Death Watch

DEATH WATCH

By T.L. Peters

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013, T. L. Peters

License Notes

This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

To read more about the author and his other books, go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tlpeters.

Chapter 1

When Jake got to the meeting things were already in full swing.

Lucinda Spiegel, all six-feet two inches of her, sat cross-legged in a gray suit tailored precisely to the creased severity of her painfully malnourished frame, sporting a mass of frizzled grayish blonde hair that extended down to her almost nonexistent rear end. Lucinda's strategy for success at the good old law firm of Box and Fitzgerald was simple, and so far quite effective—work herself nearly to death while fuming hostility at everyone who dared cross her path, except of course for those few shining pillars of prominence who could further her career, around whom she purred like a kitten.

Josh Edsel was there too in his full bolt-upright stiffness, a lock-jawed Harvard boy with sparkling white teeth who fashioned himself as the soft spoken team player who would rise to partnership on the wings of sensible judgments and a sterling wardrobe. There was Buck Morton, a product of Billings, Montana by way of the University of Chicago Law School who liked to wear cowboy boots and play the drunken rebel at firm functions, while all the time watching for any opportunity to impress the firm luminaries of his genuine dedication to hard work and the profit motive.

Now with Jake Kurzfrist's arrival the associate component of the legal team handpicked to serve the needs of KZ Industries was complete. All that was lacking was the titular head of this noble enterprise, Leonard Guest, the firm's top corporate partner and seasoned veteran of the takeover wars.

Jake sat down on a hard wooden chair off to one side of the massive office and slowly pulled one leg toward his chest, peering down to inspect the tattered sole. He thrust his foot at the startled Lucinda and grinned.

Two holes and a piece of gum. My lot in life.

Lucinda groaned and rolled her eyes. Buck laughed while Josh adjusted his glasses.

Does anybody know what this meeting is about? Josh whined.

I bet there's some merger in the works, Lucinda snarled, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head slightly, as if possessed of some higher oracle of insight beyond the ken of her miserable company.

Jake impatiently looked at his watch. He had promised his dad that he would take him to the doctor at five.

How long is this meeting gonna last? Jake asked.

What do you care? Josh smirked. All you do is work.

I bet Jake's got a date, Buck chortled. Tell them, Jake. Who is she, a model or beauty queen or something?

Lucinda sneered maliciously.

Who'd date a guy who wears Sears suits, lives at home and has crooked teeth?

Hey, Jake's a star around here, Buck countered mirthfully. We're the ones who are just grunts compared to him.

Josh adjusted his cuff links.

"Jake is one of those guys who thinks life is like going to the dentist, just hurry up and get it over with. How can you have any kind of a relationship with someone who thinks like that?

You're selling Jake short, Buck interjected heartily. Jake's got a plan. Don't you, Jake?

Yeah, and what's the plan? Lucinda snapped, tugging on her skirt, as if any male on the planet could possibly be tempted to peek under it.

Buck leaned over and nudged Jake on the shoulder.

Tell them, Jake. Don't be bashful. How does the saying go? Something about honesty being the great weapon of the cunning.

Honesty is the cleverest form of deceit, Jake said absently, focusing his eyes on nothing in particular.

That's it, Buck roared and slapped his knee. Fake out your opponents by telling the truth. How'd you ever come up with such cutting wisdom, Jake, a nice guy like you?

You're all idiots, Lucinda mumbled. What's the truth have to do with anything at this place?

Tell her, Jake, and Buck's eyes were gleaming now, and his mouth was turned up at the ends in a disreputable grin. Tell her how it works.

Let's quiet down, Josh said, peeking out the door at the voluptuous secretary who had just wiggled her curvacious rearend in from lunch.

What's the matter? Buck taunted him. Afraid you're gonna get in a little trouble?

Quit picking on him, Lucinda barked.

Buck started flicking his fingertips at Josh's chin, whereupon the hardly athletic Josh tried to fend him off with a few puny waves of his hand. This resistance excited Buck all the more, who stood his 230 pounds over the hapless Josh and pretended to throw a few quick blows at his soft milky face, pulling them back at just the last instant before bloody impact. Josh's little brown eyes got wide and round and his forehead crinkled up in panic.

Lucinda stood up and raised her arms chest high.

Leave him alone or I'll kick your butt.

Buck turned toward her and chuckled.

Come off it, Lucinda.

I know Karate.

