Side Bet Bluff Ch. 05

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked.

"Not at all. Glenda Roberts, this is Jaycee Wade. Jaycee's a good friend staying with me for a bit."

"So I heard," said Glenda, eyeing Jaycee up and down as they shook hands.

"Nice to meet you," Jaycee said curtly.

Glenda turned to me. "How's the work coming along? You get the Dunham and Burbank contracts completed?"

"Burbank's done," I answered. "Dunham is just waiting on the early Q2 financial projections and the closing date for stage seven, both of which they should be calling into me before lunch. The only other things open are my pro bono projects. Also, I finished the 'Sasquatch report'."

"Why do you insist on calling it the 'Sasquatch report'?" Glenda asked, shaking her head.

"Because it's huge and when you're done reading it you're not sure if it makes any sense, plus I don't want to say the 'Using State Statute of Frauds Precedent to Contest Security Transactions Based on Lack of Either Writing or Parole Evidence in the B of A's 47-17 Special Traunch Challenge' Report," I replied, blatantly ripping off a joke from a certain legen-dary sitcom.

"Yeah, I'd have to vote for 'Sasquatch report'," Jaycee agreed.

"Jaycee, he's just trying to impress you. He just made up that long name, except for the last bit of it. It actually is the 'B of A's 47-17 Special Traunch Challenge Report," Glenda explained.

"I'd still have to go for the 'Sasquatch report.' That just sounds way cooler."

Glenda shook her head. She was as by-the-book as any lawyer I'd ever met. "Will, I know the rumors are running rampant. Just promise me that we'll have a serious talk in the next couple days. I can't say much, or really anything, right now. Except to say that I really appreciate your work and the foresight that you bring to every assignment, and your dedication to the clients. It's certainly been noticed, and not just by me."

"Thank you , Glenda," I said. "I appreciate you saying that. And I'll eagerly await your call."

"Ok, then. And drop Dunham off at my office when it's done. I'll send Gary around to pick up Burbank and the ... 'Sasquatch ... report'. ... That just doesn't sound right."

I actually laughed. It didn't sound right coming out of her mouth. But it did sound hysterical.

"Nice to meet you, Jaycee," Glenda added. And she turned and left.

Jaycee turned to me. "So that was your boss?"

I shrugged. "The closest analog in a set-up like this," I answered.

"That was very nice of her to say, those things about you," Jaycee said.

"Yes, it was. But she also all but told me I was being fired."

"Everyone's being fired, Will."

"What? They can't fire everyone. That doesn't happen."

"That's what they're doing. They're closing the office," Jaycee explained.

I just looked at her, trying to wrap my mind around what she'd said. Firms just didn't close entire offices. That was practically unheard of. Even when Baker, Oakeshott, Oswald, & Baxter laid off over a hundred people three months ago, they still kept the office going with a mere dozen attorneys.

"At least, that's the conclusion Karen and I came to when we were swapping notes. It's the only thing that fits all the facts. Maybe you can think of some other thing it might be," she added. "I mean, you're smarter than us, but ..."

"No. No, you're probably right. Right now, you two are better informed than I am. And I'm enough of an arrogant asshole to think that if a lawyer as good as me is getting let go then it must be because everyone is getting let go."

"You're not an arrogant asshole to think that, Will. You're self-aware." Then Jaycee laughed, "which would be a first for a man."

Just then my phone rang. Ah, back to work. I might as well enjoy it while it lasted. Jaycee gave me a kiss on the forehead and then left. It looked like the info I needed was going to come in piecemeal, but that just meant the work would be stretched out until lunch.

By 11:45 the work was done and dropped off, I had given my billable hours from the last two days to Ms. Wilkinson for her to enter into the computer, and I was putting the few personal items from my office and the files to complete my pro bono work into my briefcase. An email marked 'Urgent' popped up in my work account from the managing partner.

"This is it," I thought as I opened it. It said there was a mandatory meeting for all recipients of the email at two o'clock in the large conference room. I decided to print it out to take with me to lunch. I wanted to see who was, and wasn't, invited to this meeting. I needn't have bothered though. The answer was every single associate.

"You ready?" Ms. Wilkinson said from my doorway.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I smiled.

"Good. We've got reservations for noon at The Vault." That surprised me. The Vault was a very pricy restaurant on the top floor of the banking building, the next skyscraper over. It wasn't the type of place paralegals, receptionists, and secretaries normally ate.

