LITMIR.BIZ

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the right size lid. He’ll never find it; I never can, and I have a J.D. “Let’s just say I want to check security.”

      “Come clean, Rossi.”

      I consider this. Ray is one of the few marshals who liked Armen; he’s also one of the few African Americans, which I suspect is no coincidence. “Tell you what. Get me in. If it pays off, I’ll tell you why.”

      “What am I supposed to tell the marshals?”

      “What marshals? You’re the marshal.”

      “I’m a CSO, technically. A court security officer. I mean the marshals watching the monitors.”

      “Tell ’em I’m checking security, that I’m the administrative law clerk to the chief judge.”

      “Grace.” His somber expression reminds me of something I’d rather not dwell on. Armen is gone.

      “Forget it, I’ll tell them something. I’ll handle it. Just get me in, I’ll owe you. Big-time.”

      Suddenly he snaps his fingers. “I know what you can do for me.”

      “Anything.”

      “You can introduce me to your fine friend, the lovely Eletha Staples.”

      “Eletha? Don’t you know her?”

      “I’ve been workin’ here as long as she has, but she won’t give me the time of day. She seein’ anybody?”

      I think of Leon, Eletha’s boyfriend, who gives her nothing but grief. “No.”

      “Hot dog!” He rubs his hands together; it makes a dry sound. “Lunch. I’ll start with lunch, take it nice and easy. Can you set it up?”

      “Deal.” I set the tuna hoagie and Snapple on the counter in front of Maryellen. At the last minute, Ray tosses in two packs of chocolate Tastykakes.

      “What are you having today, Grace?” Maryellen says. Her cloudy eyes veer wildly around the room.

      “Thanksgiving dinner,” I say to her and she laughs.

      After we leave the snack bar, Ray leads me through a labyrinth of hallways to the core of a secured part of the courthouse. It would have been impossible to find this myself, and when I reach the barred entrance I understand why.

      It’s a prison.

      Sixteen floors from where I work, in the same building. It gives me the creeps. The sign on the barred door says: ONLY COUNSEL MAY VISIT PRISONERS.

      We head down another hall, past a room with a number of empty desks in it, and open a door onto a small room, brightly lit by a ceiling of fluorescents. A wall of TV screens dominates the room, giving it a futuristic feel. There must be twenty-five black-and-white TV screens here, trained everywhere throughout the courthouse.

      The monitors in the left bank flash on the stairwells at each floor of the building, and the large screens in the middle offer an ever-changing peek into the courtrooms. In 12-A there’s a young woman crying on the witness stand. In 13-A an older man is being sentenced. In 14-A a little boy is testifying.

      “It’s like a soap opera, huh, Worrell?” Ray says amiably to the stony-faced marshal watching the screens. He’s a stocky middle-aged man in a black T-shirt that says UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE. It looks more like a get-up for Hell’s Angels, but I do not remark this aloud.

      “Ugh,” the man says, his attention focused on the TV pictures of prison cells on the far right. Each cell is numbered and occupied by a man in street clothes, probably awaiting trial. They sit slumped or asleep in their cells; one is a black teenager in an oversized sweatshirt, just a kid. I think of Hightower.

      “This is Grace Rossi, Worrell. She’s a lawyer, works for the appeals court. She wants to see—”

      “I want to see the monitors,” I say with faux authority. “It’s a security check for the new chief judge.”

      Worrell begins to laugh at one of the prisoners, a Muslim crouched over in prayer. “Say it loud, brother. You’re gonna need it.” Ray looks sideways at the monitor.

      “Where’s the screen for the eighteenth floor?” I ask.

      “That one.” He points to one of the screens. The bottom of the screen reads 16-B. In the high-resolution picture, a young secretary pauses to tug up her slip. Worrell chuckles. “They forget Big Brother’s watching.”

      Of course they forget; I did. So did whoever came into our chambers, if anyone. I watch the picture flicker to 17-B. It’s a view of the hallway outside the judges’ elevator on the seventeenth floor. On the wall hangs a fake parchment copy of the Constitution. Our floor is next.

      “Yeow!” Ray hoots as soon as the scene changes. Eletha is photocopying at the Xerox machine, her back to the camera. Her skirt clings softly to her curves, and with her back turned you can’t see how haggard she looks today. “Now ain’t that pretty?” he says, in a tone men usually reserve for touchdown passes and vintage Corvettes.

      Worrell grunts. “She’s all right.”

      Ray gives him a solid shove. “Listen to you, ‘She’s all right.’ Shit, man! She’s more than all right, she’s fine. And she’s mine, all mine. Right, Grace? Grace?”

      “Right,” I say, preoccupied by the scene on the TV screen, which shows Eletha walking down the hall and into chambers. Bingo. The camera would have seen whoever came into chambers last night, wherever they came from. “Where’s the tape?”

      Worrell looks at me blankly. “What tape?”

      “The tape. The tape of what the camera saw last night.”

      “We don’t tape.”

      “What?”

      “There’s no tape, lady.”

      “I don’t understand.” I look at Ray for confirmation.

      “I coulda told you that, Grace,” he says.

      I don’t believe this. “At the MAC machine they tape. Even in the Seven-Eleven they tape.”

      “Seven-Eleven’s got the money. This is the U.S. government. You’re lucky we got the goddamn judges.”

      Ray looks embarrassed. “Downstairs we tape. The monitors at the security desk, they tape the stairwell and the judges’ garage. Just not here.”

      “But somebody watches the monitors at night, don’t they?”

      Worrell leans back in the creaky chair, plainly amused. “Guess again.”

      “Maybe we should go,” Ray says.

      “Hold on. There’s no night shift?” I hear myself sounding like an outraged customer.

      “We got a fella walks around the halls,” Worrell says, “but that’s it. One marshal. The government don’t have the money for somebody to watch TV all night.” His face slackens as he returns to the screens.

      “All right. Who was the marshal last night, walking the halls?”

      “McLean, I think.”

      “McLean? Is he the big one with the mustache?” The Mutt of the Mutt-and-Jeff marshals I see in the mornings.

      Worrell nods. “Don’t you guys got some work to do?”

      “Let’s go, Grace,” Ray says.

      “Sure. Thanks,” I say, disappointed. So much for the short answer. We start toward the door but Worrell erupts into raucous laughter.

      “Holy shit, what a case this one is.”

      Ray glances at the monitor, then scowls. “I’d love a piece of that guy. He’s not crazy, he knows just what he’s doin.’ Jerkin’ us around.”

      I

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