sexy smile. Hunter leaned toward her and for a second considered kissing her. But he caught himself, remembering their vow to be discreet about things. So he just sat at the two-top, adjusting into the small, ladder-backed wood chair. She peered out at him, taking another sip of beer and appearing thoroughly relaxed. For all the stresses of a divorcee judge’s daily life, Sheila had the remarkable ability to free her mind of worrisome thoughts. She was one of those rare people who somehow always managed to keep everything in perspective.
“You look too relaxed for a Friday.”
“Second one,” she replied, holding up the bottle. “On an empty stomach.”
A youthful waitress appeared. “Help you?” she asked efficiently, gesturing toward Hunter.
“I’ll have the same thing.”
“Tsingtao?”
“Fine.”
The waitress scurried off, but not fast enough, thought Hunter. He was in dire need of a drink to drown out the grating noise of the Vito’s case.
“Litigation’s a stressful existence, Hunter,” she said. “Don’t forget. I used to be one of you. I get it.”
“So that’s why you became a judge?” he said sarcastically. Up until now, the focus hadn’t really been on their career trajectories. There was an undeniable physical chemistry between them. And they were still very much in the honeymoon phase of the relationship.
“Partially,” she reflected. “I think ultimately it was the control, though. Knowing I could set the pace, make the important calls. I guess I got tired of killing myself and always being at the mercy of the judges. The pressure’s still there—don’t get me wrong. It’s just a different kind.”
Hunter couldn’t help but think of Judge Russo from earlier that morning.
“Want to know how I got through it?”
Hunter was genuinely curious but a bit reluctant to press for fear of seeming amateurish. “Sure,” he replied passively.
“I just kept asking myself, ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen? So, I lose the big case, never make partner.’ Big fucking whoop,” she continued. “Trust me when I tell you that partnership isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Pretty cynical.”
She nodded. “Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.”
“This is enlightening, actually,” said Hunter as the waitress handed him a beer.
“I bet.” Her discerning eyes bored into him for a split second, trying to get a read on him. Sheila obviously knew something was wrong. “I need to fess up, though.” Sheila discreetly scanned the immediate vicinity for any eavesdroppers the way all judges are obliged to do in public places. “I think maybe I was too quick in forming an opinion about that Vito’s case you just got.”
Hunter perked up.
“Once you told me Mancini was the one who assigned it to you,” she added, “I admit I became suspicious about his motives. Which may not have been warranted.” Sheila, slightly buzzed, paused to consider whether she was at liberty to reveal anything else. It was as if she were engaging in some magical legal ethics deductions on the fly, reading the rules, line for line, in her mind’s eye. “Let’s just leave it at that,” she finished with a decisive nod and diplomatic smile.
Hunter’s first reaction was that Sheila had come up against Mancini in her previous life as a litigator at Kruger. The chances were slim to none she’d ever presided over one of his cases. His underlings took care of things at the Common Pleas level. There were a few fen-phen cases that had come down the pike a couple years ago, and Hunter was pretty sure Mancini took the lead on at least one of them. But he would’ve remembered if Sheila had been assigned to any of them. Hunter, along with about a dozen or so other associates, had worked on discovery. And although he didn’t want to piss Sheila off, Hunter couldn’t just let this one go. “Is it about a case? Did he cross you while you were still in private practice?”
“It’s really nothing,” she answered defensively.
Needless to say, his curiosity was piqued. “Look, if it’s something you aren’t ethically permitted to reveal…”
Sheila stopped him, caving too easily. “Mancini and I used to be romantically involved,” she said self-derisively, sounding repulsed. “There it is,” she added, diverting her eyes in shame. It was obviously a regrettable affair, not one of Sheila’s finer moments. Although Hunter would’ve never suspected a love connection between the two, it wasn’t altogether inconceivable. Mancini was a charismatic and powerful high-flyer, which certainly counted for something on the attraction spectrum. Sheila tried to read Hunter’s reaction. “I would’ve told you eventually anyway. I just wasn’t sure where
this
was going, that’s all.”
And that made perfect sense to Hunter. Sheila and he had only been together for a few months, and frankly, Sheila’s past wasn’t really any of Hunter’s business anyway. They had come into the relationship, if it could even be called that at this point, as fully consenting adults. They weren’t exclusive, at least on paper, although Hunter had no intention of treating this like a casual fling. He was falling for her and couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. “Was it serious?” asked Hunter.
“Actually, it was. More than I’d care to admit,” Sheila replied. It was the first sign of vulnerability he’d observed since they met.
“This was obviously after the divorce?”
That didn’t come out right at all,
he thought. Sheila had been divorced for a few years already. Her husband was a prominent Philadelphia dentist she’d met while they were both getting their graduate degrees at Penn. It wasn’t implausible that she’d dated Mancini at some earlier date.
