KATE
Kate Brooks slept soundly, wrapped in layers of woolen blankets, wearing her Taylor Swift PJs over her gym gear, and two pairs of thick, white tube socks. No matter how much she tinkered with the old radiators in her apartment, she couldn't get them to heat up. The studio apartment had been advertised to let as 'A bijoux living space with central heating throughout'. Two radiators at either end of the room technically counted as heating throughout. As a consequence, Kate got dressed before bed every night. When the winter really kicked in, she didn't know what she was going to do.
An alert signal began to chirp on her phone – an electronic bell that got louder every second. Kate's arm swung out of bed to the nightstand and she swiped at the screen twice to silence it. She quickly tucked her arm back under the duvet, and turned over without really waking up.
The phone began chirping again.
This time she forced open her eyes. The noise coming from her phone didn't sound like her wake-up alarm. She realized it was a call from her boss – Theodore Levy. Not only that, but she'd hung up his first call.
'Hello, Mr. Levy,' she said, with a croaky voice.
'Get dressed. I need you to swing by the office and pick up a document, then meet me at the First Precinct in Tribeca,' said Levy.
'Oh, sure thing. What do you need me to bring?'
'Scott is in the office right now running down some leads, but I need him here. I need you to get a retainer agreement for Alexandra Avellino. Bring it down here. I'll need it in the next forty-five minutes. Do not be late.'
With that, he hung up.
Kate flung the covers back and got out of bed. This was the life of a newly qualified lawyer. She was close to six months in the job, the ink still drying on her law license. Scott, another baby attorney in the practice, was in the office already, and why the hell he couldn't pick up whatever Levy needed didn't affect Kate. Levy barked orders and people jumped. Didn't matter that there might be an easier or quicker way to do something; so long as everyone was in a frenzy, Levy was happy.
She checked her watch. She would need a cab. Twenty minutes to the office
from her apartment. She tried to guess how long it would take to get from her law firm to the First Precinct, and decided it would probably take another twenty minutes.
No time for a shower.
She hauled off her pajamas and gym-wear, put on a blouse and business suit. Her skirt had gotten creased, but it didn't matter. A ladder appeared at her right calf as she put her tights on. Her last pair. She swore and went hunting for her shoes. Her head thumped off the archway dividing the bed from the small area where she had managed to fit a couch and a bookcase – the area that masqueraded as her living room. There was a small cut to her forehead, which stung, causing her to take a sharp intake of breath.
'Shitbird,' she said.
A pair of Adidas cross trainers lay by the front door of her apartment. She put them on, grabbed her overcoat and purse and left.
Twenty minutes later she stepped out of a cab on Wall Street, asked the driver to wait and ran toward the entrance to her building. Using her pass to open the front door, she rushed into the glass-fronted reception area where a security guard sat behind the desk. The elevator pinged. The doors began to open and Kate took a step forward, ready to leap inside. Scott came bounding from the elevator, a file underneath his arm. He bumped into Kate, shoulder to shoulder, turning her around.
'Sorry, Kate, I have to dash. Levy's secretary is still printing the retainer. I didn't have time to grab it and Levy wants me at the precinct right now.'
'Wait, I'll be two minutes. I've got a cab outside,' she said.
Scott, nodded, turned and ran for the front door.
Kate pushed the button for the twenty-fifth floor, twenty-five times, counting
out each one as the elevator rose. Levy's secretary, Maureen, was grabbing pages from the printer. She put them in a folder and handed them to Kate.
'Is that the retainer?'
Maureen nodded. The pages were still warm from the printer.
Why couldn't Scott have waited and taken this with him?
She had long since given up trying to answer such questions. In the world of
the big law firm, no one worried about deploying twenty lawyers and fifty paralegals if it gave you a moment's advantage over your opponent. She had been dispatched to get the retainer because she could be dispatched to get the retainer. Kate went back into the elevator, selected the ground floor and then hammered the close-door button with her middle finger. She mouthed 'come on, come on, come on,' under her breath as the doors slid closed.
