by Chris Knopf
“Say that again?”
“You’ll operate our new Suffolk County office. There’s far too much activity out here for Alicia to handle alone, as she eloquently pointed out this week in her resignation letter, graciously withdrawn when I told her you were stepping up. She likes you, which is good, since you’ll be working together closely.”
“Now I know why you’re really here.”
“We’ll match your current revenue, with regular increases unrelated to client load,” he said. “We’ll also cover an assistant, all out-of-pocket expenses, and reasonable T and E. All the necessary paperwork is on this flash drive. You just have to save the wretched refuse of the teeming East End, forego your existing base of real estate clients and the attendant charms of zoning appeals, title claims, and angry, disappointed buyers and sellers.”
“I didn’t specialize in criminal law.”
“No, but you’ve had more than adequate on-the-job training. And the other attorneys will support you. Sam tells me you’re selling your house. I bought this building. The lease is expiring this month for the parties across the hall. I thought that area would make a pleasant apartment, and you could turn this back into the airy, uncluttered office space I’m sure it once was,” he said, looking about ingenuously.
The truth was, I’d been heading in that direction anyway. I just hadn’t reconciled all the extra work for the lousy pay. Now there was Burton, like a genie out of the bottle, granting my wish. Better than a genie, a billionaire.
“If I’m not up to it I could always go back to real estate,” I said.
“You could. No contracts. Just a handshake and a stack of case folders,” he said, resting his arm on the banker’s box he’d brought upstairs with him. “You could resist this in that habitual way of yours, but it would be such a waste of time, given that we both know you’re going to accept.”
Instead of shaking on the deal, I kissed him smack on the mouth. Gay as he was, he seemed to like it.
When he left, I booted up the laptop, stuck in the flash drive, and lit up a joint so I had something else to do while I stared out at the windmill and pondered the wonder of random happenstance, the bounty of unexpected deliverance.
Chris Knopf is author of Short Squeeze, the first novel in the Jackie Swaitkowski series; Elysiana; and the Sam Acquillo mystery series, including The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds (which won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Mystery) and Hard Stop. A copywriter by trade, Chris is a principal of Mintz & Hoke Communications Group. He lives with his wife, Mary, in Avon, Connecticut and Southampton, New York, where he sets sail on the sacred Little Peconic Bay.