Dead Ringer Page 6

  “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.”

  “I would say so.” She snorted. “They were in a tizzy this morning, but they’ll be okay.”

  “How bad were they? Did you distribute Prozac?”

  “No, they’re fine. It’s good to share information like that with them. They’re old enough, they should know the kind of pressures that the firm is under.” Marshall’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one I’m worried about. They said you didn’t eat dinner with them, that you were really upset when you left. Are you okay? You look tired this morning.”

  “I worked late, and I wasn’t upset. I wanted to draft that complaint. I’m fine.”

  “You can’t do everything alone, Bennie.” Marshall clucked. “What’ll you do when I have a real baby to take care of?”

  “God knows,” Bennie answered, then went off to be her own messenger.

  A half an hour later, she had arrived at the United States Courthouse, which rose like a red-brick monolith among the historic halls and the new Constitution Center. Lawyers, court employees, jurors, and judges flooded into the courthouse this morning, typically busy for a Monday, when new juries were impaneled. Inside, new security measures had forced the slicing up of the courthouse’s formerly generous marble lobby into glass chutes that funneled people to the metal detectors. Bennie joined the back of the line, ending up not far from the courthouse entrance, and was just about to jockey for a faster lane when she felt
a hand on her arm. It was Chief Judge Kolbert, but today she appeared stiff in a trim tweed suit, carrying an accordion briefcase.

  “Long time no see, Chief,” Bennie greeted her. The lawyers in front of her glanced back, jealous. Knowing Chief Judge Kolbert was the legal equivalent of knowing Madonna.

  “Good morning, Bennie,” the judge replied, but her freshly made-up face wrinkled so deeply her foundation cracked. “I gather you have a rather large headache this morning.”

  “No, not really. Why do you say that?”

  “Your conduct last night.” The chief judge leaned over, scented with Shalimar and annoyance. “You had had quite a lot to drink at the restaurant. You certainly tied one on.”

  “What?” Bennie asked, surprised. “I had only the one glass of wine.”

  “Please. You disappoint me. Judge Eadeh told me he saw you, in the crowd at the bar. You made quite a scene. He told me they asked you to leave.”

  “That’s not true!” Bennie felt slapped in the face. The lawyer in front of her glanced back to see who was making a fool of herself in front of Madonna. “Nobody threw me out, Judge! What are you talking about?”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about it.” The chief waved hello at a passing group of lawyers, then returned her attention to Bennie, her whisper thinned to a hissing. “I’d advise more prudence in public. I know you were on your own time, as were we, but really, everybody noticed. You are well known and you represent all of us.”

  “But, Judge, I didn’t get thrown—”

  “Judge Eadeh saw you, and so did Judge Sherman. Are you saying they were lying?”

  Judge Sherman, too? “No, of course not, but they must have made a mistake. The bar was crowded. Maybe it was someone who looked like me, but it wasn’t me, I swear it!”

  “Bennie, I tell you as a friend. If you have a drinking problem, attend to it. Now, I must go.” The chief judge pivoted on her patent pumps and left bearing her briefcase.

  Bennie stood stunned, her face aflame. What was the judge talking about? She hadn’t had more than one glass. She hadn’t made any scene. She hadn’t been thrown out. The line shifted forward, and she shifted with it, on autopilot. She couldn’t understand it. There had been a crowd at the restaurant’s bar. Maybe someone in the bar area had made a fuss, and the judges had mistakenly thought it was her. Maybe it was someone who looked like her. That had to be it. But what could she do about it? Go to each judge and explain? Excuse me, Judge, I’m not an alcoholic?

  Bennie passed though the security checkpoints, shoving her briefcase and bag onto the conveyor belts and flashing her laminated court ID, completely preoccupied. There must have been some sort of misunderstanding, simple as that. Best to let it go. Say nothing, and pray that St. Amien’s complaint wasn’t assigned to a judge who thought she needed Alcoholics Anonymous. It gave a whole new meaning to the term “judicial intervention.”

  Bennie grabbed the escalator to the second floor, and by the time she reached the blue rug of the landing, she had another theory. She’d said it herself earlier, the thought coming out of its own volition: Maybe it was someone who looked like me. Because there was someone who looked like her. It was possible that Alice, her twin, had come back to Philly. They looked identical, but Bennie hadn’t seen Alice since the day she’d left town two years ago, and given Alice’s lifestyle, Bennie had even wondered if she were still alive. Alice hadn’t wanted a twin, and Bennie hadn’t either—after she’d met hers. The two women hadn’t grown up together, and one had become a lawyer, while the other had become a criminal. It had all come out in court, when Bennie defended Alice on a murder charge. Was Alice back in town? And why would she be in the same Chinese restaurant last night?

  Bennie walked distracted down the corridors of the building, through a warren of bright white halls and past the door to the United States marshal’s office, flanked by framed movie posters of Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp and Tommy Lee Jones in U.S. Marshals. Evidently everybody was having trouble separating fiction from reality this morning. Bennie walked on, considering her situation. It couldn’t have been Alice in the restaurant, could it? She hadn’t seen her there, and she would have noticed her doppelgنnger eating dim sum. It seemed impossible, or at least unlikely. No reason to jump to conclusions. Alice had no business in town, and she’d said she’d never come back. The judges had simply made a mistake. They did that all the time, whenever they ruled against Bennie. She tried to laugh it off, but she wasn’t laughing.

