My Boss is a Serial Killer Read Free Page B

Earth’s crust if brave souls like myself were not
there to file it all away. There are lots of ways to waste paper,
and I am proficient at all of them except origami. I can make far
too many copies of one document, create a special file called
“extra copies” and then stuff them in there; I can just make one
copy of something really long and then never look at it again; or I
can distribute copies of things to long lists of people who will
never read them and then generate a memo telling those same people
that I sent them a copy of the thing they don’t care to read.
Litigation loves paper. Despite everything that modern courts are
doing to convert to electronic data, the legal system finds ways to
use email, the internet and electronic filing systems to create yet
more paper.
    A client of the firm always had a file full
of paper regarding his or her case, and I lavished love and
attention on that file, stuffing it with all the extra paper,
labels, sticky notes, and tabs that I could find. When the case was
finished and the client no longer actively being billed, I kissed
my gorgeously maintained baby good-bye and sent it to storage where
it slept in long rows of boxes full of similar files. Months or
years might pass before I needed it again, but always they could be
summoned back to me, as a medium might summon a wandering
spirit.
    Except that I didn’t have a medium; I had
Lloyd.
    Lloyd must have been dropped on his head as a
baby. That was the only reason I could think that he was so
automatically and uselessly disagreeable. He somehow had become the
manager of MBS&K’s file room despite being the most reticent
worker I had ever known. I speculated about his making deals with
Satan, though I doubted Satan would have had the patience.
    The afternoon before, when I asked him to
retrieve the Adrienne Maxwell file from storage, he’d done an
admirable job of eye-rolling and sighing. Please understand,
“storage” is not in Anchorage, Alaska. It is in the basement of our
building. All that evil little troll had to do was take the service
elevator downstairs, pick up one file, and then ride the elevator
up again. I had the gall to ask if I could get it back the same
afternoon.
    He responded, “I have sixteen new files to
open. I have a copy job rush for Bronk. I’ve got to get five cases
of coffee to the break room. I’m expected to get these FedEx’s
delivered to the lobby by four.”
    Lloyd perpetually had a list of things to do
that he would gladly rattle off to anyone who asked him to do
something else, giving the impression that he was the lone worker
in that vast and manically busy file room. He had three clerks
under him, somewhere. But maybe they were hiding.
    I asked, “How about tomorrow morning then? At
seven?”
    The hour of seven offended Lloyd, though I
happened to know that he was always at work by six. Come to think
of it, I didn’t recall a time when he wasn’t at work. He must have
had a cave back in the file room where he slept curled in a little
ball, surrounded by the skulls of his victims.
    “ Bill will need time to review it
before an eight o’clock meeting,” I insisted.
    “ Well, why’d ya wait until the very
last minute to ask for it?”
    Honestly, I didn’t have to explain myself to
this evil little troll, but here I was, doing it anyway. “The
meeting was only set up a little while ago.” And then, because he
kept staring me down, I found myself explaining even further. “A
detective from the police department is meeting with Bill about
this case file. First thing in the morning.”
    “ What’s a detective got to do with
anything?”
    “ This client died last
week.”
    “ Why’s he want to see her
file?”
    I was beside myself with frustration. “I’m
sure I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to him tomorrow morning
and find out.”
    Lloyd fixed me with a watery, baleful
stare.
    “ Can I please put in a request for the
Maxwell file now?”
    He grumbled, which is as