Free Single Jeopardy by Gene Grossman

strategy to fight her off. Burt’s office is on the twelfth floor of the Cal Fed Building on Ventura Boulevard, just East of Sepulveda in Sherman Oaks, and as I drop off my car with the lot’s parking valet, I spot someone I have no difficulty in recognizing. It’s my old law clerk and wannabe associate, Ricky Hansel. He’s wearing a bright yellow ski jacket, so it’s easy to spot him at a distance, and I want see where he’s going. If it’s to an attorney’s office, a courtesy warning to that unsuspecting brother member of the bar would be in order, so that another sucker lawyer may not have to suffer what I went through with those disciplinary hearings.
    I stay as far back as possible so as to not be noticed, but not being a trained gumshoe I lose him when he enters the building. This is the same one that my lawyer and about a hundred others have their offices. Luckily, I see which elevator he gets into, and it looks like it was empty when he got in, so I watch the floor display to see where it stops. He gets off on the ninth floor. I have no way of knowing which office he went to on that floor, so I’ll just have to go up there and check it out.
    Getting off on the ninth floor I step into the lobby of a Fegian suite, one of those huge whole-floor office set-ups named after an attorney named Paul Fegian who created the idea of a bunch of lawyers all sharing a large suite. Each one rents a private office, but there are a bunch of amenities included in the rent that they’re all allowed to use like a receptionist, copy machine, law library, coffee room, conference room, and a little display of class.
    This is good and bad. Ricky is nowhere in sight but at least I know he’s visiting one of the attorneys in this suite, so my search is narrowed to the twenty or thirty names on the business cards in the three-tier rack on the receptionist’s desk. The Fegian suites never bother to have the attorneys’ names put on the door because of the cost and the frequent tenant turnover.
    I’m going to have to play private eye now, so using my best Rockford Files personality, I give it a shot. She’s filing her nails and I hate to interrupt her. “Excuse me, Miss, but I wonder if you could help me out.” That seems to get her attention. She waves me off for a second while speaking into her headset microphone, checking the calendar book on her desk and telling a caller that the attorney is expecting him. I hesitatingly continue, being new to this detective routine. I think I’ve got her attention again. “I have a new case that I’m supposed to be bringing in to an attorney I was referred to, but I forgot his name.” She looks confused. Why am I not surprised?
    “ Well, sir, I’m sorry but if you don’t have the lawyer’s name, there’s no way I can help you.” Here’s where watching television sleuths for years comes in handy.
    “ Well, I don’t know the attorney’s name, but the fellow who referred me to him was supposed to meet me here. He usually wears a bright yellow ski jacket and told me that after he met with the attorney he’d see me out there in the hall and fill me in.”
    It worked! A dim light bulb goes off over her head as she happily gives me the information. “Oh yes, that would be Ricky, the paralegal. He’s been working several years now for one of the attorneys here, Mr. Gary Koontz.”
    *****
    Chapter 5
    I don’t know how to mentally process this this new information, because if Ricky Hansel’s been working for my ex-wife’s lawyer Koontz for several years, that means he must have been with him before and during my entire suspension proceedings. Several possible scenarios come to mind.
    One of them is that Attorney Koontz could just be some innocent jerk that Hansel will destroy sooner or later. It’s true he’s a real putz, but he’s not the innocent type. If that’s the case, my instincts tell me to keep my mouth shut and let nature take its course. Another possibility is too dark