With a sardonic smile, her voice softened. “Well, Noah Reid, if you want to impress the biggest stuffed shirt in an office full of stuffed shirts, you can start by looking like a real lawyer.”
***
In a big firm, there were offices, and there were offices. The bigger a fish you were, the more trappings you had. And when you were the biggest fish, like Garret Southam was, you had everything from a Jackson Pollock painting on the wall to a custom-built, NASA-inspired espresso machine sitting in the corner, waiting to satisfy your every caffeine craving.
Garret’s private secretary, Jill Graham, greeted them in the well-appointed reception area of Garret’s private office. She smiled warmly at Olivia. “Olivia, I have so looked forward to this day. Mr. Southam is expecting you.”
Olivia responded with a half-hearted smile. “Thanks, Jill.”
As Jill led them into Garret’s office, Noah speculated on how the hell Jill knew Olivia. And what am I? Chopped liver?
“Here you are,” Jill said.
***
Noah and Olivia entered. The view from the eighty-eighth floor immediately awed Noah. With windows that went from floor to ceiling, he could see all of Hong Kong, from the green and cream-colored Star Ferries in Victoria Harbor to the awesome skyline of some of the world’s most spectacular skyscrapers, including the I.M. Pei architectural masterpiece, the Bank of China Tower.
Garret beamed as he extended his hand to Noah. “Welcome, Noah. Good to have you aboard. Please take a seat.”
“Thank you.” Wow, he didn’t say anything to Olivia.
Noah sat down slowly, cowed by the grandeur, but Olivia was nonchalant as she sat on the thousand-dollar leather-covered chair beside him.
Noah cleared his throat and began a well-rehearsed speech. “I want to thank you, Mr. Southam, for giving me this outstanding opportunity...”
Garret put a firm hand on Noah’s knee. “Just call me Garret.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” The neophyte began anew. “Thank you for the privilege of working with you. I was truly inspired by what you were saying just now...”
Garret interrupted again, “Reid, let me tell you a secret.” He leaned toward Noah and whispered, “I hate suckholes. Unequivocally, completely, absolutely without reservation. Got that?”
The humiliated Noah nodded as Garret leaned back and relaxed. Throughout all this, Olivia had been trying to stifle herself but could no longer control herself, and she burst out with a hearty laugh.
A bemused Garret continued. “Mr. Reid, have you met my daughter yet?”
Noah tried to keep from screaming as Olivia gave the same silly little wave to him that he gave to one of the suits on the elevator.
“We’ve met,” said Olivia. “Mr. Reid told me of his family’s school.”
Garret nodded. “Ah, yes, the Good Shepherd. I’m on the board of trustees. Never hurts having God on your side, especially when you live in a land where everybody thinks you’re a white devil. Don’t you agree?”
“Um. Yes, of course.” Noah was confused.
Garret waved his finger. “No suckholing. Remember?”
“I mean that. Like I’ve spent my whole life trying to un-devilize myself,” stammered Noah.
Garret and Olivia both snickered at the mortified Noah.
But Garret sobered. “Noah and Olivia, you are both my new assigns. That means I dictate your lives.”
“As if you already don’t,” muttered Olivia.
Garret ignored the jibe and handed each one of them a six-inch file and a USB flash drive. “You’re going to work with me on the Golden Asia file.”
“Oh, come on, Dad,” objected an exasperated Olivia.
“In the office, I am your boss, not your father,” said Garret sternly to an unamused Olivia. “Golden Asia Land, Golden Asia Holdings, Golden Asia Imports, Golden Asia Exports, Golden Asia Foods, Golden Asia Land Corporation and that’s just a start.”
“I know who Golden Asia is,” said Olivia, gritting her teeth.
“This is the most important file we have, the most important file I have, the most important file that Pittman Saunders has.”
“Oh come on, Da..., Mr. Southam. Can’t I do something else?”
“Olivia, you speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. You read and write Traditional as well as Simplified Chinese script. You went to the right schools here, in Europe and in North America, but these are not the overriding factors.”
There was a change in tone as Garret continued, a little softer but maintaining its iron firmness. “You are my daughter and, most important, you are Abby’s best friend, the daughter of Mr. Golden Asia. You will concentrate primarily on the real estate holdings for now. Brush up on your commercial conveyancing. We are working the kinks out of a major development.”
“You mean you want me to get a sewer permit or maybe evict some penny-ante squatters? What the hell did I slave for sixteen hours a day for four years at Harvard for?” said the exasperated new attorney. “I was hoping I could do something a little more exciting.”
“Excitement thrills, but real estate bills. And I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about thrills. We will have dinner with Tommy and Abby tonight. I believe that will meet with your approval?”
Before Olivia responded, Noah cut in. “Um, sorry, but I can’t make it tonight. Previous engagement. I lined it up before I got on the plane weeks ago,” said Noah, ill at ease.
Olivia and Garret looked at Noah in amazement with the same thought. You gotta be kidding.
“Cancel it. Tommy is our rep at Golden Asia.”
“I can’t.” Noah was embarrassed.
“Well, in that case, you can pack up and leave for your engagement now. Don’t bother coming back.”
