Chrissy called and left a brief message at the Regent Beverly Wilshire for Jeff, strapped the baby into her car seat, and climbed into the seat that had most recently been occupied by the Jester. She confessed that she was still much too shaken to drive, and my car was not just undrivable, but I suspected a total loss.
As I pulled Chrissy’s car out of her own driveway, I saw her turn in her seat to catch one last glimpse of her house and realized that she had no idea when, if ever, she’d be coming back. What Beau had most feared had now come to pass. The Rendells were being run out of town. I wondered if he was in a position to appreciate the irony of it; in the end he was the only one who was going to get to stay.
There was also the issue of where to go. As we passed the cheese shops and the outlet malls on our way to Chicago, I called and made reservations for her at the Four Seasons. It wasn’t until I saw the exit for Lake Forest that I got a better idea. As I hit the off-ramp and turned onto Sheridan Road, I called my mother.
Mother adores being magnanimous, especially when the appearance of generosity can be accomplished with a minimum of effort on her part. She and my father were about to leave for the airport to spend two weeks with friends in St. Bart, so I wasn’t surprised that she expressed herself as delighted to open up the guest wing for Chrissy and the baby. In fact, I knew that she was delighted at the idea.
Mother hated that she had to pay her staff when she and my father were away. Having Chrissy at the house appealed to her perverse sense of thrift. Chrissy would have a cook and hot and cold running maids to help her with the baby while Mother would be spared the anguish of knowing that her servants were slacking off while she was yachting in the Caribbean.
It was a strange homecoming nonetheless, greeted by Mrs. Mason, the same cook who’d fed us grilled cheese sandwiches and her own peculiar brand of Baptist spiritualism as children. I left Chrissy and the baby in her hands to be cooed and fussed over and went upstairs to do what I could to make myself presentable. I washed my face as gently as I could and gingerly brushed the dried blood out of my hair, leaving it down to cover the rapidly spreading bruises on my neck. I took off my blouse and examined myself in the mirror. I couldn’t tell where the Jester’s handiwork ended and the damage from my stunt with the car began. Not that it really mattered.
I found a high-collared blouse in my Mother’s closet and paired it with her favorite red Ralph Lauren suit, taking another minute to try my best to camouflage my swollen lower lip with concealer. Fortunately, the worst of the damage to my mouth seemed to be on the inside. Then I threw my dirty and bloodstained clothes into the trash and headed downtown to my office.
When I arrived back at the firm, the receptionist’s subdued greeting tipped me off that a war party was waiting for me. Whatever had happened was big and I was being blamed.
Walking down the dark paneled corridors to my office, I knew exactly how Jeff Rendell would feel if he took a walk down the street in Milwaukee. It was almost funny— the way the secretaries ducked down into their cubicles to avoid meeting my eye. I had been gone for less than forty-eight hours—long enough to turn into a pariah.
When I opened the door into my office, I found Skip Tillman’s formidable secretary, Doris, sitting at Cheryl’s desk, loading Avco files into a cardboard document box.
“Hello, Doris,” I said. “What’s going on? Is Cheryl sick?”
“She’s been reassigned to the word processing pool effective immediately,” Doris informed me, “and Mr. Tillman is waiting to see you in his office.”
“Are you going to tell me what I did to earn this trip to the woodshed, Doris?” I asked.
“You’d better hurry,” she said kindly. “You know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting when he’s in a bad mood.”
I nodded as she got up and left. Then I took off my coat, hung it carefully in the closet, pausing briefly in front of the full-length mirror that hung inside the door. With my hair down and dressed in her clothes, the resemblance was unmistakable.
“Oh my god,” I thought. “I’m turning into my mother.” Somehow the thought of that was much scarier than the prospect of what was about to happen to me.
CHAPTER 17
Of course, I wasn’t about to make it easy for them. Instead of going straight to Tillman’s office I ducked into the library and slunk down the circular staircase that, hidden in the back of the stacks, connects the forty-second to the forty-first floor. Used exclusively by associates and other lowly library dwellers, I knew that by taking it I insured that I wouldn’t bump into Tillman or any other person of importance.
I braved the furtive glances of the secretaries in the tax department and made my way into the firm’s equivalent of the boiler room—the word processing pool—where Cheryl now toiled in newfound exile.
I walked slowly past the temporary workstation where she labored under a set of headphones, typing the turgid memos of green associates. I was careful not to slow my stride as I passed, but instead merely caught her eye and silently mouthed the words ladies ’ room as I continued on my way. The entire exchange was as quick and slick as a drug deal and every bit as subversive.
Only support staff used the lavatory at this end of the forty-first floor, and it reeked of illicit cigarettes and strawberry disinfectant. There was an old tweed sofa in a particularly rancid shade of green with burn marks on the arms and a stack of dog-eared Cosmopolitans on the scarred plastic table next to it. It was the favored refuge of sobbing typists who’d been yelled at by their short-tempered bosses.
I paced until Cheryl arrived. She looked rattled.
“What happened?” I whispered, pulling her into the handicapped stall.
