Free Pleasantville by Attica Locke Page B

must have blown it there. It was just a piece of it sticking out.”
    Jay flips the card over.
    He leans back in his chair, staring at it.
    â€œWeird, ain’t it?” Eddie Mae says.
    â€œYes, ma’am, it is,” Jay says. If whoever broke into his office inadvertently left this behind, it seems the intruder purposefully sought him out. And that doesn’t make up even half the weird part. The name on the front of the professionally printed business card, in clean block letters, is JON K . LEE . The man with the stolen Z, Jay remembers. A car that matches the exact description of the one idling outside this very building late Tuesday night. According to his business card, Mr. Lee is an executive in the legal department of Cole Oil Industries. “Son of a bitch,” Jay mutters. He feels a lick of heat across his forehead as he reaches across his desk for the telephone. Anticipating a show, Eddie Mae takes a front-row seat, setting herself down in one of the chairs across from Jay’s desk, sipping her watery Pepsi as Jay dials the number on Mr. Lee’s business card. It rings three times before a secretary picks up. “Mr. Lee’s office.”
    â€œJay Porter calling for him.”
    â€œOh.” There’s a note of surprise in the woman’s voice. He imagines his name is familiar enough in the halls of the ColeOil Industries legal department, considering the nearly fifteen years he’s been after Cole and its money. He’s never heard of Jon K. Lee. There was a Darryl Whitaker in legal, he remembers. He was first chair in ’83 when Ainsley’s case first went to trial. But Whitaker left years ago to work for a lobbying firm in D.C. Since then, there’s been a revolving door of young attorneys working the endless appeals, offering every six months or so to settle with Ainsley’s family and the other plaintiffs, always for a small fraction of what Jay had won for them in court. “One moment, Mr. Porter.”
    Jay hears the line click, then a man’s voice. “This is Jon Lee. What can I help you with?” He sounds young, young enough to drive a Z, Jay thinks. Either it’s all he can afford, or he’s still chasing the kinds of women who are impressed by that sort of thing. Another ten years at the Cole trough, and he’ll be in a Mercedes for sure. Jay wonders how long he’s been paying bar dues.
    â€œI’m trying to understand why I found your business card in my office.”
    â€œI’m sorry, who is this?”
    â€œYou working the Ainsley case now?”
    He wouldn’t have figured Thomas Cole to pull a dirty stunt like this, breaking into his office, but how else to explain the coincidence?
    â€œI think you’ve got the wrong number.”
    â€œYou had a car stolen a few weeks back, right? A Nissan?”
    â€œHow do you–”
    Lee stops suddenly. “Lisa, can you get off the line for a sec,” he says, waiting for the departure of his secretary. A second later there’s another click, and then the line goes dead completely. Jay pulls the phone from his ear, staring at the receiver. He dials Lee’s number again, but the call goes straight to voice mail, two, three more times. Jay hangs up, feeling the rush ofheat again, downright panic about what this means. “Get upstairs,” he says to Eddie Mae. “There’s an inventory sheet inside the front of every box, every file we ever started for the Cole case, from Ainsley on down.” Eddie Mae nods. She filed most of that paperwork herself. “Go back to the beginning, the first briefs, Ainsley’s deposition, all the way back to 1981, and make sure every piece of paper, every videotape, everything is accounted for.” He reaches for his car keys.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œCan you also pull our billing records for ’81, ’82? Accounts payable.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust do it,