Man in the Middle by Ken Morris Read Free Book Online

sign of acknowledgement.
    The woman tapped seven, the top floor, which was also Peter’s destination. Peter moved to the back of the box and leaned into a corner. At least sixty years old, the woman had a serious face, smooth for her age, and she smelled like musty geraniums. After moving to the elevator’s rear, she leaned on an aluminum cane with rubber-tipped tripod legs. Her indifference hung heavily in the tiny space.
    When the first man—a fat guy with heart attack scrolling across his face—got off on three, they all rearranged themselves to maximize their territory. Next, a slender man with an eye tic stepped forward. On the fifth floor, he rushed off, turned left, then spun and reversed his course. On six, the last man, thick-limbed with a swollen and discolored eye, bounced on his toes while waiting for the door to open. He wore torn jeans and shitkicker snakeskin boots. His clothes held the stink of twenty-five cent cigar, and his forearms bore a biker tattoo—it looked like a red, black, and white Harley-Davidson banner. Expensive silver and turquoise jewelry circled his forearms. Exiting, he bounded to the first door. Peter read the logo: Harkness and Jameson: Specialists in Criminal Law . Without knocking, the man barged in. As the elevator doors closed, Peter wondered what crime the tattooed man had committed. His demeanor suggested something monumental.
    The elevator churned its way to the final floor. Five minutes before noon, Peter exited, trailing the suddenly unfrail woman. She carried herself with agility and speed down the hallway. Leaning on her cane as she stepped, she made it to the door with the Leeman, Johnston, and Ayers: Attorneys at Law nameplate several yards ahead of him.
    As the office door shut in Peter’s face, he stared at the grain of the wood and thought about the importance of the next hour of his life. He had rejected this job twice. Now? Now he wanted the position enough for his knees to knock. And wanting it so much made Ayers’ possible change of mind a potential back-breaker for Peter. And broken backs, he understood, were hard to fix.
    Feeling foolish as he stood like a flagpole in the hallway, Peter took a deep breath and grabbed the polished brass doorknob. He pushed, stepped in, and peered across the open space. The office held the quiet air of a university library—Peter could almost feel the moon-brains working behind these desks, billing clients at the rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour, every mind filled with millions of legal facts and precedents. He felt like a thrice-failed second-grader by comparison.
    In a far corner office, where his mother had once worked, sat a bookish clerk with an eager-beaver face. A pang struck across Peter’s chest, causing the air to thicken as if he were in a freshly watered sauna. In an effort to seal his grief, he swallowed, then redirected his attention. An African-American woman in blue business attire and stylish wire-frames sat behind a formal-looking reception desk. Handsome, in her fifties, she had gray hair and wore a phone headset, thus freeing her hands for other chores. Her nameplate read: Elaine Robinson .
    Observing his approach and making eye contact, the receptionist nodded and held up a forefinger, signaling she would be right with him once she finished her phone call. After taking a message and hanging up, she said, “Mr. Neil, Mr. Ayers will be a few moments. I am sorry about your mother. I was a dear friend, and we all loved Hannah. Especially me, she was my . . .”
    Elaine Robinson couldn’t finish. Peter nodded his understanding, thanked her, and stepped to the coffee table and sofa set up for visitors to cool their heels. He skimmed the Wall Street Journal headlines and was reading about a coordinated attack on a third-world central bank when a voice hailed and distracted him from across the room.
    “Peter Neil?” A mid-twenties woman whisked over to him. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you