“Right,” she replied as she haphazardly readjusted her shoulder-length bangs. “It was
right
after. I guess you could say I was on the rebound,” she clarified. “Anyway, I’d known Mancini peripherally for a while.”
“How peripherally?”
“I used to see him,
in all his self-proclaimed glory
, at all the usual bar functions.” Her tone was acerbic.
He must’ve really done something to piss her off.
Despite the obscene number of lawyers in the Philadelphia community, everyone linked into the Philadelphia Bar Association seemed to know one another. At the very most, there were two degrees of separation. And Sheila used to be extremely active with the bar. Hunter was certain Mancini still was, or at least pretended to be. The associates at Whitman, on the other hand, were not necessarily encouraged to participate in bar activities. Unlike some of the other big firms in the city, Whitman didn’t count that time toward billables.
“It wasn’t until a Lawyer’s Club function that we actually got beyond the pleasantries,” Sheila explained.
The Lawyer’s Club was an organization that espoused social “intercourse” between the local lawyers and judges. And clearly it had achieved its objective with Sheila and Mancini. “It was a wacky time in my life, too. I was pretty new to the bench; Joe was still fighting me for custody of the kids. The way the marriage ended.” Her ex-husband had started “drilling one of his hygienists,” Sheila liked to say. “Frankly, Mancini was the last person on earth I’d ever expected to get together with. But we did, and it was exciting while it lasted.”
“The whole lawyer-slash-judge dynamic? Master servant?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“I’m just trying to picture Mancini being overpowered. Playing the subservient one.”
“Oh, he was a kinky one, all right. Anyway, we were pretty discreet. But I guess I lost perspective. Fell a little too hard and set myself up for disaster.”
“Understandable. You were craving something monogamous.”
“Maybe.” Sheila continued, “I was absolutely devastated when I found out he was cheating. It was the worst-case scenario under the circumstances.”
“And obviously Mancini knew about the thing with Joe?” Not that it mattered, Hunter realized after he’d already posed the question.
“When we started to get serious, I told him about it.” Sheila paused, drudging up the pain. “He reassured me. And of course I fell for it. Total misrepresentation.” Couching Mancini’s conduct in legal speak was one way to emotionally insulate herself.
“Someone gets an A in the heartlessness category.” Hunter couldn’t help but recall his own pain after learning of Monica’s affair.
“That’s Mancini for you.” Sheila offered a composed smile, fearful of coming off as a total basket case. She had every right to be one, though.
“So are you ready to run for the hills or what?”
“I’ll stay for now,” he replied in jest.
Sheila smiled warmly. “So now that the cat’s out of the bag, maybe you can see why I’m more than a little suspicious of Mancini’s motives.”
And then it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Is it possible Mancini knows about us?
he wondered. “Do you think—”
“No,” she interrupted. “Impossible.”
“How can you be so sure?” For all intents and purposes, Mancini was God at Whitman. In fact, omniscience was practically a prerequisite for chairmanship at a big firm. The firm tracked the comings and goings of its associates like Big Brother. Plus it was a known fact that the supervising partners monitored the files accessed by associates from the corporate servers. Attrition and productivity were on all the partners’ radars, so auditing e-mails and phone conversations was not outside the realm of possibility. Hunter had every reason to be concerned. “I’ve e-mailed you from my company BlackBerry before.”
“And?” she asked dismissively. “Don’t be so…”
“What? Paranoid?”
“Yes. Paranoid. I can assure you that Mancini has much better things to do with his time than spy on his associates.”
Now frustrated, he asked, “When you broke things off, how did he take it?”
“If you’re asking whether he’s some type of a stalker or something, then the answer is a resounding no. He was probably relieved more than anything else.”
“So he wasn’t still into you? I mean, did he try to right his wrongs? Salvage the relationship after you discovered his philandering ways?”
“Nothing really comes to mind. I mean, it was a while ago already.”
“And he never tried to win you back?”
“No.” She paused. “Look, he screwed up, and I got hurt. That’s how it happened.”
“And he never struck you as the jealous type?”
Sheila rested her hand at her chin contemplatively. Hunter noticed the French manicure.
A turn-on.
“We both know you never truly know someone. People we are convinced we know shock us all the time. Does Al fall into that category? Certainly. And he isn’t the type to exactly wear his emotions on his sleeve, if you know what I mean. So I guess you can say that anything’s possible.”
At that moment, Hunter realized he was probably overreacting. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder whether there was a connection to Sheila that prompted Mancini to assign him the Vito’s case.
Their impatient waitress was tableside again. Hunter ordered, yet Sheila seemed distracted. She was staring at something, or rather someone, at the back of the restaurant. Hunter nodded, and the waitress scurried off.
“Is everything all right?”
“I think so. It’s just there’s a guy over there who keeps staring. It’s sort of creeping me out,” she said.
