Read Online Death on a High Floor by Charles Rosenberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charles Rosenberg
Tags: United States, LEGAL, Literature & Fiction, Thrillers, Mystery, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Suspense & Thrillers
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Still thinking. By the time I got off on our floor, I had pretty much persuaded myself that the lie had been inconsequential and necessary to prevent an injustice. I felt a lot better.
When I got to my office, Gwen was sitting glumly at her desk, hands folded in front of her, doing nothing. As I went past, she didn’t even look up. But she was clearly aware I was passing by. “Mr. Tarza, there is a letter on your chair.” She said it in a flat voice, kind of the way you’d announce to someone that his dog had just died.
“Who’s it from?”
“The Executive Committee.”
I suddenly understood Gwen’s tone of voice. She was probably thinking that, for all intents and purposes, I had just died. Because I am on the Executive Committee. So getting a letter from them is a rather ominous event. Also, Gwen had no doubt come to understand, as we all had in the last few years, that nothing much moved anymore via paper in envelopes. Especially not internal communications among lawyers. Everything of importance came by e-mail. Except notices of termination. For some reason, no doubt at one with the reason that some documents still have red wax seals, termination notices at M&M still come on paper.
But there it was, sitting on my chair. A business-size white envelope, sealed and with my full name neatly typed on it: Robert Winthrop Tarza .
I opened it. The letter had two sentences and was signed by Caroline Thorpe, “Interim Managing Partner.” So, sometime this morning the Executive Committee had apparently gotten together without me and appointed an interim managing partner. Perhaps they thought I was too busy talking to Spritz to attend.
The first sentence of the letter asked me to join the committee for a meeting at 2:00 p.m. in da Vinci . The second sentence alerted me that the topic of discussion would be “the advisability of my taking a temporary leave of absence from the firm.” The word temporary was italicized. Temporary , I was to understand.
I looked at my watch. It was 1:55 p.m. Just enough time to take the internal stairway down one floor and arrive punctually for what was no doubt being contemplated as my “temporary” professional execution.
The letter actually made me feel upbeat. Perhaps it is because I have always enjoyed confrontation, particularly with the bozos on the Executive Committee. Gwen, I noticed as I passed by her desk, did not look upbeat. She still had the same hangdog look she had had when I came in. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
As I opened the door to da Vinci, I wondered why it had been chosen as the venue for the meeting. It will easily hold forty people. The Executive Committee, counting the now-deceased Simon Rafer and me, consisted of only nine people: The managing partner, three partners from L.A., one each from our largest domestic offices in Seattle, Chicago and Washington, and two “floaters” from whichever two of the other nine offices get the nod in any particular year. This year they were from Hong Kong and Boston. Usually, only the Los Angeles-based partners attend in person, with the others there by speaker phone. Usually, the monthly meeting is in Yeats , which is a cozy little room that seats six.
This time though, all the still-living members of the committee were there, even Charlie Wing from Hong Kong. So they had picked da Vinci for the same reason I had picked it for my interrogation by Spritz. For effect. Except this time the desired effect was the formality that they no doubt thought should accompany the execution of a beloved partner. Or perhaps they just thought that I would protest less vehemently with the hills and the Pacific Ocean as backdrop. That the view would calm me.
The seven of them were clustered toward one end of the long mahogany table. They had left a seat for me at table’s end. Perhaps as a courtesy due me by dint of being the most senior among them, but more likely just to make me feel isolated from the group. It may not
When I got to my office, Gwen was sitting glumly at her desk, hands folded in front of her, doing nothing. As I went past, she didn’t even look up. But she was clearly aware I was passing by. “Mr. Tarza, there is a letter on your chair.” She said it in a flat voice, kind of the way you’d announce to someone that his dog had just died.
“Who’s it from?”
“The Executive Committee.”
I suddenly understood Gwen’s tone of voice. She was probably thinking that, for all intents and purposes, I had just died. Because I am on the Executive Committee. So getting a letter from them is a rather ominous event. Also, Gwen had no doubt come to understand, as we all had in the last few years, that nothing much moved anymore via paper in envelopes. Especially not internal communications among lawyers. Everything of importance came by e-mail. Except notices of termination. For some reason, no doubt at one with the reason that some documents still have red wax seals, termination notices at M&M still come on paper.
But there it was, sitting on my chair. A business-size white envelope, sealed and with my full name neatly typed on it: Robert Winthrop Tarza .
I opened it. The letter had two sentences and was signed by Caroline Thorpe, “Interim Managing Partner.” So, sometime this morning the Executive Committee had apparently gotten together without me and appointed an interim managing partner. Perhaps they thought I was too busy talking to Spritz to attend.
The first sentence of the letter asked me to join the committee for a meeting at 2:00 p.m. in da Vinci . The second sentence alerted me that the topic of discussion would be “the advisability of my taking a temporary leave of absence from the firm.” The word temporary was italicized. Temporary , I was to understand.
I looked at my watch. It was 1:55 p.m. Just enough time to take the internal stairway down one floor and arrive punctually for what was no doubt being contemplated as my “temporary” professional execution.
The letter actually made me feel upbeat. Perhaps it is because I have always enjoyed confrontation, particularly with the bozos on the Executive Committee. Gwen, I noticed as I passed by her desk, did not look upbeat. She still had the same hangdog look she had had when I came in. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
As I opened the door to da Vinci, I wondered why it had been chosen as the venue for the meeting. It will easily hold forty people. The Executive Committee, counting the now-deceased Simon Rafer and me, consisted of only nine people: The managing partner, three partners from L.A., one each from our largest domestic offices in Seattle, Chicago and Washington, and two “floaters” from whichever two of the other nine offices get the nod in any particular year. This year they were from Hong Kong and Boston. Usually, only the Los Angeles-based partners attend in person, with the others there by speaker phone. Usually, the monthly meeting is in Yeats , which is a cozy little room that seats six.
This time though, all the still-living members of the committee were there, even Charlie Wing from Hong Kong. So they had picked da Vinci for the same reason I had picked it for my interrogation by Spritz. For effect. Except this time the desired effect was the formality that they no doubt thought should accompany the execution of a beloved partner. Or perhaps they just thought that I would protest less vehemently with the hills and the Pacific Ocean as backdrop. That the view would calm me.
The seven of them were clustered toward one end of the long mahogany table. They had left a seat for me at table’s end. Perhaps as a courtesy due me by dint of being the most senior among them, but more likely just to make me feel isolated from the group. It may not
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