William Brown - The Undertaker

The Martindale-Hubble Directory said they were on the 14 ^th Floor. One look at the lobby told me the odds of my making it upstairs, through the front doors of Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister, and into Ralph Tinkerton's suite were zip if I tried to stroll past the guard or walked over and asked him directions, not the way I was dressed in blue jeans, a Polo shirt, and Docksiders. Without a pinstriped suit, an expensive briefcase, and a pair of Florsheim wing tips, getting in was going to take stealth and guile.

I made a quick U-turn and went back out through the revolving doors. Across the busy six-lane street, I saw the round, blue and white striped sign for the Bouncing Bagel Kosher Deli. Using my best Heisman Trophy moves, I bobbed and weaved my way through the passing cars and buses to the deli on the other side. The menu looked pretty good, but I didn't go there to eat. I ordered two large corned beef sandwiches and a pastrami with extra mustard, a couple of pickles, and two bottles of Doctor Brown's Creme Soda. Sometimes life forces us to make accommodations and sacrifices. Even though I was only having lunch with a lawyer, it wasn't civilized to eat corned beef without a Doctor Brown's.

For an extra thirty dollars I got them to throw in one of their designer “wear-it-at-home-and-make-your-own-sandwich-like-we-do” aprons with a big, bright-blue, Bouncing Bagel logo stenciled across the front and one of their silly, white paper hats with a smaller version of the same logo. With that hat and apron on, the last place anyone would be looking was my face. Hefting two large, white delivery bags with the sandwiches and drinks, I put on my sunglasses and re-crossed High Street. This time I hit the lobby moving fast, swimming up-stream through the exiting early lunch crowd like a spring salmon in heat. Ahead I saw the elevator bank for Floors 1–8 and then the ones for Floors 9-17, so I went for it and completely ignored the guard. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him looking me over as I passed by. He raised his arm and motioned me to stop, but I was past him and in an elevator before he could get his butt up out of the chair and cut me off. Gotcha, I chuckled. Child's play.

As the elevator doors closed behind me, I could see my reflection in the brightly polished brass on the inside of the doors and the big grin on my face. Crack security? That guy was a hick rent-a-cop, but God it felt good to have the juices flowing again, to be alive, and moving.

I looked at the control panel and saw that the light for the 14th Floor was already lit, so I leaned back against the wall and let the elevator carry me upward. My traveling companions were three giggling, gossiping secretaries and a young man standing in the opposite corner dressed in a badly ironed white shirt and cheap clip-on tie, no jacket, carrying a tall stack of manila file folders in his arms. Probably a summer intern. One of the secretaries got off on nine, the other two on twelve, and the elevator was slowing for the fourteenth floor before I had time to make much of a plan.

The stops on the lower floors gave me a good idea what to expect. The lobby on fourteen was small like the others. To the right stood the formal cherry-wood and glass entrance to the offices of Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister. Their partnership name was spelled out in heavy brass letters on the wall beside the doors and I could see through the glass into the spacious, expensively furnished lobby beyond. There were over-stuffed chairs, a couch, coffee tables and expensive art on the walls. There were soft, indirect lighting and track spots highlighting the art. In the center of the lobby, controlling it all was a huge wooden credenza that blocked the entrance to the legal offices beyond. Behind the credenza sat another dull-eyed, security guard, an almost perfect clone of the guy down on the first floor. Flashing past one guard was easy. Doing it a second time? That was pushing my luck.

As I stood there for a moment debating, the fellow with the file folders got off behind me. He didn't turn right toward the glass doors. Instead, he turned left and headed toward a plain metal fire door set in the wall at the opposite end of the lobby. It had an electronic key pad fastened to the wall and a large magnetic lock set above the header. We had one of these on our rear service entrance in LA and an elephant couldn't pull the door open once the magnet had engaged. I watched the intern balancing the file folders on a raised thigh with one hand, while he reached for the key pad with the other, so I made the snap decision to follow him.

“Dude, you're going to drop those things. Here, let me help you,” I volunteered.

“Thanks man. I should've gone back for a cart, but I ducked out for a smoke and ran out of time.”

“Been there,” I told him as I reached to help him with the files.

“I got these,” he said. “Just pull the door open,” he nodded at the handle.

“Isn't it locked?”

“Shit, these damned things never work.”

He was right. The door swung open as if there was no lock at all. “Some security system,” I smiled.

“Yeah, but I'm not complaining,” he answered as I followed him inside. “I fight 'em all day long on this floor and most of the others, but it beats going all the way around through the big lobby and getting hassled by the gargoyles and gatekeepers.”

“Tell me about it, man. Try to deliver a sandwich before it gets cold.”

“Yeah, half the time the keypads got the codes wrong and the other half some secretary's stuck her gum in the lock so she can take a short cut to the john.”

“Speaking of sandwiches, is Mr. Tinkerton's office still in the back corner?” I asked, figuring the headman's office is always back in the far corner.

“Last time I looked. “First star to the right and straight on 'til morning.” You can't miss it,”

“Thanks, man, I'll have three deliveries done and be gone before they even know I was here.”

“Well, if they catch you, don't tell them how you got in.”

“No sweat. And thanks,” I said as I turned the corner and strode off down the perimeter corridor, head-up, whistling as if I belonged there. The office decor was a very classy light gray with dark gray accents, thick carpet, large partitioned workstations, can lights in the ceiling, colorful framed prints on the walls, big leafy plants, and computers everywhere. Around the perimeter, glass-fronted offices ran around the window walls, each one with a small, engraved brass nameplate on the door, probably arranged in some pecking order by size and view according to rank and seniority. The secretaries, clerks, and younger associates were stuck with the cubicles in the middle. Glass or cube, everybody was out in plain view. When you're billing by the hour, you don't want half the staff spending their time on fantasy football. I wondered which cubes belonged to the two associates who watched the moving van up on Sedgwick a couple of days ago.

Both the offices and cubicles were nicely furnished, with cherry-wood desks, credenzas, and armchairs, but the desks got successively larger as one went from the small cubicles to the larger ones, to the perimeter and on to the corner offices. In each corner sat a larger office: more like a suite, with its own reception area and a side conference room. Probably for the general partners, I thought.

In the far corner, I saw an even larger suite that must be the cave of the Managing Partner. Guarding the approach was a huge, fortress-like desk complete with its own resident Troll to ward off the uninvited. Her graying hair was cut short and straight. She wore only the faintest hint of make-up and a conservative, dark-blue business suit, just like the lawyers. She had thick, half-round glasses that made it easy for her to tip her head forward and survey her domain over the top lens. As I approached, she was talking on the phone and writing a note on a steno pad, with one eye on her computer screen and the other eye on me. I had to hand it to her; this was a woman who could multi-task with the best of them. The eye focused on me narrowed as I got closer, but her expression never changed, as if she were waiting for me to come in range.