When the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, Kate rushed out. The
security guard stood as she approached and used his pass to unlock the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open for her.
Kate said, 'Thank you,' breathlessly as she ran into the cold air. And stopped dead.
Her cab was gone.
Scott.
What a shitbird.
Frantically, she looked up and down the street. No cabs. She opened the Uber app on her phone. Her father hated her using Uber, and had warned her against it many times. The app said there was a driver two blocks away.
The car arrived within seconds and Kate got in the back. It was a metallic blue Ford. The car was old and smelled like dog. It was too dark to get a good look at the driver, but she could tell he was fair-haired, skinny and had tattoos covering both arms.
Scott was a TOTAL shitbird.
Scott had gotten a job as an associate four months after Kate. The firm of Levy, Bernard, and Groff was a complete-service law practice. That meant they could hide your millions so you wouldn't pay squat to the IRS, screw your spouse out of their divorce settlement, sue whoever pissed you off for whatever reason they liked, and if the shit truly hit the fan they had Theodore Levy – a master litigator and criminal attorney. Kate had been floated around a few of the departments and finally settled in Criminal. She had a knack for the work. And it showed. Levy had a dozen lawyers in his team, but he liked to work more closely with the new associates on his own cases so the more experienced lawyers could concentrate on billing their hours.
Kate noticed that Levy especially liked to be close to the young female associates.
Scott had arrived in Criminal a month ago and hit it off with the boss big time. He was Levy's blue-eyed boy. Kate could tell. She had only been to one lunch with Levy and she had been in the department for two months before Scott arrived. In the four months since his arrival, Scott had already had four lunches with Levy. While Levy was small and toad-like in his appearance, Scott was tall and rail-thin with cheekbones you could use to tenderize steak. The associate's angular appearance was crowned with two dark blue eyes, which somehow appeared to be back-lit, as if a small bulb burned brightly behind each orb.
He had taken Kate's cab, and she promised herself to have it out with him as soon as they had a moment alone.
The driver stayed quiet, and it wasn't long before she got out of the car and headed into the precinct.
Inside was a circus.
A crowd of lawyers from the top firms in Manhattan, all waiting.
She spied Levy and Scott, sitting on an aluminum bench at the back of the
room, and deep in conversation. In order to get there, she had to squeeze past a dozen other lawyers in the cramped waiting space. Some she recognized from TV. Some she knew from their commercials or pictures in the ABA journal. These were the lawyers who were always photographed at the New York Bar events. They were all over forty years old. All white. All rich. All male.
All ignoring her.
'Excuse me,' said Kate as she tried to make her way through the crowd. Some of them were engaged in group conversation. Golf. Rich white lawyers all loved golf. Others were arguing and some were on their phones. None made eye contact with her. She kept her head low, moved forward politely muttering 'excuse me,' in soft tones. In the center of the crowd, shoulders brushing shoulders, there were hands on the small of her back gently easing through, and as she moved those hands fell away and she felt another hand brush against her backside then she felt fingers squeeze first the top of her thigh, then her butt cheek.
Kate coughed, pushed a white-haired lawyer ahead of her a lot harder than he was expecting as she powered through to the other side. A ripple of laughter came from behind her. Two or three men sharing a private joke. Probably laughing at pinching her butt. Neither Levy nor Scott looked up. Kate turned, her face flushing red, and she looked at the crowd. The white-haired lawyer had moved back into place, closing the space from which she had come through the crowd. No way to tell who had touched her. The skin on her face and neck burned red with embarrassment. If she complained, she would make a scene.
From behind, she heard Levy's whiny voice. 'Katie, where the hell have you been? Scott got here ten minutes ago.'
Kate closed her eyes. Opened them. She was resetting. This had been a bad night. She didn't want to explode in front of Levy. He would only tell her to toughen up, and complain that she had embarrassed him. She let it go. She would need all her composure to deal with Levy. Only two men called her Katie. One was her father, the other was Levy. As much as she loved her father calling her that name, she hated in equal measure the way Levy used it.
