day at work, he was in a dangerously ambiguous position, balanced on a knife edge between two opposing loyalties. A slight tip in either direction, he knew, could brand him a turncoat--a saboteur to Sunderland or a traitor to the conservationists. Either way, no one would trust him again, and his carefully constructed game plan would come apart. So he would always have to stay focused and think through his every step.
He arrived at the office building at nine o'clock sharp. He paused outside and glanced up at the large steel, squared letters announcing SUNDERLAND ASSOCIATES over the entrance. Then he wiped his hands down the sides of his new J. Press linen jacket to flatten any newly acquired wrinkles. He touched the knot of his maroon Harvard tie to be sure it was perfectly aligned with the buttoned-down tabs of his pale blue Pinpoint Oxford shirt. Satisfied that nothing of Clayville, Alabama, was in sight, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked through the revolving doors into the main lobby.
Waiting for him there was the woman who identified herself as his personal secretary.
"Well, good morning, Mr. Cody, and it's so good to see you. Everyone upstairs at Sunderland Associates is so looking forward to meeting you. My name is Sarah Beth Jackson, and I'm the one who's going to be helping you."
"Well, I'm real glad to meet you," Raff responded. "We've got a lot of important work to do together."
Sarah Beth, he thought. How perfectly Alabamian. He recalled again that it was a Southern habit to give a double first name to the second daughter.
Sarah Beth was a talker, who disliked even a brief interval of silence. "I hope you had as nice a weekend as I did," she went on as they entered the elevator. "My family and I went fishing over at Pascagoula. We caught two big wahoos. They're real delicious if you grill them fresh. Have you ever tried wahoo?"
Raff frowned and shook his head slowly as though sad that this experience had been denied him. In fact, he had a hard time even picturing a wahoo. He remembered that it was a large game fish that occasionally showed up in restaurants, and in general was considered a novelty in port towns along the Gulf like Mobile.
They reached the fourth floor and went through a door with an opaque glass window gold-labeled SUNDERLAND ASSOCIATES and into the main administrative office. A large hand-painted sign on the reception desk read WELCOME, MR. CODY.
Sarah Beth led him to his office, located at the far end of the floor. He entered, looked around, then walked over to peer out the window. The view was of tar-papered rooftops with narrow congested streets down below. He figured, correctly, that the offices at the opposite side of the floor had the view of Mobile Bay. The room was bare of books and paperwork, for the last day, he knew, even the last hour. Sarah Beth handed him a handwritten note. He was due for a luncheon meeting in three hours with Drake Sunderland and Richard Sturtevant, vice president and chief financial officer. It would be in Sunderland's suite, on the opposite side of the floor.
Members of the staff began to break away from what they were doing, mostly getting settled in with morning coffee and small talk. They came to meet the new legal counsel, singly or in small groups, and add their welcome. They chatted for a while about this or that, and all left with the mandatory parting, or something close to it: "Now, if there's anything I can do to help you, you just let me know."
He listened carefully to what each said, no matter how perfunctory. He tried hard to memorize their names and read the undertones in their words. He noticed that several spoke with a slight edge, taking overlong to explain the roles of the executive staff members and stressing their own availability to give him advice anytime he felt a need for it.
Raff could understand the implied resentment toward a twenty-five-year-old entering the firm at a level they viewed as above their own. He wanted to remind them, but could not right then, that the legal counsel was a new niche at Sunderland and outside the hierarchy, and that he was not going to be a supervisor or a director of anybody except Sarah Beth Jackson. He made a mental note of those who showed what appeared to be some degree of