“Anything?” he asked in a worried whispered voice.
“Not yet. Why don’t you check the desk?”
“It’s locked,” he said.
“Well, open it.”
“If someone comes in and I’m fiddling around inside his locked desk, that’s trouble.”
“If someone comes in we’re in trouble anyway.”
He looked doubtful and then pulled his picks out of his pocket and went to work on the desk’s lock. It yielded to him in less than a minute.
Though I wasn’t finding the jury report I had come for, I was learning much I hadn’t known. There was a bill from Bissonette to Moore for money owed for club expenditures. There was also a stack of bank receipts showing a series of cash deposits to Veronica’s checking account, all in the high four figures but none for more than ten thousand dollars. And then I found a file, number 716, which stopped me cold.
Inside was a copy of the Martindale-Hubbell report on Guthrie, Derringer and Carl. Inside was a copy of my law school transcript and the pathetic letter I had sent off seven years before seeking a job at Talbott, Kittredge and Chase. Inside was a copy of my apartment lease, a copy of my car insurance application, listing my father’s address as my own to get the reduced suburban rate, a list of all transactions for the last two years on my credit card, copies of my bank statements, copies of my delinquent payment statements from the Student Loan Marketing Association, a copy of my deficient credit report. And then, sitting there like a ghost from my past, a transcript of my deposition of Mrs. Osbourne. I paged through it quickly. One section was highlighted in orange.
Q: Perhaps you know the person living in your husband’s apartment, a Miss LeGrand?
A: No.
Q: Let me show you a picture. I’ll mark this P. 13.
A: What is this? This is a brochure of some sort.
Q: Yes, for a gentlemen’s club called the Pussy Willow. Why don’t you look through it. I’m referring to the section about the exotic dancers. Let me show you. The woman right there.
A: Tiffany LeGrand?
Q: Oh, so you do know her.
A: (no response)
So my ability to be bought wasn’t writ large on my face after all. It was documented in my paper trail, in all of my records, in each step I had taken in the shallow depths of my past. The sum total of my years, the ledgers of my true worth were in that file, all I had wanted, how low I would stoop to get it, how little I had achieved no matter how low I stooped. My chest ached at the very thought of it. I put it down carefully, as if it were a fragile flask filled with the vilest of liquids.
I turned away from the table in disgust. “Anything in the desk?” I asked Sheldon.
“Not yet, just firm memos, phone bills.”
“We’re looking for a jury report, or anything marked Attorney Work Product over the top. I’m going to check the credenza.”
The credenza behind the desk was wooden, a piece of fine furniture really, low like a table. One wooden door, the length of the piece, swung up, revealing files arranged horizontally. Kneeling down, I started going through the files one by one. I hurriedly determined the subject matter of each, checking file tabs, looking inside to make sure the papers corresponded to the tabs, and then moving on. I was finding nothing, and growing frustrated, when the office door opened and I heard a gasp from the woman who entered.
“What?” she shouted, “What are you doing here?” and from the tenor of the voice and its unrestrained hostility I recognized its bearer right off. It was Madeline Burroughs, Prescott’s drone, who held in her well-hidden breast a deep hatred of me. I kept my head down and froze, not turning around as she spoke.
“Cleaning crew, ma’am,” said Sheldon.
“Cleaning crew left three hours ago.”
“I’m a supervisor. We’ve been getting complaints about the work, so we’re checking up on the crew.”
“What are you doing at the desk?”
“Checking for vermin,” said Sheldon. “They got them like crazy on fifty-three.”
“I’ve never seen any insects up here,” said Madeline. “I don’t believe you. Stay right there, I’m calling Security.”
“That’s all right with us,” said Sheldon calmly. “But they’re all throughout this desk. That’s why the guy left us the desk keys, to check.”
“Mr. Prescott left you his keys?”
“I don’t know who he is.” There was a rustle of papers from inside a desk drawer and then I heard Sheldon say, “Here’s one.”
“Oh, God,” said Madeline.
“Oops, sorry,” said Sheldon. “They’re slippery little things.”
I turned around slowly, my head down so that, from beneath my visor, I could see only the carpet. A huge roach was rushing right toward a sturdy pair of blue pumps.
“Let me get that,” said Sheldon.
The pumps took a step back and then, as the cockroach approached, the right pump lifted and squashed it. The bug’s shell crunched like a potato chip and the innards squished out.
“We’re going to have to come back and spray,” said Sheldon.
“I think so,” said Madeline.
“Anything you wanted to get?”
“It’ll wait,” she said as the pumps spun around and stepped out of the office, the door closing behind them.
Sheldon stepped over to pick up the summarily executed roach.
“Jesus,” I said. “Where did that come from?”
“My pocket,” said Sheldon. “Now hurry up and let’s get out of here before she figures out what I might have done and decides to call Security after all.”
I turned back to the credenza and rushed through the remaining files. Nothing. I went to the desk and rifled the papers in piles on top. Nothing. I went through the drawers, quickly, looking for anything. Nothing. I went back to the table and searched again through the stretched maroon files. I was going through them haphazardly now, desperate from nearly getting caught by Madeline Burroughs, desperate to get out of there, but even more desperate to find my proof for Concannon.
“We have to go,” said Sheldon.
“Look through the desk once more,” I said. “We’re looking for anything by Bruce Pierpont.”
Sheldon once again went through the desk. I kept reviewing the files on the table. I pulled the sheaves of papers bound in those files to check them. There were transcripts from the trial, from the grand jury, accountants’ reports on CUP finances, but nothing by Pierpont.
“Well, here’s something interesting,” said Sheldon.
“The report?”
“No.”
“Forget it, then. Try the computer.”
“Not enough time,” said Sheldon. “We have to go.”
“One last look,” I said.
“No.”
He closed the desk drawers and fiddled with the locks. Then he stepped over to pull me away.
“Okay, all right. Just let me straighten up.” I rearranged the files on the table to approximate the way they were when we got there. As I followed him to the door I spied the small pile of papers on the coffee table by the couch. An old Edgar Allan Poe story somersaulted into my mind.