Dirty Blonde (5 page)

“You know the rules. You have to.” Gina leaned over her plate, her dinner forgotten. “How’m I gonna live vicariously if you have such a boring life? You’re a judge, not a nun. Maybe you got confused? The black robes are too matchy?”

Cate smiled.
Everybody should have at least one girlfriend who can make her laugh.
“Enough about me. Tell me about the bitchy speech therapist,” she said, because she knew Gina needed to talk, and they were off.

Later, while Gina was upstairs getting ready to go, Cate sat at the kitchen chair next to Warren and a watery Diet Coke, its ice melted to slivers. The kitchen lights were dimmed, and Mozart played in the background. Warren remained focused on the window, and Cate followed his gaze, confounded.

Outside, under the security light, the branches of a bare tree moved in the wind, in a stiff, jittery way. Kids with autism saw details and patterns that people without it couldn’t see, so she squinted and tried to see them the way Warren did. Spidery black lines coated with yellow light moved back and forth, then the black lines disappeared into complete darkness. Autistic brains saw everything, but normal brains didn’t see things if they didn’t expect to see them, in a phenomenon called inattentive blindness. There’d even been an experiment where airplane pilots had failed to see a jet on the runway, because they didn’t expect it to be there.

He’s got to come back to us. To his mother. To me.

Cate picked up a medium-sized round mirror rimmed with cheery red felt and tilted it at Warren so that it captured his face. “Warren. You’re Warren,” she said. In the reflection, the child’s mouth tilted down at the one corner, though his gaze stayed at the window. She pointed to his reflection anyway. “Warren.” Then she tilted the mirror to herself, so he could see her reflection. She pointed to her face in the mirror. “Karen.”

What
?

“Cate.” Cate blinked and pointed again. She must be tired.
Carol. Sandra. Emily. Halley.
“
Cate
.” Then she tilted the mirror to the boy and pointed again. “Warren.”

Warren stirred in the high chair and began to move his head, side to side.

“It’s okay,” Cate said in a calm voice. What was bothering him? Maybe too much pointing. Autistic kids don’t point, and he was just learning how to point in school. She set the mirror down gently. Sudden noises wouldn’t help. “We won’t do this anymore, if you don’t want to.”

Warren shook his head, side to side.

“Warren, it’s okay, we’ll stop now, it’s okay,” Cate soothed, but singsong wasn’t working. She wanted to kick herself. “It’s okay, Warren,” she said, but he started shaking his head faster, then swinging his small arms, jostling the high chair. The chair banged against the kitchen table, and Cate’s glass tipped over with a loud
clunk
, spilling Diet Coke and sending ice skidding across the table.

“Ahhh!” Warren burst into screaming, shaking his head back and forth so violently that he rocked the high chair, almost toppling it. Cate leapt up and grabbed him under his arms so he didn’t fall, but he was strapped into the high chair and went ballistic. Cate managed to unlatch him and scoop him shrieking into her arms, kicking his feet, writhing back and forth. Cate tried to remember her training. Kids with autism are calmed by tight squeezing. She hugged him tightly, and he kicked against her stomach with his baby sneakers but she didn’t let go.

“Cate!” Gina rushed into the kitchen in a towel, her expression stricken and her wet hair plastered to her shoulders. “Do you need—”

“No, I got it, it’s okay, Warren, it’s okay, it’s Cate and it’s okay,” Cate said over and over, squeezing him. Gina stood at their side, her hand covering her mouth, her tears silent. The child stopped screaming and his kicking finally lessened, then ceased as his tense body loosened in her arms. “It’s all right, Warren, it’s gone now, I love you, Warren,” Cate kept repeating, and Warren went finally limp in her arms.

Gina signaled in time that he had fallen asleep, but Cate didn’t let him go. He felt so good in her arms, permitting her embrace only in slumber, and Gina understood, because she nodded to Cate to go upstairs to put him down. And when they were finished, Cate picked up her purse, slipped back into her sheepskin, and closed the town house door.

Grateful, and heartbroken, to leave.

Afterwards Cate found herself driving the long way home, knowing she was in some vague state of denial. She piloted the white Mercedes through Roxborough, a working-class neighborhood on the way home, a brick labyrinth of row houses with green plastic awnings, heaped now with crusty snow and trimmed with sooty icicles. She felt oddly comfortable here; it was a lot like her hometown, and she kept seeing her own past.

