two

It was that very same good deed that found me clambering off the 38 Geary bus, dressed in my grown-up lady clothes at eight thirty on a chilly October morning. The coming week would find me at a law firm where I had once worked. Almost three years ago, back in the days before I built my clientele and found a measure of independence.

Independence does have a downside though. It’s called no steady income. Well, that’s not quite fair. I have a decent income from my private clients and the astrological advice column I write for the Chronicle, but a serious car repair, a vet bill, and a dental bill had put a major crimp in my budget. So when David Meyers, my old boss and now a client, called and begged me—yes, he begged—to cover for his vacationing secretary for a week, I agreed. Not without trepidation. I had no intention of returning to my old life of working nine to five, but I liked David and he’d been a good friend at a time when I needed one. He’d hired me when the death of my fiancé had sucked my life into a black hole, and the job, as tedious as it was, had given me sanctuary and a little bit of security during a long healing process. So I figured I owed him. That was the other reason I agreed. I just hoped Muriel, his secretary, had no intention of extending her vacation.

The bus pulled away in a blast of exhaust fumes and the wind whipped dead leaves along the gutters of the street. I pulled up the collar of my coat and craned my neck, staring up at the shiny steel megalith at 44 Montgomery. I sighed. Just a week. I can do this, I mumbled to myself and joined the throngs of office workers crossing the street. I stepped into the revolving door and entered the lobby. A central concierge desk was decorated with an autumn display of chrysanthemums, gourds, and dried flowers. A sign announced a pumpkin-carving contest, all entries to be submitted by Thursday at five o’clock.

I headed for the elevator bank, hit the button for the 41st floor, and squeezed to the rear. David’s firm, Meyers, Dade & Schultz, LLP, had grown a bit in the last few years and now occupied the entire 40th floor and half of the 41st. The other half of the 41st floor was sealed off; it had once been occupied by a now-defunct mortgage brokerage, and I was sure David planned to expand and occupy the entire floor. The elevator whizzed past the first twenty floors, the digital display showing XXs. I’ve always felt a degree of discomfort at that digital display. What would happen if the doors opened on such a floor? Would we enter another dimension, Rod Serling hovering in a darkened corner? Or face a blank brick wall? I would definitely suffer an extreme claustrophobic meltdown. Best not to think about all that. My imagination sometimes gets the better of me.

The elevator made several stops between the 21st and 40th floors and by the time it reached the 41st, I was the lone passenger. I stepped off, turned the corner, and walked the long carpeted corridor to the double doors of David’s private office. As I passed the employee lounge, my nose twitched at the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. I pushed open one of the doors and entered David’s reception area. As the senior litigation partner of the firm, he enjoyed a private suite—a waiting room lined with oak paneling, built-in bookshelves, and plush carpeting, as well as a corner office. A small tapestry-covered sofa and two chairs stood across from Muriel’s secretarial desk. Several lamps on low tables around the room provided lighting. I could hear David’s voice droning into a Dictaphone in the inner office. The overall effect was hushed and restful. Good for nervous clients, but a few days of this and they’d find me snoring over my keyboard. I hung my coat in a small closet concealed by the paneling and tapped on the inner door.

David was seated behind an executive-sized mahogany desk piled high with files and loose papers. The surrounding floor was littered in the same fashion. “Julia, hi! Come on in.” My ex-boss is in his mid-fifties, with a round face and ruddy complexion. Today he wore a blue shirt, open at the neck, and a gray sweater-vest. He’d loosened his tie and shed his suit jacket, now thrown over one of the two leather wing chairs in front of his desk. Three half-filled cups of coffee from prior days sat on the desk blotter, two of them showing the first signs of new life forms. David held a jelly donut in one hand and an open file in the other. A dribble of jam spotted his chin.

I pointed to his chin. He laughed. “Excuse me. Terrible table manners. How are you, by the way?” Before I could respond, he continued. “I so appreciate your coming in this week. I’m always lost when Muriel’s gone. I can never find a thing.” He waved the jelly donut in a semi-circle, vaguely indicating the mounds of surrounding paper.

I resisted the temptation to rush at his donut with a napkin. “Anything I can do now?”

He smiled, his face lighting up. “No, no. I’m fine. I may have some letters in a little bit. Get yourself settled. Would you like a donut?” He gestured toward a half-open box on a side table.

“Thanks, I’m fine.” I stood. “You know, it must be synchronicity because I was about to call you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Remember we talked about setting up a reading? I’ve been expecting you to call.”

David stared at me in silence for a moment. “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right. I forgot.”

I waited a moment to see if he’d have any further comment. “Everything going okay at work? At the firm?”

He nodded. “Sure. Everything’s fine.”

I wasn’t so certain, given what I knew about David’s chart. But if he wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say, what more could I do? He began to ruffle through a stack of papers, donut still in hand, nodding distractedly. I headed back to the outer office, shutting the door behind me.

I sat in Muriel’s chair and adjusted it higher, then flipped on the computer. I glanced around. The desk held an old-fashioned Rolodex, a phone with several buttons, a pottery urn full of pens and pencils, and a small clock. Two photos in silver frames sat in a place of honor on the desk. One was of a large taffy-colored Persian cat and the other of a young couple posing with a boy in his early teens and a girl of maybe nine or ten. I hadn’t seen Muriel since I left the firm, but I remembered her as a quiet, attractive woman in her fifties, her dark hair sprinkled with gray. The family picture must be her nephew, his wife, and their two kids. I stashed my purse in the roomy bottom drawer of the desk, next to a pair of well-worn flats, a box of crackers, and two containers of dry soup. I dug the crackers and soup out and moved them to an upper drawer. High-pitched voices filtered down the corridor from the other offices in the litigation section, the only department on this floor. Ever nosy, I stepped out to the corridor and sauntered in that direction.