Noah swallowed. “Uh, Garret?”
“Call me Mr. Southam.”
“Mr. Southam, didn’t you just say you hated suckholes? Well, isn’t going to meet my friend who I’m setting up a charity with the most anti-suckhole thing in the world to do? And didn’t you also say that integrity was important?”
“I lied.” Garret glared at Noah.
There was a tension-filled silence as Noah handed the file and USB stick back to Garret.
“What is so urgent about setting up this charity that it can’t wait until after our business dinner?” Garret asked.
“It’s the kids, Mr. Southam. The paperwork could easily wait, but the kids Chad’s working with want to meet me. I can’t let them down, and I won’t.”
“Is that really worth giving up your career for?”
“Mr. Southam, Olivia isn’t the only lawyer in town that reads and writes Traditional and Simplified Chinese. And not only do I speak Cantonese and Mandarin, I speak Shanghainese as well. I’ll get a job somewhere.” Noah made his way toward the door.
“Reid,” called Garret.
Noah stopped and turned around.
“Very well, Reid. This time only. But remember this. Pittman Saunders owns you, and I own Pittman Saunders. Forget this, and there will not be a next time. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Olivia twisted her face and stared curiously at Noah. Dad would never put up with this normally. What’s with this guy?
Chapter 13
With a view just as spectacular as the one afforded from Garret’s office, Chin and Grandmaster Wu stood on a fifty-fourth-story balcony penthouse. Duke listened in the background just inside the apartment.
“It has been almost thirty years since we last met, Master Wu. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“It is the same now as it was before. I am concerned for your soul.”
Chin threw his former sifu a baleful sneer. “Did the white man’s god finally get to you? Are you on your knees every day praying for salvation to Jehovah Jireh for the hopeless sinners of the world?”
Wu said nothing but looked with concerned eyes out toward Victoria Peak. While not as famous as Mt. Everest, Fuji or Kilimanjaro, it offered what almost every mountain does
—a sense of peace to the troubled soul, and Wu’s soul was extremely troubled now.
“It is not too late, Chin. There is still a chance.”
“Master Wu, you are who you are, and my destiny is what it is. When that Christian couple took you in, you said goodbye to The Way. You said goodbye to me.”
“You had already left,” Wu said without blame, “and I had no one.” He turned to Chin and pleaded. “You were a monk. You were my monk, my disciple, my heir. You could have had it all.”
Chin snorted. “Ten thousand percent of nothing is nothing. What you offered was worthless. Meaningless.”
Wu turned to Duke. “Tell your father to repent. To change. He cannot win.”
Chin struck out, locking his entire body into a painful hold, melding it with Wu’s. “This is not his business. Leave family out of this.”
“It’s all about family, Chin. They are always part of this.”
Duke snickered. “Tell that to the ho who was my mother.” He walked up and looked at the sweat beading off Wu’s brow, stuck out his tongue and licked it. “Old man, you got nuttin’ to say to me because you are a total loser.”
Chin applied powerful pressure, forcing Wu’s back against the railing. A little more pressure, and he would break the sifu’s back.
Wu’s tone softened. This is a man who knows death. “Do you really want to kill me, Chin? Would that make you happy?”
“The world has surpassed you, and yet you cling to old-fashioned ways.”
Before Chin could answer, the aged master unexpectedly relaxed. Without any resistance, Chin unwittingly pushed Wu off the balcony—it’s the same principle of unexpected relief that Chin used when he battled the tiger. Chin tried to grab Wu, but was too late.
And that was exactly Master Wu’s plan. He hurtled through the air for fifty feet. Then, with the agility and reflexes of a cat, he grabbed the railing of an apartment balcony. Reversing motion, he rocked himself back and forth in the air, building energy. He let go of the balcony ledge and swung up into the air to the next floor higher. Repeating the process, his upward trajectory brought him higher than the astounded Chin and Duke. He then descended to the balcony in front of them.
“As long as I am alive, I am your master. Principles, ethics and morality are never out of date. They never die.”
Chin shook his head. “Only power is honor.”
Chin and Duke turned away and walked inside, leaving Master Wu on the balcony alone.
Chapter 14
The thing about being a new lawyer in a big firm was that, even if you’re the boss’s daughter, chances were you wouldn’t get a corner office. There is also a good chance you wouldn’t have a private office, either. And, if two lawyers happen to be assigned to the same file, there is a reasonable chance that you will have to share a space with your partner, especially when the firm is experiencing what the senior partner calls “unprecedented growth.” So when Noah and Olivia were required to share a smallish office designed for one person, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. However, close quarters did not necessarily make for a close relationship.
“You certainly know how to make a good impression,” said Olivia as she began tackling the six-inch Golden Asia file.
Noah’s eyes glazed over as he stared numbly at the same material. “Well, you never told me that Garret Southam was your father. I thought you said your last name was Novak.”
“It is.”
“Your mother remarried Garret, so he’s your stepfather, then?”
“Why are you so nosy? How about some privacy?”
“I told you everything about me,” Noah said.
