The Associate

The orientation dragged on through Thursday and became as dull as most of the litigation files the new associates would soon be assigned to. On Friday, they finally got around to the issue that had been conspicuously ignored the entire week  -  office assignments. Real estate. There was little doubt that their space would be cramped, sparsely furnished, and hidden from view, and so the real question was, how bad will it be?

Litigation was concentrated on floors 32, 33, and 34, and somewhere in there, far away from the windows, were cubicles with the new names mounted on small plates and stuck to the movable walls. Kyle was shown to his on the thirty-third floor. His cube was divided into four equal shares by canvas partitions so that it was possible for him to sit at his desk, talk quietly on the phone, and use his laptop with some small measure of privacy. No one could actually see him; however, if Tabor to his right and Dr. Dale Armstrong to his left rolled their chairs back no more than two feet, then they could see Kyle and he could see them.

His desk had enough surface area for his laptop, a legal pad, the office phone, and not much else. A few shelves finished off the design scheme. He noted that there was barely enough room for a man to unroll his sleeping bag. By Friday afternoon, Kyle was already tired of the firm.

Dr. Dale was a female mathematics whiz who'd taught at the college level before deciding for some reason to become a lawyer. She was thirty, single, attractive, unsmiling, and frosty enough to be left alone. Tabor was the gunner from Harvard. The fourth member of their little cube was Tim Reynolds, a Penn man who'd been eyeing Dr. Dale since Wednesday. She did not seem at all interested. Among the torrent of firm policies and dos and don'ts that had been carped on all week, the one that rang loudest was a strict prohibition against interoffice romances. If a love affair blossomed, then one of the two had to go. If a casual affair was discovered, there would be punishment, though its exact nature was not spelled out in the handbook. There was already a hot rumor that a year earlier an unmarried associate had been fired while the married partner who'd been hounding her got sent to the office in Hong Kong.

A secretary was assigned to the four. Her name was Sandra, and she had been with the firm for eighteen long and stressful years. She had once made it to the major leagues as an executive secretary for a senior partner, but the pressure proved too much, and she had slowly been demoted down through the minors, all the way down to the rookie league, where she spent most of her time holding the hands of kids who were just students four months earlier.

Week one was finished. Kyle had not billed a single hour, though that would change come Monday. He found a cab and headed for the Mercer Hotel in SoHo. The traffic was slow, so he opened his briefcase and pulled out the FedEx envelope sent from a brokerage house in Pittsburgh. Joey's handwritten note read: "Here's the report. Not sure what it means. Drop me a line."

Kyle found it impossible to believe that Bennie could monitor the avalanche of mail in and out of Scully & Pershing every day  -  fifteen hundred lawyers cranking out paperwork because that's what they were supposed to do. The mail room was larger than a small-town post office. He and Joey had decided to play it safe with snail mail and overnight delivery.

The report had been prepared by a private security firm in Pittsburgh. It was eight pages long and cost $2,000. Its subject was Elaine Keenan, now age twenty-three, who currently lived in an apartment in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with another female. The first two pages covered her family, education, and employment history. She attended Duquesne for only one year, and a quick check of her birth date confirmed that she was not quite eighteen when the episode occurred. After Duquesne, she attended classes off and on at a couple of schools around Erie and Scranton, but had yet to finish her degree. During the previous spring semester she had taken some classes at the University of Scranton. She was a registered Democrat with two campaign stickers on the rear bumper of her 2004 Nissan, which was titled in her name. According to the available records, she did not own any real estate, firearms, or stock in foreign banks. There were two minor incidents with the law, both involving underage drinking and both handled expeditiously by the courts. The second scrape required counseling for alcohol and drug use. Her attorney had been a local female named Michelin Chiz, better known as Mike. This was notable since Elaine worked part-time in the law offices of Michelin Chiz & Associates. Ms. Mike Chiz had a reputation as a fierce divorce lawyer, always on the side of the wives, and always ready to castrate wayward husbands.

Elaine's full-time job was with the City of Scranton as an assistant director of parks and recreation. Salary, $24,000. She had been employed there for almost two years. Before that, she had bounced from one part-time job to another.

Her living arrangement was not clear. Her roommate was a twenty-eight-year-old female who worked in a hospital, also took classes at a local college, had never been married, and had no criminal record. Elaine was observed off and on for thirty-six hours. After work the first day, she met her roommate in the parking lot near a bar favored by the alternative crowd. Upon meeting, the two roommates held hands briefly as they walked to the bar. Inside, they joined three other women at a table. Elaine had a diet soda, nothing stronger. She smoked skinny brown cigarettes. The women were very affectionate with each other, and, well, the obvious became more obvious.

Scranton had a women's shelter called Haven, and it advertised itself as a refuge and resource center for victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. It was nonprofit, privately funded, and staffed by volunteers, many of whom claimed to have been victims.

Elaine Keenan was listed as a "counselor" on Haven's monthly newsletter. A female employee of the security firm used a pay phone in downtown Scranton, called Elaine at home, claimed to be the victim of a rape, and said she needed someone to talk to. She was afraid to come forward for all sorts of reasons. Someone at Haven had told her to call Elaine. They talked for almost thirty minutes, during which time Elaine admitted that she, too, was the victim of a rape and that the rapists (more than one) had never been brought to justice. She was eager to help, and they agreed to meet the following day at Haven's office. The entire conversation was recorded, and, of course, no meeting occurred the next day.

