The Firm Page 0,77

Another one spoke sharply to Avery, who was yelling on the phone to someone else. A paralegal shot orders to the first secretary.

Avery slammed the phone down. "Are you ready!" he demanded at Mitch.

"Waiting for you," Mitch replied.

"I can't find the Greenmark file," a secretary snarled at the paralegal.

"It was with the Rocconi file," said the paralegal.

"I don't need the Greenmark file!" Avery shouted. "How many times do I have to tell you? Are you deaf?"

The secretary glared at Avery. "No, I can hear very well. And I distinctly heard you say, Tack the Greenmark file.' "

"The limousine is waiting," said the other secretary.

"I don't need the damned Greenmark file!" Avery shouted.

"How about Rocconi?" asked the paralegal.

"Yes! Yes! For the tenth time. I need the Rocconi file!"

"The airplane is waiting too," said the other secretary.

One briefcase was slammed shut and locked. Avery dug through a pile of documents on his desk. "Where's the Fender file? Where are any of my files? Why can't I ever find a file?"

"Here's Fender," said the first secretary as she stmTed it into another briefcase.

Avery stared at a piece of notepaper. "All right. Do I have Fender, Rocconi, Cambridge Partners, Greene Group, Sonny Capps to Otaki, Burton Brothers, Galveston Freight and McQuade?"

"Yes, yes, yes," said the first secretary.

"That's all of them," said the paralegal.

"I don't believe it," Avery said as he grabbed his jacket. "Let's go." He strode through the door with the secretaries, paralegal and Mitch in pursuit. Mitch carried two briefcases, the paralegal had two, and a secretary had one. The other secretary scribbled notes as Avery barked the orders and demands he wanted carried out while he was away. The entourage crowded onto the small elevator for the ride to the first floor. Outside, the chauifeur sprang into action, opening doors and loading it all in the trunk.

Mitch and Avery fell into the back seat.

"Relax, Avery," Mitch said. "You're going to the Caymans for three days. Just relax."

"Right, right. I'm taking with me enough work for a month. I've got clients screaming for my hide, threatening suits for legal malpractice. I'm two months behind, and now you're leaving for four days of boredom at a tax seminar in Washington. Your timing is great, McDeere. Just great."

Avery opened a cabinet and mixed a drink. Mitch declined. The limo moved around Riverside Drive in the rush-hour traffic. After three swallows of gin, the partner breathed deeply.

"Continuing education. What a joke," Avery said.

"You did it when you were a rookie. And if I'm not mistaken, you spent a week not long ago at that international tax seminar in Honolulu. Or did you forget?"

"It was work. All work. Are you taking your files with you?"

"Of course, Avery. I'm expected to attend the tax seminar eight hours a day, learn the latest tax revisions Congress has bestowed upon us and in my spare time bill five hours a day."

"Six, if you can. We're behind, Mitch."

"We're always behind, Avery. Fix another drink. You need to unwind."

"I plan to unwind at Rumheads."

Mitch thought of the bar with its Red Stripe, dominoes, darts and, yes, string bikinis. And the girl.

"Is this your first flight on the Lear?" Avery asked, more relaxed now.

"Yes. I've been here seven months, and I'm just now seeing the plane. If I had known this last March, I'd have gone to work with a Wall Street firm."

"You're not Wall Street material. You know what those guys do? They've got three hundred lawyers in a firm, right? And each year they hire thirty new associates, maybe more. Everybody wants a job because it's Wall Street, right? And after about a month they get all thirty of them together in one big room and inform them they're expected to work ninety hours a week for five years, and at the end of five years, half of them will be gone. The turnover is incredible. They try to kill the rookies, bill them out at a hundred, hundred-fifty an hour, make a bundle off them, then run them off. That's Wall Street. And the little boys never get to see plane. Or limo. You are truly lucky, Mitch. You should thank God every day that we chose to accept you here at good old Bendini, Lambert & Locke."

"Ninety hours sounds like fun. I could use the rest."

"It'll pay off. Did you hear what my bonus was last year?"

"No."

"Four-eight-five. Not bad, huh? And that's just the bonus."

"I got six thousand," Mitch said.

"Stick with me and you'll be in the big