PLUMMET: A Novel

by MICHAEL ZAROCOSTAS

  "Client charge?"

  "Put it on the Mavros tab. Thanks."

  "Have a good time tonight." His secretary exited with the envelope in hand.

  Once he let her leave with the drive, there was no turning back. No changing his mind. In the waning sunlight that came through his window and lit up his desk, he thought of whether he should go to the anniversary party.

  His office phone began ringing, and he groaned. The caller ID read, "Private." His heart quickened, and for some reason he hoped it was Ashley.

  "Hello?"

  The other line came through static and car traffic, and he heard the mumbling of a woman's voice in the background, Hannah's voice, then, "This is Stu Greenbaum."

  "Yup." Micah shut his eyes.

  "I shouldn't have to make this call to a junior associate, but I looked at your time for the month. It's still one of the lower numbers for Gen Lit associates. Given that, I don't think you have any standing to refuse a new assignment. So you have two options. You can take the assignment from Hannah or you can start polishing up your pathetically short resumé."

  Micah felt his jaw muscles working, opened his eyes. "You threatening to fire me?"

  "I don't have to threaten people," Stu said and hung up.

  33 Friday, The Anniversary Party

  * * *

  An endless line of black limousines and livery sedans waited at the curb of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dozens of lawyers in black tie and cocktail dresses climbed up the wet steps to the Fifth Avenue entrance. Raphael and Elliott jogged up to the museum through a steady drizzle of rain, wiping down their tuxedos as the wind picked up. They had spent an hour at Club Macanudo, ordering the bar's famous 63rd Street martinis and "Trump" cigars from the Firm's private corporate humidor on the wall, waiting for Micah, who never showed.

  Inside the Great Hall of the Met, Raphael and Elliott shook themselves dry and mingled through the late crowd. A pair of trumpeters played a flourish with each new arrival.

  "They're announcing people like a session of the House of Lords," Elliott whispered.

  "Check this out," Raphael said before he told the announcer their names.

  The oblivious announcer nodded and shouted, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Messieurs Peter North and Craven Morehead have arrived!"

  Elliott shook his head. Raphael shook hands with some of his cohorts, some of his enemies, asking everyone, "Have you seen Grayson?" No one had.

  He could hear a live band playing '70s dance music in the distance. It must have been coming from a ballroom where all the other Sullivan & Adler lawyers were. They slithered their way through the crowd in the entrance hall, making their way to the music. Raphael punched Grayson's number on his cell. No luck. He sighed, followed "Sullivan & Adler Anniversary" signs on the walls, pointing toward a map and the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing of the museum. He and Elliott passed through a room full of Egyptian sarcophagi and artwork, wending their way into a foyer outside the enormous room where the live band was playing.

  At the entrance to the Sackler Wing, Raphael hoped to find Grayson somewhere inside. He saw the fringes of a lavish party through the grand doorway, people dancing and drinking cocktails and hovering over buffet tables. He started inside when Hannah Smythe stepped in front of him, a tiny string of baby's breath in her frizzy blonde hair and another string pinned to a salmon pink cocktail dress. It reminded him of a bad prom costume.

  Elliott went through the doorway, but Raphael lagged behind.

  "Princess, so good to see you here." He swiped a glass of wine from a circling tray as Hannah waved with Stu Greenbaum close behind her. He was about to greet Stu, but Stu's good eye pretended not to see him.

  Hannah's words tunneled through thick make-up, "Good to see you, too, Raphael."

  "I'm surprised you made it tonight." He nodded in Stu's direction. "I heard you were looking for a stay-at-home job?"

  "Very funny. I'm not leaving the Firm. I wouldn't dream of it."

  "Of course not." He took a gulp of wine. He didn't know why she always made him nervous. "You're probably going back to the office tonight."

  "Maybe I am. Get in some billable hours."

  "I don't think you need to impress anyone anymore. Congratulations, by the way." He couldn't stand it, but she'd been "made" by the Firm. The greedy bastards on the Partnership Committee obviously looked at her billable hours and deep-sixed the reports of her notorious pilfering, backstabbing, and partner-humping. Or maybe they were impressed by them.

