Eye of the Beholder (16 page)

I pass the cubicle where Betty, my assistant, is typing on her computer. Betty is the queen of the law firm, the senior partner’s assistant. She’s been with me since I was at the county attorney. My relationship with Betty has lasted longer than any in my life, save my daughter, if you call that a relationship.

“Morning, Bettina,” I say.

I’ve been with Betty through her divorce and mine, her remarriage and my confirmed bachelorhood, from our first suite of offices on River Drive that housed only eight people to our new place, our palace, that Betty says “lacks charm.” Betty is not shy about her opinions. She is a tough woman who grew up with a healthy suspicion of all things human, which makes us a pretty good match.

“Paulina,” she says, not missing a beat with the typing but keeping her voice low. She doesn’t like being called by her full name, which is why I do it, and she typically answers with a female version of my name. But she wouldn’t say it in front of others, because that would be showing disrespect to the boss. She demands the utmost respect for herself and for me. We are a team, and the team sticks together in public, much like Vito Corleone wouldn’t tolerate disagreements among the family in front of outsiders. The analogy is apt, though sometimes I wonder which one of us is the Godfather.

She follows me into my office. “You didn’t sign that card for Judge Benson,” she advises me. “So now his gift is going to be late. And don’t say I didn’t remind you, because I did.”

“Okay, I won’t say that” I hang up my suit jacket behind my door and look around for the present. Betty keeps track of the birthdays of judges, politicians, and, most important, clients and buys them small gifts and a card for me to sign. The best way to market yourself to clients is little things that let them know you’re there. Birthday and holiday cards, constant status letters if there’s a pending case. Clients want attention. Betty makes sure I give it to them.

My desk gives new meaning to organized chaos.
Chaos,
because I have a bachelor’s habit of leaving stuff lying everywhere, and
organized,
because Betty comes in here, first thing every morning, and sorts it into piles. It isn’t clean, exactly, but it isn’t haphazard, either.

I realize Betty is still standing by my desk, hands on her hips. If you didn’t know her, she’d look nondescript enough, a small woman with wide hips, a stout face, hair pulled tightly into a bun—or whatever they call a bun these days. Betty is four years older than me, which puts her at fifty-five, but she typically speaks to me like I’m her son—

“I’m still waiting for the present.”

—a son she disapproves of. I begin to look around for whatever it is I’m giving Gordy Benson for a present, checking around the accordion folders against my wall, the drawers of my old desk. I have no idea what the object of my search is, which makes it fairly difficult, but I don’t want to tell Betty that. The only person more afraid of Betty than me is, well, everyone else at the law firm.

“You have a meeting with the group,” Betty reminds me, looking over my calendar.

“Right. I have a few minutes.” I touch the back of my head, where I got hit. I probably need stitches, but I hate things like that. More likely, I will put it off until there’s an infection of some kind, and then I’ll consider doing something about it.

“You don’t look good,” she informs me. “You
haven’t.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” I pick up a stack of envelopes. “Mail already?”

“That’s yesterday’s mail.”

“Oh, goody.” I put it down and massage my temples, not unaware of a very disapproving look being cast in my direction. “Aspirin, Betty. Your boss needs aspirin.” When I sense the utter lack of response from her, I look up at her. Her arms are crossed, one foot eagerly tapping the carpet. “What?”

“The present,” she says. “And the card.”

“Okay, right.”

“You don’t remember what the present is, do you?”

“Of course I do,” I say, falling back in my chair. “It was a basketball signed by the ‘84 Celtics after they took the Lakers in seven. Bird, Parrish, McHale, Johnson, Maxwell, Ainge, Hen derson ...”

Betty frowns. “It was a pinot noir from Willamette Valley.”

“That was my next guess.”

Her eyebrows lift. “And where’s the pinot?”

“Lightner and I drank it the other night.”

