This Case Is Gonna Kill Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

ground, and I’ll never be as up to date on this case as you. So, I thought maybe I could take some … other case … off your plate.” I wound down, suddenly, desperately afraid I would discover that he didn’t have any other cases. But he had told me he did , I reminded myself.
    “Let me think about that.” Chip crammed the remaining third of his ice cream into his mouth. “Maybe after we get past this latest hearing. That witness dying really screwed us, and I like the idea of fresh eyes on the problem. You may see something I’ve missed. Let’s talk about it after you’ve read through all the files and helped me prepare.”
    “Okay.”
    I was feeling so low that I almost abandoned my plan to go out for lunch. But another glance into my office, where my ficus was dying from lack of light, made me head for the elevators.
    I’d seen this small seafood restaurant a block from the skyscraper that housed our firm. Seafood was good for you, and more to the point, I liked it. I wasn’t big on sandwiches, and salads always left me starving by late afternoon. Since I didn’t normally get dinner until nine or later, I wanted some real food.
    The heat shimmered off the concrete sidewalks as I walked over, and the city was ripe with the aroma of rotting refuse rising off the black garbage sacks set out for collection. Added to that was the smell of exhaust, hot dogs being hocked by street vendors, and sweaty people bustling along, accompanied by the music of blaring car horns, jackhammers, and a thousand conversations in a hundred different languages. It was New York. It was a grand, if somewhat dissonant symphony, and I loved it.
    I stepped into air-conditioned bliss and breathed in the smell of lemon, garlic, butter, and fish. Saliva burst in my mouth, and my stomach gave a loud growl. Then I noticed the table for seven off to one side. Six associates from my firm sat there, among them Caroline and Jane, and a man with his back to me. Caroline stared at me like I was one of those bags of rotting garbage and leaned over to Jane to share a remark. Jane laughed, and I felt my guts writhing.
    There were two options. One: Pretend I was looking for someone, and in a nicely audible voice ask the waiter if So and So (pick sexy-sounding male name) had arrived. When the waiter said no, ask the name of the restaurant and then declare (loudly) that I was in the wrong place. Leave.
    Option Two: Slink back out the door like a kicked dog without uttering the cover story. That was probably going to end up being the option, because my mind was a whirling blank, and I couldn’t summon up a single male name.
    Then the maître d’ asked, “Are you alone, miss?” in that snotty tone that seems to be reserved for waitstaff in nicer New York restaurants, and which guarantees you are going to get a table by the bathrooms or the kitchen.
    Option Three appeared, arriving courtesy of the temper my father had warned me against. I decided, what the hell. My coworkers couldn’t treat me any worse. Wanna bet? the cautious Linnet asked, but I ignored her and went with furious Linnet. I nodded toward the table.
    “No, I’m with them. I was just running late. They must have forgotten to mention it. If you’ll get another chair.” I threw the order over my shoulder as I started walking toward them.
    The man with his back to me turned at the sound of my heels on the stained concrete floor. He was a partner. Not one of the named partners, but nonetheless a real, honest-to-God partner. There’s a tension in law firms between the founding partners whose names appear on the letterhead and the partners added later whose names don’t appear. Some lawyers don’t give a damn, but if you have ambitions beyond litigation—like sitting on the boards of powerful corporations or advising presidents—you like to have your name chiseled into the building and printed on the stationery.
    The fact that I was crashing a partner’s luncheon made my steps