"Who's buying?" I asked, knowing the answer already.

"Don't you want to take us out on our last day?," Ms. Wilkinson said while batting her eyelashes at me. I swear, she treats me like I'm her son (or maybe a favored nephew) for years and thanks to Jaycee she's suddenly flirting with me.

"Did Jaycee tell you what I would expect in return?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at her.

Ms. Wilkinson laughed. "Yes. Actually, she did."

Crap. I think I was blushing.

We met the rest of our party in the lobby.

"Allison, Jenny, so nice to see you again."

As I mentioned earlier, Allison was a paralegal, and was a great legal researcher. She could go through a legal database like a hot knife through butter. She was also particularly adept at tracking the myriad documents, with drafts, that went into the most complicated of transactions. She was very petite, barely five feet tall and I doubted she weighed much more than ninety pounds soaking wet. She had slight curves, just enough to let you know that she was still very feminine. Her hair was a shiny copper, like some combination of blonde and red, cut short in a pageboy. Freckles dotted her nose and blended in to her upper cheeks, though they were hard to notice as her face was dominated by thick, coke-bottled glasses with dark, tortoise-shell frames. She clutched her hands together in front of her. Allison had always been very shy, never saying any more than was necessary. Even now her eyes spent more time looking down at the floor than at me. But the few glances I got showed me they were blue. I hated to admit it, but I couldn't even remember her last name.

One of the legal secretaries was covering for Jenny at the front desk. I did a double-take. That wasn't 'one of' the secretaries. That was the managing partner's personal secretary.

"Yes," Jenny sighed, seeing where my attention had been drawn. "It would seem I've been replaced even earlier than the rest."

Knowing how much of a misogynist Mr. Wiseman is, I at first had assumed Jenny had been hired entirely for her looks. She was the quintessential eye candy. Gorgeous, young (at least, younger than me), blonde, skinny while still having breasts a man would love to peak at (D cup? Maybe between a C and a D). She was perfectly coiffed. I'd never seen her looking less than perfectly tailored and elegantly put together. Yet she had kept her job for two years now because she knew how to handle herself among the rich and powerful who walked into our offices. Jenny was always formal in her dealings with clients and attorneys. If someone made a pass at her, she pretended she had no idea what the guy was talking about. I think the only informal thing about her was her preference for being called Jenny instead of Jennifer or Miss Daniels.

We made the kind of grim facial expressions that one makes when you recognize a difficult situation but don't really know how to talk about it. Ms. Wilkinson broke the tension.

"Ok gang, let's get a move on. I don't want to lose out on my first meal at The Vault in five years because we were late."

"Will doesn't take you there?" Jaycee asked as we began our short journey, that would consist mostly of long elevator rides. She then turned on me. "Shame on you."

"Oh, don't you worry about it Jaycee. Will does treat me to lunch at a nice place occasionally. And he's the only one of the attorneys here who bothers, too."

"Really?" asked Jaycee. "Not even the partners?"

"Especially not the partners," answered Jenny. "They wouldn't deign to recognize the support staff existed unless they explicitly needed something work-related from us or were with a client and wanted to make a show of how much everyone here is just 'one big family'."

I was about shocked to my core to hear Jenny say that. I'd never heard her say a negative word, or anything that could even be interpreted as criticism, in the two years she'd been working here.

"You're exaggerating," responded Jaycee.

"No," Ms. Wilkinson answered, with both Jenny and Allison backing her up. "There's a strict no fraternization rule that they enforce. Of course, officially it states that attorneys cannot engage in romantic or sexual relationships with the support staff. But they try to put the kibosh on any kind of social interaction. Will is one of the few exceptions."

"Ms. Wilkinson, you make it sound like the Dark Ages, with nobility and serfs," I said.

She turned to me and said, "William, I'd like it if you would call me Karen."

I laughed. "Oh, is all of us getting fired all that it took for that to be ok?"

She smiled at me. "Yes," she answered simply.

"Well, then. Karen. I am honored that you have allowed me this informality." Jaycee was smiling broadly at me. I didn't know if it was for my choice of words, or the fact that she was allowed to use Karen Wilkinson's first name before me.

"You're very welcome, William. And you're right, the law world is very much like nobility and serfs. Including attempts on both sides to circumvent the rules of separation for sex."