She shakes her head and waves me off. Instead of leaving, she stops, considers something a moment, pivots and stares at me. “I’m going to ask you a question. And I want an honest answer.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.” I root around my desk drawers for a painkiller. Again, a pregnant pause from my assistant, meaning she wants my attention. “The question, Betty, the question. The suspense is killing me.”

“You should go home and sleep.”

“That’s not a question. That’s an opinion.” Here we go, a bottle of Excedrin. I pop four out of the bottle and swallow them dry just as I remember that I have a bottle of water in my private fridge, about three feet away from me.

Betty asks, “How many days has it been since you and Shelly broke up? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

I shrug. “Couple months, maybe.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Sixty-three days,” I concede.

“Can you name a single day, out of those sixty-three, when you
didn’t
have a drink?”

“You already used up your question.” I swallow half the bottle of water in a single gulp, then press the cold, sweaty plastic against my cheek. “You’re not my mother, Bettina; you’re my assistant. So go and assist me, please.”

Jerry Lazarus, one of the young partners at the firm, sticks his head into my office. “Can I interrupt?”

“Oh, please do, Laz. For God’s sake,
please
do.”

Betty walks off after giving me a stare that would freeze the sun.

“We’re ready on Lysinger. Local counsel’s ready to find a judge.” Lazarus nods at my desk. “You see the brief?”

“Oh. No,” I admit, leafing through a small pile on my desk. One of the many subsidiaries owned by Harland’s BentleyCo is a company called Bentley Manufacturing, which makes industrial equipment for fast-food restaurants. A restaurant chain in Texas is looking to break the contract, so we’re beating them to the punch, seeking an injunction that keeps them from doing so. Blah, blah, blah. Civil litigation sucks.

I find the brief and wave it. “How different is this from the last draft?”

“Not much,” Jerry says. “We added the tortious interference count.”

“Who did?”

“Lance.” Jerry nods. “But I looked it over. We’re good.”

One of our associates—the grinder—drafted it, and probably researched through the night before doing so. Then my young partner here, Jerry—the minder—thoroughly reviewed it. Now I—the finder, meaning it’s my client—will look it over as well before we send it out. And Harland Bentley will gladly pay the tab for all of the overlap. Civil litigation is the best.

“We hooping tomorrow?” I ask Jerry. Our regular game, every Wednesday at lunch.

He shrugs. “Not sure about that, boss. I’m a little worried about it.”

“Worried? Your wife didn’t give you permission?”

“Worried,” he says, “because my future here might be in jeopardy if I keep taking you to school like last week. I think your jockstrap is still on the court.”

“Lazarus.” I finish my water and smack my lips in satisfaction. “If you could post up half as well as you sling bullshit, you might get a shot off once in a while.” I wave him off. “Now, go practice law. Or practice your outside jumper. Something that doesn’t involve you being in my office.”

“See you in—five minutes,” he says.

Yeah, shit, I have to go to that meeting. At this point in my career, it’s ninety-five percent oversight on this work. The lawyers under me are more than capable. I guide them with strategy, but this stuff isn’t rocket science. I’m there for the profile stuff—major hearings and the very rare instance that we go to trial, but the only thing that involves me personally much anymore is the criminal stuff.

I do a quick run through the mail. Much of it is obviously junk mail or requests for money from charitable foundations. I set the charity mail to one side, because we have a committee that decides where we direct our money. We have committees for everything.

But then there is another letter with a handwritten address—looks generally like the same penmanship, same thick ink pen. Local postmark again. I turn the envelope upside down and let the letter fall out. For some reason, I open it carefully, touching only the corner of the paper:

My laugh is uncomfortable. There is no doubt this is the same handwriting as the last one. Creepy, this guy. I guess it’s the anniversary of Burgos. Is that what this is about?
Sorrow echoes the heavens? Understanding requires new and loving betrayal and new yearning?
Who the hell is this guy?

I pull out the other letter, which I’ve kept, for comparison:

Yep. Same precise handwriting. Same freakish, pseudoreligious spiritual drivel. It rings familiar, too, but I can’t place it.