"Still the victim," Kyle mumbled to himself in the back of the cab. The night Kyle had sex with her, about a month before the alleged rape, he'd been in his own bed, sound asleep, when she crawled under the sheets naked and quickly got what she wanted.

The cab was at the Mercer. He returned the report to an inside pocket of his briefcase, paid the driver, and entered the hotel. Bennie was in a room on the fourth floor, waiting as usual with his customary purpose and appearing to have been there for hours. They did not exchange pleasantries.

"So how was the first week?" Bennie asked.

"Great. A lot of orientation. I got assigned to litigation," Kyle said as if he'd done something to be proud of. He had succeeded already.

"Very good news. Excellent. Any sign of the Trylon case?"

"No, we haven't been near a real case. We start work Monday. This week was just the warm-up."

"Of course. They give you a laptop?" Bennie asked.

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"I'm sure you already know."

"No, I do not. The technology changes every six months. I'd like to see it."

"I didn't bring it."

"Bring it next time."

"I'll think about it."

"What about a phone? A BlackBerry?"

"Something like that."

"I'd like to see it."

"I didn't bring it."

"But the firm requires you to keep it on at all times, is this not true?"

"True."

"Then why don't you have it?"

"For the same reason I didn't bring the laptop. Because you want to see them, and you're not going to see them until I'm ready. They are of no value to you at this point, and so the only reason you want them is to make sure I'm compromised, right, Bennie? As soon as I give something to you, then I've broken the law, violated the ethics, and you own me. I'm not stupid, Bennie. We're going slow here."

"We reached an agreement many months ago, Kyle. Have you forgotten? You have already agreed to break the law, violate the ethics, do whatever I want you to do. You will find the information and give it to me. And if I want something from the firm, then it's your job to get it. Now, I want the phone and I want the laptop."

"No. Not yet."

Bennie walked back to the window. After a long pause, he said, "Baxter Tate is in rehab, you know?"

"I know."

"For some time now."

"That's what I hear. Maybe he'll clean up and get a life."

Bennie turned and walked to within striking distance. "You need a reminder, Kyle, of who is in charge here. If you don't follow my orders, then I'll provide a little reminder. Right now I'm giving serious consideration to releasing the first half of the video. Plaster it around the Internet, notify all the folks who might find it interesting, have some fun with it."

Kyle shrugged. "It's just a bunch of drunk college kids."

"Right, no big deal. But do you really want it out there, Kyle, for the whole world to see? What would your new colleagues think at Scully & Pershing?"

"They'll probably think I was just another stupid drunk college kid, like many of them when they were younger."

"We'll see." Bennie picked up a thin file from the credenza, opened it, and pulled out a sheet of paper with a face on it. "You know this guy?" he asked, handing it to Kyle, who glanced at it and shook his head. No. White male, age thirty, coat and tie, at least from the shoulders up.

"Name's Gavin Meade, four years now at Scully & Pershing, litigation, one of about thirty associates toiling away on the case of Trylon versus Bartin. In the normal course of things you'd probably meet him in a few weeks, but Mr. Meade is about to be sacked."

Kyle was holding the sheet of paper, looking into the handsome face of Gavin Meade, and wondering what sin he'd committed.

"Seems he, too, has a little problem from the past," Bennie was saying, relishing the role of executioner. "Seems he, too, liked to get rough with the girls. Not rape, though."

"I didn't rape anybody and you know it."

"Maybe not."

"Got another video, Bennie? Been crawling through the gutter again, looking for someone else to ruin?"

"Nope, no video. Just some affidavits. Mr. Meade doesn't rape women; he just beats them. In college, ten years ago, he had a girlfriend who had a problem with bruises. One night he put her in the hospital. The police were finally invited in, things unraveled for Mr. Meade. He was arrested, jailed, formally charged, and facing trial. Then there was a settlement, money changed hands, the girl wanted no part of a trial, and everything was dropped. Meade walked away, but he's got this record now. No problem, he just lied about it. When he applied to law school at Michigan, he lied on his application. When he went through the background check at Scully, he lied again. Automatic termination."

"I'm so happy for you, Bennie. I know how much these little stories mean to you. Go get him. Ruin him. Attaboy."

"Everybody has secrets, Kyle. I can ruin anyone."

"You're the man." Kyle slammed the door and left the hotel.

AT NOON ON Saturday, three charter buses pulled away from the Scully & Pershing office building and left the city. They carried all 103 members of the first-year associate class. On board each bus was a full bar and plenty of snacks, and the drinking was fast and serious. Three hours later, they arrived at a yacht club in the Hamptons. The first party was under a tent near Montauk Beach. Dinner was under another tent on the hotel grounds. The second and last party was at the mansion of one of the Scully descendants. A reggae band played by the pool.

The "retreat" was designed to break the ice and make the recruits happy they'd come on board. Many of the firm's partners were there, and they got as drunk as the associates. The night went long, and the morning was not pleasant. After an early brunch, with gallons of coffee, they settled in a small ballroom to listen to the wise old men offer their secrets to a successful career. Several retired partners, legends at the firm, told war stories and cracked jokes and offered advice. The floor was open, and any question could be asked.

After the old goats were gone, a very diverse panel went to the front and continued with the storytelling. A black man, a white woman, a Hispanic, and a Korean  -  all partners  -  talked about the firm's commitment to tolerance and equal rights and so on.

Later in the day, they ate shrimp and oysters on a private beach, then the buses were reloaded and headed back to Manhattan. They arrived after dark, and the weary young lawyers headed home for a short night.

For them, the concept of exhaustion was about to be redefined.