His first instinct was to shout and pound on the door, but he checked the urge. What if someone came? Was this really the image he wanted to present on his first day? True, not every floor of the tower was inhabited by Raven, Tucker & Tubb, but about ten floors were, and in the flush of panic and adrenaline Ben found it impossible to remember which were and which were not. He was on the forty-ninth floor before it occurred to him that he was running up a dead end.
Ben remembered Alvin. Alvin was his buddy, right? Alvin would be looking for him. If not Alvin, then Greg. Well, it was possible, anyway.
Ben turned and began to race at breakneck speed down the eleven flights of stairs between himself and the other new associates. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was now 9:24. Great. Orientation had surely begun by now.
He began to feel sweat soaking through his starched shirt and trickling down his collar. His heart was pounding like something out of Edgar Allan Poe. Finally, he jumped the last flight of steps and slammed down on the thirty-eighth floor landing. He pounded his fists against the door and bellowed: “Alviiiiin!”
A tall, elderly man with a crown of white hair opened the door and peered down at him. Ben recognized him in a heartbeat. It was Arthur Raven. As in Raven, Tucker & Tubb.
“Yes?” Raven inquired.
“Oh, God.” Ben exhaled all the air in his body. He slapped his hand against his forehead and wiped away a layer of sweat.
“Speak up, would you, son? I don’t hear as well as I used to.” Raven chuckled. “Nothing works like it used to.”
“I—I—” Ben swallowed and tried to catch his breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Raven. I was trapped in the stairwell. I—”
“Stairwell?” the old man repeated. “You shouldn’t be in there. Doors only open on the outside.”
“Really? I’ll remember that.” Ben looked into the lobby. All the other new associates had vanished. “Sir, I need to—”
“Well, that’s not true, strictly speaking. You can get out on the first floor and the fiftieth. Fire codes require that. But it’s a long way down to the first floor. I remember when we first moved into this building, I thought there ought to be some kind of a back door, so a lawyer could slip out while some client he’s trying to avoid cools his heels in the lobby.”
“Sharp thinking, sir.” Ben tried to edge himself through the door. “Well, I really must be going—”
“But I was overruled. The Executive Committee was afraid the associates would use the door to slip out without being observed by their supervising attorneys.” The old man grinned. “You wouldn’t do mat, would you, eh … what did you say your name was?”
It was the crisis point. No matter what Ben did, either the orientation attorney or Mr. Raven was going to be angry. Raven was undoubtedly higher in the firm hierarchy. He also seemed less likely to remember anything about it tomorrow.
Ben gave the old man a gentle push and forced his way through the door. “Sorry, sir. Must dash. Let’s talk again.” Ben waved cheerily and ran toward the reception desk.
“Which way did they go?”
The receptionist smiled. She spoke in a soft, soothing British accent. “Orientation is taking place in the northwest conference room.”
“Where’s that?”
She pointed. “There.”
Ben bolted. He had no use for subtlety now. There was just a chance that if he arrived before the meeting was truly underway, he might be able to slip in quietly and wouldn’t have to explain where he had been. Ben cruised down the long hallway, zeroed in on the open conference room door, and was just about to scramble through the door … when a blond man carrying a coffee cup stepped through the door and began scanning the hallway. He saw Ben a split second before impact.
The two collided with a force that would have left a crater on the moon. The blond man fell backward into the conference room. Both coffee and cup followed a parabolic arc into the man’s face. He screamed.
Ben leaped to his feet and gave new meaning to the phrase apologized profusely.
“Never mind the apologies,” the man grumbled. The coffee had stained his shirt, his tie, and his suit in countless places. His face was dripping. “Give me a towel.”
Ben grabbed several paper towels from the box next to the coffee pot warmer, then helped the man up from the floor. As he did so, Ben noticed that the man was wearing a toupee and that it had been so dislodged by the collision that it hung over his forehead like a sun visor.
“What are you staring at?” the man asked angrily.
“Nothing, sir. I mean—” Ben saw the sixteen young lawyer eyes trained on him. “I mean—nothing, sir.”
“I take it you’re Kincaid?”
“Yes, sir. Well, I can’t deny it, can I?” He laughed awkwardly. And alone.
“No,” the man replied. “Much as you might care to.” He brushed off the front and back of his suit trousers. “Where have you been, Kincaid?”
Ben watched the toupee droop even further forward. He could tell from the jabs and whispers around the conference table that he was not the only one to have noticed. “It’s really a long story, sir. I was trapped.”
“Trapped?”
“Yes, sir. In the stairwell. And then there was Mr. Raven.”
“You were trapped in the stairwell with Mr. Raven?” The hairpiece slipped another inch. It seemed as though it must be dangling before his eyes.
“No, no, I—”
“Never mind!” he barked. “Let’s get on with the business at hand.”
“Great,” Ben said, taking an empty seat next to Greg. He smiled enthusiastically. “What’s on our agenda toupee? I mean today—”
It was too late. Ben’s slip was followed by suspended silence, as the other associates sucked in air and tried to control themselves. Ben saw Greg cover his face with his hand, while Marianne looked absently out the window. It was no use. All at once, the room exploded with laughter.
The man with the toupee gave them all a stony glare, and the laughter quickly dissipated. Wordlessly, the man raised his band to his hairpiece and pushed it back to approximately its original position. His expression defied anyone to mention what they were observing.
“To answer what I perceive to be your actual question, Kincaid, I had just told each associate the name of the partner who will be acting as their supervising attorney.”
“I see,” Ben mumbled, not looking up. “And who was I assigned to?”
“Me,” the man replied. “My name is Richard Derek. I’d like to see you in my office at ten o’clock. Sharp. And Mr. Kincaid …” He paused. “Walk, don’t run.”
2
BEN SAT IN THE chair opposite Derek’s desk and mourned his existence.
He was trying to shake the feeling that his first day was already a disaster. Try not to think about it, Greg had told him—perhaps the most idiotic advice he had received in his entire life.
Derek chose the crudest of all ways of referring to the catastrophe in the conference room—namely, not to mention it at all. At least not directly.
“Damn back is killing me,” he muttered, a cigarette clenched between his lips. “Acts up whenever my back is subjected to … unanticipated stress. A legacy of my Coast Guard days.”
Coast Guard days? “Were you hurt in combat, sir?” Ben asked.
“No, I was hurt in boot camp, and that’s a damn sight worse.” He dipped his cigarette in the near-full ashtray On his desk. “Goddamn sadists.”
Derek squirmed in the burgundy chair that perfectly accented the large desk meaningfully placed between Ben and himself. Ben noted that there were two visitors’ chairs on the opposite side of the desk, the one in which Ben was sitting and another just beside it. When Derek was talking to a fellow shareholder, or when he wanted to create a feeling of amiability, he could sit on an equal plane with his visitor without the huge desk between them. On the other hand, Ben realized, when Derek wanted to be imposing and autocratic, when he wanted to keep people on edge, he could make them sit alone, on the outside, while he nestled behind his desk and peered out at them. Like now, for instance.