Simple Intent (2 page)

He had never been in James King’s office. Never met the man himself. Business was usually conducted at the back door. A pair of hands, an invisible face, the exchange of money. He glanced behind him. Chancy hadn’t moved. 

King said, “Fertility talismans.”

“What’s that?’ Ray said.

“The figurines,” King said, rolling a white vinyl chair away from the glass desk. He was tall, taller than Ray would have guessed. The light glinted off his shaved head, danced down his white polyester shirt to his sleek white trousers, all the way to the polished silver tips of his white leather boots. Everything about King was shiny—like the way a snake looks wet until you touch it, the way the pavement seems to ripple in the heat of August. His gold jewelry winked and glittered against ebony skin. The lights and the mirrors made it hard to focus on him. The room reflected itself like an ice cube turned inside out.

King paraded around the room, pointing to figurines. “The Orisha’s goddess of fertility from southwestern Nigeria. The Venus figurine of the Paleolithic period.” He touched another. “There is nothing so beautiful or erotic as a fertile woman.” King winked at Ray, “But you know that, my brother.” He slid silently behind his desk.

Chancy stepped up. “Enough of that shit. Give me my money.”

Ray watched the snake behind the desk turn his head in Chancy’s direction. A chill ran down his spine. Man, that was not cool. You gotta be cool. 

King stared at Chancy, piercing eyes from a granite face. Then King surprised Ray. He smiled. A broad gold-toothed grin. And laughed. A deep rolling infectious chuckle. 

Chancy slapped him five and slipped into a sling chair facing King’s desk. 

Ray laughed nervously and lowered himself into the other sling chair. 

Still smiling, King said, “Okay, my brother. Let’s do business.” 

He pressed a button under his desk and sections of the wall moved. Mirrored panels slid away revealing a large safe. King turned the tumblers and opened the door. “Would you like something behind door number one?”

Tightly wrapped bricks of heroin filled the safe, with just enough room for a glass, silver-lidded bowl. King removed the container.

Ray looked at Chancy. 

The brother’s left leg jittered, droplets of sweat broke out on his forehead. Ray knew he’d better do something fast if they were going to get what they’d come for.

Ray stood, placing himself between the bowl and Chancy. “We didn’t come here for that. Why don’t you put it back, and let’s talk about door number two.” 

King looked past Ray. “Is that what you want?’ 

Ray caught Chancy’s eye. “The money,” mouthed Ray. “We want the money, remember?” 

Chancy leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, that’s what I want. Let’s see motherfucking door number two.” 

King returned the bowl to the safe. The mirrors moved back into place, whispering shut.

Ray tried to keep his eye on the sliding panel, as in the shell game. But he blinked, and a second later it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other started. Clever. There was something admirable about a clever man. Not this man, though. Shit. This man gave him the creeps. 

King had opened another safe behind another set of mirrors. He pulled out a stack of money—fives, tens, twenties, ones, then a bunch of fifties. 

Chancy pointed. “Make that four G in smaller bills.”

“Four G?” King laughed. “You mean three, don’t you, brother?”

“Don’t start with that shit, man. I know you remember the deal with Marone.” 

Ray looked at Chancy. Who the hell was Marone?

“Here.” Chancy tossed a folded paper bag onto the shiny desk.

King stared at the paper bag, slid his gaze up to Chancy, hardening his eyes. Then he shook his head and stuffed four grand in the bag, closed and locked the safe. He tossed the money to Chancy who caught the bag, held it in his lap and stared back at King. 

Ray stood as the mirrors did their sliding trick. He offered Chancy a hand, spoke quietly in the way you soothe a sick child, calm a nervous animal. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

Chancy ignored Ray’s hand. His muddy eyes flickered with anger and something else. He waved Ray off. “Go on. I’ll be right there.”

Ray nodded to King then pushed hard on the heavy steel door, glancing back at Chancy sitting with a lap full of money and his sorry ass hanging out of the back of a stupid sling chair. Ray stepped down the red carpeted stair and eased the door shut behind him. 

