Legal Tender

24

Out of the car, Miss,” the cop said.

My heart stopped. I had no choice. I flashed on the women’s prison. Then on my mother, lost. I held on to the cat and opened the car door.

“That’s her! That’s the one!” said an old woman behind him. She was strange-looking, with penciled-in eyebrows and lipstick crimson as Gloria Swanson’s. She had an oddly receding hairline, with platinum-white hair covered by a white hairnet. She pointed at me with a bony finger that ended in a scarlet-lacquered nail. “She’s the one, with the red hair!”

The cop waved her off with a large hand and focused on me with a grave expression. “I have a few questions for you, Miss.”

“Yes, Officer.” My heart began to pound. I scanned his ruddy face, but it wasn’t one I’d sued. Stay calm, I told myself. Think Linda Frost.

“This your car?”

“Yes.”

“I told you, she’s the one!” said the old lady, louder.

“You have a registration card for it?”

“It’s in my office upstairs.”

“Your driver’s license?”

“It’s upstairs, too. I can get it if you want.” If he let me go, I’d run for my life.

“That won’t be necessary. What’s your name?”

“Linda Frost.” I tucked the kitten under my arm, dug into my blazer pocket for my ID, and handed it to him as casually as possible. “I work in this building, for Grun amp; Chase. I’m a lawyer.”

The old lady clawed at the cop’s uniform. “She did it, Officer! Arrest her before she gets away!”

My gut tensed as the cop studied my Grun ID. “Your name’s Linda?”

“Yes.”

“Then who’s Jamie?”

“Jamie?”

“The license plate says Jamie 16, and you say it’s your car. If your name is Linda, then who’s Jamie?”

Oh-oh. “Uh, the cat?”

“You named the car after the cat?” he asked slowly.

“Sure. Yes. Why not?” Indeed.

“Arrest her! Arrest her!” squawked the old woman, shrill as a parrot.

The cop winced at the sound. “But it’s a young cat, a kitten. How’d you get the license plate so fast?”

“All my cats are named Jamie. Jamie 16 died, so I got this little kitten, Jamie 17. I transferred the license plate to my new car.”

He blinked in disbelief. “You haveseventeen cats?”

“No, not at the same time. In a row. When one Jamie dies, I get another Jamie.”

“You’ve had seventeen cats in your lifetime? How old are you?” The cop looked honestly confused, and I didn’t blame him. God, I was a bad liar. Most lawyers are much better liars than me.

“No, Officer. See, I started with Jamie 15, because fifteen is my lucky number. Isn’t she cute? I love all my Jamies.” I held up the squirming cat like a trophy.

“Stop that!” screeched the old woman. “That’s not how you hold a kitten, for heaven’s sake!” Suddenly she lunged forward and plucked the cat from my arms.

“Yo!” I blurted out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The woman stepped behind the cop, her spiky nails locked around the kitten like an iron maiden. “You kept her in the car all day! You didn’t take proper care of her. If I hadn’t called the police, she’d be dead!”

So that’s where the cop came from. “No, the cat was fine. It’s not hot down here. I left the window open a crack.”

“You don’t keep a baby like this in a car all day long!”

“It’s not a baby, it’s a cat.”

“It’s akitten!”

“So what?” You could leave a golden retriever in a garage all day, no problem. Everything is okay with a golden. “It’s none of your business anyway.”

“It is too!”

“What are you, the pet police?” I was angry. Meddling bitch. “Now give me my cat.”

“No.” She stepped farther behind the cop, hugging the kitten. “It’s mine now! I’m keeping it!”

“You are not!” I made a move for the cat, but the cop pressed us apart.

“Ladies, please,” he said wearily. “Miss Frost, did you leave the cat in the car?”

“Yes, but-”

“That wasn’t a good idea. There was another woman who complained about the mewing, besides Mrs. Harrogate here. The security guard was looking for you, because of it.”

Terrific. KITTEN LEADS TO KILLER. FELINE FINDS FUGITIVE. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be so long upstairs. I went to pick up a file from my office and got held up on the phone.”

“That’s a lie!” screeched the old woman. “This poor baby was crying all afternoon! I got here at three o’clock to see my lawyer. The kitten was crying when I went in and she was still crying when I came out. You’re not fit to have this kitten!”

“I am too!”

“You are not! And it’s stupid to name all your cats the same thing!”

“Stop!”thundered the cop, holding up both hands. “Enough!”

We were scared into silence, me more than she, since I had a little more to lose. That death penalty thing and all.

“Now, let’s settle this,” the cop said. “Miss Frost, there are laws on the books against cruelty to animals. Ordinances. You did leave the cat in the car all afternoon. Maybe if you let Mrs. Harrogate keep the cat like she says, we can all go home.”

I felt a mixture of resentment and relief. I was almost off the hook. The cop was ready to leave. I would be safe again.

“She’d have a better home with me,” clucked the woman. “I’d take good care of her.”

The cop put his hands on his hips. “Come on, Miss Frost, I don’t have all night here. Why don’t you give Mrs. Harrogate the cat? She says she’ll take good care of it. You, being a lawyer, you must work long hours. What do you say?”

“Let me think,” I said, but I knew it made sense. I was on the run, I couldn’t keep a cat. What kind of outlaw has a pet? I looked at the kitten in the woman’s embrace. It wasn’t mine anyway.

“Well, Miss Frost?” The cop checked his watch, and I made the only decision I could.

“Gimme back my cat,” I said.

