CLAUDIA called--URONT," read the pink message slip the nurse had handed him. He reached her on the car phone, driving back to the office. "They got you," said Claudia.
"I have something somewhat pressing of my own. Please find the number at Dr. and Mrs. Cawley's home and patch me through." They were on the line together while it rang a number of times; Fiona was not in. Stern swo Stern resumed his feet. This confrontation, long imagined, like so much else, seemed far more difficult in actuality than in prospect. He had no wish to prolong it. But Nate's comment still left a wake of ruthless emotion.
"One last word, Nate," said Stern. "A piece of friendly advice." Nate, who, all in all, looked thoroughly wrecked by this conversation, sat up on alert: he knew something else was coming. And he was certainly correct, for 'Stern had had a flash of the insight that for three decades had 'saved his life in the courtroom, some adrenalizexl ability of the synapses to suddenly connect, no more explicable than the gift of tongues or flight. "I suggest you fire your nurse before you head off for divorce court. Fiona has some damaging evidence, and the cross-examination will be even nastier if that young woman remains on your payroll."
The nurse was there, fiddling with some charts, when Stern threw open the office door. She had taken a message from his office and handed Stern the slip. He did not bother examining it now. He was in a courtrom mode, playing for appearance, knowing his behavior would be carefully recounted. He looked her up and down, just like that, an entire once-over, which she took in almost innocently, with the same uncertain smile, the same unruffled bland beauty.
Then he showed himseft out, having decided, with liona's videotape well in mind, that the young woman belonged to that small class of human beings who look worse with their clothes on.