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because Judy and Bennie were so much alike. Both lawyers, athletes, and monstrously tall, as if from some legal master race. It made Mary nervous. Her chest blotched under her blouse and she wondered if she was cut out for the law. She was too short, for starters.
    “You okay, DiNunzio?” Bennie asked. “Don’t let up now. You’re almost at the finish line.”
    Mary nodded in a way she hoped was perky. “I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m great.”
    “She’s exhausted,” Judy translated.
    “Hang in,” Bennie said. “Listen, Marta just called from a pay phone. She’s on the way back and wants to talk to you. Says it’s important. You can stick around, right? You two live in town.”
    “Sure,” Judy answered, and Mary sighed. The same thing used to happen when she was at Stalling & Webb. Mary’s apartment was within walking distance, so she was expected to work no matter what the weather. It was so unfair. Mary made a mental note to burn down her building.
    “Good. Thanks,” Bennie said, and her eyes scanned the conference table. The Steere file was scattered across its surface and manila folders were jammed into the accordions crookedly. It had been all the associates could do to pack the file in the rental car, drive it here, and lug it upstairs. “Better clean this file up, guys. Get the exhibits in order. You know how picky Marta is.”
    “Tell me about it. Anal is just a first offer,” Judy said, and as soon as Beanie closed the conference room door, the young lawyers began straightening up the conference room. In short order, the twenty-five red accordion files that represented the defense in
Commonwealth v. Steere
sat upright on the glossy walnut table, arranged from correspondence to pleadings, trial exhibits, and lawyers’ notes. News clippings took up five accordions and over seventy foamcore exhibits rested against the wall under a mounted blueprint of an oar. The two associates finished just as Marta Richter flew into the conference room, when it became instantly apparent that she couldn’t care less about the file.
     
     
    Marta felt composed, glued together again. The endless, stuffy bus ride back to the office had given her a chance to think. She had a plan, but she would need DiNunzio and Carrier.
    Marta slipped out of her wet coat as soon as she hit the conference room, sat the associates down, and told them what to do, without telling them the truth about Steere. They would run to Rosato if they knew they were gathering evidence against a client, and Rosato was an opponent Marta could do without. So Marta pitched it to DiNunzio and Carrier as one more impossible assignment after two months of impossible assignments. The associates looked stunned.
    “You want this
when
?” Mary asked, vaguely aware that she was not the first employee in America to ask this question.
    Marta checked her watch and felt an already familiar tightening in the pit of her stomach. “It’s almost four-thirty. I need your answer by seven o’clock.”
    “Seven?” Mary moaned. Her head was spinning, her shoulders drooped. “Less than three hours?”
    “Stop complaining. You don’t have to draft a complete brief. There’re no cases to research. Read the file and search the newspapers. Take notes on what you find.”
    “But the kind of search you’re talking about could take days. A week. I have to write the motion
in limine
, about the prints on the car.”
    “The motion can wait. It’s not that important. It’s a loser anyway.”
    “But the rest of the exhibits have to go to the jury first thing tomorrow. This morning you told me—”
    “Mary,” Marta interrupted, “this discussion is taking longer than the fucking search. Just do it.”
    “Fine.” Mary suppressed the BURN IN HELL YOU BITCH rising in her gorge and began scribbling on her pad as if some legal inspiration had suddenly visited her, like the Holy Ghost.
Definitely not cut out for this profession
, Mary wrote.
Convent looking better and