Revenant Rising (11 page)
“It’s about time, don’t you think?” David displays a proud paternalistic smile. “Now that you’ve attained age thirty and met all the other requirements, the partners and I are prepared to vote you in at our next meeting. You’ve more than earned it, my dear. It’s yours for the taking.” He reaches across, pats her hand, again paternalistic.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say. Aren’t you rushing things a little? I’ve only been with you a few weeks and I haven’t even decided the direction I want to take. I’m deeply gratified by the confidence you’re showing me, but I’m afraid I can’t—”
“You can’t what?
Surely
you’re not questioning your own qualifications . . . not after all you’ve been through in order to arrive at this—”
“Please don’t misunderstand . . . I’m not rejecting the offer, I’m only asking that the offer be delayed for a while. Perhaps as long as a year. I’m not ready, David, and if the partners were polled, I think they’d agree. I may have earned the right to a partnership by fulfilling my grandmother’s requirements, but I’ve not earned the right in actual performance—in actual practice. And I don’t yet know
what
I want to practice. The only thing I’m sure of is what I
don’t
want to do. I’ll never work again as a prosecutor. That I am
very
sure of.”
“I hear you. Oh, but I hear you. Don’t forget that I had to put in my three years as an ADA. Your grandmother was very much a force to be reckoned with when I was coming up in the firm. She required the prosecutor assignment of all legatees, and she was unquestionably harder on you because to her you were more than a legatee, you were her—”
“Primary means of getting even with her daughter,” Laurel snaps.
“Unarguably so, but to put a better face on it, you’ll have to admit that work as an assistant DA has given you a definite edge, given you strengths you might not have gained any other way.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Marine boot camp might have done the same. And a lot quicker.”
“I have a recommendation. Contract law. You wouldn’t have to bring in any clients at first and you could work closely with me until you reach your comfort zone. Then I see you taking over the department.”
“That’s your department.”
“It is now.”
“What are you saying?
You’re
not leaving the firm are you?”
“No, of course not. I’m establishing a new division, as a matter of fact. Artist management. My practice has long been exclusive to members of the entertainment and publishing world, so it’s only natural to expand in that direction. I’m happy to say that I’ve recently taken over as general manager for Rayce Vaughn, the nine-lived Brit legend. His last stretch in rehab seems to have taken and seriously great things are expected of his comeback.”
“Are you sure that’s the sort of client you want to brag about?”
David laughs a short bark of a laugh. “How could I forget your ill-concealed distaste for the music industry? How could I when you never let me? And how could I fail to remind you that those roadies you prosecuted for statutory rape were
not
representative of the entire music business, for heaven’s sake.” He looks at her over top of his glasses. “Good thing I know you’re only teasing or I’d say time and experience hasn’t taught you a damn thing about bias and unprofessional attitude.” David looks away, reproof implied, intent unmistakable.
“I see,” she says. “Is this your not-so-subtle way of saying you want me to restructure my thinking and give artist management a whirl?”
“As an extension of contract law it has crossed my mind.”
“Slow down, David, there’s a possibility you haven’t considered. Maybe I’m undecided about choosing a specialty because I’m undecided about committing to law as a career.”
“
What
? You’ve got to be kidding . . . After all you went through to—”
“You already said that.”
“So I did.”
“And I already said I’m not ready to make a commitment. Of any kind. And I could quit, you know. I could if I wished. Nothing in my grandmother’s will states that I’m compelled to
join
the family firm. That must be the only loophole in the entire fucking document.”
“Language.”
“Get over it, I’m not twelve anymore and that’s the way I talk sometimes. As I was saying . . . about the will. It’s almost funny when you think of it. How could she set forth all those stipulations designed to make me into an overburdened overachieving grind before I could inherit her mantle—much less her money—and then leave out such an obvious clause?”
“Maybe it was premeditated. Did you ever think of that?
“Of course not. I’ll
never
buy that. It was an oversight, nothing more. She would not have let me off the hook that easily. Not after requiring that I graduate everything from middle school to Columbia Law with high honors, work as a Public Defender, then distinguish myself as an Assistant District Attorney . . . Oh, and get published in my spare time. It’s a wonder I wasn’t expected to claim a seat on the high court before I’d be deemed worthy of her trust. In the literal sense! And all because her daughter chose to run off with her lit professor and have us kids instead of following in her mother’s goddammed footsteps!”
David takes away the spoon she’s been rapping on the table for emphasis. He pats her hand and then holds it for a moment.
“Laurel . . . dear. There’s no need to get so worked up. She’s dead—ding-dong, the witch is dead.” When he lets go of her hand she half expects him to chuck her under the chin as he would have at the start of their relationship.
“I . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from,” she says.
“I do. We both do. You forgot for a moment that you’re free. That you’re truly out from under. Your school loans are paid off, your brothers and sister are well provided for and living independently, and you are—for perhaps the first time in your life—free to make choices.”
“Somehow, I didn’t expect
you
to be the one pointing that out.”
“Well, you’ve just pointed out that you don’t
have
to be an active partner, so I’d be seriously remiss not to recognize that you might not always be with us.”
Their breakfasts arrive and the subject of choices is left hanging long enough for the mood to lighten somewhat.
