Lisa Scottoline - Legal Tender

My heart skipped a half-beat. “No. We’ve never met.”

“Your father, do I know him?”

“No.” I don’t even know him.

“Was he at Piper, Marbury?”

“No, he wasn’t a lawyer,” I said, though I didn’t know what he was. A sneak, according to my mother.

“But you look so familiar. His name, what was it?”

“Frost, the same as mine.”

“What was his first name?”

Jack? No. David? Worse. “Grinnell. Grinnell Frost. Like the town, in Iowa.” Please God, teach me to lie better than this.

“Grinnell Frost.” He shook his head vaguely. “I guess not. So, you’ve come to us from the New York office. I like the New York office very much.”

“So do I.”

“We have some very smart lawyers there.”

“Yes, we do.”

“I do not like New York City, however.”

“Neither do I.” But I don’t have time to chat about it.

“The people have no manners.”

“No, they don’t. They ignore everyone around them.”

“They move,” he waved a jittery hand in the air, “too fast.”

“Much too fast.”

“And the streets are dirty.”

“Very.”

“Filthy.”

“Noisy.” I never agreed with him so much. I never agreed with anybody so much, but I still felt like bolting for the door. Getting out of the building.

“You must be working hard, Miss Frost.”

“I am.”

“I read your memo, about the computer case you’re preparing for.”

“You did?” Oh, shit.

“Yes. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you. I don’t come in to work every day and I don’t always keep up with my mail. As for my advance sheets, well, they’re a dead letter, I’m afraid. Do you keep up with your advance sheets, Miss Frost?”

“I try to.”

“You must, they’re essential. You must to know what the courts are deciding, how the law is evolving. You know what Cardozo said.”

Cheese it, the cops? “Of course.”

“ ‘The law changes in increments.’ ” He held up a finger that was very tan for this time of year, and I remembered he had a vacation home in Boca Raton. “You young people have the firm now. The firm, it runs without me now.”

I couldn’t ignore the regret in his voice. “But not as well, I’m sure.”

“You’re very kind, Miss Frost,” he said, but stared past me. The bright windows reflected white off his bifocals, making him look sightless. “I built this firm, you know. With my friend. He’s gone now.”

“Mr. Chase?”

“He’s gone.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, but I had. I checked the open door behind him, and the coast was still clear.

“That was a long time ago.”

“I see.”

He sighed. “Anyway, you’re on trial in a week.”

I was on trial right now. “Yes.”

“You said you needed help. In your memo.”

“Help?” Stupid, stupid, stupid. Help!

“It was a silly memo, Miss Frost,” he said, with a trace of the sternness I remembered. “You don’t know us very well, in the main office. No one will help you here if they can’t bill it.”

“No?” Tell me about it.

“Not nowadays. In my day, we all helped each other. We wouldn’t think of billing a client for helping a colleague. We ate lunch together then. Even had tea and a snack together. We were partners then. Truly. Partners.”

“Snacks? At Grun?”

“Oh, yes.” He smiled shakily at the memory. “Mr. Chase would make some tea and we’d all have tea and chocolate together. Just a piece, in the afternoon. Chase, myself, and McAlpine. Later, Steinman.”

“Chocolate?” I forgot the cops for a moment, intrigued.

“Yes, chocolate. Now, Steinman, he loved chocolate more than all of us put together. Had to have some every day.”

“What kind of chocolate, Mr. Grun?” Say light chocolate. Was that how it started?

“Always the same kind. We, all of us, liked the same kind.”

Say light. So that was it. Not tyranny, comradeship. Collegiality. I felt terrible. I’d misjudged him, and for years.

“Do you like chocolate, Miss Frost?”

It didn’t have to think about it this time. “I love chocolate, Mr. Grun.”

“What kind of chocolate, light or dark?”

“Light, only.” I felt a welling-up, unaccountably.

“Dark, it’s too bitter.”

“I agree.”

He smiled shakily. “Light chocolate is a wonderful thing.”

“It is.”

“Some things in life cannot be improved upon.”

“Like golden retrievers.”

He smiled again. “Are you a dog lover, Miss Frost?”

“Yes.”

“I like cats, myself.”

I thought of Jamie 17, back with Sam. I actually missed her. “They’re okay, too.”

“I had a cat once, my Tiger. She was striped. She liked to eat cream cheese. Licked it right off my finger.” He nodded. “We all helped each other, then. It didn’t matter if it could be billed or not. Not in the least. Why bill it and make your friend look bad, eh?”

Why, indeed.

“That’s how you build a law firm. Not with cases, not even with clients. With friendships. They grow from there, in reputation. In strength. They become… organic, that way.”

I thought of R amp; B. Mark had been right. It was gone as soon as we were gone.

“The value is in the friendships, in the core.” He breathed in deeply. “Well, here I am. I saw your memo, I knew you’d be working today. I thought I might be of some assistance. Could you possibly use my assistance, Miss Frost?”

Oh no. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve worked on many securities cases. Argued twenty-five before the United States Supreme Court.”

“Twenty-five?” I thought of my one dumb feather.

“I don’t mind document work. I like to work hard.”

But there were no documents, there wasn’t even a case. I didn’t know what to do. It reminded me of my mother, and that gave me a solution. It would slow me down, but I couldn’t run off now and leave him feeling more useless than he already did. “I certainly could use your help, Mr. Grun. I’d be honored.”

“Why, thank you.” He nodded graciously.

“First, let me tell you the facts.”

“No documents?”

“No. If I may, let me give you my opening argument.”

“As you wish.”

“It’s a jury trial, so I want the opening to be just right.”

“Good girl. Juries make their decisions after the opening. Be respectful. Don’t talk down to them. Wear blue, I always did.”

“I will,” I told him, and began a story. A bedtime story in which an upstart computer company wanted to know the truth, but all the more powerful computer companies were lying to the little chip company and the government. I made up the story as I went along, taking half of it from my own predicament and the other half from what little securities law I knew.

He listened thoughtfully and in time grew very still, not flinching even when the afternoon sun edged in a brilliant square onto his face. He had fallen into that sound sleep known only to old men and golden retrievers. So I packed up my files, grabbed my clothes and briefcase, wrote him a little note, and left.

I dashed to the security gate and slipped under it, down the stifling elevator to the lobby. I’d be safe away from the Silver Bullet, out of sight somewhere. There were a million places I could go. The airport, the train station. I needed a place to collect my thoughts, stow my stuff.

29th Floor.

I had to figure out who killed Mark, and something Grun had said was sticking with me. In the back of my mind. I couldn’t quite articulate it.

25th Floor.

About law firms. Collegiality. I thought of Mark, dead, and R amp; B, defunct. The associates. Who had put the bloody scissors in my apartment? I flipped backwards through time, in my mind.