Turn Coat (The Dresden Files 11)

I'd figure out somewhere else to move him-just as soon as I leaned on Ms. Evelyn Derek and found out to whom she reported Vince's findings.

I guess I looked sort of mussed and scraggly, because the building's security guard gave me a wary look as I entered solidly in the middle of lunch hour. I could practically see him deciding whether or not to stop me.

I gave him my friendliest smile-which my weariness and stress probably reduced to merely polite-and said, "Excuse me, sir. I have an appointment with an attorney at Smith Cohen and Mackleroy. They're on the twenty-second floor, right?"

He relaxed, which was good. Beneath his suit, he looked like he had enough muscle to bounce me handily out the door. "Twenty-four, sir."

"Right, thanks." I smiled at him and strode confidently past. Confidence is critical to convincing people that you really are supposed to be somewhere-especially when you aren't.

"Sir," said the guard from behind me. "I'd appreciate it if you left your club here."

I paused and looked over my shoulder.

He had a gun. His hand wasn't exactly resting on it, but he'd tucked his thumb into his belt about half an inch away.

"It isn't a club," I said calmly. "It's a walking stick."

"Six feet long."

"It's traditional Ozark folk art."

"With dents and nicks all over it."

I thought about it for a second. "I'm insecure?"

"Get a blanket." He held out his hand.

I sighed and passed my staff over to him. "Do I get a receipt?"

He took a notepad from his pocket and wrote on it. Then he passed it over to me. It read: Received, one six foot traditional Ozark walking club from Mr. Smart-ass.

"That's Doctor Smart-ass," I said. "I didn't spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister."

He leaned the staff against the wall behind his desk and sat back down at his chair.

I went to the elevator and rode up. It was one of those express contraptions that goes fast enough to compress your spine and make your ears pop. It opened on the twenty-fourth floor facing a reception desk. The law office, apparently, took up the entire floor.

The receptionist was, inevitably, a young woman, and just as unavoidably attractive. She went with the solid-oak furnishings, the actual oil paintings, and the handcrafted furniture in the reception area, and the faint scent of lemon wood polish in the air-variations on a theme of beautiful practicality.

She looked up at me with a polite smile, her dark hair long and appealing, her shirt cut just low enough to make you notice, but not so low as to make you think less of her. I liked the smile. Maybe I didn't look like a beaten-up bum. Maybe on me it just looked ruggedly determined.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but the addiction-counseling center is on twenty-six."

Sigh.

"I'm actually here to see someone," I said. "Assuming that this is Smith Cohen and Mackleroy?"

She glanced rather pointedly-but still politely-at the front of her desk, where a plaque bore the firm's name in simple sans serif lettering. "I see, sir. Who are you looking for?"

"Ms. Evelyn Derek, please."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I said. "But she'll want to talk to me."

The receptionist looked at me as though she had some kind of bitter, unpleasant taste in her mouth. I'd timed my arrival correctly, then. The young lady clearly would have been much more comfortable handing me off to a secretary, or executive assistant, or whatever you're supposed to call them now, and letting someone else decide if I was supposed to be there. And Ms. Evelyn Derek's assistant was just as clearly out to lunch, which was the point of showing up during lunch hour. "Who shall I say is here?"

I produced Vincent Graver's business card and passed it to her. "Please tell her that Vince has acquired some unexpected information and that she needs to hear about it."

She pushed a button, adjusted her headset, and dutifully passed on the message to whoever was on the other end. She listened and nodded. "Straight back down the hall, sir, the second door on the left."

I nodded to her and walked through the door behind her. The carpet got even thicker and the decor more expensive. A nook in the wall showcased a small rock fountain between a pair of two-thousand-dollar leather chairs. I shook my head as I walked through a hall that absolutely reeked of success, power, and the desire for everyone to know about it.

I bet they would have been seethingly jealous of the Ostentatiatory in Edinburgh.

I opened the second door on the left, went in, and closed it behind me, to find a secretary's desk, currently unoccupied, and an open door to what would doubtless be an executive office appropriate to the status of Evelyn Derek, attorney at law.

"Come in, Mr. Graver," said an impatient woman's voice from inside the office.

I walked in and shut the door behind me. The office was big, but not monstrous. She probably wasn't a full partner in the firm. The furnishings were sleek and ultramodern, with a lot of glass and space-age metal. There was only one small filing cabinet in the room, a shelf with a row of legal texts, a slender and fragile-looking laptop computer, and a framed sheepskin from somewhere expensive on the wall. She had a window, but it had been frosted over into bare translucency. The glass desk and sitting table and liquor cabinet all shone, without a smudge or a fingerprint to be seen anywhere. It had all the warmth of an operating theater.

The woman typing on the laptop might have come with the office as part of a complete set. She wore rimless glasses in front of the deepest green eyes I had ever seen. Her hair was raven black, and cut close to her head, showcasing her narrow, elegant features and the slender line of her neck. She wore a dark silk suit jacket with a matching skirt and a white blouse. She had long legs, ending in shoes that must have cost more than most mortgage payments, but she wore no rings, no earrings, and no necklace. There was something cold and reserved about her posture, and her fingers struck the keys at a rapid, decisive cadence, like a military drummer.

She said nothing for two full minutes, focusing intently on whatever she was typing. Obviously, she had something to prove to Vince for daring to intrude upon her day.

"I hope you don't think you can convince me to rehire you, Mr. Graver," she said, eventually, without looking up. "What is it that you think is so important?"

Ah. Vince had quit already. He didn't let much grass grow under his feet, did he?

This woman was evidently used to being taken very seriously. I debated several answers and decided to start things off by annoying her.