TNP2-12 "The Attorney"

A Chapter by dw817

Tricia retrieved her own personal pen. It was an interesting one, golden, with a beautiful razor tip on the top of it. Suddenly she took the sharp end and poked him in the hand so he would let go.

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THE NANCY PRINCIPLE-2
© July 2014 Written by David Wicker
Please do not reprint without permission

CHAPTER 12 - THE ATTORNEY
[ CHOOSE A DIFFERENT CHAPTER ]

* * *

Rated: EVERYONE

So Without any further argument I followed Tricia to the exiting elevator.

More and more I was convinced that this was not a regular house. It wasn't so much the high-tech gadgetry and security I saw but the fact the residence was seamless. I had yet to find any part of it where it looked like bricks or wood constructed the walls of it.

The inside was cozy enough, certainly with the added furniture, chairs, and appliances. But if you removed all that - what was I left with ? Certainly not anything that seemed ... natural.

I was interrupted in my thoughts by seeing Smithers standing by the limousine. He noticed at once the fine business suit I was wearing that me and my Dad picked out earlier for work at BBI.

He whistled appreciatively, "Meh I say you clean up rawther well, mawster David !"

I greeted him with a rueful smile. I still wasn't happy with the - undergarments Tricia insisted I wear. I knew she was intimidating me by doing this, letting me know she was going to handle important affairs after this and I would - well - be not.

But I stepped in the door nonetheless to the side of the vehicle, eager to get this important paperwork Tricia had in mind out of the way so I could get back to my computer, call up Dad and Rose and find out what happened to my BBS friends on top of it all.

Tricia spoke a bit impatiently, "Smithers. We need to get to the address I gave you earlier on the double. We're running late !"

And without waiting for Smithers to assist her she opened the door to her side on the opposite to enter the limousine and put her seat-belt on. I did the same. I looked to the window on my left and saw the pane was replaced. There was still that itching curiosity in the back of my mind. Who cut it and what were they after ?

"Mom." Smithers said politely and returned back to the front, entering to the driver's side and then starting the ignition, we were off ! With a few cobblestone pebbles clackling against the undercarriage of the limousine, we 180'ed hurriedly in the parking square and returned back to the open road.

And I could see he was definitely not wasting time and while we were not driving recklessly, I think he was on the edge of being so.

She then surprised me by taking my hand in hers and spoke softly, "Don't worry, David. This will be over soon."

I looked at her quizzically for a moment. Isn't that what an executioner told a condemned prisoner before he pulled the almighty switch to electrocute them ?

I retrieved my hand back uneasily and she just smiled sweetly at me.

After a few traffic lights and some left and right turns, we apparently arrived where we were expected.

It was an ugly square-gray building with no identification on the front of it. If anything it could've been an abandoned warehouse for surplus Pogs, which were still very popular for this time.

Smithers parked in the driveway which I noticed was in a bad state of repair with poorly marked boundaries in the lot. He then stepped out and opened my door to let me out. Tricia let herself out.

"Wait here with the limousine, Smithers. This won't take very long."

"Mom !" he said and did that odd clicking of the heels again. I guess it was to show he was at attention.

We entered inside and there was a lone security officer at a desk that had all kinds of snack wrappers on it. For a moment I joked to myself that maybe he actually lived and slept on that desk. This was highlighted especially by the fact I did see a tied up sleeping roll to the left of the desk beside the wastepaper basket.

"You're expected." he said thickly, and not too surprising as for the first time in my life I think I saw a triple chin. He was that fat. He motioned to a door to the left. I saw him open a drawer to pull out a packet of ketchup for some french fries he had in a bag and saw there was a lethal looking pistol in there as well a long knife, obviously not for cutting sandwich bread !

Clearly they were ready for anything !

I coughed and spoke, "So, ahhm, Tricia. Have you given much thought to the wedding we're having ?"

"Much." she said simply as we entered an elevator lift that was long overdue to get replaced.

"Well," I said rubbing the back of my neck a little uneasily, "I really don't want anything fancy. There doesn't need to be a party or cake or anything." I - had no idea what to do about Rose. Should I invite her ? Shouldn't I ? She was the one that I was supposed to marry in time. Rose ! I needed to give her a call when I got back.

"Just - to make it as simple as possible for the wedding." I concluded.

"Oh it will be." she said and greeted me with that disarming smile again.

I grumbled uncomfortably but then was quiet. Something was going on here, but I didn't know what.

We finally arrived at the floor we needed to be and passed by several offices that were, well for lack of a better word, trashed out. Like someone was given the pink slip and it was done in such a way that not only could they not retrieve their personal belongings, but that they were all going to be thrown in the trash.

The desks in the abandoned offices were all messy too, papers everywhere, and office supplies scattered on the floor, as if in some cases there might've been a physical struggle to get the employees out of there. Clearly no-one bothered to vacuum the floor of loose paperclips and trash.

Then we passed an office where a desk was turned over and had holes in it, like someone had taken kicks out of them out with steel-toed boots. I grimaced. This was looking worse and worse.

Finally we arrived at the far end of the hall. I was expecting another elevator, but no. It was the office we needed. There was a fancy copper sign-plate outside on the door hanging lopsided that read, "C. Quardland - Attorney."

* * *

Inside was a thin, sneaky looking fellow. That was the best way I could describe it. He had a cigarette in his mouth and his bottom lip was so up-curled it looked almost like he was smoking the cigarette out of his nose. On his wall were several diplomas attesting to the fact that he really was an attorney, though you certainly couldn't tell just by looking at him.

