The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [40]
Déjà vu, he thinks. It’s been years since he thought about his dyslexia; he was lucky, diagnosed early, and his parents fought the schools for special classes and a private tutor. By high school it was under control, and in college it had all but disappeared. But in law school, during exams, he had a recurring dream of picking up a newspaper, a textbook, and finding the words garbled, illegible. Strange, he thinks, being reminded of that here.
In his room, in a folder marked Confidential, is the resignation letter Wallace Ford has to sign, and a stack of papers detailing severance pay, company holdings, disclosure and confidentiality agreements, pension and annuity plans. On the plane, he glanced through them one last time and even now, thinking about it, he has a strange sensation of walking on a balance beam and reaching a foot mistakenly into midair. No one should ever have to fire a partner, he remembers Paul Loeffler saying. It goes against everything we believe in. I’d go myself, but it’s a busy time. And I think that he’ll appreciate it coming from someone he had a close relationship with.
The numbers on the balance sheet were undeniable; the Hong Kong office was hemorrhaging money, billable hours in decline for three quarters in a row. Wallace Ford is a great lawyer. He heard that line so many times, in so many different apologetic tones. But he’s no administrator. He has his enthusiasms, his pet projects. It sounds to me like he’s gotten in over his head out there. Bank accounts in Vanuatu? Does he want the SEC after us?
He would have believed it, too, if Wanda Silver hadn’t cornered him in the office kitchen late one Friday afternoon, when everyone else had gone home. Marcel had never known what to make of her: a woman older than his mother, with silver streaks in her curly hair, who wore tie-dyed jumpsuits, batik headbands, and bright bangles on her wrists. There was a rumor that she had spent six months in jail back in the seventies, after chaining herself to the gates of the Livermore Laboratory; yet she had been the firm’s office manager for thirty years, and held the keys to the firm’s safe-deposit boxes, filled out the paychecks, and knew all the passwords to the computer network.
I heard something important, she said, coming in behind him and closing the door with a discreet click. They’re sending you to Hong Kong, Marcel, right?
So I’ve been told.
And Wallace is out?
He turned to face her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips drawn tight, as if she’d been crying. He looked at the clock on the wall above her, and watched the second hand slide past fifteen, then twenty. Wanda, he said, what do you want me to say? I didn’t make the decision. It’s not my department.
I don’t know, she said. I don’t know you, Marcel. And I’ve never really known what to do with kids your age. Pardon my condescension. Young men. So I’m going to assume you’re not as naïve as you sound. I’m going to assume you can guess why Wallace Ford was made a partner of this firm.
Marcel stared at her and said nothing. No, he wanted to say. Enlighten me.
It wasn’t because of all those other cases he won. It wasn’t because of his golf swing, either. It was to avoid a lawsuit. They never liked him. You can say what you want, but I transcribed the minutes of all those meetings. God, I hope this isn’t too much of a surprise to you.
No, he said. It isn’t. Though it had never occurred to him to think about it one way or the other. Partners were partners; how they had gotten there was irrelevant.
I’m sure they’ve shown you the graphs, she said. But they probably haven’t told you that Jim Phillips in Brussels has