Corridor Man 6: Exit Strategy

by Nick James

  “Shit.”

  “…An attorney named Chris McCall.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “I would guess if he is one of the individuals Mr. Morales lined up he may just have some special talent.”

  “I would have agreed with you up until that golden boy who wanted in here this morning.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about him.”

  “Amazing he’s looking for work, not.”

  “You know maybe I’ll just get you a chocolate sundae and try to sweeten you up.”

  “It’ll take more than one,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Bobby phoned Emily. She answered on the second ring.

  “So, what’d you think?”

  “I think a couple of things. First and foremost, you are one rock-solid, in-control woman.”

  “And?”

  “And I didn’t think it was possible, but Charlie Sawyer is an even bigger prick than I gave him credit for. What a jerk.”

  “I’m going to enjoy taking him to court.”

  Something Bobby would have to avoid if he wanted this to go his way. “I think we’ve got a couple of other options before it comes to that.”

  “Like what?”

  “First, let me contact them. Don’t you get involved. You may not think so, but you’ve got them on the ropes right now. I don’t want to upset that.”

  “What makes you think they’ll be any nicer to you? I mean, if they just fired your ass I’d say there’s a pretty good chance they’re just going to tell you to get screwed, if they even take your call.”

  “Give me forty-eight hours, can you do that?”

  “Only if you come over here in forty-eight hours to give me a full report, in person. I promise to give you some very personal attention. Sound like a deal?”

  “I find it impossible to say no. I’ll call you before I head over.”

  “Good. And, if they happen to give you a check you can come over before that. See you soon,” she said and disconnected. Bobby sat, drummed his fingers on the desk and wondered what he was going to do. Erin ringing the doorbell brought him back to reality.

  “Scandinavian sandwiches,” she said as he held the door for her. “Should we grab a seat in the break room?”

  “Let me just grab my cell phone and I’ll join you, God I’m starving.”

  Two white styrofoam trays were sitting on one of the tables and Erin had just poured herself a coffee when he entered the break room. “Hope you like it,” she said and smiled.

  Bobby thought about a coffee and decided he better not with an interview in just a little over an hour. The last thing he needed was to be all hyped up on coffee. He sat down and opened his styrofoam tray, then casually glanced over to see if Erin had ordered the same thing.

  It looked like green beans and a tomato on an English muffin. He double checked, Erin had the same thing, and was in the process of taking a bite. “What?” she said talking with her mouth full, sort of moving the food to the left side of her mouth. “It’s a Scandinavian sandwich.”

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time. I think they forgot the meat.”

  She half-snorted, then swallowed. “There is no meat. I’m taking a breather and going vegan for a week. Come on, take a bite, it’ll be good for you.”

  “There’s no meat?”

  “You big baby. No, there’s French style green beans, a tomato, mustard, and butter. Try it.”

  “How can a Scandinavian sandwich be served on an English muffin with French style green beans?”

  “Take a bite.”

  He picked the sandwich up from the tray and took a bite. A small bite. Dreadful was one of the many words that immediately sprang to mind. “That’s okay, I really wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

  “I thought you said you were starving?”

  “Not anymore. I should get back to work. Let me know when that two o’clock shows up,” he said and pushed his chair away from the table.

  “You don’t want to take your sandwich with you?” she asked, then half-laughed.

  “No, thanks anyway,” he said and headed back to his office.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Hey, skinny,” Erin said standing in the doorway, “Your two o’clock is here.”

  Bobby checked his watch, five minutes before two. “Tell me what his name is again.”

  “Chris, Chris McCall,” Erin said and grinned.

  “What? You still laughing about lunch?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. Sorry you didn’t enjoy the healthy lunch, I’ll know better next time.”

  “Okay, might as well send him back,” Bobby said as he pushed his chair back, stood and moved his head from side to side. He could hear his neck crack as he did so.

  A minute later a blonde woman with shoulder length hair wearing a grey suit stepped into his office. She carried a large black handbag with a wide black leather shoulder strap. “Mr. Custer, how do you do. I’m Chris McCall,” she smiled and held out her hand.

  Bobby shook her hand, hoped the complete surprise didn’t show on his face and said, “Very nice to meet you, Chris, please have a seat.” He indicated the couch with a wave of his hand. “Let’s get comfortable over here. Can I get you a coffee?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I always reach my coffee limit by about eight in the morning.” She had sparkling blue eyes and maybe a little too much make up. She was heavy, sort of, but certainly not fat. He noticed she didn’t wear any rings. “Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to see me,” she said as she settled onto the couch.

  “My pleasure, I appreciate you making the time to come in,” he said and took a seat in the wingback chair. Once he settled into the chair his stomach growled, loudly.

  She continued to look at him without changing her expression, just sat there with a pleasant smile on her face, but there could be no way she could not have heard it.

  “Sorry about that,” He half laughed. “I worked through the noon hour and skipped my lunch.”

  “Actually, thanks. I was more than a little stressed coming in and that relaxes me.”

  “Stressed? Relax, we’re just going to chat and see how long it takes before I drive you crazy,” he joked.