She drove by an old Catholic grade school, its windows covered with construction-paper snowflakes. She had gone to an elementary school like that, St. Ignatius, and remembered making snowflakes, folding the paper into thick eighths, cutting the corners with useless safety scissors, then unfolding the creation in a schoolgirl’s suspense. She’d been either disappointed to discover cut holes that were bigger than they were supposed to be, or happily surprised when a humongous star burst at the center of the snowflake. She didn’t know why she remembered it, now.

She drove past a small church with an attached rectory, then a large stone funeral home that was, ironically, the nicest building on the block. It was always that way in neighborhoods; it had been in hers, too. She cruised ahead, listening to the thrumming of the Mercedes engine and passing old Fords and minivans whitewashed with road salt and grime. She slowed when she came, inevitably, to a corner bar.

PADDY’S, read the neon sign, a glowing green cliché with a sideways shamrock.

Cate eyed the place as the car idled at the stop sign. Its brick facade needed repair and its one window, in the side of the building, was of old-fashioned block glass, almost stop-time. A broken concrete stoop led to a wooden front door, so close to the street that Cate could hear laughter from within. She felt a familiar tingle of arousal and fear.

HONK! HONK!

Cate started and checked the rearview just as a pickup flashed its high beams. She hit the gas and cruised forward, half-looking for a parking space, half-driving home. She checked the digital clock on the car’s tan dashboard, illuminated with a ghostly white: 11:13. Then the temperature: 18 degrees.

Cate lapped the block once, then twice. Thinking, and not thinking. She flashed on Warren, sleeping spent in her arms. Then Marz, for some reason, which reminded her. She still had work to do tonight. Tomorrow would bring a big decision. The motion she had to rule on would prevent the case from ever going to the jury. They’d never get to decide who was telling the truth, and Marz would be dead in the water.

Cate took a left onto Ridge Avenue, heading home.

CHAPTER 5

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Cate shook hands all around and gestured Temin and Hartford into the mismatched chairs across from her desk in chambers. The lawyers greeted her nervously, undoubtedly taken aback by her surprise request to meet with them, and as they sat down, they stole glances around the office. Cate still hadn’t decorated the place, and for a second, saw it through their eyes.

Her leftover desk—medium-sized, GAO-issue, of brown mahogany-like laminate—would impress no one, and her desk chair was covered with brown pleather. Briefs and pleadings lay stacked on the conference table across the room, but at least the papers hid the water rings. Bookshelves lined the walls, but they remained empty except for unpacked boxes she’d brought from her old firm. There was, however, a floor-to-ceiling window with a spectacular view: gray clouds made a dreamy canopy over the blue Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which spanned the Delaware River and connected the snow-covered row houses of colonial Philadelphia to the renewed waterfront of Camden.

Cate asked, “Great view, huh?”

“Sure is,” Temin answered, falsely cheery. His curly hair looked damp, and white conditioner plugged one ear. He wore his trademark wrinkly brown suit. “You can see forever. Or, at least, Jersey.”

“It’s lovely,” Hartford agreed, tugging up his pants leg. He wore gray pinstripes, newly squeegeed glasses, and a tight smile.

“Thanks for coming, both of you,” Cate said. “I called you in because I’m troubled by this case. As you know, I inherited this matter, so I wasn’t involved in any settlement discussions. The way I see it, this is a garden-variety contract case, if we strip away the Hollywood glamour. Why hasn’t it been settled?”

Temin sighed. “Plaintiff did try to settle, Your Honor, but defendant was unwilling.”

Cate turned to Hartford. “How unwilling?”

“Completely,” he answered firmly, but Cate wasn’t hearing the firmly part. She turned back to Temin.

“What was your demand?”

“Your Honor, our financial expert examined what the
Attorneys@Law
franchise has grossed to date, not counting future DVD sales, domestic and worldwide, and he tells us we’re talking $760 million, gross.”

Cate almost laughed. “As I said, what was your demand?”

“We started at twenty million, then went down to fifteen, then ten, then eight, then two.” Temin shifted his girth. “Right now we’re at $925,000.”

It’s a start.
“Sounds like movement to me. What about you, George?”