You don't know diddly-squat.

I can take down any man. You watch me.

Hey guys, where's the love? Jake said, having just broken free from a wandering day dream.

The two combatants paid no attention, squaring off like lions in heat.

Don't do it, Lucinda, Josh advised, grabbing her wrist.

Lucinda flashed her eyes at Buck, but then sat back down.

Don't push me, Buck.

A skinny bag of bones like you. What could you do?

Her hands are lethal weapons, Josh interjected, his face puckered with seriousness.

Buck rolled his eyes and looked over at Jake.

How come you're being so quiet?

I'm day-dreaming again, Jake said, staring out the window.

About what?

About how nice it would be to get up late and take long walks after lunch.

Pretty low expectations, Jake? Lucinda said. Where's the old ambition?

Jake never had any ambition, Josh said. He just works to spite the rest of us.

Buck walked over to the corner of the office where Leonard stored his golf clubs. He pulled out a driver and took off the silver cover.

I know what Jake's planning.

What's that? Jake said, grinning at him.

Jake's gonna sneak in the office some night and whack old Leonard over the head with this titanium driver.

Now what good would that do me? Jake replied.

It couldn't hurt. Maybe you'd get the KZ account all to yourself. The client sure likes you enough.

This is a nauseating conversation, Lucinda snapped.

Don't give me that moral tone, Buck answered her, pretending to tee it up. Just because you're trying to get into his pants is no reason to get all high and mighty.

Lucinda glowered at the big man.

I'm warning you.

Buck swung the club slowly backward and wiggled his hips.

Why don't you knock it off? Josh said. Take work seriously for a change.

What's eating you? Buck chuckled. Are you Lucinda's great protector or something?

Lucinda started to rise up but Buck ignored her.

The real issue is whether Jake's got the guts to tell Leonard to go screw himself, Buck added cheerfully.

Why don't you undertake that task? Jake laughed. You hate him more than I do.

I'm a coward at heart, Jake, Buck said. You know that.

You'll be more than a sniveling coward when I get through with you, Lucinda barked, circling around Buck and pinching the back of his neck with her forefinger and thumb. Buck wrenched in pain and drove his elbow backwards at her, but the blow fell just short of her ribs. In retribution she delivered a sharp kick to the back of his knee, and the big man crumpled to the floor.

Hey, you crazy witch, Buck screamed. Lay off me.

You asked for it, Buck, Josh said, adjusting his tie. I warned you.

Lucinda strutted back to her chair. Grunting, Buck rose to his feet and dropped the club back into the bag.

How do you know so much? Buck said, turning to Josh. Does she beat you up too every night? Is that why you like her so much?

Mind your own business, Josh bristled, reddening.

Maybe you want to see more of my talents, Lucinda snorted, laughing harshly as Buck sat down.

Crazy witch, Buck muttered.

Hey guys, Jake intoned, finally breaking out of his daydream. Where's the love? We're teammates after all.

Great, Buck scowled. When Jake Kurzfrist starts talking about the virtues of being a team player, then I'm ready to get my ticket punched.

Don't give Lucinda any ideas, Jake laughed.

As Lucinda was about to stick her tongue out at Jake, the great man himself blustered into the doorway. Leonard gave everybody a chance to settle down before fixing a steady and somber gaze on all his young darlings.

We've got a demanding project coming up, so clear your desks, Leonard announced, sitting down and abruptly swinging his chair sideways so he could angle his feet onto the corner of the dark mahogany desk. I want you all working full-time on this from now on.

Leonard Guest was a short, squat, bald, middle-aged bundle of arrogant insecurity wrapped in brains and bravado, who always looked as if he had just consumed five cups of coffee too many. He was reputed to be a firm but fair taskmaster, though Jake would have none of this euphemistic interpretation. Nevertheless, Jake cherished such heart-warmingly cynical notions about virtually everyone at the firm, a controversial attitude that he was not shy about sharing either, never explicitly of course, but in a disheveled flippant body language that communicated so much more hostility than words ever could.