A female voice, dripping with barely controlled annoyance, said, “I left that on your desk yesterday.”

A higher-pitched voice tinged with authority responded, “That can’t be possible. I would have seen it!”

“Would you like me to come in there and find it for you?”

Four litigation attorneys—Jack Harding, Ira Walstone, Roger Wilkinson, and Nora Layton—had offices around a central area. They shared two secretaries. One very small office was set aside for Suzanne, the lone paralegal. The demanding voice had to be Nora’s.

A painfully thin man leaned against the wall of the corridor outside the door to the attorneys’ offices. He was dressed in jeans, black leather chaps, and a red and black bulky jacket. He held a motorcycle helmet sporting red and yellow flames in the crook of his arm. His straw-colored hair was shaggy and hung in ragged strands around a long sallow face. He didn’t smile as I walked toward him.

“That might be a help if it were on my desk,” Nora’s voice replied.

I turned the corner. A young woman with cropped hair, dyed green, sat at the first desk. Her head was down. “Bitch,” she mumbled under her breath. I wondered if her hair color was permanent or just an early Halloween statement. A plastic skull draped with tiny flashing orange bulbs took up a corner of her desk.

She jumped when she realized I was standing in front of her. “Oh!” She recovered quickly. “Can I help you?” Another woman, older and heavyset, with straight black hair to her collar, occupied the second desk. She glanced up at me briefly and then returned to her work.

I wanted to laugh but not within earshot of Nora’s office. Instead, I smiled conspiratorially and held out my hand. “Hi. I’m Julia. I’m filling in for Muriel for a week while she’s on vacation. I thought I’d come down and introduce myself. I used to work here a few years ago.”

The green-haired woman visibly relaxed and smiled. She stood and accepted my handshake. “Nice to meet you. I’m Dani. Dani Nichols.” Her hands were tattooed with flowers and sported a lot of silver. Her clothing was dark, her makeup even darker, and an iridescent titanium ring flashed at one nostril. Several more earrings on each ear climbed to the top of her ear lobes. She was a few inches shorter than I. Her baggy shirt was cinched with a wide belt and her black pants were tucked into heavy boots. Her eyes drifted to the doorway where the biker in leathers was waiting. “Oh, Billy! I’m sorry. I forgot you were still here. They decided to file that with the court tomorrow. Can you come back same time?”

“Sure.” Billy nodded sullenly and turned toward the elevators, his leathers creaking as he walked.

Dani turned back to me. “That’s Billy, one of the guys from our attorney service. He does our court runs most days. I should have introduced you; you might need to send something to court.”

“I hope not. It’s been a while and I’m pretty rusty.”

Dani nodded. “I hear you. Necessary evil if you want a paycheck.”

Besides the two secretarial desks, the area was crammed with several filing cabinets and stacked boxes. The door farthest from the entrance was shut, as though its occupant hadn’t yet arrived. It was the large corner office, and I was sure it belonged to Jack Harding, the most senior member of the group after David.

I glanced into Nora’s office. She was seated at her desk with a phone to her ear. She’d swiveled in her chair and was looking out the window at a view of other high-rises. She swung back quickly and slammed the phone into its cradle. “Dani, you still have my file with the handwritten notes? I asked you to keep it in here!”

Dani took a deep breath and looked at me as if to say, Give me patience.

Nora rose from her chair and moved to the doorway. She hesitated when she saw me at Dani’s desk. “Oh, I didn’t …”

During the time I’d worked at David’s firm, I’d never dealt directly with Nora. She had joined just as I was leaving. Her look swept over my outfit, probably tallying the cost of my clothing to the last penny. She smiled suddenly, a smile that did nothing to warm her eyes. Unsure who I was—another attorney, a client—she wanted to remain within bounds. After an uncomfortable beat, I extended my hand. “You’re Nora, right? I’m Julia. I’m filling in for Muriel for a week.”

Nora’s eyes glazed over. “Oh, yes, nice to meet you.” She shook my hand limply. I was no longer an object of interest.

I turned to Dani. “If you’re busy and need help, just call me. You know where I am.”

“Thanks, but I try to stay out of the way of the big guy.”

“David?” I smiled. “He’s not that bad. In fact, he’s a very nice guy. And I love the skull.” I said, referring to her office decoration.

“Dani, I really could use your help now.” Nora retreated to her office.

“Yes, ma’am.” Dani grimaced at me and made an obscene gesture at Nora’s back with her tongue. I beat a retreat rather than be caught laughing.

On the way back, I made a stop at the staff lounge to grab a cup of coffee. An overhead cabinet held mugs decorated with the firm logo, but the little coffee maker took me a moment to figure out. I sighed. Computerized coffee. I lifted its hood and popped a small plastic pod in the slot. The machine began to spit out a dark brew. When it gave its last burp, I slid the cup out. My hand jerked involuntarily as a high-pitched keening sound reached my ears. The mug slipped from my hand, spewing coffee into the sink. Someone was screaming.