“Your Honor, the rub isn’t me, but my client. He refuses to pay a penny. Not a penny. He doesn’t want to set a precedent, and successful producers become major targets if they pay. Besides, it’s a principle with Mr. Simone.”

Yeah, right.
“He must have a number.”

“He has no number. He believes that his reputation is on the line.”

“His reputation is taking a pounding in the press.” Cate hadn’t been reading the articles, but her clerks memorized them. “
Entertainment Weekly
,
Variety
,
People
magazine, they’re all on Marz’s side. The consensus is your client stole Mr. Marz’s idea.”

Hartford shook his head. “They just want to bring a successful man down, and Mr. Simone thinks long-term. He expects to be vindicated and change the public’s mind. In any event, he says that all press is good press, and the ratings are up.”

“The
ratings
?” Cate repeated, appalled. “Is that what’s going on here? That as long as this case stays alive, your client is getting better ratings?”

“No, no, no!” Hartford rushed to say, holding up a conciliatory hand. “It’s about the principle, I assure you, and the precedent.”

Yeah right.
Cate changed tack and faced Temin. “Let’s close this deal, Counsel. Will your client take half the amount he’s currently asking, let’s say $500,000?”

“I believe he would. Confidentially, he’s still out of a job.”

“There is no number.” Hartford shook his head, and Temin turned to him in appeal.

“George, what about 250 grand? That would make my guy whole for the time he was out of work and cover at least some of my fees.”

“I can’t help you out, Nate.”

Cate folded her arms, bowing out for a minute.

Temin said, “Come on, you gotta be kidding. Your guy makes more dough than God.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Would you recommend it to him, at least?”

“Honestly, no.”

“Why not?”

“He wants vindication.”

“He wants
blood
!” Temin shot back, and Cate stepped in.

“Mr. Temin, please, that won’t help.”

“But, Your Honor, what does he want?” Temin threw up his pudgy hands. “He took my guy’s show, he took his livelihood, and my guy’s got nothin’. I’ll give up my fee, Judge.” Temin turned to Hartford again. “George, he’s a good kid. He made a mistake. How can you take advantage of that kid and sleep at night?”

“I’m not—”

“A
hundred
grand, then!” Temin said, raising his voice again. “No fee for me. Two years of salary for my guy. How about it?”

“No.”

“A year then. The guy has two kids and a mother he supports. She lives in the duplex upstairs.”

“Not for fifty grand or even twenty-five. It’s not going to happen. Your client started this, and we’re going to finish it.”

Cate raised her hand, and Temin bit his tongue. Her only hope was convincing Hartford that there was a risk if he didn’t settle. “Mr. Hartford, you act as if a verdict is guaranteed your client, but have you been watching? The jury favors Mr. Marz.”

Hartford smiled without warmth. “With respect, we feel confident we will prevail. If not before you this morning, then in the Third Circuit. And if not there, I am authorized to take it all the way up.”

“To the Supremes?” Temin interrupted, incredulous. “What? That’s
burning
money! An appeal that far will cost a hundred grand. He can settle it right now for a song.”

Hartford set his jaw. “I cannot settle this case. Even if I recommend it, he will not take it.”

Cate had to let it go. Judges were permitted to aid settlements, not muggings. “Mr. Hartford, go and take the final demand to Mr. Simone. If you won’t recommend it to him, tell him that I do. Tell him I strongly recommend that he do the right thing, the smart thing, and settle.”

“But, Your Honor—”

“Go, Mr. Hartford,” Cate repeated firmly, then rose, which cued the lawyers that the meeting was over. “You have an hour before we’re in session. Tell the bailiff if you need more time.”

“Your Honor—”

“Go and do.
Now
.”

Ten minutes later, Cate was sitting at her desk across from Emily Carroll, she of the nose ring, eyebrow bar-pierce, and weird earlobe-stretcher-circle thing. The girl dressed in heavy Goth, with black eyeliner around her dark eyes, a maroon cardigan that picked up her purple fingernail polish, and black pants that fit too snugly under a wide belt dotted with silver studs. But if there was a case that would save Marz, Emily would find it. Hardware aside.

“Tell me something good,” Cate said, leaning over her second cup of coffee. Temin and Marz were still in discussions. They had fifteen minutes until court started.