The other three associates had snapped to attention as soon as they hadheard Leonard's frantic staccato voice, but Jake, like always, took his time, preferring to look around Leonard's office a little while longer before deigning to join in the cerebral fray. He had always considered the offices of most prominent people to reflect the silly and pretentious nature of their occupants, but this was doubly the case for Leonard's official space. Not only was it far too big for such a little man; not only was the oversized desk dominating the center of the room so obnoxiously well-tended that seldom did more than one sheet of paper at a time appear on its shiny spotless surface; not only did the pencil sketches of ancient Dickension barristers and the mass of diplomas cluttering the wall behind Leonard's fuzzy scalp give Jake a mild headache; but the room was filled with particularly annoying paraphernalia from Leonard's one great passion, other than terrorizing young lawyers with enormous amounts of work, namely, golf.

Jake had long viewed as conclusive evidence of his superiority to other mortals of his sphere that he hated golf, regarding the game as the plague by which God punished with back aches and heart attacks the aging scions of corporate America. And Leonard was a prime testimony to the creeping malady, displaying every trophy from all the two-bit tournaments he had ever won, along with glass-encased three woods, golf balls and bronzed tees, in a shrine of shelves and cabinets that dominated three-fourths of the room. It was by this sneaky mechanism that Leonard endeavored to show clients and some of his more suspicious partners that, despite his eccentricities and smugly complex personality, he was an okay guy. Leonard, however, would cut anybody's throat in a second, which was why Jake snapped out of his practiced lethargy a tad faster than normal when he heard Leonard ask him a pointed question for the second time.

Sure I'll be able to work on it.

Good, Leonard said, leaning back in his black leather chair and lacing his grubby fingers behind a mawkishly oval head. And that goes for the rest of you too, right?

Lucinda, Josh and Buck, by now completely servile and civil, all nodded agreement in fawning unison. Leonard stared up at the ceiling, as if drawing forth some Herculean emotion from the depths of his prosaic soul.

We have to renew our dedication to meet our client's goals, Leonard bleated out, lowering his eyes slowly with maximum theatrical affectation onto his rapt onlookers. Teamwork will be essential in this project. There's a lot to do and we'll need freewheeling coordination. We can't have any superstars or prima donna's here. We've got to support each other. Everybody's got to be a creative force of nature, twenty-four-seven.

At this pompous pronouncement Jake bit his lip and tried to stare impassively into empty space like a good soldier, but he doubted very much whether his rebellious facial muscles had managed to conform to his brain's instructions. He scratched his nose, barely suppressing a desire to fart, and looked out the large window behind Leonard's mottled brow at an old church steeple rising in majestic nonchalance toward heaven. The sight offered an ironic contrast to the skullduggery going on within the neighboring towers of corporate greed, and Jake made a mental note to ponder this entire question at a more suitable date.

Are we all agreed?

Jake's three cohorts nodded vigorously for a number of seconds before Jake reluctantly joined in.

You too, Kurzfrist, Leonard intoned. I don't want anyone hogging the glory on this project, or the work either.

Smarting from the unkind insinuation, Jake hardened his jaw, scrunched up his nose and nodded acidly. Lucinda smiled as brightly as she was physically capable, while Josh and Buck tried to keep their heads down and pretend to be professional.

Good, and Leonard swung his feet back down to his expensive Persian rug and pounded his puny fist onto the desk. Now, here's what's going on.

The noble leader proceeded to explain in a long harangue that KZ Industries was about to embark on another acquisition binge, this time in the medical supplies business, and had to line up some key financing from various banks. Due to the sour economy banks weren't in the mood to lend money, so there would be a lot of hard negotiations prior to any deal. Some of the potential takeover candidates might even prove hostile to losing their independence. The upshot was that all four associates could count on a nice stream of billable hours for as far as the eye could see, thereby relieving them of any necessity to scour about for mundane work from the firm's lesser lights.

The news should have made Jake happy, because he generally hated working on small matters where he had to worry about every hour he billed and whether the client would balk at paying. The firm didn't like eating its lawyers' time, and Jake didn't like working if it didn't count. That was why he had gone against the politically correct trend of the times and eschewed pro bono work, a tactical risk that had paid off handsomely for Jake in a growing reputation for self-confident independence that some had even begun to equate with leadership potential.

It was all nonsense to Jake of course, leadership being the preserve of war heroes, martyred saints and other people who mattered, but Jake took the compliment anyway without serious objection. Although he knew that he was basically the same as all the other peons at the firm, constantly scrounging around for recognition and prestige, he wasn't about to let his profound insights foul up his prospects. Nonetheless, the idea of many months spent at Leonard's beck and call hardly seemed a prize worthy of great jubilation.

Now, do all of you understand what has to be done? Leonard grunted and eyed each of his charges with a somber glare.