Lou and Maria were talking at the front of the store, pointing at something outside. Ray couldn’t hear what made her laugh, but he enjoyed watching the beauty of it. The way her mouth opened and her brows arched, the shake of her shoulders and breasts. Ray smiled. He started to say something, but was interrupted by the popping sound of a gunshot.

Maria screamed and ducked behind the counter. More popping. Lou hit the floor, ass in the air, his arms over his head, as Chancy came barreling through the steel door sending Ray crashing into a metal rack of soup and beans.

“Now we be done, Mr. King.”

Ray struggled to stand. Blood ran into his eye from a gash on his forehead. Chancy, with the bag full of money tucked under his arm, waved a small black gun. He swung at Ray, clipped the side of his head. Ray went down, smacking his head on the hard tile. Just before he passed out he saw Chancy’s feet moving away. The motherfucker had shined his shoes this morning. 

Chancy leaned over the front counter and winked at Maria huddled in the corner. He opened the register and snatched the few bills in the drawer.

She pushed out her chin, met his eyes. Chancy smiled and said, “Love to stay, but I gotta go.” He backed to the door, pulling his cap low on his forehead. Just another guy on his way somewhere, leaving footprints in snow that was already melting.

Slowly, Ray pushed himself up. Blood dripped into his left eye. His ear was on fire. He crawled toward the open office door. James King sat in his white chair, wide eyes staring. There was a perfect round hole in his perfect round, shiny head. The snake was dead.

NO longer the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia had become the City of Bitch, Moan and Sue. The more the public wanted their revenge, their justice, their due—the more wealthy attorneys became. The men at Montgomery, Deluca, Banning and Scott were no exception. They sat in calfskin chairs that smelled like well-worn currency, sipped Peruvian coffee from Limoges china and displayed framed photographs of themselves cruising to the property in Belize on the firm’s yacht, the
Don’t Say Anything
.

Fourteen of the top two hundred and fifty law firms in the United States made Philadelphia their home. Montgomery, Deluca, Banning and Scott was number five. 

Paris Kendrick had been with the firm from the beginning, when there was just Ted Montgomery and a metal desk. But that was more years ago than she’d ever admit, and thanks to a few cosmetic surgeries, she’d never have to. 

As the firm grew, law schools from all over the world sent the best and brightest to vie for intern positions. The wooing came from both ends. MDB&S spent a small fortune in symphony and theater tickets, golf outings, Atlantic City weekends, and the best box seats in three stadiums. This year’s potential rainmakers hadn’t been difficult to recruit, law schools were bursting at the seams in the new millennium. It seemed everyone had a dream. 

Paris Kendrick had heard it all. These new attorneys said they weren’t in it for the money, they said they wanted to help people that needed help. They said they wanted to make a change in the system, make a difference. She noticed they had no problem cashing their checks every payday, and thought the only difference they were making was from mainstream to Mainline, from lemon to Lexus.

Today was Day One for the interns. Today, they would learn the first rule: To see anyone, to get anything, to be anyone at Montgomery, DeLuca, Banning and Scott, you had to go through Paris. 

In the lobby, Richard Early loitered by the marquee of business names. He watched the arrivals and tried to guess which floor they’d pick. So far, he’d been right sixty-two percent of the time. When a gorgeous brunette in a conservative suit entered, he figured her for floor three, Stanton Talent Agency. She had the exotic looks of a mixed parentage, the height and shoulders of an athletic father, the obvious benefits of a well-proportioned mother. He imagined her on the pages of his favorite lingerie catalog wearing red lace and leather. The young woman ran her eyes down the names on the marquee and stopped at Montgomery, Deluca, Banning and Scott. For once, Early was glad to be wrong. He followed her into the elevator.

Kenneth Reilly ran through the lobby, slid across the newly-waxed floor and jammed his hand between the closing elevator doors. “Hold it,” he said, squeezing in. He glanced at the lit floor button, then at his companions. 

“Looks like we’re all headed to the same place.” He held out his hand. “Ken Reilly. Most people call me Reilly.” 

