Reckless: Season 2: Betterment - Act 2
by redmoon
Betterment - Act 2
Logan got up the next morning with the renewed glow of Full Partnership. The quality that words had when you repeated them enough seemed to have abandoned these two: Full... Partnership... Same as the first time, he mused. A little giddy, he pulled back the covers and quickly replaced them so as not to allow the cool air to disturb his wife’s nakedness. He himself shivered as the cool morning caressed his naked form. Some of the giddiness, he admitted, wasn’t job related. Something most employers know is that promotion improved performance.
He showered and dressed and wandered downstairs to have some coffee. He stepped out of the kitchen to hear the subdued sounds of the television. Sipping his coffee he watched Hanna sitting cross-legged before the TV. She hadn’t watched Saturday morning cartoons in years. He shook his head. Without disturbing her, he finished his coffee and donned his khaki blazer, giving the house one last glance before starting for work as Logan Kilpatrick, Criminal Defense Lawyer.
The drive was uneventful, giving him time to think about the things he would buy with the extra money he would be bringing in. He rode the elevator in silence, his briefcase changing hands several times. Finally the door opened and he found himself on an unfamiliar floor. He strode down the unfamiliar corridor to a small, unfamiliar office set between two others whose occupants he had never met. Looking up at the door, however, told him he was right where he belonged. His name was stenciled onto the glass.
He opened the door and found a new desk and high backed chair, his workspace still clear of mess, though that would soon change, he assumed. He was still considering this when the thin, unimposing file landed on his desk. He looked up, expecting to see Eric Quinlan’s grinning face, but it was instead one of the prosecutors from across the hall
“Got dumped on my desk by mistake,” she said tonelessly, turning to go with something like disdain. Logan smiled. He was now back at the bottom of the ladder: the newbie. He took a deep breath, feeling ten years younger.
Flipping the file open, his eyes were immediately drawn to the photograph attached to the top left with a paperclip. An elderly woman, African-American with sky grey hair and a kind face stared at him out of the folder.
She was charged with assault. Logan blinked. He looked up again at the picture. Then the name, Mira Washington. Date of birth: 12/08/16. Logan blinked again. So a seventy one year old woman assaulted someone? Interesting. She had apparently stashed a small fortune away which was the means by which she had made bail and had now been assigned to him. Logan blinked a third time. East 143rd Street, Bronx. If this woman had enough money to pay for the services of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, why didn’t she find a better place to live? The neighborhood in the South Bronx was one of the poorest quarters in the all of New York – in the whole country, Logan guessed. Assault had a completely different meaning in this woman’s neighborhood than it did in Queens. Sad but true.
Logan sighed. He would need to go and interview her. It was perfectly legitimate to inform her that she would need to come to his office, but it was common practice to visit the home of elderly clients, a courtesy he had learned from the senior partners. He closed the folder and stood. There were some things he would like to go over with Eric before he did the preliminary interview. Riding the elevator down to his old floor, he couldn’t have imagined what he saw when he got there.
Half a dozen large men were carrying the cubicle desks to one end of the room while a small pile of cardboard boxes was the subject of much sullen attention at the other end. He saw some people he knew carrying their possessions back towards the elevator, various degrees of resentment and anger on their faces.
Logan stood in shocked silence for a moment inside the elevator before the doors began to close again. He quickly jumped out, looking up to the wall above the main receptionists desk. The desk was built into the floor, so it was not being moved, but it was bare now and the sign which had been hanging above it, reading Morgan, Lewis & Bockius was sitting on the floor against the wall.
Another, larger and more impressive sign was carefully being put in place by two men. Wolfram & Hart Attorneys at Law it read.
“Eric,” Logan spotted Quinlan who was digging his box from the pile. The prosecutor found a small plant, which had tipped over and spilled some of its dirt onto the floor, and placed it carefully on top of his box.
“Morning, Logan,” Eric replied with a good approximation of chipper. “Everything running smoothly upstairs?”
“Eric, what the hell is going on?” Logan demanded, looking around at the corporate destruction all around.
“Streamlining,” Quinlan replied, carrying his box to the elevator. “I expect I’ll get home and find they’ve stolen my stapler or something like that. Bastards.”
“You’ve all been fired?” Logan asked incredulously. “Have you spoken to the senior partners about this? They wouldn’t allow this!”
“They were the first to go,” Eric informed him. “Apparently they were offered severance packages they couldn’t refuse.”
“So what are you supposed to do now?” Logan seemed more angry that Eric was losing his job than Eric himself.
“Legal aid,” Quinlan said with a hint of sourness. “For some reason there’s a shortness of court appointed attorneys.” Eric tapped the down arrow on the elevator keypad.
“Cause the pay’s shit,” Logan replied as the prosecutor waited calmly for the doors to open. “This is ridiculous!” But Eric didn’t seem to react. He waited calmly and then stepped into the elevator, turning to Logan who now felt guilty and angry not holding his own desk’s contents in his hand. He knew he wasn’t going on this elevator: he wasn’t going down.
“Win one for me,” Quinlan said with fabricated happiness, then gave a wink and the doors closed.
Logan was left standing with the slow dismantling of his old floor going on around him. He realized then just how precarious his position was. He was a newbie, but not a welcome one, or a particularly gracious one. If they could let Eric Quinlan go, his own office could be a storage closet overnight if he wasn’t careful.
The door burst inward and a very resentful Slayer marched in, raising her crossbow and delivering a fatal bolt to the heart. The vampire collapsed into a pile of his own ashes. Discarding the crossbow, Niki drew a stake and ducked the swing of the second vamp. He vamped out and grabbed her in a bear hug, pulling her to the floor in the darkness.
With a yell of pent up anger, Niki drove the stake so hard into the creature’s chest that the tip of the wood splintered on the cement floor. The cloud of ash rose up to greet her with like an exhaled breath.
She was breathing hard, not from exertion but from anger. She normally took pleasure in the hunt, the kill. Not today. Today was supposed to be her day off. Nothing methodical. Nothing strategic. She knew where they were, she could smell it, and she killed each and every one of them she found. She had been working her way North up Park Avenue all night, she was tired, but the anger forced her on. She knew Addison would be back at her apartment. She knew all he wanted was to know how many she had killed. How many tonight? How many last night?
Eleven, she scowled, stalking back up the stairs to the front of the shop, then out onto the street again. Niki grimaced as the midmorning sunshine fell across her face. Fourteen to go, she thought angrily, ‘cause I’m a fucking jolly good fellow.
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