Frankie Doyle had been discharged from the Army Nurse Corps with a Purple Heart and a limp she hid by standing with her weight on her left leg, which made her look poised rather than injured, and that was the sort of thing she was good at: making people see what she wanted them to see.

She started at Corletti and Donovan on a Monday. By Wednesday, she had learned three things. First, Vincent Corletti won cases by knowing secrets about everyone, and the most important secret he knew was his own. Second, Jack Donovan drank scotch at lunch and pretended he did not, which Frankie found impressive because it meant he was honest about everything except the drinking. Third, there was a locked drawer in Vince's desk that neither Jack nor anyone else was allowed to open.

The fourth thing she learned was that the locked drawer contained ledgers: Vince's personal records of every dirty deal, every bribe, every name. It was his insurance policy. And Frankie now knew where it was.

She did not tell anyone. She kept the information the way she kept her Purple Heart: in a drawer, not displayed, not forgotten.

Then Eddie Maloney brought a client to the office. The client was a bookkeeper named Weiss who claimed to have documentation that could put three police captains and two city aldermen away for life. Vince took the case but told Frankie to destroy Weiss's file.

"No," she said.

He looked at her the way a man looks at a dog that has suddenly started speaking a language he does not understand. "Excuse me?"

"Destroy the file yourself. I will not do it."

He fired her on the spot. She quit. She walked out of the building and into a rain that felt appropriate but was, Frankie decided, merely coincidental.

That night, someone broke into the office. Frankie returned for her coat, which she had left on the back of a chair in the break room, a habit she had not broken despite being told three times that the building was secure. She was unlocking the door with her own key when she heard a sound from the corridor: the sound of two men arguing in voices that were low and urgent and not the kind of argument you have when you agree with each other.

She pushed the door open a fraction of an inch and saw Vince in the corridor, facing a man in a dark coat whom she did not recognize. The man was holding something that looked like a folded newspaper but was, Frankie realized with a coldness that started in her hands and moved outward, heavier than a newspaper.

Vince said something she could not hear. The man raised the newspaper. Frankie closed the door and went downstairs and walked three blocks and stood under a streetlamp and smoked a cigarette that she did not want and trembled in a way that had nothing to do with cold.

The next morning, Weiss was found floating in the East River.

Frankie did not go to the police. She went to Jack. He was in his office, closing his eyes, his forehead resting against the cool glass of the window, and when he opened them and saw her face, he sat up straight and said, "Don't."

But she did not stop. She told him what she had seen. She told him about the ledgers. She told him she knew he knew more than he let on. He listened without moving, and when she finished, he said: "You need to drop this, Frankie."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. It is the only thing you can do."

She could not. She started digging into Weiss's background and discovered that Weiss was embezzling from a union pension fund, and the mob—through Vince's connections—wanted the money back. Vince did not kill Weiss. But Vince's clients did, and Vince knew they would.

She confronted him in his office. He did not deny anything. He laughed, a low sound that was almost pleasant, and said: "You think I am the bad guy, Frankie? I am the good guy. I am the one who makes sure the bad guys do not get away with it twice."

She told Jack about the ledgers. Jack told her he had been gathering evidence against Vince for years. "Give it to me," he said. "Help me take him down."

She made a deal with Jack: she would give him the ledgers, but he had to clear Eddie Maloney, whom she had learned was innocent. Jack agreed.

At the trial, Frankie's copies of the ledgers were enough. Vince was disbarred. Eddie Maloney went free. Jack was indicted for his complicity.

Six months later, Vince ran a small-time traffic court practice in Jersey. He drank too much and talked to a photograph on his desk. Frankie worked at a newspaper as a proofreader. She still smoked too many cigarettes. She sometimes walked past the old law office on Third Avenue and imagined going back upstairs.

Jack wrote her one letter from Rikers Island. "You were the only honest thing in that room, Frankie. Do not let it kill you."

She did not answer. She kept the letter in her purse. The cover was torn. The ink had run. She lit a cigarette and stood on the sidewalk and watched the traffic on Third Avenue and felt nothing she could name and some things she could not.

Author Note & Copyright: