Utterly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  “Have a seat,” she said, somewhat perversely. She knew the little man would have trouble getting into the chair, and she didn’t really care, not after his introductory remarks. The little man put his hands on the seat and boosted himself up. Then he settled in, looking for all the world like a particularly ugly child. His stubby legs extended over the seat and didn’t pretend to try for the ground. Like a little boy, he put his hands on the armrests as if he were trying to hold himself in place.

  The other man left her degrees, and slid into the remaining chair as if it had been built for him. He pushed the chair back so that he could extend his long legs. His booted feet hit the edge of her desk, rattling it. The snake had disappeared, probably hiding in his suit. The jacket was open, revealing a white shirt of the same material. He folded his elegant, ringless hands over his flat stomach and watched her with those sharp silver eyes.

  That fluttery feeling was back. Was it ethical to have a client who attracted her like this, just from the way he looked?

  Probably not. Although it was more ethical than working for the malpractice doctor. Of that she was convinced.

  “All right,” she said, leaning forward and folding her own hands into what she hoped was a businesslike position. “What can I do for you?”

  To her surprise, the little man answered. “Can you have someone tested for a witch?”

  “That never worked,” the other man said.

  “Exactly,” the little man said.

  Nora leaned back. Whatever she had expected, it hadn’t been this.

  “If she can’t be tested for a witch,” the little man said, “perhaps tarred and feathered—?”

  “Wrong century.”

  “Hung from a tree until she’s dead?”

  “Wrong century.”

  “Boiled in oil?”

  “You know no one did that.”

  Nora sighed. “Gentlemen, please. You only get one free hour before I must begin to charge you, so unless there’s a realistic way I can help you—”

  “I’m sorry.” The tall man smiled faintly again. She wondered how powerful his smile would be at full wattage. On low, it was pretty strong stuff. She fought the urge to smile back. “I get so preoccupied that I forget the rest of the world doesn’t work the way I do.” He stood just enough so that he could extend his hand. “I’m Blackstone.”

  She looked at the hand with its long fingers and did not take it. She was afraid that if she did, she wouldn’t let it go. Instead, she said with just a trace of sarcasm in her voice, “The Blackstone?”

  “Well, actually, yes, but not the one you’re thinking of. He, in fact, was the impostor, but that’s a long story that ended rather nastily for all concerned. He—”

  “Blackstone.” She shook her head. She should have known better than to take clients from the parking garage. “Is that a first or last name?”

  “It’s a surname,” he said, easing his hand back to his side as if he didn’t want anyone else to notice her obvious snub. “My given name is Aethelstan.”

  “Aethelstan?” She’d never heard a name like that.

  He shrugged prettily. “It was in style once.”

  “A long, long time ago,” the little man added.

  “And you are?” she asked.

  “Let’s just call me Panza,” the little man said.

  “Let’s not,” she said. “Try again.”

  The little man crossed his arms. The cigarette pack slid under his sleeve until it hung beneath his right bicep. “My name is Sancho Panza.”

  She shot an exasperated look at Blackstone. His eyes were twinkling again. He looked even better when he was amused, not that it helped any. She would have to deal with the little guy on her own. “If you want me to do something for you in a court of law, I’ll need your legal name.”

  The little guy leaned back in his chair. “It’s not me you’re helping,” he said. “It’s Blackstone.”

  She crossed her arms. She had the odd feeling they were playing a game, and she didn’t know why. Did they have some sort of scheme? If so, why all the subterfuge?

  “All right, Mr. Blackstone,” she said in her most haughty voice, “what can I help you with?”

  For a moment, the mask dropped, and she saw something in his eyes, a vulnerability, almost a fear mixed with sadness. Then he seemed to notice her watching him, and the expression disappeared. He cleared his throat, glanced at his companion who was watching both of them, and said, “You charge what?”

  The question was clearly meant to be rude, obviously because she had seen behind his facade. And the question was rude, at least the way he asked it. As he spoke, the snake stuck its head out of his shirt and looked at her as if it too expected an answer.

  “One hundred dollars an hour, plus a”—she almost quoted her regular rate, then decided to double it because these two were proving to be so much trouble (not to mention the fact that she needed the money)—“plus a thousand dollar retainer.”

  “A thousand dollar retainer?” The little man strangled on the last word. “In my day, you could run a country on a thousand dollars.”

  “In your day, there was no such thing as dollars,” Blackstone muttered. He hadn’t taken his gaze off her. “What do you prefer? A check or cash?”

  “Or gold,” the little man added. She would be damned if she would think of him as Sancho Panza.

  “A check is fine,” she said. No sense in taking currency. With these two, it could just as easily be forged, and then where would she be? The worst thing a check could do was bounce.

  Blackstone put a hand inside his shimmery jacket and brought out a checkbook. A pen appeared in his other hand—just as Blackstone had appeared initially. Just as the little man had appeared. Out of thin air.

  She felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten. More games.

  He poised the pen over his checkbook. “Do I write this check to you or to the law firm?”

  “I am the law firm,” she said. “Either is fine.”

  She was telling him that so that he could pull out. But he didn’t quiz her about her background, or the types of cases she handled, or her past successes, of which there were quite a few, given the scant months she’d been in business. Not that those wins had brought more clients. It took time to build a business. But time was what she didn’t have.

  She watched him write the check.

  He signed it with a flourish and then handed it to her. She glanced at it, noting his name in bold and only a post office box for an address. Her hand shook. She needed the money so badly. But she couldn’t let that get in the way of her judgment. It was time to get serious.

  With her left hand, she pulled open a drawer and removed a legal pad. Then she took her pen out of its holder. “Let’s get your street address and phone, starting with you, Mr. Blackstone, and then going onto your friend here.”

  “You don’t need me,” the little man said. “I already told you.”

  She stared at him for a moment. He had just given her the opportunity she had been waiting for.

  “Then I’ll have to ask you to leave,” she said.

  “I don’t mind him staying.” Blackstone leaned back in his chair. The pen was gone. So was the checkbook. She hadn’t seen him put either away.

  The snake had disappeared as well.

  “I mind,” she said.

  Blackstone raised an eyebrow. The little man scowled. “You got books in the waiting area?”

  “Law books,” Nora said.

  “Good enough,” the little man said and scooted off the chair. Blackstone held the back so that the chair didn’t tip. As the little man’s feet hit the floor, he brushed off his backside and adjusted his cigarettes. Then he let himself out the door.

  The room felt three times larger without him. Nora wasn’t certain how a person that tiny could fill such a big space.

  “Mr. Blackstone,” she said, keeping the businesslike tone to her voice, “street address and phone number?”

&nbs
p; He gave her an address in the west side suburbs, in a new development that was only partially finished. The address surprised her; she would have thought a man like him belonged in one of Portland’s older homes, filled with history and charm. Instead, he chose a cookie-cutter neighborhood without any class at all.

  She must have paused long enough to catch his notice. He raised an eyebrow again—an expression which, on most people, would seem like an affectation, but on him seemed completely natural.

  “Something wrong with my address, Miss Barr?”

  The “miss” also surprised her, but she let it go. Unlike her mother, she did not make a federal case out of the misuse of the female honorific. It simply told her what sort of man she was dealing with.

  She already knew he was strange; that he was also old-fashioned in some ways didn’t surprise her much.

  “No,” she said. “I simply hadn’t spoken to anyone who lives in Lakewood Development. It’s fairly new.”

  His eyes narrowed a bit as if he knew she were lying but didn’t know why.

  “So,” she said, before he could speak again, “how can I help you?”

  He flushed. The faint redness ran from his high cheekbones, down his neck, and beneath the shimmering collar of his shirt. It was attractive and boyish and made her feel as if she’d found a kindred soul. She blushed more than she wanted, more than was seemly for a woman her age, and for a woman in her profession. His blush made him seem more approachable. It also made her wonder if he looked that way in bed. That thought made her uncomfortable, and she made herself look at the legal pad while she waited for his response.

  He threaded his fingers together, glanced nervously at the door, and then said, “A—dear friend of mine—had, um, been in a, for lack of a better word, a coma—for, um, some time. Her, um, guardian won’t—let me near her, and although I’ve fought for that right for, um, some time, I haven’t made any progress.”

  For an articulate man, he suddenly had a great deal of trouble choosing his words. She didn’t write anything down. Instead, she placed her pen across the page with his name and address on it.

  “And you want me to—what? Contact the guardian?”

  “Isn’t there anything legal you can do?”

  “Depends,” she said. “What’s your exact relationship to this woman?”

  His flush grew deeper. She sighed inwardly. Girlfriend. Of course. A man who looked like that had to have a thousand of them.

  “She’s—ah—someone special to me.”

  Nora resisted the urge to pick up her pen and tap it against the desktop. “Special.” She let her tone go dry. “As in fiancée? Lover?”

  “No,” he said. “But she will be.”

  Nora closed her eyes. Will be. He had hopes, but the girl probably didn’t. Which meant he was some kind of stalker. Why were all the gorgeous ones also crazy? She opened her eyes. He was watching her, obviously puzzled.

  She sighed again. So much money and it was now going to disappear. Apparently she had ethics after all.

  “Look, Mr. Blackstone,” she said. “I can’t help you in any legal way unless the woman in question is in some way a relative. I’m sorry, but that’s just the law. You’ll have to accept the situation for what it is and move on.”

  She pushed his check back toward him.

  “You can’t help me?” he asked, sounding a bit astonished.

  “Not me, not any lawyer,” she said. “You have no rights with someone who is just a friend. I’m sorry. The guardian has legal control.”

  The snake poked its head out of Blackstone’s sleeve and hissed softly. Its long forked tongue curled as it did so. He absently petted its flat head and then pushed it under his sleeve.

  “This is becoming untenable,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. He had no idea how sorry she was. Sorry that she wouldn’t get to look at him any longer. Sorry that she wouldn’t be able to use his money to save her law practice.

