young woman, poised, expressionless. As each rejected applicant exited from the oak door, she called 'Next!'
As the line moved forward, and I heard 'Next! Next!
Next!', I could not take my eyes from that comely guardian of the sacred portal. My initial reaction on seeing beautiful women is usually despair. They seem so unattainable to me, so distant, almost so foreign.
The line was moving forward quickly and I soon found myself the next specimen to be exhibited on the other side of that forbidding oak door.
It opened. The doleful one who'd been in front of me exited, head hanging. I heard 'Next!' and I stepped into the chamber and closed the door softly behind me. I had a confused impression of an enormous, shadowed room, lined with law books in glass-enclosed cases. There were club chairs, a globe, a heavy dictionary on a pedestal.
But dominating the room was a gigantic mahogany desk, all carved flourishes and curlicues. The top was bare of papers, but set precisely with a student's lamp, blotter, penholder, letter opener, scissors — all leather- bound or leather-trimmed. There was a telephone-intercom with rows and rows of buttons and lights. Even the telephone handset had a leather-covered grip.
The man seated behind the desk appeared to have been 13
bound in the same material: dark calfskin perhaps. He seemed ancient; the hands resting motionless on the desktop were empty gloves, and the face had the withered look of a deflated balloon.
But the blue eyes were bright enough, and when he said,
'Come forward, please,' his voice had vigour and resonance.
I moved to the desk. He was seated in a high-backed swivel chair. It was difficult to estimate his height, but I could see the narrow shoulders, a thin neck, slender arms.
'How tall are you?' he asked abruptly.
I lost all hope.
'Five feet, three and three-eighths inches, sir,' I said.
He nodded. 'How soon can you start?' he said.
I don't believe my jaw dropped. I don't believe I staggered, blinked, and swallowed. But I can't be sure.
'Immediately, sir,' I said.
He nodded again. He leaned forward, lifted one of those dead hands, and with a forefinger that looked like it had been pickled in brine, depressed one of the buttons on the telephone intercom.
'Miss Apatoff,' he said loudly, 'the position has been filled. Thank the others and dismiss them.'
Then he sat back in his swivel chair again and regarded me gravely.
'Name?' he said.
'Joshua Bigg, sir.'
He didn't laugh, or even smile.
'From where?' he asked.
'Iowa, sir.'
'Education?'
'BA degree, sir. With honours.'
'Miss Apatoff, the lady in the hallway, will take you to our office manager, Hamish Hooter. He will complete the necessary paperwork and instruct you in your duties.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Salary?' he said.
'Oh, well, yes, sir,' I said confusedly. 'What is the salary?'
'A hundred a week,' he said, still staring at me. 'Satisfactory?'
'Oh yes, sir.'
He raised one finger from the desk blotter. I took this as a gesture of dismissal, and turned to go. I was at the door when he called…
'Mr Bigg.'
I turned.
He had risen. Now I could see his size.
' I, ' he said proudly, 'am five feet, three and seven-eighths inches tall.'
Only after I had left the office did it occur to me to ask the pulchritudinous receptionist to whom I had just been speaking. 'Oh, that's Mr Teitelbaum, senior partner, and I'm Yetta Apatoff,' she added, bending forward enough so that I got a glimpse of cleavage I would never forget.
'Welcome to TORT.'
And that's how I came to work for Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum.
I stayed in the mailroom about two years, during which my salary was increased four times to a gratifying $150 a week, and my hopeless passion for Miss Yetta Apatoff, our nubile receptionist, grew in even larger increments.
And, finally, my opportunity for advancement came, as I knew it would.
One of the more than 50 employees of TORT was Mr Roscoe Dollworth, who bore the title of Chief Investigator.
This was a kindness since he was our only investigator.
Dollworth was an ex-New York City policeman who had resigned from the Department for 'medical reasons'. He was an enormously fat drunk, but neither his girth nor his awesome intake of vodka (from a thermos kept in plain view on his desk) interfered with the efficient performance of his duties.
A salaried investigator for a large firm of attorneys is assigned the same tasks smaller legal associations might delegate to private investigators, as needed. Tracking down witnesses, verifying clients' alibis and those of the opposition, escorting recalcitrant witnesses to the courtroom, locating technical experts whose testimony might be advantageous, and so forth.
In addition, there had been several instances in which Roscoe Dollworth had conducted original investigations into the culpability of clients accused of crimes, although criminal defence was only a small part of TORT's activities.
In all such cases, Dollworth's past association with the New York Police Department proved of great value. This was probably why his employment was continued despite that desktop jug of vodka. Also, the Chief Investigator was 61 years old at the time I joined Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum, and he had made it clear that he intended to retire to Florida at the age of 65, to play shuffleboard and watch the pelicans.
I believe Roscoe Dollworth liked me. I know I liked him.
He never made any slurring references to my size, and treated me more as a friend than as the lowest man on the TORT totem pole. So I was happy to run his errands: dash out to buy him a fresh quart of vodka or hurry back from my own lunch to bring him the hot pepperoni pizza he ate at his desk each day (the whole pizza, plus pickles, peppers, and a frightening wedge of pineapple cheesecake).
In return, he told me stories of cases in which he had been involved while he was a uniformed patrolman and later as a detective, third-grade. He also taught me the techniques and tricks of a professional investigator, all of which I found fascinating. I hadn't realized police methods were that complex, or how few of them could be found in books. They could only be learned through personal experience, or the experience of other cops.
Occasionally, when I had time, and always with the permission of one of the three senior partners of TORT
(Sean Reilly had died seven years previously; he had choked to death on a piece of rare London broil), Roscoe Dollworth would send me out on an investigative task.
These began as simple assignments: find the apartment number of so-and-so, check where this man parks his car, see if you can discover when this woman divorced her first husband.
Gradually, over a period of months, Dollworth's requests became more involved and more intriguing.
'Doing anything tonight, Josh? No? Good. Follow this guy. He says he goes to a chess club every Wednesday night. I ain't so sure. Don't let him spot you. This is a divorce action.'
O r. . 'Find out who really owns this nightclub, will you?
You'll have to start out down at the Hall, checking records.
You'll learn how it's done.'
O r. . 'See if this dame has any regular visitors. She lives alone — but who knows? You may have to slip the