My intercom buzzes. “Yeah, Betty?”

“Mr. Bentley for you.”

“Sure.” She rings the call through and I answer. It’s Harland’s assistant—or one of them, he has three—asking if I can meet him tonight. I say yes and get the details, without asking why Harland couldn’t call me himself.

As I hang up the phone, I notice the blinking message light on my phone. The first message is from that reporter, Evelyn Pendry, reiterating that she’d like to speak with me. When I play the second message, my breathing halts. It is the voice of my one and only, speaking in a hushed tone, with the sounds of the office in the background.

“I thought we could have that conversation.”
Shelly, in a soft, workplace voice
. “The usual place and time?”

 

 

THE KEY, see, is to get along, go along, live in their world, pretend that all you see is what they see. Walk up to a hot dog vendor and order, just like anyone else, Polish with relish, bottle of water, put your face up to the sun like you enjoy it.

Here he is. Coming through the revolving door, no briefcase, bouncing down the stairs with a purpose, the great Paul Riley, the man given credit for stopping Terry.

Leo tosses the hot dog into a trash can, takes a swig from the water bottle, tosses that, too, follows Riley on foot, moving from a warm, sunny spot into the shadows of the high-rises. He looks up to the rooftops, but it’s not like they’d show themselves.

The walk isn’t far. Riley goes four blocks, two north and two east, and turns in to the Dunstworth Hotel, one of the ornate, old city hotels. Leo stops short, careful not to walk in immediately.

Where’s he going?

Leo doesn’t know. No point in following Riley while he’s inside, anyway, nothing Leo can do, should be safe, no reason to worry, wait it out, won’t be long.

The pain hits his stomach hard. He brings a hand to his belly. It’s all he can do not to double over with the pain. The hot dog didn’t help, but when he’s tired he has to eat more and he’s plenty tired. Electrified but exhausted.

A minute later, a cab pulls up to the hotel. Leo does a double take, but, yes, it’s her. The same one in the photos he has.

Her name is Shelly Trotter.

S
HELLY STANDS across from me in the elevator, our backs against opposite walls. Between us is an elderly, well-dressed couple, just two more of the Dunstworth Hotel’s wealthy clientele. I catch her eye but we play it cool, like we don’t even know each other. My body is in chaos, my spirit motoring on adrenaline. Suddenly, my headache is history.

She goes first, walks to the suite, and inserts the key card. She holds the door, but I stand there as she walks in and turns to face me. The clench of her jaw could be mistaken for hunger, a primal urge, but I sense ambivalence as well, even conflict.

She begins to unbutton her blouse. I step forward, but suddenly my wingtips are frozen to the carpet. I look over the posh surroundings, take in the smell of her along with the antiseptic scent of a freshly cleaned suite.

“What are we doing here?” I ask.

She shakes her head slowly, continuing to undress, her blouse parting, revealing her pale, freckly skin, a lavender silk bra. She doesn’t know, either.

Maybe that’s all I wanted to see, even the slightest crack in the armor. I move toward her as she backs up, kicking off her heels. Her pants drop to the carpet. She lets me finish the job, unclasping her bra, lowering my mouth below her neckline, as I lay her on the bed. Her skin tastes like salt and smells like fruit. I run my tongue over her rib cage, stick it in her belly button, provoking a reaction from her. I work through the anguish strangling my heart, knowing I want this more than she.

We are tentative, each of us, feeling around the boundaries of something intimate. It’s a bumpy roller-coast ride until she feels me inside her, reacting with a small moan. I look into her eyes and she looks away. Her body goes motionless, letting me take the lead. I run a finger down her face. She closes her eyes, but I can’t read the expression. I bring my mouth to hers, tasting her lip gloss, but her lips don’t part.

This, I know, is wrong, I’m offering but she’s not accepting, but I don’t stop. I grip her hair tightly and increase the pace, closing my eyes like her, escaping into something distant and angry, and holding my breath at the end.