Five hundred thou! That was even less than the little prick Kirksen. Lord winced at that realization.
He wheeled around and studied the artwork on the far wall. Within the brush strokes of a minor nineteenth-century artist he found reason to smile once more. He had an option left to him. Though his biggest client had royally screwed up Lord’s life, the rotund deal-maker had an asset left to mine. He punched his phone.
Fred Martin pushed the cart quickly down the hallway. Only his third day on the job, and his first delivering the mail to the firm’s attorneys, Martin was anxious to complete his task quickly and accurately. One of ten gofers employed by the firm, Martin was already feeling pressure from his supervisor to pick up his pace. After banging the streets for four months with no weapons other than his B.A. in history from Georgetown, Martin had figured his only recourse was to attend law school. And what better place to plumb the possibilities of such a career than at one of D.C.’s most prestigious? His endless trek of job interviews had convinced him that it was never too early to commence networking.
He consulted his map with the attorneys’ names listed in each square representing that person’s office. Martin had grabbed the map from on top of the desk in his cubicle, not noticing the updated version buried under a multinational transaction closing binder that rose five thousand pages high, the indexing and binding of which awaited him that afternoon.
As he rounded the corner he stopped and looked at the closed door. Everyone’s door was closed today. He took the Federal Express package and checked the name on the map, and compared that to the scrawled handwriting on the packing label. It matched. He looked at the empty nameplate holder and his eyebrows converged in confusion.
He knocked, waited a moment, knocked again and then opened the door.
He looked around. The place was a mess. Boxes littered the floor, the furniture was in disarray. Some papers lay scattered on the desk. His first instinct was to check with his supervisor. Maybe there was a mistake. He looked at his watch. Already ten minutes late. He grabbed the phone, dialed his supervisor. No answer. Then he saw the photo of the woman on the desk. Tall, auburn-haired, very expensively dressed. Must be the man’s office. Probably moving in. Who’d leave a looker like that behind? With that rationale established, Fred carefully laid the package on the desk chair, where it would be sure to be found. He closed the door on his way out.
“I’m sorry about Walter, Sandy. I really am.” Jack checked the view across the cityscape. A penthouse apartment in Upper Northwest. The place must have been enormously expensive, and the dollars had continued to flow for the interior design. Everywhere Jack looked were original paintings, soft leather and sculptured stone. He reasoned that the world didn’t have many Sandy Lords and they had to live somewhere.
Lord sat by the fire that popped pleasantly in the grate, a loose paisley robe covering his bulky frame, bare feet comforted in leather slippers. A cold rain fell against the broad expanse of windows. Jack drew closer to the fire, his mind appeared to crackle and jump like the flames; a loose ember hit the marble surround, flamed and then quickly disappeared. Jack cradled his drink and looked at his partner.
The phone call hadn’t been totally unexpected. “We need to talk, Jack, the sooner the better for me. Not at the office.”
When he arrived, Lord’s aged valet had taken his coat and gloves and then inconspicuously receded into the farther reaches of the home.
The two men were in Lord’s mahogany-paneled study, a luxuriously masculine retreat that Jack felt guiltily envious of. A glimmer of the large stone house briefly came into focus. It had a library, much like this. With an effort he focused on Lord’s back.
“I’m kinda fucked, Jack.” The first words out of Lord’s mouth had the effect of making Jack want to smile. You had to appreciate the man’s candor. But he caught himself. The tone in Lord’s voice demanded a certain respect.
“The firm’ll be okay, Sandy. We’re not going to lose many more. So we sublease some space, it’s no big deal.”
Lord finally stood up and went straight to the well-fed bar in the corner. The shot glass was filled to the rim and downed in a well-practiced motion.
“Excuse me, Jack, maybe I’m not making myself real clear here. The firm took a blow, but not one that’ll send it down for the count. You’re right, Patton, Shaw will weather this broadside. But what I’m talking about is whether Patton, Shaw and Lord will live to fight another day.”
Lord lurched across the room and wearily plunged himself on the burgundy leather couch. Jack traced the column of brass nails as they marched across the outline of the heavy piece. He sipped his drink and studied the wide face. The eyes were narrow, no more than penny-wide slits really.
“You’re the firm’s leader, Sandy, I don’t see that changing, even if your client base took a hit.”
Lord groaned from his horizontal perch.
“A hit? A hit? I took a goddamned A-bomb, Jack, right up my ass. The heavyweight champion of the world couldn’t have hit me any harder. I’m going down for the count. The buzzards they are a circling, and Lord he is the main course; the stuffed hog with the apple in the mouth and a bull’s-eye on the butt.”
“Kirksen?”
“Kirksen, Packard, Mullins, fucking Townsend. Keep counting, Jack, the list goes on until you get to the end of the partnership roll. I have, I must admit, a most unusual, hate-hate relationship with my partners.”
“But not Graham, Sandy. Not with Graham.”
Lord slowly edged himself up, perching on one flabby arm as he looked at Jack.
Jack wondered why he liked the man as much as he did. The answer probably lay somewhere in the lunch at Fillmore’s way back when. No bullshit. A real-world baptism where the sting of words made your gut clench and your brain hammer out responses you’d never have the nerve to actually deliver. Now the man was in trouble. Jack had the means to protect him. Or maybe he did; his relationship with the Baldwins right now was far from solid.
“Sandy, if they want to get to you, they’ll have to go through me first.” There, he had said it. And he meant it. It was also true that Lord had given him his chance to shine with the big boys, thrown him right into the fire. But what other way would you know if you could actually pull it off or not? That experience was also worth something.
“The waters might get a little rocky for both of us, Jack.”
“I’m a good swimmer, Sandy. Besides, don’t look at this as purely altruistic. You’re an investment of the firm in which I’m a partner. You’re a top-grade rainmaker. You’re down now, but you won’t stay down. Five hundred bucks says within twelve months you’re back in the number-one slot. I don’t intend on letting an asset like that walk away.”
“I won’t forget this, Jack.”
“I won’t let you.”
After Jack had left, Lord started to pour another drink but stopped. He looked down at his quivering hands and slowly put down the bottle and glass. He made it to the couch before his knees gave out. The federal-style mirror over the fire-place caught his image. It had been twenty years since a single tear had escaped the heavy face. That had been at his mother’s passing. But now the outpourings were steadily coming on. He had cried for his friend, Walter Sullivan. For years Lord had duped himself into believing that the man meant nothing more to him than a solid-gold draw check each month. The price for that self-deception had come due at the funeral, where Lord had wept so hard that he had gone back to his car until it was time to go bury his friend.
Now he rubbed at the puffy cheeks once again, pushing away the salty liquid. Fucking young punk. Lord had planned everything down to the last detail. His pitch would be perfect. He had envisioned every possible response except the one he had gotten. He had mistaken the younger man. Lord assumed that Jack would have done what Lord himself would have done: pressed for every advantage in exchange for the enormous favor being asked.