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.I said, “Back up, and tell me what happened to my job with Bill Nestor.”“Bill has turned in his resignation,” she said, as if I should have known.“He didn’t mention this to me.” I waited, challenging her to suggest that Bill didn’t have to clear his comings and goings with me.She didn’t quite dare.“When did this happen?”“This morning,” said Donna.“It’s 8:15,” I countered, pointing to her clock.“I mean that he’s in Terry Bronk’s office now, turning in his resignation.”“And you’ve had time to move my desk already,” I said.Donna couldn’t maintain eye contact.“Oh, come on,” I begged her.“Come on, Donna, you’ve always been a really decent supervisor.Tell me what the hell is going on.”She sighed.“Terry Bronk is asking Bill to resign.” Before I could yell something foul, she continued.“Carol, we just have to.This whole mess with Charlene looks bad enough for the firm, and these were all Bill’s clients.Maybe we should have noticed what was happening, but he especially had an obligation.”I stared at her in disbelief.“It’s better than firing him,” said Donna, trying to convey that Bill was being done a favor.“This way, he can go somewhere else—”“Excuse me,” I said to her, and turned on my heel.Funny, but I don’t remember feeling any pain as I hauled ass down the long hallway to Terry Bronk’s office.Maybe righteous indignation is a hell of a painkiller.I was loose and strong and fast.I plowed past the cubicles and right past Terry Bronk’s ass-kissing secretary and flung his office door open before I’d even thought clearly about what I was planning to do.Three surprised men looked up at me.Terry Bronk; Bill, of course; and Junior Gestapo Brent.“Are they forcing you to resign?” I asked Bill directly.Brent rose to his feet, showing all the telltale signs of preparing to say something asinine.“Sit down and shut your mouth,” I snapped at him.“The Third Reich has ended.You’re going to have to find another outlet to compensate for your sexual inadequacy.Bill, are they forcing you to resign?”For a terrible moment, the idea occurred to me that they weren’t doing any such thing, and that I’d just done the stupidest act of my entire life.Junior Gestapo Brent did sit down.He looked to Terry, as if hoping that insubordination such as mine were punishable by death.“Um, Carol,” said Bill, coming slowly to his feet.“Maybe you shouldn’t, um…”I looked to him desperately.“Please answer my question, Bill.Please.”“Um, yes.” He glanced at Terry from the corner of his eye.“I am tendering my resignation.But this isn’t something that has to involve you.”“Well obviously it involves her now,” Junior Gestapo Brent sniffed haughtily.“Obviously,” I agreed.I looked to Bronk, who lorded behind his great oak desk like he thought it made him a king, like keeping his minions a few feet away made him more powerful because they couldn’t reach over to throttle him.I asked, “Your next chosen scapegoat?”“Get out of my office.” His tone was almost bored.I said, “Because he didn’t notice something that no one here noticed, and no one probably would have noticed unless the killer herself had started dropping hints?”“I’m going to call building security.”“Go ahead and call him.I don’t think Danny gets here until 9:00 anyway.” I looked to Bill now.“They think that they’ll be sued for not noticing the mortality rate of their clientele.They want to make it look like it was your job and therefore your fault.And if you don’t work here anymore, it’ll make them look better, or so they think.”“I know,” said Bill, with a shrug that indicated none of this surprised him.Dryly, Terry Bronk remarked, “Bill, it’s not in your best interest to join in Carol’s histrionics.”Bill, always earnest, said, “Terry, if you’re finished with me, I think I’ll just let Mr.Miller wrap my severance package up over the phone.Thank you for accepting my resignation.”He walked swiftly to my side, took me by the elbow and tried to steer me out the door.“Incidentally,” I said to Terry Bronk, “everybody at the firm knows that you were sanctioned by the Federal Court last year.So your secret-keeping sucks.But good for you, for persevering.”The look on his face.Ha, if only I had had a camera or something.Junior Gestapo Brent said the only intelligent thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth.“You, uh, you know that you’re fired, right?” And he didn’t even have the presence of mind to sound gleeful about it.Bill hurried me out the door and down the hall before I could say anything else about Nazis.I went with him automatically.I was still anesthetized by anger, and our walking was swift.It hardly bothered me, being fired.I had assumed I was fired last week.I had been amazed to find that I wasn’t fired.I suppose they’d thought that if the firm could rid itself of Bill, it didn’t need to rid itself of me.He was a much better person to blame for their problems, and experienced secretaries were harder to come by than attorneys.I would have been deposited in a new secretarial position with a different attorney and then forgotten about, had I not decided to insult MBS&K’s managing partner and his goose-stepping sidekick.Bill would have placidly agreed to do as instructed, and they knew it.The whole mess made me sick.And I ranted about it, as Bill guided me through the firm.“You make money for them! Your clients always pay their bills! You bill forty-eight hours a week! I can’t believe that they’re doing this to you!”“Shhh,” he said as we approached our old stomping grounds.“Are your things here?”Gruffly I grabbed my purse, which I’d left in my empty cubicle.I could tell that everyone within earshot was listening to us, whether or not they dared to show their faces.The room was so silent I could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights.Bill announced, loud and clear, “I really appreciate your agreeing to come with me, Carol.I couldn’t find another secretary like you in a hundred years.” Then he winked at me.He was so bad at winking conspiratorially that it made me laugh.“Come on,” I said, over my chuckles.“Let’s go to our new office and check out the swimming pool.”“I think we should restock the wet bar,” commented Bill with enthusiasm.He stepped into his office to get his bonsai tree and then returned to my side.We left together as if we’d meant to all along [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]