“Does he look familiar? A lawyer, maybe? A defendant?” Hunter turned but didn’t see anyone particularly suspicious looking.
“No. I don’t think so. That’s strange,” she observed, her neck still craned. “He’s gone.”
H
unter whipped around in the other direction and then stood, trying to get a line on the entranceway, which doubled as an exit. He couldn’t see anyone at first. The steam, which lent the glass a greasy opacity, and the neon signage clouded his view. Rising and then inching his way toward the door, he peered out and observed a dark, late-model sedan stopped in the middle of the street in front of the restaurant. He remained oblivious as he moved, imprisoned by his curiosity. In the back of his mind, he suspected that Sheila’s observation was no mere coincidence but had something to do with the Vito’s case. He nearly stumbled into a table as curious patrons slurped and bugged out their eyes in wonderment.
And as he made his way outside onto the concrete steps, he observed a lone man—the same guy from inside. Even with traffic at a standstill, with horns blaring, the mystery man leaned calmly into the street-side rear door, coolly dangling a toothpick between his teeth. He had not a care in the world—the epitome of fearlessness. Although the lighting was poor, Hunter could make out hardened features and pockmarked skin. The guy wore a flamboyant double-breasted suit, which struck Hunter as somewhat odd. They locked eyes for an instant, his menacing glare taunting Hunter. Clearly he wanted to be noticed, burn a frightening image into Hunter’s memory.
Hunter drew closer, confronting his own demons, literally. He was unwilling to back down. If only he could get a plate number. But with Swiss quartz precision, the Mafioso-looking goon eased into the backseat and swung the door closed. Never diverting his gaze, he smiled wickedly as the vehicle sped away lawlessly. Desperately, Hunter made a dash for it, his bum knee giving out.
Fuck!
A wave of frustration and anger overcame him. He caught his breath and tried to compose himself. All there was left to do was return to his table and concentrate on getting obliterated.
Feeling as if he’d been run over by a Mack truck, his head throbbing from a night of binge drinking, he lifted his head, dreading the intensity of the day about to unfold. The digital clock read 9:15. Sheila, who could hold her liquor better than any Irishman he’d ever met, was long gone, probably drafting an opinion for one of her important cases or feeding her kids breakfast. He had some Celtic blood pumping through his veins on his mother’s side. But that didn’t seem to count for much, as far hangovers went. He had his father’s family to thank for that. They were Russian Jews, drunk on guilt and narcissism.
He looked around his bedroom, the disaster zone that it was, and wondered how a woman like Sheila could tolerate such deplorable filth. He couldn’t even stomach it, for Christ’s sake. In fact, he was feeling claustrophobic and in desperate need of something like a mental enema. Hunter’s bedroom was small and plain, with bare white walls, like the rest of the apartment. An ill-conceived smattering of 1980s track lighting protruded from the ceiling, giving off glare, at awkward angles to boot. Assuredly it was overcompensating for the dearth of natural lighting, the only source being the two rear windows, which backed up to the sordid alley. A simple black, faux-wood dresser stood unpretentiously in the corner and matched the black double bed. A pile of unfolded clothes, jeans, boxers, and sports socks—obviously meant for the drawers someday—lay atop the coarse, beige Berber carpet.
The mere sight of the Vito’s file, planted in the corner of the room like a dirty bomb, aroused a slight panic attack.
Why the fuck isn’t the Zoloft working? How many more months am I supposed to give it?
Today was the day Hunter had to either shit or get off the pot. Sheila and the brazen observer from last night had sealed it in his mind. Sheila was right. He had to get out. Plus, the red flag about Mancini was officially at full staff. As much as he wanted to believe the assignment was purely based on Mancini’s confidence in him, soliciting the talent of the only associate in the firm capable of turning around a dog of a case, he couldn’t help but wonder whether there was more there.
Something much more sinister.
Perhaps it was just a bit of garden-variety paranoia setting in. But in truth, who gave a crap?
Hunter threw off the white duvet cover. The section at the base of the bed didn’t budge, though. Sam rested at the foot of the bed, from side to side, his nearly hundred-pound body, like a tree stump, weighing it down. Sam barely lifted his head. He just opened his expressive black eyes enough to shoot Hunter an annoyed sideways glare, followed by a crocodilian yawn. Wearing only royal-blue-striped boxers, the rest of his body toned, Hunter sat up and turned to the side, draping his legs over the bed. Resolved to exercise and manufacture some much-needed endorphins, he figured he’d shower and everything when he got back.
