“Stop flirting,” Jackson said.
Reed laughed and stood up straight. “Perish the thought. How was court?”
“Fine. Judge Callahanwas his normal cheery self.” Judge Callahan had been born sometime in the Jurassic Period and never smiled. “He signed off on the settlement and then gave the jury his standard sorry-for-wasting-everyone’s-time speech.”
“That is a classic. I like that almost as much as his hung-jury speech.” Reed puffed out his chest and said in a low voice, “Are you certain that no amount of time or discussionwill break this hopeless deadlock.” He gave a decent imitation of Judge Callahan.
“He’s a bit of a broken record, Callahan.”
“Well, he did preside over stolen chariot cases in ancient Rome, so he’s had some time to practice.”
Jackson chuckled. “Anything happen while I was out?”
“Not really.”
“Gavin Shaw called,” said Penny, “but he said it wasn’t urgent and he’d call againlater.”
“All right.”
“Gavin’s probably getting a lot of heat from One Police Plaza,” said Reed.
“I imagine so. What about you, Reed? What have you done all day?”
“I just got back from a lunch with Dennis Reikert from Hamlin & Lewis. He’s representing the woman who’s suing Cashman-Davis because she slipped on the sidewalk in front of one of their buildings?”
“Right, of course.”
“I talked Dennis away from the small fortune he was demanding on behalf of his client. We agreed to a far more reasonable settlement.”
“Did you run it by Cashman-Davis?”
“I am about to call John Davis, in point of fact. This is lower than the max he was willing to pay, so he’ll probably want to hug me. He mostly wanted my assurances that this wouldn’t end up in court. When we talkedyesterday, he gave me this whole sob story about how his previous counsel had lost him thousands of dollars in housing court. I guess he’d started eviction proceedings on a tenant who hadn’t paid her rent in three months, and she showed up with photographic evidence that her apartment kept flooding but the super had been pointedly ignoring her requests to repair the eighty-year-old pipes in the building.Judge sided with the tenant, Davis had to keep her in the building rent-free until the repairs were made, and he lost a good deal of money in the process.”
“He should have repaired the pipe, then.”
“Sure, we both know that, although he swears the super and his incompetent lawyer were the problems. I figure, as long as he pays his legal bills, I’ll continue to ensure he doesn’t lose toomuch more money.”
“Magnanimous of you.”
“I thought so.”
Reed followed Jackson into his office. Jackson dumped his briefcase in the corner and fell into his chair. He rubbed his temples.
“You okay?” Reed asked.
“Yeah, just a little bit of a headache. I need to spend the rest of the day on all the stuff I’ve been neglecting while I’ve been working with Park.”
“I’ll leaveyou to it, then. You learn anything new last night?”
Jackson explained about the doorman keys. “It’s reasonable doubt, at least.”
“I hope Gavin comes up with something better than that.”
Jackson sure as hell hoped so, too. “Guess we’ll find out when he calls me back.”
* * *
Gavin didn’t call, but he did walk into Jackson’s office just as Jackson started to daydream about dinner.He’d gotten through enough of his work that he could quit for the day without much guilt, but it wasn’t like he could sleep or concentrate on anything that wasn’t Park when he left the office, so he’d decided to work as long as he had the brain power to keep going. But now he was hungry, and Gavin was sitting between him and a meal.