Two or three bites into his egg-white omelet, David asks what she would do if she did quit law.
“I think I’d pursue teaching. Elementary school. Try to influence the little ones before they’re all screwed up by those dregs of society you’re so eager to represent.”
“Okay, that’s it.” He lays down his fork. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear anymore derogatory remarks about my musician clients even if you are teasing. Especially not if you agree to sit in on contract discussions tomorrow with Colin Elliot and—”
“Who is Colin Elliot?”
David groans. “Don’t you ever read anything but the Wall Street Journal? Is your television on the fritz? Elliot is the Brit rock star who turned the Icon telecast on its ear last night. Don’t tell me you didn’t watch the Institute Award show.”
“I didn’t know it was on, I was doing something else.”
“Why don’t I find that hard to believe?” David groans again and takes a couple more bites of his unappetizing breakfast. “All right,” he continues, “in a nutshell, Colin Elliot made a surprise appearance and unscheduled performance at the award ceremony last night and this alerted me to something I’ve been suspecting for the last several months—that he’s not receiving appropriate guidance from his management. The insult causing him to take matters into his own hands at the Icons should never have been allowed to happen, and the rampant speculation attached to Elliot after a string of personal disasters could have been avoided by more judicious handling of the press. Elliot’s manager, Nate Isaacs, was right to stringently protect his client’s privacy during the upheaval following a life-altering event. He’s wrong, though, to maintain official silence more than two years after the event. That serves no rational purpose.”
Laurel finishes up the oatmeal she’s been eating throughout the impromptu oration. “Nice speech, but I still don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Maybe you’ll remember November of ’eighty-four, when I had to drop everything and go to a remote area of Michigan. Colin Elliot is the client I was responding to then. He’d been grievously injured in the car accident that killed his wife and the situation was aggravated by any number of sordid details.”
“Oh, right, I’ve got it now. The year you were stranded in Detroit by a snowstorm and missed Thanksgiving. You’d been to that place with the long name.”
“Portage St. Mary.”
“Yes, that’s the one I was thinking of, but none of the other names stuck and I don’t think I ever did hear the sordid details. If I did they didn’t stick either.”
“You never heard them.” David pushes the remains of the pallid omelet aside and signals for the waiter. “They weren’t mine to share.”
“I see.”
“However, if you
are
interested in a little background on Elliot—saying you
do
take my request seriously enough to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting—that little assistant you brought with you from downtown is your go-to. Word has it there’s very little she doesn’t know about the contemporary music scene.”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Are you serious or is that more of your facetiousness?”
“I’m serious. I wasn’t aware she followed that scene.”
“Only stands to reason, I suppose. Those knowing your inherent prejudice in that area wouldn’t exactly trumpet their expertise, would they?”
“Okay, now
I’ve
had enough. And I’m done here, I’m ready to leave. Are you going straight back to the office?”
David nods as he signs the guest check.
“Good, then I’ll walk with you. I parked here at the hotel to save time and now I see no sense moving the car just a few blocks.” She gathers up her coat, handbag, and the gift box of stationery.
Halfway across the room they’re stopped by an individual who’s introduced to her as an old sailing buddy of David’s. Laurel excuses herself from the conversation as soon as it’s polite to do so and indicates to David she’ll wait for him outside by the fountain.
Activity in the lobby has markedly increased in the last hour and most of it is outward bound. There’s the beginning of a lineup for the doors facing Grand Army Plaza and the Pulitzer Fountain. Laurel steps to one side to wait her turn as a coterie of hotel staff appear, flourishing walkie-talkies that can only mean a VIP is on the way in.
Laurel is prepared to witness the arrival of an established movie star, a Saudi prince, a head of state—not the bogus VIP the hotel personnel are whisking into the hotel. This so-called VIP is dressed in a rumpled tuxedo worn with a T-shirt and running shoes. The shoes are untied and the laces are dragging. He’s unshaven, and his shock of collar-length dark-blonde hair is tousled and lank. His demeanor is arrogant, and his bearing self-assured. He’s tall, his gait is athletic, and his profile is classic—suitable for commemoration on an idealized coin.
Along with everyone else in the congested entryway, she stares unabashedly. When everyone else breaks into spontaneous applause, she reverts to ADA mode, storing her impressions of this oddity as though they might one day be used against him. Whoever he is.
The celebrity appears to be looking straight at her as an accompanying bodyguard and hotel staff close ranks around him; he appears to have recognized someone, so it can’t be her he’s looking at. The entire incident is over in less than thirty seconds and she’s left with the unsettling feeling that she, too, recognized someone.
David comes up behind her and helps her on with her coat. “Sorry for the delay. First I couldn’t get away from the old salt in the restaurant, and then the hotel people were clearing the way for a VIP arrival. Who was it, did you see?”
“Don’t ask me,” Laurel says as they exit through the now freed-up doors. “Could have been one of your clients, though, because he looked like a rock star—his evening clothes looked slept-in, and he appeared not to have bathed in a while.”
David laughs. “Well, that narrows it down to a few dozen and might even describe Colin Elliot, except he’s slated to stay at his manager’s place while he’s in town. You ready? Let’s go, then.”