“Oh, right.” Olivia gently put the legal document down to glare at Noah. “You bragged about being a lawyer trying to impress the little secretary. You tried to show off by telling me you were a chop-socky kung fu man.”
Scrunching his face, Noah lifted his arms in surrender. “Guilty as charged. I still don’t know much about you.”
“I went to a Swiss boarding school, Brown University, did an MBA at the Wharton School of Business and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School. Enough?”
Noah gulped, then regained his composure. “I was thinking of something more... personal. You’re not applying for a job with me, so I really couldn’t care less about your résumé. Like who are you really, and why do you do what you do. And why did you lie to me about your last name?”
Olivia couldn’t believe this guy just didn’t give up. “I’m Olivia Novak Southam, age twenty-six. I was born in Hong Kong, and I have an IQ of 140, which means I’m probably ten times as smart as you. What I love to do more than anything else is to play jazz piano. I finished law school two years early and spent the last year in New York City playing the jazz circuit. I would have continued to do so except that I’m addicted to eating regularly, a habit most jazzers are unable to indulge in.”
Olivia balled her fists tightly. She wasn’t much of one to let out personal feelings. “Enough of that. I won’t bore either of us anymore. I’m working with you because, for some reason known only to himself, Dad put us together. I will make it as short as possible so that you will not have to put up with this spoiled rich bitch because I, for one, am not going to get stuck doing real estate conveyances that any storefront lawyer could do.”
Olivia’s eyes dared Noah to snap back. He didn’t take the bait but calmly said, “I’m sorry to hear that...”
“I’m not looking for sympathy.”
“I didn’t finish. I want to say that I’m sorry to hear that that you have father issues...”
Olivia shrieked. “I don’t have father issues!”
She was loud enough that coworkers across the hall turned to their computers and pretended nothing ever happened. She turned her attention back to the top document in the Golden Asia stack, acting as if she was concentrating on it.
Noah said quietly, “Just because you are angry with your father, don’t take it out on the world... or on me.”
Fury roiling her sexy, lithe figure, Olivia didn’t say a word, and her expression indicated she didn’t hear a thing. Then she abruptly got up and huffed out of the room. If one were brave enough to look closely, one would see a tear rolling down her face.
Chapter 15
Ron Armstrong and half a dozen other accountants dressed in the obligatory conservative dark suits sat nervously around a table at Armstrong and Company’s boardroom, pastries and coffee untouched. All eyes were on Garret as he perused Ron’s revised documents, quickly scanning a page then moving to the following one.
The lawyer slammed the binder down. “This is bullshit.”
“We haven’t finished yet, Garret, because it’s not just unethical; it’s illegal on a mammoth scale,” stated Ron.
“Since when has that bothered you?” asked Garret.
“Since we started to get investigated for accounting irregularities by some random government auditor two weeks ago. It’s impossible to keep track of every single change because you make an alteration on one file, and it affects another, then another. It’s a snowball effect.”
“Is that worth losing $10,000,000 in annual billings?” asked Garret simply. “It’s more than just Christmas bonus money we’re talking about. Last time I checked, ten million was one hell of a lot of change.”
“But we could lose our designations,” argued Ron. “The board already has us under watch, too.”
“So what, Ron? Are you scared of a few bureaucrats, because I’m certainly not,” said Garret.
“The problem, Garret, is if we lose our designations, they are going to want to review all of Golden Asia’s back records and statements. Then forget me. Pittman Saunders will be up a creek. We are talking about billions here, Garret.”
“Madoff and the Enron guys did it.”
“And they’re in jail now because they got caught.”
Garret walked over to one of the other accountants and with one hand, picked him up by the throat.
“Then do
n’t get caught,” said Garret.
They all looked on in horror as Garret began to squeeze. The accountant struggled; waving his arms in the air, he couldn’t free himself from the lawyer’s grip. He started gagging, and his arms started waving more frantically. Just before he lost consciousness, Garret released him, dropping him to the floor.
“Don’t worry. You’ll live,” Garret told him. He glanced back at Ron. “But I can’t guarantee the same result if my request is not honored. Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course, Garret,” stammered Ron. “I think we all know what needs to be done.”
“Good, because this meeting has just wasted half an hour of my time. You’ve only got another two hours to make the appropriate adjustments.”
Garret glared at Ron. “I went early to your home to give you more time. By wasting it, you’re just screwing yourself in the derrière.”
He exited the room, and the accountants started buzzing with activity. Had they known what Garret knew, instead of spending time on accounting details, they would have been making travel arrangements to anywhere else in the world under names that were anything but their own.
Garret was the unknown source for the government auditor. He, more than anyone else, understood what the potential outcomes could be.
Chapter 16
Noah sat by himself in the office. Not the greatest typist in the world, he used the two-finger hunt-and-peck method. He read aloud as he typed in the letters.
“Dear Olivia: I want you to know that I behaved improperly today during our encounter, and I am genuinely sorry for any consternation I have caused you. Sincerely, Noah Reid.”
He hit the send button, and less than ten seconds passed before Olivia stormed back into the room. She held her iPhone up and waved it in the air.
“What’s up with this patronizing piece of shit?”
The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset Page 10
