Legal Tender

22

It was 6:15, Friday morning. I had driven all night.

I took inventory in the underground parking garage of the Silver Bullet building. My hair, suit, and shoes were dry. I had a briefcase, a cell phone, and a kitten. Also a master plan.

I fingercombed my new hair, threw on some eye makeup, and grabbed my phone and briefcase. “Wish me luck,” I said to the kitten, who didn’t. I shut and locked the car door.

6:20. I knew the rhythms of the Silver Bullet from my days at Groan amp; Waste. The security guard would be at the desk upstairs, his shift started at six o’clock. I reached the elevator bank and punched the up button. I’d have to stop at the lobby floor and sign in, since the elevators didn’t go all the way up. The guard would be the first test of my redheaded persona.

I stepped into the elevator and when it let me out I took a deep breath and entered the lobby like I was sleepwalking, which wasn’t much of a stretch.

“Miss!” called the guard. A young black man with handsome features, he was sitting behind the front desk.

“Yes?” I turned in character, looking confused, exhausted, and beleaguered. In other words, the typical oppressed associate in a major law firm.

“You have to sign the book.” He waved at a notebook on the desk.

“Oh, sorry.” I walked over and dragged my heels loudly on the white marble floor. The desk was also of white marble and surrounded the guard like a corporate cavern. On the cave walls were the scratchings of modern man: flickering security screens and a computer directory for the building. I wouldn’t be on it; I’d have to fix that when I got upstairs. “I’m not awake yet,” I said sleepily. “Got a pen?”

“Sure.” He handed me a ballpoint, smiling easily. “I’m with you on that. TGIF.” His red uniform looked boxy on his shoulders and his hat was too big for his head.

“I’m working way too hard lately,” I said, stalling with the pen in hand. I needed a name. Damn.

“Where you work? Grun?” His nametag said Will Clermont, and next to him on the desk was a foldedDaily News and a covered cup of coffee. It smelled like hazelnut. Ah, civilization.

“Yeah, I work at Grun. How’d you know?”

“Everybody there works too hard.” He laughed again, and I sensed he was lonely on this gray morning, happy to have even a lawyer to talk to. It served my purpose just fine. I needed information.

“How come I never saw you before, Mr. Clermont? You must work the early shift.”

“Yeah. Call me Will.”

“So you’re out by three, huh, Will? Banker’s hours.”

“You got that right. Gets me home in time to see my girl, my Oprah. She’s too skinny now, but I like that lady, I sure do.”

I shook my head. “Three o’clock, you’re lucky. I leave late, so I know the night guys. The nice one, what’s his name again?”

“You mean Dave?”

“Dave, right. I forget his last name.”

“Ricklin.”

“He’s comes on at three, right? He’s nice.”

Will’s dark eyes lit up. “You just like Dave ’cause he’s tall, like you.”

I made a mental note. “Hah, I could kick his butt, no matter how tall he is. Him and the other one, you know him?”

“Jimmy? Black guy, kinda heavy?”

“Right. Heavy.”

“Not too heavy.”

Whoops. “Not to you. You think Oprah’s too thin.”

“She is! She looked better before. I would tell Stedman, marry that girl, she’s lookin’ good!” He pushed the notebook toward me. “Say now, don’t forget to sign in.”

“Sure.” As soon as I think of a name. I took a closer look at the tabloid. LAWYER ON THE LOOSE! screamed the headline. My throat caught. Underneath it said,EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS INSIDE, BY LARRY FROST. I lowered my head and scribbled into the book, then stepped away from the desk to the elevator bank. “Well, I’d better get going. See you.”

“Stay ’wake now,” he said. He was trying to read my entry when the elevator arrived.

I scooted in and hit the button, but felt uneasy even after the doors closed. I was in the news, probably with a photo, but I’d passed the first test despite it and collected the names of the security guards. Maybe my plan would work. I geared up for the next step as the elevator whisked me silently toward Grun.

The doors opened with a hydraulicswoosh onto 32, the Loser Floor. Every big firm has a Loser Floor. It’s where you find the low-wattage lawyers who attract lint more easily than clients and spend way too much time with their families. At Grun, the losers lived on the same floor as the conference rooms and were viewed as equally productive.

I looked around the empty offices and for the first time the Loser Floor seemed like heaven to me, not corporate hell. It was deserted, with everything mine for the taking. None of the losers were in this early, being losers, so I borrowed an office, a computer, and an office directory, and went to work. Or rather, Linda Frost did.

She found Grun’s New York office in the directory and picked out the people she needed. Then she wrote a memo to the personnel office in Philadelphia, informing them that a new associate, one Linda Frost, would be arriving from the New York office this Friday to prepare for trial in a very important securities matter, RMC v. Consolidated Computers. The memo requested Personnel to issue Ms. Frost a Grun ID card, a building pass, and a set of keys, and also to list her on the computer directory in the building’s lobby. Given the traditional close communication between Grun’s Philly headquarters and its branch offices, it would take Personnel two or three years to catch on.

For good measure, Ms. Frost backdated the memo to last week, printed it, and stuck it in a confidential interoffice envelope. Then she stomped on it, crumpled it up, and ripped off an edge to make it look lost in the interoffice mail before she set it in the nearest out box. It would produce the desired effect as soon as it reached Personnel, which would hop to, since it’d apparently screwed up. Again.

Next, Ms. Frost typed a memo to the billing department, requesting a client code and matter number for RMC v. Consolidated Computers. She opened the matter as a “transfer” from the New York office so that it wouldn’t be flagged by the New Client Committee, set up to screen out those wannabe clients who couldn’t afford to be gouged by Grun. In addition, the industrious Ms. Frost wrote a memo to the facilities department, reserving Conference Room D on the 32nd floor for “the foreseeable future” for her exclusive use on the above-captioned confidential securities matter.

Finally, she fired off a note to the supplies department, ordering a computer and office supplies be sent to Conference Room D for use in trial preparation, and sent a separate note to the kitchen, requesting that a sandwich be sent up every day at noon, with a Diet Coke and a carton of whole milk, such meals to be billed to RMC v. ConsolidatedComputers.

I sent the last memos by e-mail, so that in a nanosecond, I would have a new identity, an office, and a job. An entirely new life and citizenship. True, it was temporary, valid only within the Silver Bullet, like a corporate green card. But for the time being, I was hiding in plain sight.

But wait, a loose end. I sat back in the Loser Chair and thought for a minute. Other lawyers might become curious about the redhead in the conference room. Maybe they’d inquire, even stop by. No lawyer is an island. Hmmm. I called up a blank screen and tapped out under today’s date:

TO: All GRUN PARTNERS and ASSOCIATES

FROM: LINDA FROST

RE: HELP!

I am an associate from the New York office presently in Conference Room D on the 32nd floor, working on RMC v. Consolidated Computers, a massive securities matter with extensive document work. Although the case is dry and somewhat technical, I would appreciate some help, as trial is in two weeks in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. I cannot promise your time would be billable, since this client is extremely touchy about its bills. Anyone wishing to lend a hand in this difficult case should feel free to stop by at any time.

Perfect. It would send any lawyer worth his billings screaming in the opposite direction. I’d be dead and petrified before I’d see a partner or an associate from this firm. They’d slip the food under the goddamn door, like I carried Ebola. I hit theSEND button on the e-mail menu, feeling a swell of satisfaction.

I was back in business.