John grisham books online free professional#
He was glib and engaging with a mellow, almost professional baritone. Oliver Lambert, the senior partner, leaned forward on his elbows and took control of the preliminary chitchat. He could afford to be a little overconfident now. With three job offers from three of the most prestigious firms in the country, he did not need this interview, this firm. He was now a seasoned veteran in the search of employment, and he knew they wanted him. McDeere unbuttoned his coat and crossed his legs. They sat around a shiny mahogany conference table and exchanged pleasantries. "Sure, Mitch." Lamar grabbed his shoulder and led him across the suite, where the partners introduced themselves. Please call me Mitch." He stepped inside and quickly surveyed the spacious room. "Mitchell McDeere?" he asked with a huge smile and a hand thrust forward. Lamar buttoned his top button and opened the door.
Lamar looked at the partners, who slid the resume and dossier into an open briefcase. Precisely at two-thirty someone knocked on the door. He glanced at the two partners sitting at the small conference table near the windows. He strolled nonchalantly across the thousand-dollar-a-day suite and poured another cup of decaf. With a six-figure income guaranteed for the rest of his life, Lamar could enjoy the twelve-hundred-dollar tailored suits that hung so comfortably from his tall, athletic frame. He had been brought along to look young and act young and project a youthful image for Bendini, Lambert & Locke, which in fact was a young firm, since most of the partners retired in their late forties or early fifties with money to burn. Lamar Quin was thirty-two and not yet a partner. Royce McKnight flipped through the dossier and smiled. He owed close to $23,000 in student loans. He drank an occasional beer, but drinking was expensive and he had no money.
He said No and left when everyone began snorting. Two months ago he had been offered cocaine at a law school party. He declined, and made the highest grade in the class. He had been given the opportunity to cheat on a securities exam during his second year. They learned, for instance, that he preferred to leave the Northeast, that he was holding three job offers, two in New York and one in Chicago, and that the highest offer was $76,000 and the lowest was $68,000. It was easy work, they said, checking out unsuspecting law students. They were clients of and each year did the investigating for no fee. The managing partner, Royce McKnight, studied a dossier labeled:Īn inch thick with small print and a few photographs, it had been prepared by some ex-CIA agents in a private intelligence outfit in Bethesda. In fact, for this year there were no other prospects. She lasted four turbulent years and was killed in a car wreck. That mistake had been made in the mid-seventies when they recruited the number one grad from Harvard, who happened to be a she and a wizard at taxation. McDeere was a male, and there were no women in. Plus, The Firm was in Memphis, of all places, and the top blacks wanted New York or Washington or Chicago. This firm recruited, and remained lily white. They managed this by being secretive and clubbish and never soliciting job applications. He was white, and The Firm had never hired a black. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. The Firm had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking.
And he was hungry with his background, he had to be. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. The senior partner studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y.
0 kommentar(er)
