CREIGHTON POOLE, ATTORNEY at Law, plucked a plump cigar from the humidor on his desk. He had been looking forward to this morning’s meeting for a long time. The truth was, he didn’t have much else to do.
His practice had dwindled to a single client, passed down from the firm he had inherited from his father—and he from his—going back generations, all the way to the 1920s.
For Poole’s first few years out of law school, the world still dealt in torts and motions, arguments and settlements, guilt or innocence. But that was all gone now. At this point, having a legal practice was about as useful as running a shoeshine stand.
Poole’s office, a glass-walled corner in a Fifth Avenue high-rise, was paid for through the next decade. No worries there. But he had no staff, no associates, and no assistant. His last admin was taken last year to work for a manager in bridge maintenance. So Poole was by himself, preparing for his one and only meeting of the day.
The phone on his desk buzzed. It was the intercom from the front door, street level, thirty flights down. At least he still had a phone, even if it didn’t always work. He picked up the handset.
“Creighton Poole,” he said.
“Hey!” said a female voice. “It’s me. I’m here. Maddy. Maddy Gomes.”
Poole was thrilled that she actually showed up. But he didn’t reveal any of that in his voice.
“I’ll buzz you in,” he said. “I’m on thirty.”
“Thirty?” came the voice from the speaker box. “As in three zero? Please tell me there’s an elevator.”
“Sorry,” said Poole. The elevators in the building only worked for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. Otherwise, the electricity was diverted elsewhere for more essential functions. “Enjoy the hike.”
Thirty flights would take her at least ten minutes. Poole lit his cigar and stared out over midtown. Below, small cooking and trash fires burned on street corners and empty lots, clouding the sky with sooty smoke. The ashy haze blew across the lawns of the pillared mansions nearby. There was no escaping it, even for the rich.
This was a delicate matter he had to handle today. Ostensibly, he was there to provide a girl with information about her inheritance. But first, he planned to get information on her—information that he might be able to use for his own benefit. He had wanted to meet this girl for a long time. But the agreement, written in 1937, was quite specific about the age at which she was entitled to the inheritance. Eighteen. So Creighton Poole had waited patiently. For eighteen years.
He heard pounding on the outer door of his office. Already? Athletic.
He walked past the desk of his nonexistent assistant. He held his cigar between two fingers and undid the locks. One latch. Three bolts. He opened the door.
“Mr. Poole?”
“Miss Gomes?”
“You should really think about moving to a lower floor.”