TWENTY-THREE
Monday morning, I paid my cab driver, thanked him, and then, on a whim, tipped him more, much more, than I could really afford. “Hey, thanks,” he said, and twisted around in the driver’s seat to look at me.
I said, “Wish me luck, will you?”
“Don’t know what you need it for, but good luck, miss.”
I stepped out onto the sidewalk. The cab peeled away with a screech and nosed back into the stream of Madison Avenue traffic. I stared after it for a moment. No turning back now.
I reached into my handbag and put on my big, dark Audrey Hepburn–style sunglasses, the ones I imagined lent a certain aura of mystery.
I lifted my chin, tilted my head way back, and stared up at the familiar fifty-story building, its flags rippling above the entrance, its bronze corporate sculpture out front, its landscaped terrace up top, the blue sky and a few wisps of white cloud perfectly framing my view of the glittering silver tower.
I was nervous—of course I was—but I also felt better than I had in weeks.
It felt terrific to be in heels again, to hear them clicking confidently along beneath me on the sidewalk, to have someplace I needed to be.
I was wearing my favorite killer black crepe suit with a classic georgette blouse, diamond stud earrings, and lady-like alligator pumps.
I was wearing a black pencil skirt, and feeling unapologetic about it.
I drew myself up to my full height—all five feet three inches of me—took several deep breaths, and walked into the building.
For one fleeting moment, I felt like I could simply blend back into the crowd of scrubbed, powdered and groomed, immaculately jacketed-and-tied Parsons Valentine foot soldiers spinning in through those revolving glass doors.
But far too much had happened for that.
I clicked across the marble lobby, as I had done on thousands of other mornings just like this one, past the imposing mahogany-paneled walls, past the elegantly backlit corporate art exhibit—this month, a series of Walker Evans Depression-era photographs on loan from the Whitney—right up to the granite reception desk bearing the large burnished gold letters that spelled out PARSONS VALENTINE & HUNT LLP.
Ricardo was on duty.
He grinned upon seeing me, but it quickly faded as he remembered the last time I’d been here, being frog-marched out of the building by a uniformed guard. Ricardo glanced around quickly before saying in a low voice, “Ingrid. It’s really good to see you.”
“It’s great to see you, RC. How’ve you been?”
“Fine, fine.” He looked around again. “But the question is, how’ve you been?”
“You know what? I’ve been all right.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to know that.” He darted another look around, then asked, “So, what are you doing here?”
I looked at the huge round clock above the reception desk. It was almost ten forty-five. At this point in the morning everyone would already be settled in at their desks upstairs. For the moment, Ricardo and I were alone.
“RC,” I said, “I need to ask you for a big favor. I need you to let me up to see Marty Adler.”
He hesitated. Then he reached into a desk drawer in front of him and quickly slid a blue plastic keycard across the granite counter at me. “Anyone asks, somebody dropped that near the elevators, got it?”
“Got it.” I smiled. “Thanks, RC. I knew I could count on you.”
I made my way over to the last bank of elevators and pressed the button for thirty-seven. The ascent was smooth and swift, the quiet swoosh oddly calming as we climbed higher and higher up from street level.
I was jolted back to reality by a warning ding. The car stopped on Adler’s floor, and I stepped out.
Luckily, no one happened to be walking by, and I dashed over to the interior glass doors, slid the keycard into the panel, and pulled as the green light clicked on.
I really hoped Adler would be in his office.
The way I figured it, I’d have four or five seconds to convince him to see me before he picked up the house security phone.
Feeling a weird rush of adrenaline, I surged down the hall.
I rounded the corner and ran smack into Sharon, Adler’s secretary, who’d been balancing a foam coffee cup that was now upended on the floor, the hot black liquid seeping into the carpet.
She cursed under her breath, then looked up at me.
“How on earth did you get in here?” she asked in a nasty voice.
“You know I’m going to have to call Security—”
“You do that,” I said, before striding to Marty Adler’s office and letting myself in.
He was alone, sitting at his desk with his Starbucks, his Wall Street Journal, and his blueberry muffin. The bright midmorning sunlight streamed in behind him, illuminating his head and shoulders, almost like a halo.
“Ingrid.” He jumped up.
“Marty, before you say anything, please just hear me out,” I said.
He backed away from me in slow, careful steps. He actually held both palms up, as if I were a masked gunman.
