Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) by Judith K. Ivie Read Free Book Online Page A

God’s gift to the legal profession, and Bellanfonte thinks he’s God’s gift generally speaking. Do they teach a course in applied egotism in law school, or is high-handedness a prerequisite for admission?
    Two young associates scuttled by, the boy pale and the girl flushed. Farther down the corridor one of the female partners, a shrill, bony litigator known among the staff as The Diva, stomped out of her office and yelled after them, “By eight o’clock tonight, and don’t you ever make the mistake of trying to go over my head again, got it? Got it ?” she repeated more loudly, demanding to be acknowledged. The humiliated young lawyers bumped into each other as they turned around, nodding like marionettes. The boy dropped a sheaf of papers he had been holding, and the two quickly crouched and scraped them together before hurrying on their way.
    Hardly a morning went by that some similarly distressed youngster didn’t pass by, and my heart went out to every one of them. To become eligible for partnership consideration, every newly admitted lawyer at BGB had to serve six years as an associate, the legal profession’s equivalent of indentured servitude. “First Years,” especially, were expected to put in twelve- to fourteen-hour days routinely, and additional hours on the weekends were the norm. It didn’t get a whole lot better in years two through six, either. Four years of college, three years of law school, and six years of that sort of apprenticeship must create a wicked thirst to bully someone else when partnership was finally achieved.
    I sighed in sympathy for the unlucky associates and returned to my telephone. So far, I thought, answering and transferring calls with growing confidence, it’s been a very interesting day.
    And then the emergency fire klaxons went off.
    My first thought was that nobody could possibly hear an emergency announcement over that din. My second thought was, so how can we tell what the emergency is? After a shocked, motionless moment, I followed Jeannie and Cindy, the mailroom girls, to the windows overlooking Trumbull Street, where half a dozen anxious secretaries already jockeyed for position. From the Hartford Civic Center, which occupied most of the block on the opposite side of the street, clouds of thick, black smoke billowed upward, filling the air with frightening speed. Although the smoke was still below us, it was clear that even the top floors of our building would soon be engulfed. The klaxons continued to whoop relentlessly, drowning out whatever a building management staffer was yelling into the loudspeaker system.
    “What’s happening?” wailed Jeannie, or perhaps Cindy, and I shrugged helplessly, as bewildered as she and possibly even more frightened. With images of September 11th etched into our memories, thoughts of terrorism were unavoidable.
    “It looks like a fire across the street,” I hedged without speculating on the possible causes. “I suggest we blow this pop stand, ladies.” I was glad that my voice sounded steadier than my knees felt.
    We joined the stream of white-faced BGB employees, plus a few luckless clients who had been conferring with their attorneys, heading for the nearest fire stairs. Still unfamiliar with the rabbit warren of cubicles, I meekly followed the crowd. A young associate who had been drafted into fire marshal duty stood at the door to the fire stairs, plainly wishing that he could bolt from the building with the rest of us. He compensated by shoving people through the door as quickly as possible, yelling, “Move! Move!”
    Jeannie, Cindy and I stumbled into the stairwell behind Bolasevich , who bulled his way impatiently past a knot of messengers who were trying to give an obviously pregnant young woman some room to maneuver. Although tempted to follow in his wake, I told myself to get a grip and set an example for my young companions. We adopted a more measured pace of descent, struggling not to give in to panic. If only