Early shook his hand. “Richard Early, pleased to meet you.”

The woman smiled, resigned to social niceties. “Sailor Beaumont.”

Reilly shook her hand. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

They rode in silence, Sailor calming herself with a silent chant, Reilly bouncing in his shoes, and Early inhaling the perfumed air. 

The first thing they saw when the elevator doors opened was Paris posed behind the platform reception desk. She knew that first impressions meant everything.

Reilly sidestepped out of the elevator before the doors had fully opened. “Good morning, we’re the—”

“Interns,” she finished. “Yes, I know. Paris Kendrick.” Her perfect breasts strained beneath Coco Chanel’s vision of corporate America as she extended a manicured hand to Reilly. Paris thought he’d clean up good under her tutelage. He already had that certain something. He was charming, intriguing even. If only she were younger—or he were richer. She dropped his hand, stepped down and greeted the other two, remembering Sailor Beaumont from the interviews. Even if she hadn’t come to them from such a socially respected family, this beauty would be hard to forget. Unlike the dumpy man behind her. 

A stocky dark-haired girl wearing a headset approached. She stepped behind the desk, plugged herself into the phone board and began routing calls. Paris introduced her with a nod of her head. “That’s Missy. She can answer any of your questions if I’m indisposed. Now, if you’ll follow me.”

The interns followed the swaying hips of Paris Kendrick past offices with gold nameplates, rows of blue cubicles and a brightly lit break room. At Conference Room A, they filed in and selected their seats with care. This was a business where everything mattered. 

As subtle as her perfume, Paris disappeared, clicking the door shut behind her.

Pure class. Montgomery, Deluca, Banning and Scott expected nothing less. Seated in soft leather chairs in climate-controlled comfort, the interns arranged themselves. Reilly unbuttoned his jacket, leaned back in his chair, and threw one leg casually over the other. Sailor sat facing the door, her signature handbag propped on the seat beside her, a worn leather satchel at her feet. Richard Early rocked in his chair, cleaning his wire-framed glasses with a handkerchief. Not long for this world of corporate lunches and client shmoozing, he’d be shipped downstairs to work at a hand-me-down desk, tread on second-grade carpet and fetch his own water from the tap. Shackled to his desk by numbers and papers and thickly bound ledgers, he would slave away in a tiny, dark cubicle and be assisted by a secretary hired for her competence not her breasts. Richard Early would become a forgotten gear in the machine.

Reilly thought it was a waste. All those years of school. For what? If you were going to be a lawyer, you should be visible. People should know who you are. Like Edward J. Deluca and Len Banning. That was what Reilly wanted. Fame. And money. 

There was a knock at the door, and then it opened slowly. 

A beefy man in a checked shirt and paisley tie entered dabbing his sweaty forehead with a pink handkerchief and breathing through his mouth. “Murphy, taxes. I need Early. Right now.” 

Sailor fought the urge to plug her nose. Murphy smelled like old sneakers and pond scum. 

Early noticed. He made a face, then followed the man from a safe distance. At the door, he said, “It was nice to meet you, both.”

Sailor and Reilly waved as Early shuffled out. 

Sailor leaned back and crossed her long, brown legs. Reilly appreciated the view. Well-groomed, impeccably dressed, she was charm and grace, like a darker Princess Di. She was nothing like the Irish girls from his neighborhood. She was old money, the kind of girl who’d never clip coupons or notice the price of cheese at the deli. If she wanted it, she got it. 

“Do you hear music?” Sailor asked. 

Ken Reilly smiled, recognizing the baritone of Henry James Scott. “Just wait,” he told her. 

The door opened and a stunning blonde straight from the beauty pageant circuit sauntered in. Behind her, the singing grew louder as the man burst through the door, singing and stomping and shaking hair that didn’t budge. “If I was a rich man, daidle, deedle, daidle, digguh, digguh, deedle, daidle, dum...” Harry James Scott finished the song, holding the final note in perfect pitch. Miss Sweden applauded and motioned that Sailor and Reilly should, too.