I stuck Jamie 17 under my blazer and smuggled her into the elevator. When the doors opened onto the lobby, I waved hello to the two night guards behind the desk. “Hey, Dave,” I called out. “How’s it goin’, Jimmy?”

“Hey back at you!” said Dave, grinning, and Jimmy waved back vaguely as I strode to the other elevator bank. I was inside before they could figure out how they knew me.

I got off on the Loser Floor and dropped Jamie 17 at the conference room, where I made her a new litter box and poured some Diet Coke into a paperclip holder for her. Then I closed the door, straightened the Confidential sign, and left. I had some sleuthing to do.

I took the elevator to the Gold Coast and waited in the ritzy reception area as the doorsswooshed closed behind me. It looked as empty as I’d expected, but I listened to make sure it was absolutely still. There was no sound in the hallway. Not a phone, not a fax, not even aca-ching. All the heavy hitters were out at the restaurants, the orchestra, or a baseball game; anyplace you could conceivably take a General Counsel and bill his company for it. Not only would they expense the duck à l’orange, they’d charge for the time they took to eat it. Turn down that second cup of decaf, it’ll cost you $350.

I took a left and snuck down the corridor, grabbing a legal pad from one of the secretary’s desks, the better to look official if caught. I slunk past the patchwork quilts and pastel landscapes, glancing in the offices to make sure they were vacant. The offices were massive because Gold Coast egos demanded lots of square footage, and each office was decorated with whatever fetish appealed to its resident ego. I skulked past a flock of duck decoys and a half-dozen fake Fabergé eggs, then tiptoed by a flotilla of model sailboats and a secret stash of Glenfiddich until I got to Wile E. Coyote and Tweety Bird.

The door was open and Sam’s office was empty. I took a quick look behind me, then slipped inside and closed the door. I needed Sam’s billing records, and if I couldn’t get them from the computer, I’d get them this way. If there was ever an unreasonable search and seizure, this was it, but I had to find out who killed Mark.

I set the legal pad down and walked past Sam’s desk to the sleek walnut credenza behind it. Plush versions of Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd sat atop the credenza. Its polished surface reflected their fixed expressions.

“Don’t look, guys, I’m hunting wabbits.”

I opened the top drawer. Inside were case files in alphabetical order: Asbec Commercial Realty, Atlantic Partners, Inc., Aural Devices, Ltd. Most of them were bankruptcies, and only two estates matters. I looked under Biscardi, for Mark, but there was no file. Had Sam taken Mark’s file home? Is that where Sam kept his billing files?

I closed the drawer and opened the one underneath it. More of same. Bankruptcies, a few estates. One tax matter. No billing information and no Biscardi file.

Shit. I straightened up, thinking. Outside the windows, long ribbons of mercury vapor streetlights led down Market Street to the train station and the Schuylkill River beyond. I couldn’t think about rowing now. I had to ransack my best friend’s desk.

I turned around and went through the papers next to Daffy Duck on the glass desktop. There were message slips and correspondence, Daffy pens and carrot pencils, but no billing sheets. Damn. I turned and looked around the office.

There was one cabinet left, next to the black leather couch against the wall. It was walnut, too, a smaller version of the credenza. In front of it flopped a king-sized version of yet another cartoon character. I crossed the room, moved aside the toy, and dug into the top drawers. Correspondence files.

I closed it and opened the second drawer. Son of correspondence files.

I tried the third. Beyond correspondence files. This was in the nowhere fast category. I closed the drawer, sat cross-legged on the dense carpet, and thought a minute. Billable time records are a Grun attorney’s most personal papers. Maybe Sam didn’t keep them in hard copy at all, but had them shredded. Or maybe he had them at home. I tried to remember where Sam kept the files in his apartment, but I hadn’t been there in over a year, lately we’d met at restaurants.

My gaze fell on the giant plush toy and I returned it to its home in front of the cabinet. Its huge eyes scowled at me from under the brim of an oversized Stetson, and I righted its redder-than-red handlebar mustache. Its cloth mitts held six-guns. I never liked Yosemite Sam.

What?

Of course! Yosemite Sam! I’d forgotten him. I ran to the computer on Sam’s desk, called up the menu, and punched it in.

HERE IS THE BILLING INFORMATION YOU REQUESTED,said the computer.

“Dagnabbit!” I whispered, scrolling the first page, then the next and the one after that. Lists and lists of bills sent and payments received, lots of money flowing into Grun, all for Sam’s account. He was squeezing the last dollar out of those bankrupts, to the tune of $50,000 a month in billings. Yosemite Sam was doing just fine. In fact, he had to be one of the most productive pardners in the firm. So why did he take money from Mark, and in cash?

I still had no answer. I got out of the computer file and sat back, which was when I spotted something on Sam’s desk. I moved aside the papers and stared at the Steuben bowl. It was full of paperclips, Bugs Bunny thumbtacks, and rubber bands. But there was something else. Something I’d missed before. I dug in the bowl to the flash of color and fished it out. It wiggled between my thumb and forefinger like a pink worm.

A skinny pink balloon. The same kind and color I’d seen on Bill’s arm in the cabin. I felt my mouth go dry. What did it mean?

I gaped at the bowl. A patch of green rubber stuck out, and I fished that balloon out, too. Then a yellow balloon and another pink, a red, and a bright blue, until they were scattered across the desk like so much lethal confetti. I stood shocked in the quiet of my friend’s office. Trying to fathom how Sam could be connected to Bill’s death. It didn’t seem possible, but I was holding the link in my hand.

I thrust the pink balloon in my jacket pocket, replaced the others, then slipped out and broke for the Coast.