"That sounds like the perfect opening for some juicy gossip," said Jaycee gleefully.

Jenny nodded. "I don't know if I can count the number of times I've been solicited for sex by the attorneys here. Including offers to 'set me up' and 'make me a kept woman'. Most of those offers came from married men, of course."

"I'm not sure I wanted this kind of gossip," I said. "I'm becoming rather depressed."

"I don't think it's depressing, Mr. Jennings," Jenny said. "It's simply the way the world works."

"Jenny, I insist you call me 'Will.' You too, Allison."

"Of course, Mr. Jennings," Jenny said. What?

I looked at Allison. "Yes, Mr. Jennings," she said meekly with her eyes downcast.

Jaycee giggled, then said "I told you girls - the four accepted names are 'Will', 'William', 'Sir', and 'Master.' That was rule number one." Ms. Wilkinson, sorry, I mean Karen, smiled.

"Oh, I wouldn't presume," said Allison. What the hell did that mean?

"So," said Jaycee. "If the rules against fraternization didn't exist. Is there an attorney you'd try to fraternize with?"

Allison stared at Jaycee, shot a quick glance over to me, then back down to the ground.

"That's not a fair question," said Jenny.

"I've always had a crush on Glenda Roberts," said Karen. Ok, that didn't get a double-take, that deserved a triple-take.

"Really?" asked Jaycee. "Isn't she a little ... serious?"

"Oh, yeah," replied Karen. "She gets me seriously wet."

And my brain melted.

Maybe this was the influence of the office closing. But I think it had more to do with Jaycee's presence. I swear, the girl had a knack for getting people to open up and tell their deepest, most intimate secrets. And they'd do it just minutes after meeting her. She'd make a great private investigator.

We made it up to The Vault and gave the hostess our reservation. I found myself turned toward Allison and we made eye contact. Then I winked at her.

"Eep!" went Allison as her eyes shot wide open and her mouth clenched tightly shut. "Excuse me," she said and walked briskly towards the bar.

"What happened to her?" Jenny asked.

"William winked at her," Karen said.

"You didn't," Jaycee laughed, then slapped me on the arm. "I'd better go check on her. She's probably shaking uncontrollably in the ladies' room." And she followed Allison's path through the bar.

"You winked at her?" Jenny asked.

"Just wanted to test something that Jaycee told me earlier," I tried to answer cryptically.

"I hope the little pixie has got a spare set of panties in her purse," Karen said. I was beginning to think that Karen was how Jaycee was going to be in about three decades. Well, hopefully not the lesbian part. But now that Karen had dropped the formalities she definitely seemed to share with Jaycee the lack of any filter for their mouths.

We were shown to our table, and were shortly joined by Jaycee leading an obviously embarrassed Allison along by the hand. Service was prompt and lunch was a brisk affair, as is typical with a place used to business deals being hashed out in an hour over fine food and stiff drinks.

The conversation quickly revolved around office gossip -- who was sleeping with whom, who deserved to be let go if there had only been layoffs, what were the worst examples of idiocy or despicable behavior they'd witnessed. Jaycee ate it all up and kept prodding everyone for the more outrageous secrets to be spilled.

Eventually, the upcoming events of the afternoon came to mind, and discussion centered on each of our future prospects.

"I'm confident I'll land on my feet," Jenny said, in her usual, unflappable manner. And she probably would too. She struck me as the type who could be tossed into the briar patch and walk away without a scratch. "Businesses are always on the lookout for a good receptionist, and if push comes to shove I can always go to work for my father. But I worry about you all. This town's not a good place to be right now if you're in the legal market."

"It is kind of ironic," I admitted. "The worse you are, the earlier you get fired during the downturn, the better chance you have of finding one of the few openings out there. Right now the market is just saturated with out of work people from other firms, and there's no work to be had." I was starting to get depressed.

"Don't worry about it, William," said Karen. "You'll have at least two, probably three, offers of employment by the end of the week."

"I appreciate your vote of confidence, Karen, but ..."

"That's not a prediction," she cut me off. "It's a fact as sure as the sky is blue and Jaycee's bottom is red."

"Not that you need the work," she added.

"What does that mean?" asked Jaycee.

"There's a reason why I didn't even ask your William if he'd pay for our lunch. He can afford it, he's loaded."

My eyes popped at that.

"Karen, I don't think you should assume that just because I'm a fourth year attorney, I am set ..."