It sounds exciting, Lucinda purred.

A real challenge, Josh intoned.

Do those good-looking receptionists still work over there at KZ Industries? Buck grinned.

Leonard laughed.

I'm glad you're all on board.

Jake looked down at his watch—three o'clock. Not bad, he thought. Maybe he could get home in time after all. His dad had been complaining lately about his eyesight and his feet, which was uncharacteristic of his father, who generally endured physical ailments with a large measure of congenial stoicism. Although Jake would normally have blown off his dad in favor of sucking up to the powers that be, even authorities as detestable as Leonard Guest, his father's complaints seemed sufficiently urgent that Jake had resolved to get his dad to the doctor no matter what came up at the firm. His dad's failing eyesight particularly worried Jake, since chauffeuring the old man around town would cut severely into his already limited free time.

Jake turned his head in mild irritation toward Buck, who had started blathering away about the merits of playing golf in the snow, when suddenly Lucinda furrowed her brow and started doodling on her notepad.

I have a few questions, she remarked somberly.

Leonard looked over at her and started rubbing his hand over the desk, his little eyes beaming eagerly. Jake felt like groaning because he knew what was on the horizon—a long exposition by Lucinda designed to show one and all that she was a lot smarter than anybody else in the room. Leonard always claimed that he enjoyed the intellectual give and take of these sharp exchanges with his associates as a way to come up with new ideas and thus better serve the client. Jake doubted whether he really meant it though, preferring the view that Leonard was just going along with the idea of open frankness among colleagues currently in vogue at the nation's best firms, and that one day Lucinda would pay dearly for her impertinence. Nevertheless, this drivel could go on for a while, and for the first time during the meeting Jake's foot began to tap nervously on the floor.

Don't you really think we should get a tax ruling on these refinancings? she asked. If the debt is considered equity for tax purposes, that could constitute an ownership change which could adversely impact KZ's tax loss carry-forwards.

I'd rather talk about golf, Buck said. If you use an orange ball you can play all year around.

The IRS won't give rulings on debt-equity questions, Jake chimed in, hoping to clip the discussion before it got out of hand.

We could still get a ruling on the applicability of the ownership change rules to these kinds of transactions, Lucinda insisted.

Have you ever teed off in five inches of snow? Buck continued good-naturedly. It doesn't affect the loft much, but you don't get a very good roll.

Why would we want to do that? Jake glowered. Let the IRS find it out on audit. Why alert them to the issue? Anyway, KZ Industries has enough problems with their books already. Why cause more trouble?

Lucinda leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, as if in deep thought. She straightened out her skinny legs and smiled coyly.

But this is a major transaction. Can we really leave the success of the entire enterprise to hinge on something so amorphous as audit risk?

There are no audit risks, Jake snapped. It's just a refinancing, pure and simple. The only tax issues will be in the takeovers, and we can always get rulings for those later.

Despite Jake's pointed objections Leonard pretended to be intrigued by Lucinda's mental flagellation, and so the discussion went on for another forty minutes. Jake was just about to get out of his chair in disgust when Josh, never one to be outdone in the exquisite game of inventing meaningless problems, raised some obscure point about state securities law over which Jake knew very little. Nonetheless, Jake instantly dismissed the whole matter as something to be researched later and stood up to leave, when he was quietly rebuked by Leonard's bony hand waving him to sit back down. From then on Jake did not really hear any of the tedious discussion, so nervously intent was he in focusing on the approaching deadline for him to leave to see his father.

At three-fifty-five there was still no let up in sight, and Jake fidgeted around noticeably, crossed his legs and began rubbing his ankle and staring out the window. Buck, who understood Jake a lot better than the rest, threw him a sly grin, and piped up about another issue that he claimed had been worrying him all along. At this Jake was about to explode, but he managed to stay in his chair until four-fifteen when he could take it no longer and abruptly stood up.

I'm sorry, but I've got to be somewhere, he said, looking down at the startled faces of all except Buck, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely at Jake's obvious discomfort.

It must be important, Leonard blurted out in a cold, flat voice.

It is, Jake said, reluctant to cite personal reasons as the cause for his premature departure.

You better get whatever it is off your plate, Leonard advised, turning back to Lucinda, who had begun to shape her mouth into the beginnings of a smile, or at least what amounted to a smile for such a chary creature. "Brackenridge will be here next week