  "You heard?" Hannah asked coyly.

  Raphael nodded, waited. There was no reciprocal courtesy from her, which irritated him. He pulled up his coat sleeve, pointed at the cufflink. It was a silver oval containing a picture of Han Solo. "Hey, you remember these?"

  "I can't believe you kept them." Her eyes lit up for a fleeting second. "That was a hundred years ago, Raph."

  He stood closer to her, whispered, "I can't believe you're with cyclops here. What a douche bag." He nodded again at Stu loitering behind her.

  She shook her head. "Where's your date tonight, Raphael?" He tried to mentally shut her out, but her words sailed perfectly through the crowd and the music. "I thought you'd at least come with your hick sidekick. Where's Mr. Grayson anyway?"

  "Probably doing your job for you."

  Her tongue clucked. "Stood up yet again. How sad, Raph." The make-up on her face cracked into a big smile.

  He whispered, "Not as sad as you blowing your way to the top."

  She tried to say something, painted lips quivering.

  Raphael folded out his ear with his manicured middle finger, mouthed, "What? Thought so." He let his finger linger in the air, smiled, and slipped into the crowd.

  34 Friday, The Anniversary Party

  * * *

  He had spent most of the afternoon with the Tullibardine bottle, sitting near the Alice in Wonderland sculpture of the giant bronze mushroom overlooking the Conservatory Water in Central Park. Gabe Weiss killed the bottle while Alice presided over a tea party with the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and the Cheshire Cat perched in a tree. When it had started drizzling, he decided to walk to the Met on 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue.

  Entering the museum, he avoided the trumpeting introductions and walked straight to the Temple of Dendur. He was surprised by how many people were there. He recognized partners from the Firm's offices in L.A., Chicago, Houston, Rome, Hong Kong, even Sydney. Every single lawyer from the Firm must have shown up with a date, and all two thousand of them were drinking and chattering and dancing on a stone platform where the temple stood. He hated scenes like this and wanted to drown himself in liquor until he fell into a fountain, right in the middle of the mausoleum with the dead Egyptian statues and the almost-dead lawyer statues around him. That would embarrass the Firm to hell, but not like a front-page headline would.

  But no matter how much he drank, he fought to keep his drunken stupor going. The adrenaline, the loud music, the rain falling on the long slanting windows, all of it was keeping him slightly sane, keeping him from passing out. He stood in a dim hallway just off of the main temple room, and he watched the live exhibits of lawyers and his own evolution out there. He saw a couple of the younger associates, but his glazed stare couldn't find Micah Grayson in the thousand faces crowded in the huge room. Gabe thought that he was once just like the kid. Eager, bright, unwilling to sacrifice integrity even for the client's gain.

  Gabe thought of himself now versus then, scoffed into the melting ice cubes of his drink. He stepped further back into the hallway when he saw Stu Greenbaum's beady eye nearby. He took another sip, wondering where his favorite associates were. He spotted Raphael Bianco on the dance floor directly between the live band and the largest bar. He was with his little friend, Elliott something or other. Gabe couldn't remember the name of the short, curly-haired associate. He watched the pair, thinking they were both like a young version of him, too. He remembered meeting Raphael's friend at a
closing dinner for a hostile takeover. The Elliott kid was the Gabe who was a diligent associate, worried about his pregnant wife, thinking of buying his first house. Bianco was a later phase of Gabe. Bianco had started out like Grayson, but became overwhelmed by the S & A machine. Crushed beneath the pressure, he was ground to a conniving shadow working too long, wanting to be partner too much. That's why Gabe had begun to avoid Bianco because the kid was becoming too much like him now.

  He took a long drink until the ice was gone. He reached into his jacket, felt the weight of the gun in his pocket, and wondered if he could use it.

  "The Sackler Wing…" someone said, snapping him out of his trance.

