He walked over to the coffeemaker, poured some black, and nodded at the woman. With a little effort he managed to catch her eye.
'I don't believe we've met,' she said. 'Are you a part ner?'
'No. I'm from another firm. Working with Mr. Stewart.'
'I thought he went home.'
'He did. He's coming back and asked me to meet him at the fireproof cabinet. This case.'
Sam laid the file down.
'Yeah, well, I'm not his associate and know nothing. I'm in litigation. But the file room is all the way down this hall, then to the right. It's on the short outside wall with no windows. If that's where he is, that's where you'll find him.'
The logic was amusingly tautological, but he decided not to tease her. As he walked away, he heard the young man.' 'If that's where he is, that's where you'll find him'? Come on.'
Sam went down the hall, turned right, and passed an of fice with a thirtysomething woman bent over a desk. Then he kept on to the end of the hall and found a locked door. This was the difficult part. He walked into an open attorney's office and found a phone directory. This office belonged to Norman Chapman. He was a bit of a pack rat, even had piles of papers on the floor. Using the directory, Sam determined that there were more than one hundred lawyers in the firm. He rifled through the drawers. In the top drawer he found a bunch of papers and a memo concerning one Scott Davis, dated the previous month. It was a bio, a memo with a busi ness plan, a bunch of interviews and partner ratings. Obviously, the man had been a partner at another firm and was a candi date to come to Binkley, Hart, amp; Rove. On a hunch he looked in the back of the phone book to the supplement and found that Scott Davis was added as of October. Davis was brand new. He dialed the extension for Davis and got a recording.
'My first day in the office will be November fourth, but until then, I will be getting my messages, so please leave a message.'
Leafing through the resume papers and the business plan, he discovered that Davis was a civil litigator specializing in the defense of class actions. The man was from Boston and had been with the Arthur amp; Taylor firm. The business plan made the point that he would be bringing some large clients. On the first page of the resume was a picture of Davis. He had a full head of hair, some graying, was clean shaven, and slightly paunchy. Unfortunately, Sam couldn't judge the man's height.
Sam took a deep breath, knowing what he was about to try was very risky. Quickly he found a restroom and re moved his entire disguise. After wetting his hair down com pletely, he combed as near as he could to Scott Davis. He went back to the woman's office. Next to the door was a plaque with the name Martha McConnell.
'Hi, Martha, I'm Scott Davis. You probably don't even remember me-'
'Oh yes,' she said. 'Of course. I was in the group of partners at Grady's Bar a month ago. Actually, I stopped by for just a minute and never got to shake your hand. You've done something to your hair. It looks great.'
'Thanks. Probably the Grecian Formula.' He gave her a toothy smile.
'What can I do for you?'
'Oh, I was just helping out Stewart on some stuff and needed to get into the fireproof cabinet.'
'Oh sure. Gosh, it's really a cabinet in a big safe and they've locked it… I'm sure… but on a good day I can do the combination of… Just a minute…' She fished around in her top drawer. 'We're not supposed to keep this, but everybody does, otherwise you have to go to Mary Weiss's desk and she always has it locked, so it's just one thing after another. They never give anybody a thing they need until a month after they've been here.'
She got a key and her piece of paper and another smaller key and went back to the locked door. When she opened the door and turned on the lights, they encountered a huge file room.
'What is your kind of lawyer doing with patents?'
'I'm just a little weary of defending drug companies and car manufacturers. The big class actions require a lot of travel. Some of the patent claim litigation isn't all that technical that a guy can't learn it. Especially with Arthur Stewart around. Anyway, he thought I might be interested in this. It's about a plant from the Amazon, of all things.'
'Never heard of it. But anything to do with the Amazon sounds interesting.'
'I thought so.'
He noticed that she was appraising him and that she wore no wedding ring. Recalling the resume and the profile materials pertaining to Scott Davis, he recalled that he had seen nothing about a wife.
'It's normal I suppose for you to work into the evening.'
'You can tell I'm relatively young and I'm a junior part ner.'
'What kind of work do you do?'
'Environmental litigation mainly. That's our end of the hall. The other is the estate planners. They're in another world.'
'Aren't they, though.'
'I guess you must be busy moving,' she said as she walked toward a massive safe.
'Oh yeah.'
'This is interim filing for stuff closing or just closed in the last six months. But when somebody has the family jewels or some national secret, they put it in the cabinets inside the safe here. I think nobody ever put anything in here worth knowing, but it's fun to think about. Okay. Now for 'Big Bertha.' ' She walked over to the steel door and began on the dial. It required two tries and probably three minutes, but at last she grunted and pulled open the nearly foot-thick door.
'Impressive,' Sam said.
'Now we sign in. At one time this part of this floor be longed to a prominent wholesale jeweler and that's why the big walk-in safe. We would never have spent the money.'
Sam wrote the name Scott Davis, the date, and the time on the sign-in sheet.
They went inside the big vault to a row of locked fireproof filing cabinets. Files were arranged by number so they located the file whose number corresponded with the one that Sam had carried upstairs.
'You will just be using the file in the office?'
'Oh yes.'
'Will you be here long?'
'Just a few minutes.'
'Because without Mr. Arthur Stewart okaying it, I would feel extremely strange.'
'Oh, of course. I'll just be a minute with these docu ments.'
Sam had already spied a large copier in the filing room.
'Call me when you want to lock up.'
'Sure will. And thanks so much for your help. And say, I was wondering, you know, I don't want to be forward, but I was wondering if we might go out for a cup of coffee.'
'Oh. That's actually a kind invitation. And I definitely would if I weren't having to get a motion out tomorrow. But maybe a rain check.'
He looked in her eyes and could see that she really meant it. He felt guilty for trying to use her. Walking and talking with her as he left the building would naturally cause people not to notice him like they would a lone late- night stranger.
Sam could not recall when he had been this interested in a discovery. The locked file was voluminous and had various parts. He went to what looked like the guts of the matter. Attorney memos designed to explain in straightforward language what the hell was going on.
There were typed notes of a telephone interview, probably recorded. On the file earpiece it said: trustee: grace technologies. On the memo header: Admiral Francois Larive and Mademoiselle Benoit Moreau, representatives of the Government of France, acting as trustee for Grace Technologies.
We have various representations in this matter and a number of confidential relationships. See conflicts file.
Then there was the following:
Moreau: Freshwater sponge material was provided by Michael J. Bowden to Northern Lights Pharma ceutical in the fall of 1998… I believe it was No vember. Jacques Boudreaux of Grace Technologies, a French Corporation, obtained a sample of a molecule isolated from certain organic material because it was said to be a powerful