“Listen, Marty,” I said, my voice strong and clear and steady. “Murph accessed the SunCorp term sheet, the night before our meeting. He went in and deliberately made those errors in my document so I’d be humiliated in front of you and Lassiter. And I can prove it to you.”
Adler had backed all the way up against the window, and now he stood there, both hands gripping the ledge behind him, as if for ballast. He had a deeply pained expression on his face.
Sharon poked her head into the room, smelling of coffee, and glared at me. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Adler, I don’t know how she got in here. I’ll call Security right now and tell them to—”
“Wait just a minute, Sharon,” Adler said, holding a palm up at her, but keeping his eyes trained closely on me. “Will you please just give us a minute?”
Sharon glared at me again before backing out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
I exhaled the deep breath I had been holding. “Thank you, Marty.”
He shook his head fiercely. “Don’t thank me, Ingrid. What the hell’s this proof you’re talking about? These are very serious accusations. I find it hard to believe that Jeff Murphy would do anything of the sort.”
I removed the server log from my handbag and handed it to him.
Adler looked at me suspiciously, then put on his bifocals and scanned the page.
He took his glasses off and handed the printout back to me.
“I’m sorry, Ingrid. But I’m not sure how I can conclude that one of our attorneys actually accessed a document with the intention of sabotaging one of our own client’s pending deals.
There are a hundred legitimate reasons Murph might have needed to look at that document.
” He crossed his arms across his chest, shaking his head slowly.
“Just what would you have me believe—that Murph went out of his way to sabotage you? To sabotage us? Why in the world would he ever take such a stupid risk? It doesn’t make sense. ”
He shook his head again, with more conviction. “No, no, I’m sorry, Ingrid, but I’m afraid we came to the only reasonable conclusion there was to make.”
This took me aback. I had to pause a moment to think what to say next.
Truthfully, I had been counting on Adler giving me more of the benefit of the doubt.
That Adler might actually not believe me, that he would not even be willing to listen to what I had to tell him, after everything I’d done for him and sacrificed for this firm, was unbearable.
It hurt to realize, finally, that the pool of goodwill these partners had for me was always going to be shallower than the ones they harbored for Murph and Hunter, and others who reminded them of their own sons and brothers and selves.
Adler said, “I don’t see the need to call for Security if you leave without a fuss, Ingrid, but you do need to leave. Right now.”
A current of rage overwhelmed me. It was amazing how much braver you got when you had nothing left to lose.
“No,” I said hoarsely. “You don’t seem to understand, Marty. I am not leaving here without clearing my name.”
Adler said nothing. We stared stonily at each other.
Finally I said, “If you don’t believe me, you can call Justin Keating in here and he’ll tell you himself.”
That seemed to get his attention. Adler narrowed his eyes at me. “Donald Keating’s kid? What the hell does he have to do with any of this?”
“Justin’s the one who found out Murph did this,” I said. “Justin’s the one who told me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Adler let out a heavy sigh.
He turned his back on me, faced the vast picture window, and stood there shaking his head for what seemed like a long time.
I crossed my arms and waited. Finally he stalked back over to his desk and gave his green leather swivel chair an angry spin.
He glared at me. He buzzed his intercom.
“Sharon, get Justin Keating in here. Yes, now.”
Justin answered immediately. It was as if he’d been waiting for Adler’s call.
Fifteen minutes later, Murph knocked a shave-and-a-haircut as he poked his head around the door.
“You wanted to see me, Marty?” he asked as he poked his head around the corner of Adler’s office door—it was the exact same way he’d entered my office about a thousand times during our years together, working side by side as colleagues at this firm.
“Yes.” Adler rose somberly from his desk. “Get in here, please, Jeffrey.”
Hearing his full first name, Murph laughed. “Whoa. Jeffrey, huh. Nobody ever called me that except my mom if I’d been playing ball in the—” He took a few steps into the room and then stopped short as I stood from Adler’s couch.
The look on his face was priceless.
“Hey, Murph. Surprised to see me?” I asked.
He recovered fast. “Ingrid. Hey,” he said, managing to sound almost normal. He looked questioningly from me to Adler and then at Justin, who shifted uncomfortably in the chair across from me. “What are you doing here?”
Adler sighed. “Murph, I’ve just heard some very disturbing revelations, and—”