  Sackler, Sackler, Gabe thought, knowing that name. He looked around the room again, the rain tunneling down the long windows, the Temple of Dendur with its shallow moat protecting it from the hundreds of lawyers on the dance floor. Black ties and formal dresses hanging from deathly pale bodies.

  "Len Sackler," he whispered to himself. He knew the man vaguely, when Gabe was a young partner. He recalled the encounter now. He was trying to land his first big client, and somehow he'd managed to get a lunch appointment with Sackler. A major coup back then. Where was it at, the Russian Tea Room? Gabe wondered. It was somewhere nice because he remembered the bill, a couple hundred bucks in the 80s. Sackler was one of the most intelligent, respected businessmen and philanthropists in New York City, if not the planet. He'd gone to med school, owned printing businesses, collected Asian art, donated generously. He was what Rachel would call a real mensch. And when Gabe had tried to land him as a client, Sackler must have seen right through him. Gabe couldn't care less about doing good. He wanted to do well and make Sackler his offering to the Firm. But after that lunch, he never saw Sackler again.

  That's who I should have emulated, he told himself.

  He sighed, raked his sweaty hand through his hair. There was a catering table a few feet away, and he staggered to it, propped himself against it. His dry mouth craved another scotch.

  "Would you like something, sir?" a chef behind the table asked, holding a carving knife against a bleeding roast beef.

  Gabe stared at the red globules on the meat, felt as if he'd seen this before. "No."

  His stomach gurgled. He moved away from the table and began hearing a faint voice through the music and rain and exaggerated laughter. He heard the voice again, it sounded like his mother calling him when he was a boy playing with the Irish kids in Bay Ridge.

  "Gabriel!" Rachel's voice ricocheted through the crowd.

  Gabe turned, saw her in a black cocktail dress eighty feet away, struggling her way toward him. He could see her lips mouth the words, Where have you been? Wait! Her face never looked so pure. He shut his eyes for a moment and remembered his wife's face in his mind before walking away as fast as he could.

  35 Friday night

  * * *

  Micah was in his tuxedo, the hook-on bow tie dangling below his neck, when he went to the security desk in the Firm's lobby and signed out the pass key for the top floor. The security guards shook their heads, mumbling that they couldn't believe the partners were making Micah work on the night of the Anniversary Party.

  "Yup, the partner left a file locked in his office, and I need it to do work while he's partying." Micah sighed and scribbled S. Greenbaum on the security desk clipboard.

  He quickly glanced around the empty marble lobby, the security camera over the entrance, the rain pounding away at the revolving doors. And took the keys. On the elevator ride up, he held his own red time diary and played with the large metal ring of keys. He got out of the elevator on the top floor and walked cautiously down the corridors of power where all the Gen Lit partners had offices. Of course, none of their rooms was alive with activity. None of them would miss their own party. Any thought of his going to the Firm's anniversary party had been ruined by Stu's phone call. He walked towards Stu's office, thinking about how Hannah must've told on him like a petulant child, and Stu making it clear that he'd fire him in a heartbeat. He couldn't understand why Stu was such a bastard to him.

  Micah unlocked Stu Greenbaum's office door, slowly entered. In the dark, the mirrors reflected the rain and moonlight onto Stu's office chair. They were all pointed at the chair, and he imagined Stu reigning over his desk, looking at himself from all angles, primping his hair. He went to the desk and saw the red book immediately, sitting on top of a leather day planner. He looked back at the door, paranoid, and cracked open the book's spine.

  Stu's diary read like the Unabomber's manifesto. There was a notation and detailed explanation for every billable moment of time, filling every millimeter of page space. Micah read an entry to himself.

  Left a telephone message for assistant general counsel whose secretary said he was out of the office. Note to self, if he doesn't return call, inform general counsel of company that his subordinate was playing golf while we had a deadline to serve brief. One-tenth of hour my time and bill for cost of long-distance call.

  "Good grief." He thumbed through the pages and noticed a familiar name in one entry: Lunch with N. Mavros- bill to potential new business/do not include client's name.