  She reached the office of the district court clerk and opened the double doors into the large office, buzzing with characteristic activity. Facing the entrance was a long Formica counter of fake wood, and behind it fifty-odd court employees hustled back and forth with court documents or keyboarded at their desks in maroon cubicles covered with American flags and Eagles calendars. Bennie never lost sight of the fact that even the biggest lawsuit started with a single complaint, which would be accepted by someone, time- and date-stamped, then assigned to somebody in a black robe. The employees in the clerk’s office, dressed in rugby shirts and Cherokee jeans, were as integral to the justice business as the guys in the black robes, and Bennie had come to know many of the clerks personally over time. She took a place in line at the counter, suppressing nagging thoughts about Alice.

  “Yo, Joe,” she said, settling when she reached the front of the line. Joe Grimassi, the clerk at the counter, greeted her with a smile. He was a twenty-five-year-old in a blue oxford shirt and khakis, and he attended Temple Law at night.

  “Hey, Bennie. How you been?”

  “Good.” She reached into her briefcase, slid out a manila folder containing the complaint, the civil cover sheet and the other papers, and her check for the filing fee. “How was your Civ Pro exam?”

  “Last semester? I got an A! Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Res judicata’s a bitch.”

  “Tell me about it. If it weren’t for you, I’d be screwed. So, what do you have for me today?” Joe held out his hand, and Bennie passed him the papers and check.

  “A class-action complaint. I’m an old dog, learning new lawsuits.”

  “I recognize this defendant.” Joe nodded, skimming the caption. “I heard this case is gonna be a monster. We already had four other complaints filed in it last week.”

  Huh? “Already? You’re kidding. From who? Whom?”

  “The usual suspects. Kerpov, Brenstein, Quinones, and Linette’s firm. Linette filed first, of course.”

  “I shoulda known.” Bennie was kicking herself. So much for getting ahead of the curve.

  “These class-action jocks, they don’t sit on their thumbs. Not on a case this big, with lead counsel in play. It’s a gold rush.” Joe leaned over the counter like a co-conspirator. “And you didn’t hear it from me, but the word is Bill Linette signed the lead plaintiff.”

  “The lead plaintiff?” Bennie couldn’t believe it. Bill Linette was the heaviest hitter in the class-action bar. He’d supposedly been given the nickname “Bull” because he was so tough, but Bennie knew a better reason. “How can he? I have the lead plaintiff. Robert St. Amien.”

  “Not according to Linette. His messenger spilled the beans. I forget the plaintiff’s name.” Joe set aside her papers, filled out a receipt for her check, and assigned her a case number. “Looks like you and Big Bull will have to duke it out. Celebrity Lawyer Deathmatch. Kick his ass for me, would you?”

  “Bet on it, Joe.” Bennie felt her juices flowing. “Lemme see a copy of Linette’s complaint.”

  “Believe me, it ain’t Oliver Wendell Holmes. It took him about ten minutes to write, if that.” The clerk went to a desk nearby, looked through a file, extracted a manila folder, and returned to Bennie. “Here we go. You know the rules, give it to the guys in the copy department over there.”

  “It hasn’t been assigned to a judge yet, has it? Say no.” Bennie wanted time between her alleged public drunkenness and the case assignment
, but one look at the file told her that it wasn’t to be. The judge’s name had been stamped in large red letters at the top. HONORABLE KENNETH B. SHERMAN. It was Judge Sherman, the birthday judge, who had liked her until he found out she was in rehab. “Thanks a lot, Joe,” she said as he motioned for the next lawyer in line.

  Bennie moved out of the way with the file folder and joined the long line at the copy department, where she opened the folder. Mayer v. Lens Manufacturers Association of Pennsylvania et al., read the caption, and she winced. One Herman Mayer had already been given the lead plaintiff position, at least in the caption. She flipped through the complaint while she waited in line, with increasing anger. It was only three pages long, with just the barest bones of pleading, stating the reasons the case should be a class action and the cause of action. There were no details, no specifics, no dates, no wrongful statements alleged. It wasn’t a complaint, it was a bookmark.

  Bennie turned the page to the claim for damages, at the end of complaints in capital letters. She had to read the capitals three times before she could convince herself what was really printed there, in black and white: SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS. Her eyes popped. Seventy million dollars! No way was Mayer’s case worth that much! He hadn’t built a plant, as St. Amien had. It went way beyond the norm, even for kamikaze plaintiff pleading. No wonder Linette had beaten her to the courthouse. If the fee was a standard percentage, he could make as much as 30 percent of seventy million bucks. She’d need a twelve-step program to figure the final total.

  “Hey, lady,” said a gruff voice from behind her in line, a messenger from one of the big law firms. “You gonna copy that or not?”

  “Yes, sorry.” Seventy million! Shaken, Bennie moved forward and began fishing at the bottom of her purse to find money for the copies, fifty cents a page. She needed to buy a new wallet. But she couldn’t get past the request for damages. Seventy million dollars! “That’s a lot of money!” she heard herself say.