The Rainmaker by John Grisham

to me. What’s happening here? Who’s been fired?”
    “They fired all of us associates,” he says slowly. “Beck called us into the conference room, said the partners had agreed to sell out to Tinley Britt, and that there was no room for the associates. Just like that. Gave us an hour to clean out our desks and leave the building.” His head nods oddly from shoulder to shoulder when he says this, and he stares at the elevator doors.
    “Just like that,” I say.
    “I guess you’re wondering about your job,” Richard says, still staring across the lobby.
    “It has crossed my mind.”
    “These bastards don’t care about you.”
    I, of course, had already determined this. “Why would they fire you guys?” I ask, my voice barely audible. Honestly, I don’t care why they fired the associates. But I try to sound sincere.
    “Trent & Brent wanted our clients,” he says. “To get the clients, they had to buy the partners. We, the associates, just got in the way.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    “Me too. Your name came up during the meeting. Somebody asked about you because you’re the only incoming associate. Beck said he was trying to call you with the bad news. You got the ax too, Rudy. I’m sorry.”
    My head drops a few inches as I study the floor. My hands are sweaty.
    “Do you know how much money I made last year?” he asks.
    “How much?”
    “Eighty thousand. I’ve slaved here for six years, worked seventy hours a week, ignored my family, shed blood for good old Brodnax and Speer, you know, and then these bastards tell me I’ve got an hour to clean out my desk and leave my office. They even had a security guard watch me pack my stuff. Eighty thousand bucks they paid me, and I billed twenty-five hundred hours at a hundred and fifty, so that’s three hundred and seventy-five thousand I grossed for them last year. They reward me with eighty, give me a gold watch, tell me how great I am, maybe I’ll make partner in a couple of years, you know, one big happy family. Then along comes Trent & Brent with their millions, and I’m out of work. And you’re out of work too, pal. Do you know that? Do you realize you’ve just lost your first job before you even started?”
    I can think of no response to this.
    He gently lays his head on his left shoulder, and ignores me. “Eighty thousand. Pretty good money, don’t you think, Rudy?”
    “Yeah.” Sounds like a small fortune to me.
    “No way to find another job making that much money, you know? Impossible in this city. Nobody’s hiring. Too many damned lawyers.”
    No kidding.
    He wipes his eyes with his fingers, then slowly rises to his feet. “I gotta tell my wife,” he mumbles to himself as he walks hunchbacked across the lobby, out of the building and disappears down the sidewalk.
    I take the elevator to the fourth floor, and exit into a small foyer. Through a set of double glass doors I see a large, uniformed security guard standing near the front reception desk. He sneers at me as I enter the Brodnax and Speer suite.
    “Can I help you?” he growls.
    “I’m looking for Loyd Beck,” I say, trying to peek around him for a glance down the hallway. He moves slightly to block my view.
    “And who are you?”
    “Rudy Baylor.”
    He leans over and picks up an envelope from the desk. “This is for you,” he says. My name is handwritten in red ink. I unfold a short letter. My hands shake as I read it.
    A voice squawks on his radio, and he backs away slowly. “Read the letter and leave,” he says, then disappears down the hall.
    The letter is a single paragraph, Loyd Beck to me, breaking the news gently and wishing me well. The merger was “sudden and unexpected.”
    I toss the letter on the floor and look for something else to throw. All’s quiet in the back. I’m sure they’re hunkered down behind locked doors, just waiting for me andthe other misfits to clear out. There’s a bust on a concrete pedestal by the door, a bad work of sculpture in