  He took the check, stood, and held out his hand. “Sorry to take all of your time.”

  His mimicry of the pattern of her thoughts startled her. She wasn’t sorry he had taken her time. He had shown her that she was thinking of walking the wrong path.

  “I’m sorry that I couldn’t have been of help to you,” she said as she stood. This time, she took his hand. His skin was smooth and warmer than she expected. His touch sent a little shiver of pleasure through her, and it took all of her strength to keep from pulling away in surprise.

  “Nonetheless,” he said. “I appreciate your candor.”

  He bowed slightly, a courtly move that somehow seemed appropriate to him. Then he slipped out the door. She continued to stand for a moment, looking at the closed door, feeling vaguely unsettled. He seemed like a man who, despite his charming surface, was a bit lost.

  Then she shook herself as if she were waking from a long, strange dream. It wasn’t often she let good looks influence her that much. She sank into her chair and picked up her pen, pausing over his name and address.

  After a moment, she reached for her phone and dialed the number of Abercrombie, Hazelton, Finch, and Goldberg. The receptionist answered, and Nora hung up. What had she been thinking, dialing up Max? Max had interesting cases and interesting clients, thanks to his accidental success shortly after he had joined Portland’s largest firm. Max had been out of law school as long as she had, but already he had a buzz. Everyone was saying that Max would be the state’s best defense attorney, and she had a hunch everyone was right.

  Max wouldn’t want to talk about this. Max would humor her, of course—he was nothing but polite—but he would think that she was even more marginalized than she already was.

  Nora sighed and picked up her mini tape recorder. She would dictate a few notes about Blackstone and his little friend, just so that she had a completed file in case Blackstone did turn out to be a stalker and claimed he had done something on her advice.

  Then she would close the file forever.

  When she finished, she handed the entire mess to Ruthie and took off for her long overdue lunch. When she got into the elevator, which still smelled faintly of leather and something intoxicating, she let herself dream a little. It would be nice to have a man who looked like that be interested in her. A sane man.

  But that would never happen, and she was smart enough to know it. Men always found her attractive at first—so little, so cute—and then she would open her mouth. So few men appreciated her blunt style, and even fewer of them appreciated her opinions. She didn’t know how many men she had scared away. The ones who liked her mouth and her brains only saw her as a friend.

  She sighed. She hated being practical. Her father used to say that it stole the magic from her life.

  And he was probably right.

  Of course, if she were really practical, she would have taken Blackstone’s money. She had enough, if she were cautious, to pay one month’s rent and hope her landlord would be satisfied. If she didn’t have anything new on her desk in two weeks, she would have to apply at the law firms that had turned her down.

  She would have to admit defeat.

  And it was looking more and more like she would have no choice.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Two weeks later, nothing had changed, except that Nora had gotten a bit more desperate. She actually thought of calling her mother for a loan. But her mother would have given her a long lecture about responsibility, forgetting the admonition she had often given about following dreams, and then would write a check for three times the amount that Nora wanted to borrow. Nora hated going into debt. She hated it worse when it was accompanied by a lecture followed by kindness.

  Fortunately, Ruthie had managed to get that client who bounced the retainer check to pay cash instead. Ruthie used to work for a collection agency, and for once her strange skills had proven useful. Privately, Nora believed Ruthie knew the end was near, and with her strange boyfriend Bryan to support, Ruthie would do a
nything to keep the office open.

  Even with the lost retainer restored, Nora was still on the edge. She was sitting at her desk, checkbook beside her, a stack of bills on the other side, trying to see which ones she could skip and which ones she absolutely had to pay. No new clients had come in the door in over a week, and none had called. She was beginning to think she was going to have to chase ambulances to find work. At least then, she might have a chance of finding someone truly in need of her help, unlike the malpractice doctor who was the only person burning her phone lines these days.

  As if on cue, Ruthie buzzed the intercom.

  “Mr. Blackstone is on the line.”

  Nora felt her heart jump and then frowned at herself in annoyance. Blackstone had been a difficult man who would prove to be a more difficult client. She wasn’t doing him or herself a favor by swooning over his looks.

  Even if they were spectacular.

  She thanked Ruthie and picked up the phone.

  “’Bout time,” said a nasal voice that clearly didn’t belong to Blackstone.

  Nora sighed. “Yes?” she said, pretending not to recognize the voice of the little man who called himself Sancho Panza just so she wouldn’t have to use his name.

  “Blackstone’s in a lot of trouble. I think he needs an attorney.”

  “If he needs an attorney,” Nora said, “why doesn’t he call me himself?”

  “He can’t,” the little man said. “The police are just arriving, and he’s otherwise engaged.”

  “Police?” She felt a chill run through her. “I’m not a criminal attorney.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re the only attorney we know. Can you come?”

  “You haven’t told me where,” she said, mentally kicking herself for the curiosity that made her ask the question.

  He listed an address in Beaverton near the Washington Square Mall. She recognized the neighborhood; it was one of the older developments in what had once been a bedroom community for Portland, instead of an indistinguishable suburb.