Prior Convictions by Lia Matera

Author:Lia Matera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

24

“George,” I said, “tell me again about the securities fraud case.”

He looked pale and puffy-eyed, wiping the last drops of spilled Perrier off his desk. “You want the files?”

“Yes.” I dropped some party napkins into the trash. The judge’s former clerk was right—we were cheaper than janitors.

“They got sent over to Rondi’s office. Since he’s keeping the case.”

“What about your work product?” Our task was to analyze documents and write bench memos for the judge, telling him what the law was and how it governed the situation before him. The bench memos were considered “work product”—confidential correspondence from clerk to judge—and they would forever remain in this office.

“I don’t know.” He yawned, looking out the huge windows at the glow of an anemic sunset. “I was looking for that stuff, but it’s not in here anymore. Judge Shanna must have it. Ask Margaret tomorrow.”

“George,” I said again.

“What?” He continued looking out the window, absently rebuttoning his top shirt button.

“Tell me about the case.”

He tightened the knot of his tie. “Junk bonds. We went through this.”

“You said junk bonds are basically—”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to have dinner with me and my father?”

I looked across our back-to-back, littered desks. George still stared morosely at the pale yellow sky. For a second, I thought I’d hallucinated the invitation.

Then he looked at me, repeating, “Want to have dinner with me and my father?”

“I didn’t know your family lived around here,” I hedged.

“They don’t. My father lives in Manhattan. He’s passing through on business.” George looked mighty grim about it. “I’ve been summoned to dinner.”

“I shouldn’t butt in. He’ll want some private time—”

“I don’t!” George sat perfectly still, red-cheeked and in a sudden sweat.

Well, well. “You don’t get along?”

He pinched his lips together so that he appeared to have a solid, unbroken beard from nose to collar. “We always have,” he murmured. “Everyone says we could be clones.” If so, he didn’t look happy about it. “But I thought if you were free…?”

It sounded like the kind of dinner where you sit and smile until you sink into a social coma. But I knew begging when I heard it.

“Sure, I guess so.” Why rush home to sit by myself?

The stiffness went out of George’s posture. “Good. That’s good. He should be here pretty soon.”

The prediction was fulfilled five minutes later, when the intercom on Margaret’s desk buzzed. George motioned me to follow him to the outer office. Wanting me with him when his father pushed through the door?

A moment later, a florid, well-dressed man stepped into the room. The first thing he said was, “What’s that?”

George flinched, reflexively touching his beard.

Maybe George would look a little like his father if he gained sixty pounds, but I didn’t think he was in much danger of being mistaken for a clone otherwise.

As George introduced me, his father’s gaze kept wandering to the beard.

“George mentioned that you’re here on business?” I’ll say this about meeting other people’s parents—it makes me appreciate mine. (But why did Mother set

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