  “Well, I might as well level with you right off the bat. I’m seven months out of recovery. Ten months sober. I have a resume here,” she said pulling a file folder from her handbag. I was with Hamel and Delman for twelve years. Worked myself into a full-blown alcoholic, lost my job, destroyed my marriage and, well, I’m trying to climb back up the ladder.”

  The firm she mentioned was top notch, but she wasn’t the only person he was aware of who had burnt out working there. “How did you hear about Privado? We’re pretty much under the radar.”

  “A friend contacted me, told me you might be in the market for my particular talent.”

  “Care to tell me who that was?”

  “Camilla Morales.”

  “You know Camilla?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you know her brother, Luis?”

  “I’ve only met him once, no, make that twice, but other than introducing ourselves and maybe a comment about the weather, that was pretty much the extent of the conversations.”

  “And what is the particular talent you possess that we would be in the market for.”

  “Real estate.” She smiled. “Commercial real estate. In particular title transfers, It’s what I did day in and day out for the last four or five years of my life. The transfers I dealt with often times required, mmm,” she seemed to search for the right word. “An additional bit of discretion.”

  “And that was the practice you were involved in at Hamel and Delman?”

  “Almost exclusively. We had a number of clients who preferred to keep their operations rather close to the vest, if I can use that term.”

  “You know we’re pretty much what the name implies, private. We’ll have one major client and we’ll be working solely on the aspect you’v
e been involved in, discretion. Do you feel comfortable getting back into the world that drove you crazy?”

  She smiled and said, “I’m aware of that. To be honest, most folks would find it boring. For me it was more of an adventure. I loved doing it and now, since my recovery, I’m a lot better able to handle it.”

  He wondered what else she was aware of and so he asked. “What else do you know about us?”

  “I know the Morales family is your client, possibly your only client. I know you had an unfortunate experience a few years back, lost you license to practice and were sentenced. I’m aware that although you’re disbarred you more or less handled the account of Morris Montcreff while at Denton, Allen, Sawyer and Hinz. You tried to save Bennett Hinz when he had,” she seemed to think for a moment, “his recent lapse of judgement. I know you saved Camilla’s life along with Luis’ little daughter, Valentina, maybe a year ago in that situation in Frogtown. And I know that the two remaining partners at your former firm made an awfully big mistake in letting you go and are probably about to witness a stampede out the door.”

  “You know more than me,” Bobby half laughed and his stomach growled again.

  She laughed then said, “Oh God, you must be starving. Do you want to get something for that?”

  “No, it’s okay,” he said and as if to underline the fact he way lying his stomach growled again.

  “Good lord, here, I’ve got something for that,” she said and opened the the leather flap on her purse. She rummaged around for a moment, pulled out a billfold, car keys, a cellphone and what looked like an eye glass case. She smiled as she lifted up a bag with maybe a half-dozen small Snickers bars in it. “This takes the place of my former poison, plus I can eat one while I drive. You better have a couple,” she said and threw three candy bars across the table toward him.

  He opened one of the candy bars and the next thing he knew he had three wrappers crumpled up in front of him and they had been chatting for almost an hour.

  “I’m guessing you’ll have to give notice where you’re working now?” he asked and swallowed the last of the candy bars.

  She sort of half-smirked and scoffed. “You know how small this town is. With my recent history it’s a long shot to get hired anywhere, sort of a double-edged sword. No one wants to hire me with just ten months of sobriety under my belt, and if I waited twenty-four months they wouldn’t want to hire me because I’d been out of work for two years. You just can’t win. I’d be loyal, hardworking, trustworthy, a regular little girl scout.”

  Bobby nodded like she made perfect sense, which she did. “Okay, Chris, appreciate you coming in. We’ll be in touch shortly,” he said then stood, signaling the interview was over.

  She nodded, and went to grab the file on the coffee table with her résumé. “Leave that, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to go over it.”

  She looked at him with a sad smile, and said, “Thanks.”

  Bobby walked her out to the lobby, held the door for her, and watched her walk down the hall.

  “Nice guy,” Erin smiled once the door was closed.

  “What? Holding the door?”

  “No, Chris. You thought she’d be a guy.”

  “Yeah, the unisex name. What’d you…”

  Erin held her hand out to stop him. “I’m not telling you. I want to know what you thought about her, first.”

  “What did I think? She comes highly recommended. She was with a top-notch firm for a number of years. Seems to really know her stuff and she’s had some tough sledding.”

  “That’s about right,” Erin said. “I think she’d be a good fit.”

  “I don’t think she’d be a fan of your Scandinavian sandwich.”

  “Then next time you can go out and get the lunch.”

  “I just might do that and I’ll go to McDonald’s,” he said.

  “Well, just make sure you get plenty of fries.”

  He smiled at that, then said, “I’m going to be pouring through some files, actually the résumés from three of the folks I spoke with. You can probably take off if you want.”

  “If it’s okay, I’ll just hang here for a bit. Still waiting for those computers to arrive and the security cameras to be installed.”

  “Okay, thanks, you know where I’ll be,” he said and headed back to his office.