He looked more like an insect exterminator and was in close rapport with them. I wondered if that was his prior profession.

I smiled at him but then he stood up in a sudden hurry and I was reminded of a roach in a kitchen who was discovered. His office - didn't smell that well either, like bug-spray and sugar, and like the security guard we met earlier, he too had half-eaten and empty snack wrappers scattered all over his desk. Perhaps the security guard on the lower level was his brother ?

"Ah, Tricia Candy ! I 'bout headed home waitin' for you." he said with a toothy grin. He smiled so hard and that cigarette bounced so high up I figured he was going to poke his eye out with the lit end here in a minute but suddenly it flung back down so it looked like he was smoking it out of his right nostril again.

"Yessir. Let's get started, shall we ? Sit sit sit !" he motioned to some chairs and I immediately sat down in one and almost as immediately regretted it. It was like an over-sized plastic chair you have for toddlers and the material was so cheap I sagged in it.

Tricia spoke, "I prefer to stand, if that's alright, Cecil."

He nodded and took out his cigarette mashing it out in an ashtray that was already brimming over with a dozen other ones. He then lowered his head to the desk to look at the papers there. I noticed at that point his nose hairs were so thick it was as if two hairy spiders had moved in either nostril and were clearly fast friends and neighbors with each other. It was - creepy - to say the least.

Tricia maintained her pose and poise standing idly by.

Cecil looked up at the ceiling light which flickered a dull yellow and scratched his chest for a moment as if in thought. Then he got up putting his back to us and I saw he had powdered sugar and grease all over the back of his ill-fitting office shirt.

"Got it right in here somewheres." he said finally bounding to a filing cabinet to his right, and it squeaked noisily from age and rust as he opened to look inside it. He rifled through a mass of indices until he came across what he wanted.

"Yessir. We are in business now." He pulled out a folder then looked at me for a moment as if I were somehow part of the solution to what he wanted. He then gruffed angrily and faced his back to me, hiding what he was doing and reorganized the papers hurriedly in his hands.

Then he turned around and alarmingly waved his hand across his whole desk clearing it and the snack wrappers to the floor, somehow missing the ashtray which stayed on it, which was good as likely that might've started a fire.

He then sat back down at his 'clean' desk and took the papers and muttered and wheezed to himself. Finally he took one of the pages and folded them over. Then he took a ruler and set that out horizontally on the bottom page. He then took the manila folder and folded that over the top. Then he turned it all around carefully to face me.

"You're the one gettin' the money, right ?" he finally said addressing me.

"Yessir." I said respectfully.

And, just like before, maybe it was the way I said it or the words I chose, his face screwed up in a terrible smile and I knew he was going to laugh out loud but caught himself and coughed and perhaps because he smoked so much it was an awful cough that he couldn't stop.

And because he was caught up in a fit at the moment, he suddenly leaned back in his chair to give a good cough to get it out of his system when both he and the chair he was sitting in toppled noisily on the floor and he fell painfully out of it backwards, the legs of the rolling chair cracking hard against the cheap fiber-board office table of his causing the angle on it's top to tilt slightly.

Tricia didn't say anything but I heard her huff in a sigh like she was getting impatient with this.

And as if he were a magician with a failed trick he suddenly jumped back up, righting the chair again, sat down in it and leaning over to look at the floor, retrieved a pen. He looked at it for a moment, sniffing the surface of it, and placed it near his mouth, I guess it had powdered sugar on it, and he was going to lick it clean for me.

But seeing the more than disdainful look from Tricia, he finally wiped the sticky sugar of the pen off from under his stained arm-pit as if that were any better. Not by much.

Then he tapped his finger hard on the signature line while thrusting the pen, now clean of powdered sugar, beside it. The pen rolled to the side to fall off because of the new angle of his damaged desk. He took the pen and rotated it hard sidewise so it wouldn't roll.

"Yeah, well, uhh - good for that. Now sign here - boy." and he pointed to the signature line.

I looked at Tricia worriedly. Finally I asked her, "This is for ... ?"

"Your money." she replied flatly.

I nodded. I saw the way he had it too. I couldn't see any of the documentation above the signature line as he had the ruler folder over, pressing hard against the manila folder blocking it.

I looked at Cecil. He seemed blissfully happy. Likely he'd be getting a hefty bonus or something for this. I looked back at the paper and started to move the ruler so I could read above it. I hated to sign things unless I knew what they were.

Suddenly his hand reached out and swatted the ruler back down, pinching my finger under it. I looked at him and it was clear he didn't want me to read ANY of this but just sign it - sight unseen. I sighed myself. I looked at Tricia who mouthed the words without saying them, "Go on."

I trusted her at least. I finally put my signature in. Then Cecil snatched the pen from me and with his other hand still flattened down on the top slid it over to Tricia, leaving an even cleaner desk outline beneath as if it were picking up doughnut and cookie crumbs like a paper towel. He held out the pen to her.

She looked where she was supposed to sign but reached in her own purse for a personal pen. It was an interesting one, golden, with a beautiful razor tip on the top of it. Suddenly she took the sharp end and in an incredibly dextrous move, poked him in the hand so he would let go.

"Jeez woman !" he cried and released the papers to place the flat of his wrist up against his mouth where it was bleeding slightly. I watched the pen finally roll off the lopsided desk.

"I'm going to read this before I sign unless you have a problem with that, Cecil Quardland." she stated in a condescending tone.