Chapter Two.
Sundays were Gus Wheatley's favorite workday. Monday to Friday was always a nonstop chain of conference calls and meetings in and out of the law firm. Saturdays too brought only interruptions. Ambitious young lawyers would drop by his corner office to impress the managing partner, just to let him know they weren't spending the weekend on the tennis court. Sunday was his one day to crank up the stereo and clear his desk.
For a workaholic, Gus was an impressive physical specimen, due largely to the typical overdo-it fashion in which he had heeded a doctor's warnings about his family's history of heart disease. He usually jogged or cycled before sunrise. Conference calls were often handled on the treadmill in the small fitness room adjacent to his office. He rarely drank at business dinners or cocktail parties, preferring always to keep his mind sharp. His confident good looks commanded attention in any setting. At forty-one, he was the youngest lawyer ever to serve as managing partner of Preston & Coolidge, Seattle's premier law firm. He'd spent his entire legal career there, having passed up a Supreme Court clerkship after graduation from Stanford Law. For some, a year at the nation's highest court would have been the ultimate experience. For Gus, drafting appellate opinions was simply too academic. From his first day of law school his goal had been to head up one of the nation's leading law firms. Preston & Coolidge allowed him to live his dream. Night and day. Seven days a week.
The firm technically had a five-member executive committee, but no one disputed that it was Gus who really ran things, the benign dictator who controlled the fate of two hundred attorneys. Gus loved the control, though it took the skill of a consummate politician to build consensus among partners whose egos could barely fit inside the building. It took passion to run a law firm and still find time to schmooze new clients and even practice a little law. He did have help, of course. Two of the firm's best secretaries kept his life in order. Also at his disposal were two gofers, loyal young men who did everything from picking up clients at the airport to shining their boss's shoes. For more substantive matters, an international lawyer, Martha Goldstein, was his anointed managerial assistant. That was a rather unimpressive title for such a coveted position, as it was widely assumed that Gus was grooming Martha to replace him. It would be years before that would happen. In the meantime, she had the brains and charisma to impress clients when Gus couldn't be there, and she was handling an increasing number of intrafirm administrative matters Gus hated to deal with. It might have been borderline sexism, but it was still a fact that older male partners screamed less about their annual bonus when it was presented by an attractive thirty-sixyear-old woman.
Gus tapped his pencil on the accounting summaries before him, keeping time with the music blaring from his stereo. Only Sinatra could add pizzazz to his obligatory review of the firm's eleven million dollars in monthly billings. The speakers on his rosewood credenza were beginning to rattle. Too much "New York, New York." He leaned back and lowered the volume.
"Care to order out for Chinese?"
The woman's voice in the doorway caught him by surprise. It was Martha.
He checked his Rolex, not realizing it was dinnertime. "Yeah, sure," he said with a smile. "Wanna bill it to your client or mine?"
She knew he was kidding. Martha had just lost a major international bank as a client after sending out a bill that included "laundry service" charges that one of her associates had slipped onto the statement. It wasn't for money laundering. He'd actually sent his shirts to the hotel cleaners and billed the client.
"Not funny, Gus."
The desk phone rang. He hit the speaker button. "Hello." "Mr. Wheatley?" the woman replied.
"Yes."
This is Mrs. Volpe at the Youth Center."
"Who?"
"I'm the instructor in the tumbling class for six-to eight-year-olds. Your daughter participates every Sunday afternoon."
"Oh, right:' he said, knowing absolutely nothing about it. "Morgan loves that tumbling."
"Actually, she's still quite timid about it. That's not why I'm calling, though. She told me not to bother you at work, but she's been waiting on a ride home for over two hours. It's almost six o'clock. Everyone's gone. We're ready to close up."
"Thank you for calling, but Morgan's mother takes care of the car rides."
"Yes, she usually does. But no one has seen your wife all day. We can't reach her by phone."
Gus glanced at Martha, who could overhear the conversation on the speaker. She whispered, "Just send a cab."