January? Map readings? The combination for a safe? We both stared desolately at the screen. I heard my name from the P . A. S in the ceiling: "Mr. Malloy , please go to Mr. Thale's office." The announcement was repeated twice, somehow more ominous with each rendition. I felt trouble darken my heart. What were we going to tell Jake? I rose, thanking Lena. She clicked off the machine so that Bert's message, whatever it was, vanished in a little star of light that lingered on the dull screen.
B. Washing
Relieved to have found me, Wash welcomed me to his office with a warmth you'd expect if you were entering his home. George Washington Thale III has the sort of charm meant to reflect breeding, a steady geniality he radiates even with the secretaries. When he turns all his attention and smooth manners on you, you feel like you've met somebody out of Fitzgerald, scion of an old rich world to which all Americans once aspired. Still, I never can forget the term "stuffed shirt." He has this big bag belly that seems to push up to his chest when he is seated. With his bow ties and his horn-rimmed glasses, his liver-spotted face and his pipe, he is a type, one of those used-up_ emblems of prosperity whose very sight makes you think that somewhere there's a kid waiting for his inheritance.
Wash asked after my well-being, but he was still fretting about Jake, and he promptly dialed Martin's extension on his speakerphone. In Wash's grand corner office, decorated in dark woods, with colonial objects brightened by dabs of gold or red, the practice of law generally has an easy, elegant air, a world where men of importance make decisions and minions at a distance carry them out. He has filled this space with memorabilia of George Washington--portraiture and busts, little mementos, things that G. W. was alleged to have touched. Wash is some ninth- or twelfth-hand relation, and his hapless attachment to this stuff always seems secretly pitiful to me, as if his own life will never measure up.
"I'm with Mack," Wash said when Martin came on. "Good," he replied. "Just the men I'm looking for." I could tell from Martin's tone, a quart over on oil, that he too was in the company of someone else. "Mack, I just bumped into Jake and we began to talk about the progress on some of the 397 cases Bert's been handling. I invited him to stop in. I thought we all might want to talk about this together."
"Jake's with you?" Wash asked. He only now grasped what Martin had meant when he said we all should get together. "Right here," Martin answered. Upbeat. Strong tone. Martin is like Brushy--like Pagnucci--like Leotis Griswell in his day, like many others who do it well, a lawyer every waking hour. He manages the firm; he plans the renewal of the river and the buildings on the shore. He counsels clients and gets fourteen younger attorneys in a room and plays war games on all his big-time cases. He flies here and there and engages in endless conference calls with parties strung out across most of the world's time zones, during which he listens, opines, edits briefs, and reads his mail. Something in the law is always at hand and on his mind. And he adores it--he is like a gourmet gorging down an endless meal, eating every goody on his plate. With Jake there, with crisis looming, he sounded chipper and self-confident, raring to go. But when Wash looked back, his aging, pale face was stricken and he looked more scared than Inc.
C. Introducing the Victim of the Crime
If you've ever seen The Birth of Venus with the goddess on the half-shell and all the seraphim bent back with the vapors because she is so great, then you've seen big-firm lawyers when the General Counsel of their major client arrives. During our first few minutes with Jake Eiger in Martin's vast corner office, getting coffee and waiting as Martin quelled the usual urgent calls, about half a dozen partners stuck their heads in to tell Jake how fit he looked, or that his latest letter on the Such and
B. Washing
Relieved to have found me, Wash welcomed me to his office with a warmth you'd expect if you were entering his home. George Washington Thale III has the sort of charm meant to reflect breeding, a steady geniality he radiates even with the secretaries. When he turns all his attention and smooth manners on you, you feel like you've met somebody out of Fitzgerald, scion of an old rich world to which all Americans once aspired. Still, I never can forget the term "stuffed shirt." He has this big bag belly that seems to push up to his chest when he is seated. With his bow ties and his horn-rimmed glasses, his liver-spotted face and his pipe, he is a type, one of those used-up_ emblems of prosperity whose very sight makes you think that somewhere there's a kid waiting for his inheritance.
Wash asked after my well-being, but he was still fretting about Jake, and he promptly dialed Martin's extension on his speakerphone. In Wash's grand corner office, decorated in dark woods, with colonial objects brightened by dabs of gold or red, the practice of law generally has an easy, elegant air, a world where men of importance make decisions and minions at a distance carry them out. He has filled this space with memorabilia of George Washington--portraiture and busts, little mementos, things that G. W. was alleged to have touched. Wash is some ninth- or twelfth-hand relation, and his hapless attachment to this stuff always seems secretly pitiful to me, as if his own life will never measure up.
"I'm with Mack," Wash said when Martin came on. "Good," he replied. "Just the men I'm looking for." I could tell from Martin's tone, a quart over on oil, that he too was in the company of someone else. "Mack, I just bumped into Jake and we began to talk about the progress on some of the 397 cases Bert's been handling. I invited him to stop in. I thought we all might want to talk about this together."
"Jake's with you?" Wash asked. He only now grasped what Martin had meant when he said we all should get together. "Right here," Martin answered. Upbeat. Strong tone. Martin is like Brushy--like Pagnucci--like Leotis Griswell in his day, like many others who do it well, a lawyer every waking hour. He manages the firm; he plans the renewal of the river and the buildings on the shore. He counsels clients and gets fourteen younger attorneys in a room and plays war games on all his big-time cases. He flies here and there and engages in endless conference calls with parties strung out across most of the world's time zones, during which he listens, opines, edits briefs, and reads his mail. Something in the law is always at hand and on his mind. And he adores it--he is like a gourmet gorging down an endless meal, eating every goody on his plate. With Jake there, with crisis looming, he sounded chipper and self-confident, raring to go. But when Wash looked back, his aging, pale face was stricken and he looked more scared than Inc.
C. Introducing the Victim of the Crime
If you've ever seen The Birth of Venus with the goddess on the half-shell and all the seraphim bent back with the vapors because she is so great, then you've seen big-firm lawyers when the General Counsel of their major client arrives. During our first few minutes with Jake Eiger in Martin's vast corner office, getting coffee and waiting as Martin quelled the usual urgent calls, about half a dozen partners stuck their heads in to tell Jake how fit he looked, or that his latest letter on the Such and
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