Lady Killer (3 page)

Mary snapped out of it. “If you won’t leave or go to court—”

“I can’t! He’ll
kill
me!
Tonight!
” Trish hollered, full bore, all of her anguish channeled now to rage. “And you’ll sit there and do
nothin
’!”

“The only way out is—”

“I need
help! Help me!
”

“I’m trying but—”

“
Screw
you, Holy Mary!” Trish exploded. “That’s what we all used to call you, you know that? Holy Mary, Mother of God! Little Miss Perfect, that’s you! Thanks for
nothin
’!” She whirled around, grabbed her purse, and stalked to the door, then flung it open and left.

“Trish, wait!” Mary went after her, but Trish was running down the hall toward the reception area.

“Please, wait!” Mary almost caught up with her, but let her run for the exit stairs when she saw a surprised receptionist and a waiting room full of uncomfortable clients, all of whom were hers. There were Dawn and Joe Coradino and daughter Bethann, a well-dressed family from Shunk Street; Jo-Ann Heilferty, whose new yard needed regrading; and Elka Tobman, who wanted a new business incorporated. They’d heard the shouting and were waiting for an explanation. Mary collected herself and managed a shaky smile. “Dawn and Joe, the doctor will see you now.”

And when she turned to lead them back to her office, an exuberant Judy Carrier was standing in the hallway, flashing her a joyful thumbs-up.

M
ary and Judy walked among the crowds packing the sidewalk at lunchtime. Men wore ties and wrinkled shirts, their ears plugged with iPods and Bluetooth receivers, and women talked and laughed in groups, toting oversized purses and undersized cell phones. Sunlight filtered through the new leaves of skinny city trees, and everybody but Mary was enjoying the freshness of the cool day, one of the nicest so far in a chilly March. She felt haunted after the morning meeting with Trish.

Judy walked along, wrinkling her upturned nose. “You have nothing to feel bad about. You tried to help her even after all she did to you. She made your life miserable.”

“That was high school.” Mary walked with her head down, making her feel even shorter than usual next to Judy. Her best friend, at a full foot taller and from northern California, was like a walking sequoia.

“I wasn’t mean in high school, and neither were you.”

“Still, she doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her.”

“Okay, there I agree with you.”

Mary couldn’t shake her bad feeling. She’d had Trish in the back of her mind all morning, unable to concentrate on her mail, e-mail, meetings, or phone calls. She’d even forgotten to call Mrs. Foglia about Dean Martin. “What if Trish is right? What if he kills her tonight?”

“If she won’t get help, there’s nothing you can do.” Judy looked grim. “I’d say we should call the police, but that could endanger her further, and what she told you is privileged anyway.”

“I called the salon but she hadn’t come in yet, and her home number is unlisted.”

“Gangsters like their privacy.”

Mary didn’t laugh, and Judy touched her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. It sounds like he’s an abuser, not a murderer.”

“I hope you’re right.” Mary couldn’t believe he was either, not the way she remembered him.

“Also you said she was a drama queen in high school.”

“But I feel really scared for her. I have a bad feeling, like my mother, you know how she gets vibes? She can tell things.”

“You mean like that evil eye business?” Judy scoffed. “You’re just upset.”

“I feel guilty.”

“You wake up guilty.”

Mary managed a smile. “Did I let Trish down?”

“No. She got herself into this mess. How could she fall for such a loser?”

Mary kept her own counsel, studying her navy pumps. She wasn’t about to tell Judy that she’d dated him, too, and that he was the most popular guy in their class, a football player with a wacky sense of humor. All the girls loved him, and when he asked Mary out, she was sure he did it for free tutoring.

“What is it about bad boys?”

“He wasn’t bad,” Mary blurted out, but Judy was looking at her funny.

“Did you know him?”

“Not well, and that was pre-Mob.”

“What’s that? Like pre-med, with weaponry?” Judy grinned, but it faded. “Look, you couldn’t have done more than you did. If Trish won’t leave town or go to court or the cops, there’s nothing you can do. You’re a lawyer, and the law has its limits.”

