Finally, she fired off a note to the supplies department, ordering a computer and office supplies be sent to Conference Room D for use in trial preparation, and sent a separate note to the kitchen, requesting that a sandwich be sent up every day at noon, with a Diet Coke and a carton of whole milk, such meals to be billed to RMC v. ConsolidatedComputers.

I sent the last memos by e-mail, so that in a nanosecond, I would have a new identity, an office, and a job. An entirely new life and citizenship. True, it was temporary, valid only within the Silver Bullet, like a corporate green card. But for the time being, I was hiding in plain sight.

But wait, a loose end. I sat back in the Loser Chair and thought for a minute. Other lawyers might become curious about the redhead in the conference room. Maybe they’d inquire, even stop by. No lawyer is an island. Hmmm. I called up a blank screen and tapped out under today’s date:

TO: All GRUN PARTNERS and ASSOCIATES

FROM: LINDA FROST

RE: HELP!

I am an associate from the New York office presently in Conference Room D on the 32nd floor, working on RMC v. Consolidated Computers, a massive securities matter with extensive document work. Although the case is dry and somewhat technical, I would appreciate some help, as trial is in two weeks in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. I cannot promise your time would be billable, since this client is extremely touchy about its bills. Anyone wishing to lend a hand in this difficult case should feel free to stop by at any time.

Perfect. It would send any lawyer worth his billings screaming in the opposite direction. I’d be dead and petrified before I’d see a partner or an associate from this firm. They’d slip the food under the goddamn door, like I carried Ebola. I hit theSEND button on the e-mail menu, feeling a swell of satisfaction.

I was back in business.

I spent the morning in Conference Room D, working and watching wage slaves bring me a computer, a phone, and office supplies. I thanked them enough to be polite but not memorable. Between their visits, I studied Mark’s file, which was spread out at the far end of the conference table, shielded from view by a bunker of dead files from one of the other conference rooms. I kept the door closed, so the room was soundproofed against the losers trundling in at nine o’clock. Didn’t they know the day was half over by then?

My best friend Sam Freminet would have arrived at work bright and early. He would already be at his glass runway, billing time in his office just floors above me, on the polar opposite of the Loser Floor, the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast was home to Grun’s heavy hitters, rainmakers, movers and megashakers: the offices of high-density department heads and Executive Committee members, not to mention the throneroom of The Great and Powerful. Pay no attention to that man behind the client.

I scanned the computer printouts of Mark’s checkbook and found two additional cash payments to Sam Freminet, for one thousand each, in the months before Mark was killed. The midday sun edged onto the papers, but I wasn’t distracted. I was wondering why Sam, he of Gold Coast and gold card, had taken cash payments from Mark.Sam?

I powered up my new computer and fiddled around until I remembered how to find the New Matter Reports, the listing of the new cases opened each month. The New Matter Reports were supposedly put on the computer to alert the partners to possible conflicts of interest, but the real reason was so they could say, LOOK AT THE BUSINESS I’M BRINGING IN! I’M PAYING FOR YOU, CHUMP! And of course, the time-honored, MINE REALLY IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. YOU’RE GONNA NEED A CRANE FOR THIS MOTHER.

I selected number 4 from the menu.

SEARCH WHICH ATTORNEY? said the computer.

I tapped out Sam Freminet.

SEARCHING FOR NEW MATTERS OPENED BY MR. FREMINET, said the computer.PLEASE WAIT.

“Sure,” I replied, just to have someone to talk to. I thought of Grady, but pushed that thought away, and fast. There was no contacting him. The cops had to be watching, maybe tapping his phone. Then I thought of my mother. Dare I call?

THE INFORMATION YOU REQUESTED IS ALMOST READY. PLEASE WAIT.

I half expected to hear a littleca-ching. Maybe the screen would turn green.

HERE IS THE INFORMATION YOU REQUESTED. IT IS CONFIDENTIAL AND SHOULD NOT BE RELEASED TO THIRD PARTIES WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

“Kiss my ass,” I said, skimming the long roster of Sam’s new matters. Twenty-one corporate bankruptcies: Rugel Industries, Lafayette Snacks, Inc., Zaldicor Medical, Quaker Realty Trust, Genezone, Ltd., Atlantic Partners. Apparently solid, certifiable, and marked Approved, meaning they had passed the New Matter Committee. New business, each one a transfusion of fresh whole blood, keeping alive the body corporate. Sam was doing great. Why did he need cash from Mark? By the same token, why would he care about the executor’s fee?

Maybe the clients weren’t paying, or couldn’t. They were bankrupts, after all. Or maybe Sam’s receivables were low, and The Great and Powerful was withholding his distribution check. I needed more information, namely Sam’s monthly billings and his partnership distribution record.

I clicked around the computer menus, looking for the billing information, but no soap. It was computerized, but I’d never seen it because it was hidden. Associates couldn’t access those menus, Grun being as free with information as the Kremlin. So my first task was to convince the computer I was a partner, preferably Sam, since it was his information I was after. To do it I’d have to guess his password. I thought a minute and typed in:

DAFFY DUCK.

WRONG PASSWORD, said the computer.

I tried:FOGHORN LEGHORN.

WRONG PASSWORD.

SYLVESTER THE CAT.

WRONG PASSWORD.

“Sufferin’ succotash,” I said, and got busier.

Half an hour later, I still hadn’t hit the password. Luckily there was no limit on attempts, because I’d gone through every Looney Tune I could dredge up, then tried TV characters I knew Sam loved: Gilligan, Little Buddy, Maynard G. Krebs. Jeannie, Master, Major Nelson. Lucy, Ethel, Little Ricky. Still, no show.

A woman from Grun’s kitchen brought me a tuna fish sandwich when I was in my rock ’n’ roll phase. Jerry Garcia, Bootsie, RuPaul. John Tesh, for a wild card. I gobbled half of the sandwich as I segued into show tunes. Rodgers, Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber. I had high hopes for Stephen Sondheim, but washed out.

Shit. If I sawwrong password one more time I’d scream. I felt rammy, cooped up. It was the golden retriever in me, I needed exercise. I stretched and walked around the conference table, then lapped it. I jogged to the window. I raised the Levelors and lowered them again. I was running in place when there was a sudden knock at the door, which gave me enough time to scramble back to my chair. “Come in!”

“Ms. Frost?” said a young messenger. “This is from Personnel.” He handed me the envelope, sniffing the air. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Kinda like a gym?”

“Tuna fish,” I said, waving him gently out of my lair. I opened the envelope and spilled its contents onto the conference table, where they slid out like precious emeralds and rubies. A Grun ID, a building pass, and a set of keys to the firm. Beautiful. Plus aLEXIS/NEXIS card. Good, it would get me online. I could read the newspapers on the computer and see how close the cops were to nailing me. It had been at the back of my mind all through the musicals.

I plopped down in my chair and typed in my newLEXIS number. Then I went intoNEXIS, popped in Rosato, and limited the search to the past week, which is when I got really famous.