As he excavated the small mountain of clothes at the foot of his bed, searching for anything remotely resembling running gear, he resigned himself to the fact that he had to do anything he could to get out of taking the Vito’s case without committing career suicide. And that would be no easy feat. Feathers would be ruffled, undoubtedly. Plus, Mancini, for whatever reason in addition to pecuniary motives, had taken a special personal interest in the case. Hunter’s hunch was that it was simply a matter of control. He slipped on his knee brace and worn-down Asics, as he’d done hundreds of times before, and started off toward the Schuylkill Banks trail, the eponymous exercise path winding to the art museum, the steps made famous by Sly Stallone in
Rocky
. Hunter had injured his kicking leg as an undergrad at Temple during a game against UMass and was eventually forced to have it scoped to repair the anterior cruciate ligament. That career-ending injury dashed any hopes of ever going pro. Sam, who undoubtedly would’ve preferred to remain comatose, stuck on the habitually repeating equivalent of a doggie’s wet dream, trailed, testing the limits of the tattered hemp leash.
The pair finally hit their stride by the time they got to Kelly Drive, a scenic four-mile stretch winding along the banks of the Schuylkill River and named after Olympic rower John Kelly, brother to the screen legend Grace Kelly. Hunter’s tattered nerves finally started to calm. As they passed Boathouse Row, preppy scullers unloaded gear and made their way to the various clubs in preparation for a vigorous morning of crew. It was already humid as hell and shaping up to be another unseasonably hot day. Other joggers, bikers, and rollerbladers were out en masse, smiling as they passed one another, brimming with a sense of productivity and the knowledge that they’d made the right choice, enjoying the outdoors as opposed to virtual exercise within the dreary confines of their local gyms.
Even Sam cracked an intermittent smile, getting into an exercise groove. He flirted with a white standard poodle, which pranced by, sporting its sexiest gait. She would’ve been wearing stilettos if she could. Her owners were a primped and wealthy-looking couple in their forties, decked out in the latest designer exercise duds, arguing as they walked. The dog was a thousand-dollar fashion accessory. Eventually Hunter and Sam reached Falls Bridge, the turnaround point, where they caught their breath alongside other winded runners.
After a brief respite, Hunter started up again and led them down the initial slope, back toward center city. He was relieved when he realized he hadn’t thought about the Vito’s case since their run started. Instead his weary mind had been wandering aimlessly from his sister and her hopelessly self-destructive behavior and then back to images of primal sex with the judge. Although Hunter and Sheila had only been romantically involved for a few months, his feelings for her were undeniably strong. Frankly, he had never expected it. She was a divorcee and mother of two, after all, two factors typically perceived as deterrents.
Since his breakup with Monica Fine, Hunter had spent close to the last decade basking in his independence. At least that was one way of rationalizing his all-consuming career. His rigorous and oftentimes unpredictable work schedule made commitment a virtual impossibility, even if the feelings were there to warrant it. The few times he actually did take a liking to someone, when he gleaned the potential for something more fulfilling than stimulating conversation and great sex, he always managed to sabotage himself. As much as it pained him to admit it, he was forever at the mercy of the Whitman partners. He needed them a lot more than they needed him. And they knew that. They thrived on it, in fact. Respectable bonuses were certainly fulfilling. But the feeling of invincibility, the kind that came with the latitude to demean greenhorns, was priceless. Meanwhile, Hunter was still knee-deep in his federal loans. At the rate he was going, his estate would be stuck with ungodly amounts of interest long after he croaked.
The concept of a work-life balance was little more than a fiction spewed by the in-house HR people who secretly conspired with the partners to make one’s life a living hell. Most of these guys were either unhappily divorced or unhappily married, which spoke volumes about the sad state of affairs at places like Whitman. They were miserable in love; thus, those taken under their wing were forced to check their romantic ideals in at the door. In fact, Sheila’s ex-husband, an anal-retentive dentist, claimed to be a living testament to the impracticability of taking up vows with a lawyer. According to Sheila, he’d never stopped bitching and moaning about how she put her career first, placing her family on the backburner while she pursued a coveted partnership slot. And although their marital woes proved far more elaborate, she conceded that her work schedule was not awfully conducive to raising a family. But the asshole was the one who wound up deserting the kids in the end. Maybe it took another lawyer’s empathy for one of these relationships to survive. Even judges, with all their autonomy and leadership, were still at the mercy of their trial dockets.
Hunter had met Sheila last year. He tried a case in front of her. That litigation involved libel claims against one of the city’s local weekly papers. The plaintiff was a car dealer with a God complex. According to Dillon, Sheila was “far too hot to be wasting away on the bench.” And part of him tended to agree. Sheila’s striking appearance was difficult to ignore. Sultry hazel eyes stared out inquisitively as she ruled on objections. Naturally pouty lips moved decisively, seductively. She had dark brown hair, shoulder length and not over-stylized. She looked more Parisian than Pennsylvanian. Her athletic figure could’ve easily belonged to a twenty-five-year-old, not to a woman in her late thirties. What was probably once a fashion model type beauty in her youth had evolved into a provocative confidence and fiery intensity, which made Sheila far more sexy than pretty as a woman.