“Do you want the long version or the short?”
“Short first.”
“You’re going to get canned.”
“Okay. Now what’s the long version?”
“This morning Stuart Eisenstadt came looking for you,” whispered Cheryl furtively. “Oh, it must have been around ten-thirty. He was so upset, I immediately knew that something was up, but of course, he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He just said that I should get hold of you like yesterday. I tried you up at Chrissy’s house, but the line was always busy and you weren’t answering in your car. I also tried the firm’s Milwaukee office and down at Monarchs Stadium, but no one knew where you were—”
“I was at Chrissy’s. Jeff took the phone off the hook because they were getting so many calls from the media—”
“Well, the shit was hitting the fan here, too. About a half an hour later Skip Tillman and John Guttman came looking for you—the same lynching party that did the deed when they fired Rick Cooper.”
I had no idea who Rick Cooper was, but then, of course, I was as ignorant of the nuances of firm politics as the Jester probably was of portfolio management. Cheryl, on the other hand, kept up. She liked to say it was her favorite spectator sport.
“Naturally, when I told them I hadn’t been able to reach you, Guttman jumped all over me, that asshole. He accused me of lying about where you were to protect you.”
“You were lucky he didn’t break out the brass knuckles and the rubber hoses.”
“I think that’s what they used on Sherman. Poor baby, jjg’s going to be in therapy for at least the next decade.”
“So what’s with being reassigned to word processing?”
“My punishment for conspiring with you, I guess.”
“So any idea why heads are going to roll, specifically miner
“Only that it’s got to have something to do with Avco and it’s big. After they sent me down here, they told me that if I so much as thought about picking up the phone and calling you that it would mean my job.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. You wouldn’t have been able to reach me anyway. Some psychopath broke into Chrissy’s house and tried to abduct her at gunpoint.” I unbuttoned my blouse and craned my neck to show her the rapidly intensifying bruise that spread from collarbone to shoulder where the J
ester had gotten me with the pipe.
“Hey. If I were you, I’d just take off my blouse for Tillman. Not only is the bruise impressive, but the sight of your lacy brassiere will send him into cardiac arrest— problem solved.”
“It’s that kind of thinking that’s going to take you far in the legal profession,” I assured her.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something. In the meantime I have two things I need you to do for me.”
“What?”
“First off, I need you to get me a car.”
“You can use mine.”
“No, no. I need a car. Mine’s totaled.”
“The Volvo? How did that happen?”
“It’s a long story. Anyway, I need a new car.”
“What kind? You know this isn’t exactly like sending out to Marshall Field’s for a change of clothes.”
“I trust your judgment. Pick something. Call Rob Geller at my bank when you know how much it’s going to be, and he’ll see that it gets paid for.”
“Gotcha. What’s the second thing?”
“Promise me you won’t let them force you into quitting. I need you too much to have you fold on me now. If they cut your pay, I’ll make up the difference. Just promise me you’ll hang tough until I’ve got this worked out.”
“Sure, but only under one condition,” replied my secretary.
“What’s that?”
“That you won’t let them intimidate you into quitting either. You are ten times the lawyer of anyone else in this firm, and if they don’t know that, then they’re even stupider than I thought.”
Making my way to Skip Tillman’s office, I had the all too familiar feeling of being summoned to the headmaster’s office. Even so, Cheryl’s pep talk had helped, and the closer I got, the more determined I became to not let myself get lynched. I had already faced down one ugly, angry man and walked away relatively unscathed. I wasn’t going to let Tillman get the better of me either.
Doris was back at her post. She punched the intercom button and announced my arrival in the hushed tones appropriate in the presence of the condemned. Tillman rose to his feet from behind his personal acre of polished mahogany, and she closed the door quietly upon us.
He did not smile. His face was pinched and puritanical. He had always fancied himself a father figure, and his disappointment therefore carried with it something of a paternal air. He shook his head sadly in a small gesture of shock and disbelief. He cast his eyes at me as if to say that what was coming would be all the worse on account of his deep affection for me.
I knew it was all bullshit.
“Where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you,” he demanded, sounding like my father on prom night—actually, prom morning to be more accurate— after I’d wandered in sometime after breakfast, hung over and reeking of dope.
“Milwaukee,” I replied without elaboration.
“I figured as much. Ned Bergstrom called and woke me up this morning. As you can imagine, he and the rest of the partners in Milwaukee are extremely upset.”
“Why? Because they’ll lose their seats on the fifty-yard line if the Monarchs move to Los Angeles?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady,” he snapped. “You don’t think the fact that our firm name is now linked to the most heinous incidence of civic treason in Milwaukee history is an issue of legitimate concern? Ned said he’s afraid to go to lunch at his club for fear of what people will say to him! Not only that, but he had to read about it in the newspaper. I can’t believe that you would knowingly involve this firm in a controversy of national proportions without consulting anybody. May I remind you that no matter what you seem to think, this firm is not your private fiefdom—”
“Is that what this is about?” I cut in incredulously. “Ned Bergstrom being too ashamed to have lunch at his club?”
