New York Minute

Friday Morning, 8 July 1977, Part II

CIVIC CENTER, MANHATTAN

"I don't get to go inside and sit in the comfy chair?" Kane asked the secretary.

"Not if Ms. Marcelle isn't in the office." Mrs. Ruiz kept typing as she spoke, an earpiece whispering dictation from a microcassette recorder she controlled via foot pedal. "No one goes in there alone."

"I bet you do," Kane said.

Ruiz, a heavyset, dark-skinned, older woman, replied by putting an extra pop in her typing.

Kane leaned back in the hard-plastic chair those made to wait had to endure, stretching his legs out, heels on the marble floor. On the opposite wall portraits of old, white, distinguished men in suits stared back with implicit disapproval. He was outside Toni's office at Marcelle, van Dyck, Feinstein & Marcelle. Her father's name led the way and Toni was the last and most recent addition to the firm, bookending the descendant of the old blue blood New York City family, and the Jewish attorney every New York law firm seemed required to have.

Each of the partners had a corner office on the uppermost floor of the 18-story Broadway-Chambers Building. The center of the top floor held the boardroom and law library. The firm occupied the uppermost three floors. The 16th and 17th floors were abuzz with associates, paralegals, and clients coming and going. Here, things were quieter and the deals were bigger. Clients that made it to the top floor didn't have to wait in the chairs; summoned employees were another story.

The building was on the corner of Broadway and Chambers, designed before the turn of the 20th century. The same architect had gone on to design the Woolworth Building and the United States Supreme Court, which was a factor in Thomas Marcelle headquartering his firm here. It was within walking distance of the US District Court, the Court of Appeals Second Circuit, the County Clerk of New York, and the New York City Criminal Court. It looked down on City Hall. Chinatown was to the north, Tribeca to the west, the Financial District to the south, and the East River where it's named. Thus, it was at the center of the legal structure of the city and north of the financial hub of Wall Street, so designated because it had been the line of the original defensive wall built by the first Dutch settlers, one the many pieces of trivia that Kane loved about his home town. The fortification was delineated on his framed 1660 survey of New Amsterdam.

Kane had the map case on his lap, ounces lighter than when he'd left his apartment this morning. He was still sweating from his jog east across the Brooklyn Bridge, workout at Gleason's Gym, and fast walk back across the East River to Manhattan. The air conditioning was a bit extreme. His arms and legs burned from sparring and the heavy bag, a satisfying feeling.

The elevator dinged. Thomas, never Tom, Marcelle, lord and master of this domain and beyond, exited, his daughter at his side. Thomas Marcelle had been Assistant U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York before Toni reached her teen years and everyone who was anybody had assumed the District's top job was his in a few years and eventually a good shot at Attorney General with the correct administration. Fate had intervened and Thomas Marcelle had ditched that life for these more lucrative trappings via the other side of the courtroom. He was one of the top defense attorneys in the City with clientele ranging from upstanding, wealthy citizens in need to the rich, darker side of society always requiring a legal shield. He was bald, swarthy, barrel-chested and wore an expensive, tailored suit the way Kane had worn his full dress as a cadet and nothing since.

Antonia Marcelle never went by her full first name, except for her mother, and she'd eviscerate anyone who tried. In her late-thirties, Toni turned heads when she walked into a place. She had lustrous, thick black hair that cascaded to her shoulders and an angular face. Her nose had originally been eagle-like in a Roman patrician manner but sometime during Kane's time away had gone under the knife and was thinner and less pronounced. Kane didn't like the change.