Read Online The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amanda Kyle Williams
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reliable about tossing work my way. Larry Quinn specialized in personal injury suits and his partners handled a lot of divorces. I’d been scratched up by a few rosebushes trying to get a good shot of anunfaithful spouse, and served divorce papers and subpoenas and restraining orders relating to those very cases. Time plus a hundred and fifty a pop for the paperwork, good work if you can get it.
The day was dry like most of our days had been since a three-year drought had kicked in. The weather patterns were changing now, I’d heard, and rain would come back to us. I knew I should care more about our trees, about Lake Lanier, our main source of water in Atlanta, being sixteen feet down. The local news crews were practically hyperventilating over this. Every day the papers treated us to a chart showing just how low the lake was and how long we had until we would run out of water and start eating one another. I secretly and very selfishly enjoyed the drought. It meant I could ride in my old Impala with the top down.
I headed for the revolving doors and felt the hot sun on my shoulders. It had some work to do burning through the morning smog, but it was doing just fine and was almost at the front side of the building, the side that faces I-85 where Larry Quinn’s office was positioned. I sighed. I’d been in Larry’s office when the sun had moved to his side of the triangle. Even with air-conditioning, it was tough to cool the glass-walled offices. We’d had meetings around his conference table with sweaty hairlines and pushed-up shirtsleeves. AT&T, the Atlanta field office for the Bureau, tons of doctors and lawyers, and the Marriott all called this office park home. Executive Park and the Druid Hills section of Atlanta were nearby, and in the opposite direction, was Buford Highway, which was hands down the best area for authentic ethnic cuisine, anything you want, miles of it, Korean, Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Cuban, Peruvian. If you can dream it, if it walks, crawls, slithers, swims, grows on trees or vines, above or underground, somebody on Buford Highway is putting it in a savory sauce and cooking the shit out of it.
Larry Quinn’s office was on the fifteenth floor, a long shoulder-to-shoulder elevator ride on busy mornings, at lunch, at five o’clock, but today I’d squeezed in quickly between the rush hours. Quinn’s legal secretary, Danny, was at the front desk, a handsome guy in his mid-twenties with a headset and fingers that were always busy on the keyboard. Danny seemed to be able to do twelve things at once without skipping a beat. He put in forty hours a week at the offices of Larry Quinn & Associates, juggling work for three attorneys, but on the weekends, Danny shaved himself from cheek to ankle, slipped into heels andsomething slinky, and strutted like a runway model at one of Atlanta’s drag clubs. He was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Morning! I’ll let Larry know you’re here. He’s in a mood, though.”
“Something happen?”
Danny shrugged. “You know Larry—girl, he can go from silly to mean bastard in fifteen seconds. Unfortunately, it’s the mean bastard that’s been hanging around for a couple months now.”
“Maybe his panties are too tight,” I whispered, and we both laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Quinn demanded from his office door.
“Girl talk,” Danny said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Quinn was in his early forties but could pass for younger, a dirty blond with a southern accent who had become famous in Atlanta for his eye-rolling TV commercials.
Divorce, personal injury, tax problems. Make one call before you fall
. Practically everyone in town recognized Larry. I couldn’t accompany him anywhere without some jerk-off saying “Hey, Larry,” and then repeating his slogan word for annoying word.
“Danny, bring the Bosserman file, would you? Thank you,” Quinn said, and we walked into the conference room. Vertical blinds had been installed
The day was dry like most of our days had been since a three-year drought had kicked in. The weather patterns were changing now, I’d heard, and rain would come back to us. I knew I should care more about our trees, about Lake Lanier, our main source of water in Atlanta, being sixteen feet down. The local news crews were practically hyperventilating over this. Every day the papers treated us to a chart showing just how low the lake was and how long we had until we would run out of water and start eating one another. I secretly and very selfishly enjoyed the drought. It meant I could ride in my old Impala with the top down.
I headed for the revolving doors and felt the hot sun on my shoulders. It had some work to do burning through the morning smog, but it was doing just fine and was almost at the front side of the building, the side that faces I-85 where Larry Quinn’s office was positioned. I sighed. I’d been in Larry’s office when the sun had moved to his side of the triangle. Even with air-conditioning, it was tough to cool the glass-walled offices. We’d had meetings around his conference table with sweaty hairlines and pushed-up shirtsleeves. AT&T, the Atlanta field office for the Bureau, tons of doctors and lawyers, and the Marriott all called this office park home. Executive Park and the Druid Hills section of Atlanta were nearby, and in the opposite direction, was Buford Highway, which was hands down the best area for authentic ethnic cuisine, anything you want, miles of it, Korean, Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Cuban, Peruvian. If you can dream it, if it walks, crawls, slithers, swims, grows on trees or vines, above or underground, somebody on Buford Highway is putting it in a savory sauce and cooking the shit out of it.
Larry Quinn’s office was on the fifteenth floor, a long shoulder-to-shoulder elevator ride on busy mornings, at lunch, at five o’clock, but today I’d squeezed in quickly between the rush hours. Quinn’s legal secretary, Danny, was at the front desk, a handsome guy in his mid-twenties with a headset and fingers that were always busy on the keyboard. Danny seemed to be able to do twelve things at once without skipping a beat. He put in forty hours a week at the offices of Larry Quinn & Associates, juggling work for three attorneys, but on the weekends, Danny shaved himself from cheek to ankle, slipped into heels andsomething slinky, and strutted like a runway model at one of Atlanta’s drag clubs. He was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Morning! I’ll let Larry know you’re here. He’s in a mood, though.”
“Something happen?”
Danny shrugged. “You know Larry—girl, he can go from silly to mean bastard in fifteen seconds. Unfortunately, it’s the mean bastard that’s been hanging around for a couple months now.”
“Maybe his panties are too tight,” I whispered, and we both laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Quinn demanded from his office door.
“Girl talk,” Danny said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Quinn was in his early forties but could pass for younger, a dirty blond with a southern accent who had become famous in Atlanta for his eye-rolling TV commercials.
Divorce, personal injury, tax problems. Make one call before you fall
. Practically everyone in town recognized Larry. I couldn’t accompany him anywhere without some jerk-off saying “Hey, Larry,” and then repeating his slogan word for annoying word.
“Danny, bring the Bosserman file, would you? Thank you,” Quinn said, and we walked into the conference room. Vertical blinds had been installed
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