“I know it seems hard to believe that you could be the cause of an even more serious problem than the Monarchs’ mess, but apparently your reputation for being a lightning rod for trouble is nothing if not well deserved.” He paused to emit another sigh, steepling his fingers together and laying them on the desk in front of him in a schoolmasterly gesture.
“Well, are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to have done,” I demanded, “or do I have to ask the secretaries?”
“Avco has fired us for cause. We received written notification this morning that they are actively seeking representation elsewhere.”
For a minute the earth actually moved and Tillman’s patrician office seemed to rock beneath my feet. Under the terms of our agreement with Avco, if they fired us for cause, then they were no longer bound to pay us. Providing that they had a valid reason, the firm would lose in excess of a quarter of a million dollars in fees for work already performed.
“Of course, with a matter of this magnitude I have no choice but to bring it formally before the management committee,” continued Tillman. “Gil Hendrickson is in New York and not due back until late tonight, that’s why I’ve scheduled it for ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Naturally, you will be given an opportunity to present your explanation of events at that time.”
Stunned, I stood there for a fraction of a second before willing myself to make my way toward the door. There was a rushing sound in my ears, like surf, that drowned out everything else. It took me a minute to identify it, but when I did I realized that what I was hearing was the death rattle of my career.
I would be lying if I said that one of the attractions of what I do isn’t the risk, the fact that there’s nothing like standing on the high wire to keep you focused, to prevent your mind from straying into the messy gray areas of your personal life. Of course, the downside is that sometimes you fall.
The trouble was that what was happening both with Avco and the Monarchs was no longer just happening to the client. It was happening to me. It would be as if Claudia, who gets her kicks from her heroic feats of surgical legerdemain, suddenly felt herself being pulled from the wreckage and about to go under the knife.
I went back to my office and thought briefly about storming out, or feeling sorry for myself, or calling Stephen and seeing if I could lose myself in sweaty sex. But I’ve never had much appetite for self-pity, and when I called Stephen, all I got was this year’s assistant telling me that he was in a meeting that was expected to last for the rest of the afternoon.
After that I did what I always do. I sat down at my desk and got to work. I did not call the Brandt brothers and beg them to take us back, though I had no doubt that’s what Skip wanted me to do. Frankly the only consolation in the whole mess was that I’d never have to speak to them again. I didn’t call Stuart Eisenstadt either. His strategy of building himself up with the clients by tearing me down had backfired when—surprise, surprise—they showed no compunction about screwing us both. What I did do was call Paul Riskoff. He seemed surprised to hear from me, no doubt since we were busy suing each other, but as far as I was concerned, this was my day to deal with the thugs in my life. I figured I might as well get it all over with in one lump.
That done I pulled out my disc player, slipped on my headphones, and tackled the ramparts of work that now obscured every square inch of surface on my desk. I was determined that with Avco, however ignominiously, out of the way, the time had come to get the Monarchs’ troubles sorted out. As Matchbox 20 sang about shame, I read through every scrap of material I’d been given about the Monarchs. Then I wrote a letter to Mayor Deutsch setting out what I saw as his alternatives, and explaining exactly why I was the only person on the planet in a position to make him a hero.
It was a sign of how far from normal things had strayed that Elliott Abelman sidled into my office unannounced. I was so absorbed in what I was doing that when he finally moved into my field of vision, I leapt from my chair like a cartoon housewife who’s just seen a mouse. I think I may have actually said “eek.”
“I didn’t mean to startle yo
u,” he said, sliding into the visitor’s chair. It scared me how glad I was to see him. “But Cheryl said it would be okay if I dropped by.”
“When did you talk to Cheryl?”
“She called me a little while ago. I asked her to let me know when you got back into town. She also happened to mention that you’re experiencing something of a career crisis.”
“Is that why you came?”
“You mean to make sure that you weren’t standing on the ledge outside your office window?” His face lit up with a sudden smile. “No. I swear as I walked over I didn’t even look up.” He paused for a minute, adjusting the shoulder holster under his jacket against the chair. “You want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not,” I replied.
“It’s not that you’re feeling overcome with remorse or anything for screwing the Milwaukee fans out of their football team, because, hey, if you are, I’ll personally lend you my gun so that you can do the right thing.”
“You don’t think you’re being a little bit harsh?” I asked. Even Skip Tillman hadn’t gone so far as to suggest that I kill myself.
“How would you feel if you woke up one morning to find out that some millionaire’s kid had decided to move the Art Institute to Poland, or that the Eiffel Tower was going to be relocated to Texas?”
“Believe me, we’re doing everything humanly possible to keep the team where it is. But unfortunately Jeff owes the bank a small matter of something like $18 million.”
“There’s also a small matter of whether the new owner is going to be watching the games from behind bars.”
“What have you heard from the cops?” I demanded.
“Only that they’re close to swearing out a warrant for your friend Jeff. I guess a check of the phone records the day that Beau was killed showed a 9ll call placed from the dead man’s office right around the time of the murder.”
Rough Trade Page 17
