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Chapter 6
Ann fingered the plane tickets wistfully. “I want you to get those Delany ’rogs out tonight; give the assholes enough time to stew but not enough time to do the work, and also get the responses out to Winters’ document requests. Tonight.”
“Tonight?” asked the associate. He was young and lean, he had the hunger in his eyes. “That’ll be tough.”
“You’re the one who wanted to be a litigation lawyer. Get the stuff out tonight.”
The associate nodded, attempted a smile.
“I’ve looked through the documents you marked as privileged,” she went on, yet her fingers did not come away from the tickets. “I think we’re probably right, but I’m uneasy about those six internal memoranda on the maintenance procedures. If the bolts cracked while the plane was in flight, that’s fine. We’ve just got to make damn sure the bolts were maintained according to SOP. So we need to get with these guys and track down a solid basis on anything Jolly Roger might be preparing in anticipation of litigation.” Jolly Roger was what they called the opposition firm. They were well named. Ann’s firm was better named: the Snake Pit.
“Well,” replied the associate, “it wasn’t addressed to inside counsel, so we may be a little weak there.”
“I know, but these in house guys might’ve made a call to the addressees and asked for the junk on the memo. I’ll leave it to you and Karl to make the final decision.” God, I can’t wait to get out of here, she thought.
“Gotcha,” said the associate.
“And remember, when I come back we’ll only have a week to get the preliminary jury instructions out for the JAX Avionics trial. You’ll have to hump on that too.”
“Right,” said the associate.
“I’m out of here,” Ann said. “Good luck. I’ll leave my number with the paralegals in case you need me.”
“Okay, Ann. Hope you have a good time.” He paused, smiled. “You flying Air National?”
“Hell, no. The Atlantic Ocean’s a bit too cold for my tastes.” The associate laughed and left.
Ann felt strangely at ease with the idea of being away from the firm for a week. Usually, she couldn’t let go of things. Today, though, she couldn’t wait to. She was a partner now—the associates served her. Eventually, they’d have a nickname for her, something nasty like “She Devil” or “Ann of a Thousand Teeth.” Partners considered derogatory nicknames a secret compliment.
She turned off her office light and closed the door.
Suddenly, she shivered. It wasn’t cold. A squirrel just ran over your grave, her mother would tell her as a child.
What was it?
For a second, she felt as though she were leaving the firm for good.
«« — »»
Martin and Melanie were packing when she got home. Their excitement was clear—they were hustling about with big smiles on their faces, Melanie’s stereo pounding away.
This is going to be great, she thought, and shed her coat.
“I’m home,” she said. She held up the tickets.
“Hi, Mom!” Melanie greeted.
Martin came and kissed her. He looked longingly at the tickets. “This is going to be great,” he said.
“I was recently thinking along those same lines.”
“Everything tied up at work?”
“Yep. For the next nine days, I’m not a lawyer.”
“And I’m not a teacher.”
“And I’m not a student!” Melanie added.
For once, we get to be a family, Ann thought.
«« — »»
“The itinerary’s all planned,” she said at dinner. Martin had cooked one of his favorite culinary inventions, which he called “Poet’s Seafood and Pasta in a Bowl.” It was simple but quite good: pasta twists in olive oil, a little garlic, and powdered red pepper, heaped with steamed shrimp and cherrystone clams.
“When do we go to the Louvre?” Melanie asked, and speared a shrimp.
“Days two through four. It’s a big place, honey. It takes days to see it all.”
“We can have lunch in the café where Sartre met deBeauvoir. What an inspiration,” Martin said. “Maybe I should bring a typewriter.”
“Bring a pad and a pencil, Martin,” Ann suggested. “Sartre wrote No Exit with a pencil.”
“Good point.”
“Can we go to the Métal Urbain?” Melanie asked. “It’s a famous New Wave club in Pigalle. All the great bands play there.”
“Uh,” Ann faltered.
Martin gave her a look.
“Of course, honey.” Bring earplugs, she reminded herself. “And we’ll eat at Taillevent; it’s one of the best restaurants in the world—no offense to your cooking, dear.”
“None taken, so long as you pay,” he joked. But it was no joke. The last time she’d been to Taillevent, with a client from Dassault, the check for two had been about $700.
“We’ll also be going to the Orsay Museum of Modern Art, where they have all the expressionistic stuff, and the Centre Pompidou.”
“This is gonna be neat as shit!” Melanie exclaimed.
Martin laughed. “It’ll probably even be neater than that.”
But Ann felt disheartened. She’d seen all those places when they’d had Dassault as an auxiliary client, and she’d never really cared. Yet Melanie, her own daughter, longed to see these museums, and Ann had never even considered it.
She plucked her last clam out of the shell when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” Martin said.
“It’s probably that guy with the creepy voice,” Melanie ventured.
“No, let me get it,” Ann insisted. This was one thing she wanted to get to the bottom of.
“Hello?”
The line seemed to drift. She thought of wastelands. She heard a distant rushing like trucks on the freeway.
The ruined voice sounded wet, exerted. “Ann Slavik?”
“Who is this? Why have you been calling me?”
Martin got up.
“Listen,” the voice creaked. It stalled again, as if each word demanded a pointed effort. “Don’t come,” it said.
“What? Who is this!” Ann demanded.
“You don’t know me.”
“Who the hell is this!”
“Just…don’t come.”
“Give me that,” Martin said.
She held him off. “Don’t come where?” she asked of the caller.
The voice sounded shredded. “Take your daughter… Go far away.”
“If you don’t tell me who you are—”
The voice grated on, but Martin snatched the phone away. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Don’t call here anymore or I’ll have the phone traced. I’ll have the police on your sick ass, you hear me?”
Martin looked at the phone, mouth pursed. “He hung up,” he said.
“Who was it, Mom?” Melanie asked.
“No one, honey.”
“Some nut, that’s all,” Martin contributed. “What did he say?”
Don’t come, she thought. Take your daughter… Go far away.
What could he have meant?
What bothered her most, though, was what the voice had said as Martin had been taking the phone.
The moon, Ann. Do you remember? asked the abraded voice. Look at the moon tonight.
«« — »»
Down the hill, trucks roared past along Route 154.
Erik hung up the pay phone.
“You make your precious phone call?” Duke asked when he came back to the station wagon. He was eating Twinkies.
“Yeah,” Erik grated, and closed the door.