  Chapter Thirty

  Bobby had hoped to return to reviewing résumés, but between hearing the buzzer at the front office door ring a couple of times, and wondering how he was going to handle Emily’s dealing with Sawyer and Allen, he was having trouble concentrating. As if by magic, his cellphone rang. He glanced at his cellphone, the call was coming from the firm, no doubt Charlie Sawyer and he debated about answering for a long moment then decided he’d better.

  “This is Bobby Custer,” he answered trying to sound ever the professional to Sawyer.

  “Hello, Bobby, Virgil Allen here.”

  Allen’s cheerful voice caught him off guard for a moment and he didn’t respond.

  “Hello? Bobby?”

  “Oh, Mr. Allen, how are…”

  “Please, please dispense with the formality, I’d feel better if you just called me Virgil.”

  Bobby could think of a number of other names he’d like to call him, but said, “Okay, Virgil, thanks I appreciate that. How are things going with your transition and clients?”

  “I’d say fairly well, under the circumstances. However here is one thing you might be able to shed some light on.”

  Bobby went down through the laundry list of potential problems; the email he’d sent from Emily’s computer, the Elizabeth Saunders insurance settlement Bennett Hinz had signed that Bobby stole from his office, the Montcreff files that were all copies because Bobby had stolen the originals not to mention misfiling the majority of the Montcreff files so it would take them weeks to recompile everything in a semblance of proper order. “Oh, a problem?”

  “Yes, we’re still having a devil of a time trying to connect with Morris Montcreff.”

  “You didn’t call him?’

  “We’ve lost count of the times we’ve tried to reach his number. Did you have any other phone numbers for him? You must have had an office or home phone number, this cell just isn’t working.”

  “No. All I ever had was that cell phone number. Noah Denton never gave me another number.” Allen let off an exasperated sigh on the other end of the line. “To be honest, most of the times I actually met with him were in the back seat of a car, always at his request. He would normally call, tell me he was waiting in his car outside the building. He expected me to join him immediately, regardless of what I was involved with at the time. I can’t even tell you where he lived and as far as an office, he didn’t have one, at least to the best of my knowledge.”

  “The Trade Tower,” Allen responded. “We’ve been in touch with them, not that they were any help. He mention traveling anywhere to you? Maybe a long vacation?”

  “Traveling? No, although I was unable to reach him for the last few weeks prior to leaving your firm. I just presumed he was off somewhere. If I recall he had a son in, I’m going to say in California, but don’t hold me to that. He occasionally headed south, I think, Florida, or maybe even Cuba, I can’t be sure,” Bobby lied.

  “Cuba?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s right, but again, I don’t really know. It wasn’t unusual to not hear from him for a good length of time. Did you try Meyers bar where he has breakfast?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact we were there, in person. Talked to the owner, not the most friendly individual. We had to pry information from him. All he would tell us was that Montcreff wasn’t there at the moment. Good lord, we could see that much. The entire conversation couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes. Most unusual.”

  Bobby remembered the owner, but couldn’t recall ever hearing him actually utter a word. “My limited experience tells me that’s the way he operates, Moncreff.”

  “Awfully strange. You’v
e no idea where he is?”

  “None. I wonder if it might not make sense for me to stop by, sit down and have a chat, maybe something would come up. But, off the top of my head I can’t think of anything.”

  “Stop by? Is that what you’re angling for, to come back here? I have to tell you, Custer.” Any hint of warmth had suddenly disappeared from his voice. “If you’ve been holding out on us, haven’t provided us with current information, we will have you charged.”

  Charged with what? Bobby smiled to himself and thought Allen’s reaction suggested a rather stressful environment at the firm. “Charged? Look, I’m not happy about having to leave, Virgil, but in the end, even I can see it was probably the best decision for all involved. Have you talked with Tad Davis? Since I was disbarred, he represented the Montcreff interests the few times a court appearance was required. Davis or ahhh, I’m blanking on the name, Jerry, no Jeremy, Jeremy Norquist.”

  “We’ve calls into both of them. We were under the impression all contact had been through you, well, and Noah Denton.”

  ‘Calls into both of them’ suggested they were no longer at the firm. Two more who’d jumped from the sinking ship. Bobby wondered if Brad Wengler had left yet, but decided not to ask the question.

  “As far as I know, they had never contacted Montcreff, never dealt with him persionally, at least they never mentioned it to me if they did. I don’t think Mr. Moncreff had any idea who they even were. But you never know.”

  “Was he aware you had been disbarred?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact it was one of the things he liked about me.”

  “Good lord,” Allen said.

  “I could be in you office tomorrow morning. I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to review with you and Charlie Sawyer. How does, oh say ten o’clock sound? Just the three of us.”

  “Things are still a bit chaotic,” Allen said. “And we’ve Bennett’s funeral the day after tomorrow.”

  Bennett’s funeral? News to Bobby. “I was planning on going to that,” he lied. “Bennett was a good mentor,” he said then pictured pushing Bennett and sending him crashing through the glass and sailing out the window looking for all the world like he was running in slow motion as he sailed down sixteen stories onto the hood of that car.