Part 8 (1/2)
”But I think with old Victoria dead he's ready to tell me about the Sandler family.”
”Are you going up to Ma.s.sachusetts to see him?” she inquired.
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in front of him.
”It would be intriguing,” he said.
”But no. I won't. It doesn't matter enough. I'm ending my involvement with this once-corrupt firm here and now.”
”What's that mean?” she asked.
”Remember I told you I was thinking of closing the office?”
”Yes ” she said.
I'm not' about it. I'm doing it. I'm closing this office on Friday and I'm getting out of law.”
There was a silence as she weighed his words.
”I don't believe you” she said.
”You'll come back to it. It's . . . it's in your blood : ” ”No' he said, shaking his head in resignation.
”If I don't do it now, I'll never do it. I'm broke. The office is bankrupt. All the past has been burned gloriously away.”
He looked out the dark window at the empty office building across the street, a building much like the one he was in. The lights were off across the street. But the offices waited for their workers the following morning. And the morning after that and every morning thereafter.
”I'm thirty-three,” he said.
”I figure I have half of my life ahead of me. I'm not going to spend it in this office. I'm not going to grow old and die doing something I hate and something I'm not that good at.”
”What will you do?” she asked.
He held his hands apart, as if in wonder.
”All I know is what I won? do ” He moved back to his -desk and sat down. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back.
”I'd love to solve a mystery,” he said.
”And I'd love to play amateur sleuth. But nothing here matters enough anymore. Everything was my father's, not mine” ”I, He glanced in the direction of the charred filing cabinets. in closing the doors” he said.
”And you know what? I'm not unhappy about it.”
Chapter 4
It was well past four o'clock on Friday afternoon. The young woman in the camel's-hair overcoat tried the front door to the Zenger and Daniels offices. The door was locked.
She looked at the dark walnut door. She knocked again at the door and tried the k.n.o.b. Again, no response. The door was unyielding. Yet she knew she was in the proper place-she could smell the stale odor imparted days ago by the smoke. Besides, the newspapers had mentioned Zenger and Daniels and that was the name on the door.