One hour later Jack’s computerized calendar buzzed a warning. Jack checked the time and threw on his jacket.
Jack moved quickly down the hallway. Lunch with Sandy Lord in twenty minutes. Jack was uncomfortable about being with the man, alone. Legions had been spoken about Sandy Lord, mostly true, Jack assumed. He wanted lunch with Jack Graham, Jack’s secretary had told him this morning. And what Sandy Lord wanted he got. Jack’s secretary also reminded him of that in a hushed whisper that made Jack slightly repulsed.
Twenty minutes, but first Jack had to check with Alvis on the Bishop documents. Jack smiled as he remembered Barry’s face when the drafts had been placed carefully on his desk, thirty minutes before the deadline. Alvis had scanned them, the astonishment clear on his features.
“This looks pretty good. I realize I gave you a tough deadline. I don’t usually like to do that.” His eyes were averted. “I really appreciate the hustle, Jack. I’m sorry if I screwed up your plans.”
“No sweat, Barry, that’s what they pay me for.” Jack had turned to leave. Barry had risen from his desk.
“Jack, uh, we really haven’t had a chance to talk since you’ve been here. Place is so damn big. Let’s have lunch one day, soon.”
“Sounds great, Barry, have your secretary give mine some dates.”
At that moment Jack realized that Barry Alvis wasn’t such a bad guy. He had dinged Jack, but so what? Compared to how the senior partners ran their underlings, Jack had gotten off easy. Besides, Barry was a first-rate corporate attorney and Jack could learn a lot from him.
Jack passed Barry’s secretary’s desk but Sheila was not there.
Then Jack noticed the boxes stacked against the wall. Barry’s door was closed. Jack knocked, but there was no answer. He looked around and then opened the door. His eyes closed and reopened as he looked at the empty bookcases, at the rectangular patches of unfaded wallpaper where a slew of diplomas and certificates had hung.
What the hell? He closed the door, turned and bumped into Sheila.
Normally professional and precise in her manner, without a hair out of place and glasses set firmly on the bridge of her nose, Sheila was a wreck. She had been Barry’s secretary for ten years. She stared at Jack, fire flashed through her pale blue eyes, and then was gone. She turned around, walked quickly back to her cubicle and started packing up boxes. Jack stared blankly at her.
“Sheila, what’s going on? Where’s Barry?” She did not respond. Her hands moved faster until she was literally throwing things into the box. Jack moved over next to her, looked down at the petite frame.
“Sheila? What the hell’s going on? Sheila!” He grabbed her hand. She slapped him, which shocked her so badly she abruptly sat down. Her head slowly went down to her desk and stayed there. She began to quietly sob.
Jack looked around again. Was Barry dead? Had there been a terrible accident and no one had bothered to tell him? Was the firm that big, that callous? Would he read about it in a firm memo? He looked at his hands. They were trembling.
He perched on the edge of the desk, gently touched Sheila’s shoulder, trying to bring her out of it, but without success. Jack looked around helplessly as the sobs continued, rising higher and higher in their intensity. Finally, two secretaries from around the corner appeared and quietly led Sheila away. Each of them gave Jack a not very friendly glance.
What the hell had he done? He looked at his watch. He had to meet Lord in ten minutes. Suddenly he was very much looking forward to this lunch. Lord knew everything that happened at the firm, usually before it actually did happen. Then a thought tickled the back of his head, a truly horrible thought. His mind went back to the White House dinner and his irate fiancée. He had mentioned Barry Alvis by name to her. But she wouldn’t have...? Jack practically sprinted down the hallway, the back of his jacket flapping behind him.
Fillmore’s was a Washington landmark of fairly recent vintage. The doors were solid mahogany and bedecked with thick, weighty brass; the carpets and drapes were handwoven and supremely costly. Each table area was a self-contained haven of intense mealtime productivity. Phone, fax and copier services were readily available and widely used. The ornately carved tables were surrounded by richly upholstered chairs in which sat the truly elite of Washington’s business and political circles. The prices ensured that the clientele would remain that way.
While crowded, the pace of the restaurant was unhurried; its occupants unused to being dictated to, they moved at their own level of intensity. Sometimes their very presence at a particular table, a raised eyebrow, a stifled cough, a knowing look, was a full day’s work for them, and would reap huge rewards for them personally or for those whom they represented. Money and raw power floated through the room in distinct patterns, coupling and uncoupling.
Waiters in stiff shirts and neat bow ties appeared and then disappeared at discreetly placed intervals. Patrons were coddled and served and listened to or left alone as the particular occasion called for. And the gratuities reflected the clientele’s appreciation.
Fillmore’s was Sandy Lord’s favorite lunch spot. He peered over his menu, briefly, but methodically surveyed with his intense, gray eyes the broad expanse of the dining room for potential business or perhaps something else. He moved his heavy bulk gracefully in his chair and carefully coaxed a few gray hairs back into place. The trouble was, familiar faces kept disappearing as time moved forward, stolen away by death or retirement to points south. He removed a fleck of dust from one of his monogrammed shirt curls and sighed. Lord had picked this establishment, maybe this town, clean.
He punched on his cellular phone and checked his mes sages. Walter Sullivan hadn’t called. If Sullivan’s deal came through, Lord could land a former Eastern Bloc country as a client.
A whole goddamned country! How much could you charge a country for legal work? Normally a lot. The problem was the ex-communists had no money, unless you counted rubles and coupons and kopecks and whatever else they were using these days, all of which might as well be used for toilet paper.
That reality did not trouble Lord. What the ex-commies had in abundance was raw materials that Sullivan was salivating to acquire. That was the reason Lord had spent three godforsaken months there. But it would be worth it if Sullivan came through.
Lord had learned to have his doubts about everyone. But if anyone could pull this deal off, Walter Sullivan could. Everything he had touched seemed to multiply to global proportions, and the droppings that went to his cohorts were truly awe-inspiring. And at almost eighty, the old man hadn’t flowed a step. He worked fifteen-hour days, was married to a twenty-something babe right out of a drive-in movie. He was right this minute in Barbados where he had flown the three highest-ranking politicos for a little business and entertainment Western style. Sullivan would call. And Sandy’s short but select client list would grow by one, but what a one it would be.
Lord took note of the young woman in the painfully short skirt and tiptoe heels strolling across the dining room.
She smiled at him; he returned the look with slightly elevated eyebrows, a favorite signal of his because of its ambiguity. She was a congressional liaison for one of the big 16th Street associations, not that he cared about her occupation. She was excellent in bed, that he did care about.
The view brought back a number of pleasant memories. He would have to call her soon. He jotted a note to that effect in his electronic notebook. Then he turned his attention, as did most of the ladies in the room, to the tall, angular fig ure of Jack Graham striding across the room, heading straight for him.
Lord rose and extended his hand. Jack didn’t take it.