She took a step back and pivoted to face her boss. He took the document folder from her, and said gruffly, 'This is a huge case for us. For the firm. We must secure this client. I need you on top form, okay?'
Kate nodded, said, 'I'm good. What's the case?'
Levy's mouth fell half open, and he stayed that way for a few seconds. It
looked like he was waiting for a passing bug, at which point he would shoot out a reptilian tongue and grab the thing in mid-air before retracting it into his pink mouth.
'The former mayor, Frank Avellino, is dead. He's been murdered in his bedroom, stabbed ... what was it, Scott?'
'Fifty-three times,' said Scott.
'Stabbed fifty-three times, my dear. And we are going to represent his eldest daughter. Both of his daughters were arrested at the scene, and each of them is blaming the other for the murder. One of them is lying, and our job is to prove that it's not our client. Understand?'
There was a patronizing sting to Levy's words, and Kate ignored it.
The my dear phrase was not meant to be gentlemanly. She'd gotten used to most of the shit she had to put up with, but my dear, or little lady, still made her grind her jaw. She fought down the anger as this was the moment she had been waiting for since she joined the firm. Creepy guys in bars, and general everyday sexism on the street she could handle without a problem. When it came to the men who held her career in their hands, it was different. She knew it shouldn't be, that this wasn't right, but she thought it best to keep her lips sealed and her head down. For now. They had all the power. If she complained about this shit, her best guess was she'd be out of the job in a heartbeat – her career over before it even really began.
For months she had been writing briefs, glad-handing clients and passing out canapés at the firm's parties. Now she was on a case. A real-life, high-profile murder case. A flutter of excitement began in her stomach, and she smoothed down the front of her jacket, licked her dry lips and cleared her throat. She wanted to be ready for this. She felt ready.
'I got it,' said Kate.
Levy looked her up and down, and said, 'What are you wearing? Are those running shoes?'
Kate's mouth opened to respond, but she didn't get the chance.
'Levy! You're up!' said a voice. It was a cop, shouting from an open steel door.
'We're on,' said Levy. He stood and pulled up his pants. They were often falling down below his small gut. It didn't matter if he wore a belt or suspenders – Levy seemed to be constantly pulling his pants up.
Kate saw a small bunch of lawyers leave via the steel door. They had obviously been inside talking to the potential client. Their heads were down, and they looked tired. Levy would get the case. Whoever the client was. It didn't matter. This was Levy's forte. He was good with clients. Got them on side fast.
He was a PR machine with a law license. They were going to land this case, and Kate was going to be front and center in the defense from the very beginning. She had to stifle a smile that threatened to break out on her lips – it was excitement and nerves.
'Okay, let's go,' said Levy.
Scott nodded to Kate. Kate returned the gesture. Together, the three of them took a step toward the door. Then a file came right at Kate's face. She held out her hands as the file was lowered and thumped into her chest, stopping her dead. Kate took it in both hands.
'There are some things in this file of Scott's that the client and the NYPD shouldn't see,' said Levy. 'Put it in the file storage safe in the trunk of my car. It's parked outside. The gold BMW.'
A set of keys dangled in front of her face. Kate took them, swallowed and felt a raw sensation in her throat. Like she was swallowing sharp stones.
'We won't be too long. You can use the time to think about why were you were so late getting here. When we're done I can give you a ride home,' said Levy.
And with that, Scott and Levy strode toward the open steel door.
Kate froze.
'Never mind, honey. You got the most important job. You get to watch Levy's
car,' said a voice from behind her. One of the rival lawyers.
That was enough to send the entire group into thick, uproarious laughter that
rolled around the room.
Kate's face flushed red. She pushed around the outside of the group, not
daring to go through the middle again, and made her way to the exit. The burning sensation spread across her neck, and she recalled Levy's final words.
When he was done he would offer her a ride home. That meant he might make another awkward pass at her.
Kate thumped through the front door and onto the street.