Mary looked up, almost comforted. Judy’s white-blond hair caught the breeze, and it blew her bangs back, the strands fine as dandelion seeds. She loved the law, having caught the bug in law school. Mary never did; she still vacillated about whether she wanted to be a lawyer. At work, she daydreamed about other jobs and at night, she cruised www.monster.com like it was online porn.

“Now, Mare, enough about Trish. I have big news.” Judy stopped on the pavement, holding a brown bag of their leftovers, take-out Chinese. The scent of chicken lo mein wafted from the bag’s open top, and foot traffic flowed around them. “I got a call from Marshall this weekend because she couldn’t figure something out on payroll. So I went over and got to see the billing for everyone in the office. You, me, Bennie, and Anne.”

“Isn’t that confidential?”

“Not when Marshall needs help, it isn’t. So here’s the amazing thing I learned.” Judy’s blue eyes glittered. “
You
are responsible for bringing in more fees to the firm than Bennie.”

“What?” Mary couldn’t have heard her right.

“You’re billing the most hours, of all of us. You’re at almost 215 a month, which is killer. Anne and I come in at about 160 each, and so does Bennie. We’re all busting our asses, but you, my dear, bill more time and collect on more bills than Bennie, and that’s been true for the last three quarters.”

“Quarters?”

“Business quarters, dufus. Bennie bills you out at $250 an hour, but pays you only $125. Same with me and Anne, but we do her work, not our own clients, like you.”

Mary was getting confused. It had been a long morning. The conversation felt vaguely illicit. “So what’s the point?”

“The point is, the income you bring in is
huge
. You’re a profit center.”

“That can’t be. None of my bills is more than five grand and they’re all defective sunroofs, storm windows that leak, and garage doors that don’t open. This morning, I arbitrated a dispute between Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.”

“Whatever, they pay on time.”

“Well, that’s true.” Mary knew that her base clients, the children of immigrants, were like her parents; they paid their bills before the due dates, in the naive belief that it maintained their reputation with the American aristocracy, which existed only in their own minds.

“Right now, and for almost the entire year, you’ve been bringing in more in fees than Bennie does.”

“Huh?” Mary was astounded. “But Bennie is the owner.”

“Right, and
you’re
keeping her firm afloat, as far as I can see.”

Mary couldn’t wrap her mind around it. It was topsy-turvy.

“Your numbers look like they’re growing. Bennie has big cases, mostly trials, and they only pay, like, once every two years. Those civil rights cases, and the police brutality, they don’t pay until the court approves the fee application. Take it from me, those are the matters I work on, and I haven’t billed anybody in three months.” Judy’s eyes focused with a piercing clarity. “You know what that means?”

“No.”

“You should ask Bennie to make you a partner.”

“
What?
” Mary looked around nervously, for no reason except that the conversation was high treason. Luckily no one was listening, and the only attention they were getting was because of Judy’s crazy outfit. “That’s so wrong.”

“No, it’s so right.” Judy grinned, but Mary didn’t.

“I feel sick.”

“You should feel great. You attract clients. You should be a partner.”

“But we’re associates.”

Judy shook her head happily. “Anne and I should be, but not you. You’re the rainmaker of South Philly. Think of it. Rosato & DiNunzio.”

Mary felt her knees give way. She looked around for support but the closest object was a grimy fire hydrant, which she lurched toward and sank onto anyway. “Ouch.”

Judy followed with the fragrant bag, and bypassers flowed around them. “I’ll e-mail you the docs. They’ll show you your billings and Bennie’s.”

“Don’t. I don’t like knowing things I’m not supposed to know.”

“You really should talk to Bennie about making you partner.”

“That would be like Pluto asking the sun for equal billing, and Pluto’s not even a planet anymore. It got demoted, like Saint Christopher, who I always liked.” Mary shifted on the fireplug. She felt queasy. It had to be the lo mein, wafting in her direction. “And now there’s no limbo. Purgatory’s next. What’s going on in this world?”