"You forget, Will," she cut me off again. "I've already shown you once today. There's very little of your life I don't know. By the way, Steven Beck's secretary Belinda is a doll. She actually invited me to her wedding even though we've never met face to face. Anyway, he'll probably be calling you before the day's out."

Have you ever gone through a day that took everything you thought you knew about the people around you and the way the world operated and turned it on its collective ear?

Really?

This was my first.

"Will?" Jaycee asked.

"You think?" I asked Karen. I hadn't taken my eyes off her.

She nodded. "By the way," Karen added, "I got Belinda to allow me to invest in his fund, too."

I glared at her. This was troubling news. "Karen, you shouldn't have ... well, actually, I'm sure that investment made you quite a bundle. But we're not supposed to enter into new business ventures with our clients."

"Yes, we're not supposed to, but everyone does it anyway," stated Karen.

"Not me. I told Mr. Beck that I couldn't ethically represent him and invest my money with him. It's called commingling of funds."

"I'm confused," said Karen. "I know for a fact that a good number of lawyers at the firm have done similar deals."

"I don't doubt it," I added. "I've found that I interpret the ethics rules on this more strictly than others, but with Beck it would still have been a no-no."

"Still?" Karen looked worried.

"Don't worry, you're in the clear," I assured her. "You aren't providing objective, professional legal advice to our client. That's my job. So your investing in his fund shouldn't be a problem, especially if I can honestly say that I didn't know about it, which I didn't."

"That's really weird," Karen continued. "So it's ok if you didn't have knowledge?"

"I'd argue so, since it would be impossible for me to lose my objectivity if I didn't know about how it would affect you," I continued to assure her.

Karen continued, "And you really haven't done any side deals? What about all those companies calling you up and the meetings you attended over the past few weeks that you didn't bill for?"

"How much did you invest with Beck?" I asked her, trying to divert away from that line of conversation.

"My entire life's savings," she replied just as our waiter arrived with the check. Karen proceeded to make a big deal out of whipping out her credit card and holding it out to him, all without glancing at the check, or even breaking eye contact with me.

"Well," I said, stunned, " ... as a good friend of mine is wont to say ... I'll be a monkey's uncle!"

"Do either of you understand what's going on?" Jaycee asked Allison and Jenny.

"I'm afraid I am quite bewildered," said Jenny.

"I think ..." said Allison's hesitant voice. "that Karen is saying that she is rich, and Mr. Jennings should have become even more rich, but not as rich as this Mr. Beck, who I can only assume has something to do with The Beck Fund, one of our clients."

"Right," added Jenny. "Steven Beck runs The Beck Fund, which is a hedge fund. And while Ms. Glenda Roberts is the partner in charge of that account, Mr. Jennings was the one who got the Beck Fund as a client, and Mr. Beck always insists on Mr. Jennings being present for all meetings when he visits the office."

"But how," started Jaycee, "did The Beck Fund make all this money when the stock market crashed and everybody lost everything?"

"Enough," I said, probably a little too loudly. "Karen, I love you dearly, and am very happy you were able to take that opportunity that has, at least temporarily, turned out well for you. But I humbly ask you to drop the subject of money."

"As you wish, William," Karen said. "And I do apologize. I did get carried away a bit there."

"Will?" Jaycee asked again.

"Jaycee, remember when I told you not to worry about money this week?" I asked. "Well you're lucky I didn't make it an order. Otherwise you'd be taking that skirt off for the second time in anticipation of a good, public spanking."

That broke whatever tension remained from Karen's admission. This time I found myself making eye contact with Jenny and I winked at her. She smiled and winked back. Ah well, I guess they can't all respond like Allison.

The rest of our time in the restaurant passed rather quickly. Jaycee, of course, made sure the topic of conversation made its way back to sex.

"Ok, my bad first experience," she said, clearly enjoying being the center of attention. "We're all of ten seconds into the deed when I have a super loud queef."

"Queef?" I asked.

"It's like a fart but from the vagina," Jaycee laughed.

"There's a word for that?!?" Karen bellowed. Jenny was covering her mouth in a desperate attempt not to laugh. "Did you know that?" Karen asked Jenny, laughing uproariously.

"I'm sure I don't know what Jaycee is referring to," said Jenny, with her upturned mouth and embarrassed expression showing it to be a lie.