The Anonymous Client

and I see no prospects of getting clients. But I still need someone to hold down the office. To hang out here and read books all day long. Some people would kill for the job.”
    “I’m not one of them.”
    “So what are you trying to say?”
    Tracy took a breath. “I’m saying I can’t take it. I need something to do. So ... well, I’m giving two weeks’ notice. I’ll stay on till you get a replacement.”
    “I see,” Steve said. “So where you gonna go?”
    “I thought I’d try some of the larger law firms.”
    Steve nodded. “That’s what I thought you’d say. You may have some trouble there.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yeah. You’re not a paralegal, you’re just a secretary. You have no legal training or education.”
    “I know. But ...”
    “But what?”
    “I hate to ask, but I need a recommendation.”
    “I’m afraid my recommendation won’t cut much ice with the larger law firms. But you’re welcome to it. But I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”
    “You think I won’t get a job?”
    “No, I think you might. But if you do, I think you’ll be disappointed.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Well, what do you think you’d do in one of those law firms?”
    “I don’t know. Assist the lawyer. Take notes. Look up things for him.”
    Steve frowned. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”
    “What is?”
    “It’s those books you read. Those murder mysteries. Murders, clients, chases. Real life isn’t like that. It isn’t even like L.A. Law. You might as well work for a business firm.”
    Tracy set her jaw, defensively. “Oh yeah?” she said. “You know that for a fact?”
    “No, I’m just telling you what I think. And I think you’d be bored silly.”
    “Well, it couldn’t be worse than here.”
    “Yeah. It could. Here you have no expectations. You sit and read your books all day. There you start off with high hopes, and wind up a bored file clerk.” Steve sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to argue with you, and I don’t want to disillusion you, but I don’t want to send you out of here with false hopes, either. ’Cause you don’t really want work. What you want is to play Della Street to my Perry Mason. And real life isn’t like that. Now, if you want to leave, I can’t stop you. You’re welcome to my recommendation and I wish you good luck. I just think you’re going to be disappointed.”
    Tracy stood looking at him for a moment. She frowned and went out, closing the door behind her.
    Steve Winslow leaned back in his desk chair.
    Damn. He really needed that. Now he’d have to find a new secretary. Not that that should be a problem—if worst came to worst, he could always call one of the temporary agencies. And it wasn’t as if he knew Tracy Garvin well enough to really care if she left.
    But still.
    He’d started the day in a fairly good mood. After years of scratching out a living, of driving taxi cabs as an out-of-work actor, and then as an out-of-work lawyer, it was real nice to be on an annual retainer. To have enough money coming in to rent an office, hire a secretary, and draw a weekly salary himself. All right, so it wasn’t that much. And all right, so all it really meant was he didn’t have to drive a cab anymore and had more free time to go to more disappointing auditions. And of course, it was galling to have no real law practice. To see his legal education go for nothing. To be washed up as a lawyer after handling just one case.
    Particularly a case he had won. Steve smiled at the irony. Yeah, he’d won the case all right, but no one knew it. Not even Tracy Garvin. Oh, they knew his client got off. They just didn’t know he’d got her off. And the things he’d had to do to win that case, playing the clown in court to take the heat off his client—well, after all that, there was no chance anyone was going to hire him to do anything else.
    But he’d accepted that, and he was used to that, and he was living with it.
    He just didn’t need to have it flung in his face.
    Steve picked up the Backstage , opened it to the casting calls. Shit. More of the same. He folded the paper over, ran his finger down the listings. “Off-Broadway showcase.” Great. A chance to battle a hundred other actors for the chance to work for three months for nothing on the off chance some agent or producer might see his work. “Chorus work.”
    “Chorus work.”
    “Independent casting director accepting pix and resumes.” Christ, had he registered with that