Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“For what?”

“Hersh had a file for me.”

“I think I got him in the leg,” Duncan said. “I’m not sure.” He actually looked pleased.

“You’ve never fired a gun before?”

“ Call of Duty on Jake’s Xbox. But this was pretty close range.”

“God, what if one of our neighbors heard the shot and called the cops?”

“So?”

“And the cops come knocking on our door. Asking about a reported gunshot. If they find out you have a gun and fired it without a license, we’re screwed.”

“Gunshot? No gunshot here. Maybe from the movie we were watching. Who knows.”

“Unlawful possession of a firearm,” she said. “That’s eighteen months in prison.”

“I know the law. And they can get you for discharging a weapon within five hundred feet of a dwelling too. I know. But I wouldn’t worry about illegal. The guy pulled a gun on me. He could have killed me. He could have murdered all three of us. How do I know what he’s about to do?”

She nodded, closed her eyes. She felt the beginnings of an onrushing panic attack.

“The guy was a threat to my family,” he went on. There was something in his voice, something hoarse. Not loud but firm. “Legally, we both know you can twist it this way or that, but what I did? I’d do it again. You think I’m going to let these bastards break into my house, menace my family?”

“Is that blood on the carpet?” she said, pointing at what indeed looked like a darker spot on the gray carpet. “We’ve got a crime scene. What do we do?” Her voice shook.

Duncan came close and gently caressed her face. “Breathe,” he reminded her.

She nodded. “I’m okay.” She drew him near. They hugged, hard, and for a fleeting moment she felt safe.

“We’d better hope this guy doesn’t check himself into a hospital,” she said. “They’re required to report gunshot wounds.”

“Guy like that? He’s not turning himself into any hospital.”

He placed his forehead against hers. “The cops are either coming or they’re not, and I’m not going to call them.”

“But what if we call the cops, tell them about the break-in? Maybe they’ll park a cruiser out front for a while.”

“Think, honey. Your situation, you sure you want the cops involved? And how long do you think the police can protect us anyway? A day or two?”

“Yeah,” she said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Jules, I’m here, okay? Don’t think for a moment there’s anything I wouldn’t do to keep you safe,” he said. “To keep us safe.”

Her heart rate began to slow. A curious sense of calm seeped into her like a warm fluid.

They cleaned up the crime scene, as she thought of it, sweeping up the glass, putting packing tape over the holes where the glass panes had been broken. Before they went to bed, they checked in on Jake — amazingly, he’d fallen back to sleep. Juliana wondered briefly if he’d even remember this in the morning, and if so, what they could possibly say.

They both lay there for a long while. She looked at a beam of moonlight across the ceiling and tried to still her revving thoughts, but it was like trying to slap down a spinning top.

“Sweetie?” Duncan whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You awake too?”

“Yeah.”

She felt his hand caress her thigh, and then she reached for him. “I missed you,” she said. She pulled his face close, kissed him, lightly at first, then ferociously. His hands moved slowly over the swell of her hips, and then his fingertips brushed against her nipples, his lips grazing hers as his hands encircled and caressed her breasts. She pushed him down on the bed, straddled him, slid him inside her. She closed her eyes, felt the pressure building and building, more and more intense, and then the dam burst and an engulfing hot wave came over her, a great flood of pleasure and a hot tingly sensation all over, and she felt herself melting, and then she gave over to it entirely. Her head was spinning and her body began to shake. A surge of heat washed over her, and then a great calm.

They talked for another hour until pinkish light appeared in the night sky and morning began to dawn. She made coffee, took a shower, and got dressed for work.

Her phone made a text sound.

It was from a long series of numbers at T-Mobile. It read only:

12:00 NOON TODAY.

By the time it was almost noon, she was dragging. She hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours, and the coffee was no longer working, just making her stomach sour.

During the ten o’clock break, Duncan came by her lobby. He said hi to Kaitlyn, who got up when he arrived and excused herself.

“Look,” Juliana said, “what we’re talking about — what I’m about to do is — you know. There can’t be any e-mail trace, no texting, nothing, okay?”

“Okay. I understand.”

“Do you know how much money this guy has? Fifteen billion dollars. That’s billion with a B . He’s one of the richest guys in the world. Five million bucks is peanuts to him.”

“But it’s so goddamned risky, babe. You’ve got the police breathing down your neck, and—”

“Dunc, the way they turned over my life, that’s the least I’m owed.”

They both fell silent. Duncan said, “I wonder if this is something you negotiate with him. Like, you know, start at ten million?”

“Why not? That’s nothing to him.”

A long pause. She said, “What have I become?”

“I think you’ve become what circumstances made you. I think you don’t really have a choice.”

Back in court, at two minutes before noon, Juliana checked her iPhone to see if there were any more text messages.

Just that one from the long number at T-Mobile. 12:00 NOON TODAY.

In two minutes, noon was going to arrive. The minute hand on the courtroom clock would click over the twelve.

The plaintiff was sitting in the witness box, testifying about the icy pavement in the privately owned parking lot where he’d taken a nasty fall. She was finding it hard to concentrate.

Instead, she was remembering when Duncan fired the gun. The crash, the man tearing outside through the French doors. She thought about how remarkably calm Duncan seemed when it was all over. He seemed suffused with the certainty of having done the right thing.

And she couldn’t help thinking about Philip Hersh. She’d called the hospital before court started for the day and asked how Hersh was doing. Still in the medically induced coma, the nurse said. She wondered how bad his injuries were going to be. And she wondered what the file was he’d left for her somewhere.

She wondered if Hersh had figured out a way to get to the oligarch, Protasov. And if she’d ever know the answer.

At the stroke of noon — she could see the numerals 12:00 appear on her iPhone — the plaintiff’s lawyer was asking questions of his client, who was in a wheelchair, paralyzed since his fall on the ice.

At 12:01 a message appeared on her phone:

Time’s Up.

She looked up when the door at the back of the courtroom opened and a uniformed deliveryman entered with a large bouquet of flowers. Her heart jumped. What the hell was going on?

A few people laughed and whispered. This never happened. The deliveryman, who looked like a gawky teenager, walked down the aisle until he came to the bar, which separates the spectators’ gallery from the area where the lawyers and their parties sit.

She watched apprehensively as the court officer, George, leaped up and blocked the delivery guy’s path. He grabbed the teenager’s sleeve. The deliveryman turned, stopped. The two conversed in low voices. Then George took the bouquet from the delivery guy, who turned and walked right out of the courtroom.