  Micah shook his head. Stu was trying to go around behind Gabe's back and bring in Nick Mavros as his own client. Back-stabbing at the partner level. Micah shut the diary, disgusted with himself for padding his time, for working on cases for people like Mavros that meant nothing, for falling into the trap. And he realized how ironic it was that these people put their billing records in "diaries." Instead of private thoughts and memories and dreams, these people were marking down how many hours they wasted in a day, exactly how many minutes they spent becoming numb to their own existence. He wondered how lost these people would be without their little red books? He thought of stealing Stu's diary, but decided against it.

  He unlocked Gabe Weiss's office and found Gabe's time diary on the bureau behind the desk. He skimmed through it, noticing nothing unusual until he got to the last month, August. He flipped through it twice to make sure, but it was no accident. The pages had been cut out, missing. Micah began thinking about what Gabe had told him that morning. Was Gabe leaving the Firm? Why did he rip out his time? Is he taking clients with him? He couldn't make sense of the missing pages.

  He locked Gabe's office and grabbed a metal trash can in the hallway.

  Micah used the security keys to open the door to the roof stairwell. He climbed the metal steps and ended up on a private deck atop the S & A office tower. There was a massive broadcasting antenna and a four foot retaining wall all around the roof deck. The humid clouds were nearly at eye level, and he could see across the entire city. The lights in the street below glimmered like stars. No wonder the partners felt like gods on Mount Olympus, he thought. The wind gusted and whipped through the metal frame of the antenna.

  Micah walked to the edge of the deck and climbed up on the concrete retaining wall. He stood high above Times Square, reached his hands out, and closed his eyes. The wind buffeted his tuxedo and shook him. He looked straight down, hundreds of feet to the street, and vertigo suddenly made his head spin.

  He retreated off the wall, backwards to the deck and let out a deep breath.

  He set down the trash can and flipped open his own time diary. Then he took out a lighter and lit a page of the diary. A rainstorm began to rumble, and, he felt euphoric as if a great burden had been lifted, watching the orange light dance for him. He dropped the book into the trash can and watched. He was surprised how long it took at first, the flame smoking weakly like a snuffed candle, the red cover sweating like wax. Pages of billable hours turned various shades of black and gray then a luminous orange glowing on the edges and becoming flames. The paper became dust particles gently floating up and swirling in the wind.

  The bible of Sullivan & Adler shrinking to ash and gone.

  36 Friday, The Anniversary Party

  * * *

  Bright strokes of lightning lit up the bathroom window and thunder
drummed all over the ceiling. The rainstorm was rhythmic torture pattering around him, blinking silver in the glass panes. The din and light grew magnified in the ceramic room where he hid to avoid his wife.

  Gabe Weiss's hands were stuck to the cold sink in the men's room. It reminded him of his fingers sticking to the shot glass made of ice in Reykjavik when he and Rachel still celebrated New Year's ages ago. His fingers seemed part of the sink now, gluey and stretched like toad tongues. The mirror looked at him, its anodyne face drooping into a cloud like an old man frowning. His hands lost suction and pulled up from the counter, splashing water at his drunken face. Cold droplets and tears trickled from his inky blue orbs.

  He needed the toilet to purge his guts. But there were vocal strains from inside the stall. Someone else was using it. Gabe waited as lightning glimmered again, and thunder shook the building. Embarrassed groaning sailed over the low wall from the other man in the bathroom. The smells from Gabe's own breath, from the bathroom stall, and from the sugary pink maraschino drink someone left on the sink counter smothered him. His knuckles tapped against the stall door, begging softly, impotently.

  "Give me a minute," the other man said over the spinning of tissue paper.

  Lightning flickered through the window again. Gabe staggered in the quaking thunder and the sound of the crowd nearby. He almost forgot the drone of voices and the warped '70s music from the museum's hallways. The toilet finally flushed and gurgled into the void. The stall door opened into him, hitting his chest, and he danced backward. The other man was a loose shadow, round and slow. Gabe squeezed past the man, tried to shut the stall door. His fingers played with the lock, pushing the metal prick until it jammed inside the worn hole.