Judy was looking at her funny. “Mary. Don’t you want to make more money? Or, at least, keep more of the money you generate for the firm?”

“I make enough money,” Mary answered, but they both knew she wanted a house and still couldn’t afford the down payment, though she was close to the amount, having saved like a city squirrel. She shook it off. “That’s not the question. I don’t want more money if I have to take it from Bennie.”

“She’s taking it from you, right now. You earned it. It’s yours.”

“No, it’s hers. I work for her.” Mary had never thought about it any other way. She recorded her hours, sent her bills out on time, and the rest took care of itself. She was a born employee. It could be worse. She could be in the Mob, which didn’t exist.

“I knew you’d freak.” Judy smirked.

“I’m not freaking.”

“Are, too. You look green.”

“It’s the reflection off your clogs.”

“Very funny.”

“I thank you,” Mary said, channeling Feet.

M
ary walked to her last meeting, through the forty blocks that seemed to define her. South Philly was a small town in a big city, where everybody knew everybody else, if they weren’t first cousins. Twilight was coming on, and a coppery sun, useless as a penny, dropped behind the flat asphalt roofs. Satellite dishes and loopy TV antennae made a familiar silhouette against the darkening sky, crisscrossed with sagging phone and cable wires. Old brick rowhouses lined skinny streets parked with older cars, and blackened gum and grime pitted the sidewalks.

Mare, don’t you get it? Nothin’ you’re sayin’ will work.

Soft light filtered through gauzy sheers in the front windows, which displayed plastic flowers, Virgin Marys, and little Italian and American flags, as each family declared its identity in its front window, a bumper sticker for the home. It had been this way for as long as Mary could remember. The new immigrants—Vietnamese, Korean, and Mexican families—displayed their stuff, too, proving that tackiness was universal.

The man is an animal, and you’re talkin’ law!

Mary’s heels
clack-clack
ed on the pavement, a clatter behind her thoughts of Trish. She hadn’t been able to reach her and prayed she’d be safe tonight. Suddenly a front door swung open on her right, interrupting her thoughts. The bluish gray head of elderly Elvira Rotunno popped out, followed by her flowered dress and an apron, accessorized with terry-cloth slippers. She was one of Mary’s clients, and her hooded eyes lit up behind rimless trifocals. “Mare, you here to see Rita?” Elvira hollered.

“Yes.” Mary stopped at her steps. “You know, her name is Amrita, not Rita. She’s Indian, not Italian.”

“I know that, so what?” Elvira waved her off. “She’s an Indian religion where they think God is an elephant. It’s okay by me. I got a cat, and he thinks
he’s
God.”

Mary let it go. “Great talking to you, but I’m late.”

“I know. You were supposed to be here a half hour ago, but Rita won’t mind. I tol’ her, you’re better than Matlock.” Elvira pointed up with a knotted index finger. “See my new awning? It’s beautiful! You saved me twelve hundred bucks. You didn’t let ’em take advantage.”

Mary smiled. “Thanks, Elvira.”

“Mare, why’n’t you stop in, have somethin’ to eat after you’re done with Rita? Dom’s not workin’ tonight, and I got tiramisu.”

“I can’t, thanks. ’Bye now.” Mary kept going. She was never getting fixed up again and especially not with Dominic Rotunno, who still lived at home and was trouble from the third grade. Maybe she should resign herself to a life of celibacy. Sister Mary DiNunzio, Esq.

He bites me during sex. He likes that. It turns him on.

She reached Amrita’s house, walked up the stoop, and rang a black metal doorbell. The front window contained a child’s diorama inside a gray-and-orange Nike box. The scene showed Noah’s ark, and a McDonald’s French-fry container, cut in half, served as the bright red ship for animals of molded plastic. Green camels and pink lions from the dollar store. The front door opened, and Amrita let her in with a weary half smile. A dental tech, she was still in her scrubs, decorated with smiling molars in red sneakers.

“Sorry I’m late.” Mary stepped inside.

