Falls the Shadow by William Lashner Read Free Book Online

when I returned from family court and found a package of money waiting for me in my office, it was the package itself, rather than the cash, that really caught my interest, being it was five foot eight and blond.
    She was waiting in the little waiting area in front of my secretary’s desk, sitting like a mannequin from Nordstrom. Her back was straight, her ankles crossed, her handbag matched her pumps matched her pearls, oh, my. In her beige linen suit and freakishly unfurrowed brow, she looked cool as cash, even in our overly warm offices, even on the rickety plastic chairs we left out for those waiting to meet with us. Her hair was done the way they do it in only the best cutting joints, as if each strand had been individually washed and colored and trimmed. In all my life, I’d never been as pampered as one lock of her hair. And her lips were plummy.
    “Mr. Carl,” she said in a soft, breathy voice, standing up when I entered the offices.
    “That’s right.”
    “Do you have a minute?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Could I meet with you,” she said, glancing toward my secretary, Ellie, “in private?”
    “Yes, you can,” I said, and then I gave Ellie a raise of the eyebrows, a look-what-the-cat-dragged-in look.
    The woman’s big blue eyes took in the whole of my office as she sat in one of my client chairs. There wasn’t much to see. The walls were scuffed, the large brown filing cabinet was dented, piles of files teetered in the corner. Behind where I sat, the small framed photograph of Ulysses S. Grant was askew. In front of me, my desktop was its usual haphazard heap of paper. My first impulse was to apologize for the state of my office, but I stifled it. A woman like this would have been welcome in any lawyer’s office in the city, no matter how ritzy the digs or high the hourly fee. She had chosen mine to step into, and it wasn’t because of the décor.
    “Mr. Carl, you had a meeting two days ago.”
    “I had a number of meetings two days ago,” I said.
    “This was one in which a sum of money was discussed.”
    “You’ll have to be more precise, Miss…”
    “Mrs.,” she said.
    “Yes,” I said. “Of course.” The ring was the size of a small dog. “But I didn’t catch your name.”
    “No, you did not,” she said, and as she said it, she crossed her legs and smoothed flat her linen skirt. That’s when I noticed the tattooed vine of thorns that wound around her ankle.
    I liked it, yes I did. I should say that I was more than impressed by the whole package, even if it was obviously out of my league, but it was the tattooed vine of thorns that really got me going, and not just because it was quite the nice slim canvas on which the artist had worked. That it was still there, for me to see, amidst the rest of her high-priced look, was a statement in itself. The tattoo was from an earlier, wilder time, but she hadn’t had it removed. It was her way of saying to the world that her voice might not be naturally breathy, her hair might not be naturally blond, her lips might not be naturally puffy, her eyes might not be naturally blue, there might not be an inch of her body that wasn’t varnished and buffed to perfection, but there was still some part of her untamed by money.
    “You had a meeting two days ago,” she said, “in which you agreed to represent a certain party on condition of the payment of a retainer.”
    “You’re talking about François Dubé.”
    She pulled the handbag onto her lap, opened it, lifted out a rather thick envelope, and plopped it onto my desk. “I hope this is sufficient.”
    While restraining myself from grabbing the envelope and dancing a jig as I threw the money up in the air so that it fell gaily all about me like confetti, I said, “Is that the ten thousand?”
    “Nine thousand nine hundred.”
    “My price was ten.”
    “I didn’t think a hundred mattered.”
    “Oh, it matters,” I said.
    She let a trace of amusement curve her lips and then reached into her