“No worries, I just got in myself,” Amrita said, in her Anglo-Indian lilt. She and her husband were Londoners, transferred to Philly because of his job. She brushed back a black tendril and tucked it into her long ponytail. “How are you, Mary?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Crazy busy.” Amrita’s eyes, wide set and almond shaped, flickered with fatigue, and her generous mouth turned down slightly.

“How’s Dhiren?” Mary asked, and Amrita gestured behind her as she shut the door. A boy in a striped T-shirt and tan shorts flopped on a patterned couch, and his head of wavy dark hair was bent over his Game Boy. His legs, dark skinned and skinny, dangled over the couch. He was nine years old, a fourth-grader at the local public school, where he was going under.

“Dhiren, say hello to Ms. DiNunzio,” Amrita said, but the boy kept playing. “Dhiren, I won’t tolerate such bad manners. Please.”

“Hello, Miss DiNunzio,” Dhiren answered in his cute accent, but he didn’t look up. Amrita frowned, about to rebuke him when Mary put an arm around her shoulder.

“Let it go. I want to talk to you first. By the way, why didn’t you warn me that Elvira’s trying to fix me up?”

“I expected you could handle the situation. Run screaming, my advice.” Amrita smiled, motioning Mary through the dining room to the kitchen, the standard layout for rowhomes. They entered a cozy kitchen, smelling of fish and cooking oil, and Mary pulled up one of the wooden chairs around a small table, with two places marked by yellow plastic mats.

“Did you eat?” Amrita opened a refrigerator plastered with Dhiren’s crayoned dogs and giraffes, from before it had all gone wrong.

“Yes, thanks,” Mary lied. Amrita had enough to do without serving her dinner.

“Tea, then?”

“Yes, thanks. Just plain is fine.” Mary pulled a file and a legal pad from her briefcase. “We still haven’t heard from the school district.”

“I assumed so.” Amrita filled a mug with water, scuffed to the microwave on the counter, and pressed the button after she put the mug inside. “They just wear one down. That’s their strategy.”

“It won’t work with me. I thrive on rejection.” Mary was losing sleep over this case. Dhiren could barely read and write.

“I don’t know why they make it so hard.” Amrita stood by the microwave, and inside the mug turned around and around, a spinning shadow behind frosted glass. “The child cannot read. This, they know.”

“I understand, but we need them to test him. They have a legal obligation to identify him and initiate the testing.”

“They should simply hand him a book. Watch him struggle, like I do.” Amrita punched the button to open the microwave door. “My parents have been saying it for years. He’s dyslexic. They know, they are physicians, both.” Her voice was edged with an anger that came off as haughty, but Mary knew better.

“The tests measure IQ, cognitive ability, and achievement.” She had been boning up on special-education law. “If there’s a significant disparity, they’ll find him eligible for special ed and pay for the right school.”

Amrita frowned. “I told you his IQ. It’s 110. Very high. Obviously, he should be reading better. He should be writing better. His writing is unintelligible.”

“I know that, too.” Mary had Dhiren’s papers, with words that faced backward or looked like alphabet soup. “But they won’t take our word for it, and they won’t give him an IEP without the tests.”

Amrita plopped a teabag into the cup. “I never make a proper cup anymore. This will have to do. Don’t tell Barton.”

“I won’t.”

“So what do we do, Mary? What is our plan?” Amrita fetched a spoon from the silverware drawer and the mug of tea, its paper tag fluttering like the tiniest white flag. She came to the table and set the spoon and mug down, the tea releasing a humid cloud.

“We’ve requested the testing, so they have sixty days.”

“In the meantime, Dhiren suffers.” Amrita sat down heavily in the opposite chair.

“There’s another way, but it’s expensive. We can do an independent evaluation, but it costs. Three thousand dollars.”

“We can’t afford that. Can’t you get us somebody sooner, cheaper?”

“I’ll look around.”

“Let’s crack on, then.”

“Will do.” Mary got the gist of the Briticism and noted that Amrita made the decision without Barton. A software programmer, he traveled for work and wasn’t Indian, which Mary sensed had strained the relationship with Amrita’s parents. “Now, tell me how Dhiren is.”

“Not good. I don’t know what I’d do if I worked full-time. He says he’s sick, most mornings. He doesn’t want to go to school.”

“That’s typical. They call it schoolphobic. How many days did he go last week?”

“Two only.” Amrita closed her eyes, trying to remember. “Before that, he went three days. Of course that only makes it worse. He falls behind. He misses class discussion.”

“Did you start volunteering at school?”

“Yes, twice, as you asked. I see what happens now.” Amrita sighed. “They started a new unit on the Revolutionary War. They write entries in a battlefield diary, as if from Valley Forge, and read them in class.”

Mary’s heart wrenched. It would be a disaster for Dhiren.

“I helped him with the diary, but he had to read it himself, out loud. They mocked him. Dummy, they called him, instead of Dhiren. They mocked his accent as well. This I heard with my own ears.” Amrita’s expression remained stoic. “Imagine, with all this talk against bullying on the TV, on the news.”

Mary thought again of Trish.

“Last week, he got into a fight. One of the other boys called him dummy, and Dhiren hit him. The teacher, appalled, sent Dhiren home. I had a strop, a hissy fit, you call it, and now, it gets worse. I’ll show you.” Amrita stood up. “Dhiren, please come here.”

“I got a present for you, Dhiren.” Mary reached into her briefcase, and by the time she’d pulled out the bag, the boy had arrived at the threshold, his dark eyes shining. She handed him the wrapped package. “I don’t know how to work this, but I expect a smart guy like you does.”

“Cool!” Dhiren ripped off the paper and pulled out a shrink-wrapped box, a new game for his Game Boy.

“Say thank you, Dhiren.” Amrita frowned.

“Thank you!”

“Hope you don’t have this one, it’s called Dogz.” Mary pointed to the word, though its corrupted spelling wouldn’t help the cause. “You choose a puppy and you get to name it.”

“Dhiren, bend your head down for me,” Amrita said, and the boy bent over while his mother rooted around in his gorgeous hair, then exposed a bloody scab on his scalp. “See, Mary. Look at this.” Then she let the hair go and displayed another scab behind his ear, bloodier. “And see this, here.”

“Who did this to him?” Mary asked, disgusted. “The kid he fought with?”

“Not him.” Amrita removed her hand, and Dhiren straightened up, his knees wiggling again. “Son. Tell Miss DiNunzio what happened in school.”

“Did someone hit you?” Mary asked, softly.

Dhiren shook his head.

“No,” Amrita answered for him. “The hair is gone in patches. It’s pulled out at the root.”

“Yikes.” Mary could only imagine how much that hurt. “Who pulled your hair, Dhiren? Please, tell me.”

Amrita answered, “He goes in the boys’ room and pulls it out himself.”

Mary gasped, astonished, but Amrita remained impassive.

“He does it himself. He’s so upset, so frustrated, he’s tearing his own hair out. It started last week. Tell her why you do this, son.”

Dhiren kept looking down, his new video game forgotten. “I don’t know. I go and do it. I can’t help it.”

“You
can
help it,” Amrita snapped. “You must not do it. Simply, you must not.”

“Dhiren,” Mary interrupted, “can I ask you a favor? When you feel like pulling out your hair, could you please pretend your hair is like a puppy and pat it instead? Like in the game?”

Dhiren nodded. “Can I go now?”

“Yes, you can,” Mary answered, though she knew he was asking his mother. “Go. Play. Have fun.”

Dhiren hurried off, leaving the two women in the still kitchen.

Amrita’s features slackened, and she surrendered to a sadness as familiar as an old sweater. “Please, Mary,” she whispered, over the untouched tea. “Won’t you save my son?”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Mary answered, sick at heart. She had no better answer. The law was failing everyone today. Or she was.

Outside the kitchen window, it was getting darker.

And nightfall was Trish’s deadline.