Free Death on a High Floor by Charles Rosenberg Page A

Boston firm, he had crossed over the Charles to the Law School every year to teach trial practice, although most of what he had to say had little to do with trials.
    My favorite Mather lecture was called “How to Stomp Out of a Room Without Looking Like an Ass.”
    As Mather put it, “Gentlemen,”—he never did acknowledge the three women in our class—“by the time you get to be my age, you will have had but one or two really choice opportunities to leave a room in anger. Three if you are lucky. But unless you do it properly, you will simply have had several opportunities to make yourself look like a horse’s ass. Leaving a room in anger is an art, gentlemen, an art. ” He then offered his “ Five Rules for Leaving a Room in Anger”:
     
One: Do not pick up your books or papers. Leave them there. They will serve as a perfect reminder that you are gone.
Two: Do not shove your chair back from the table while you are still sitting in it. Push back as you are standing up.
Three: Do not try to put your jacket on as you leave. Don’t even fling it over your shoulder. You’ll never be Jack Kennedy. Leave it on the chair back.
Four: Do not announce that you are departing. Say nothing. Just go.
Five: Never . . . ever look back.
 
    I recall now, with some amusement, that he then actually had us practice stomping out of a room.
    I once had the temerity to ask, “Well, wouldn’t it be risky to just leave your stuff there?” To which he replied, pushing his reading glasses down on his nose and fixing me with a withering stare, “Mr. Tarza, if the people you are dealing with are well-bred, they will return your briefcase unopened, your papers unrifled, and your suit jacket with its pockets unprobed.” I dared not suggest that one might someday have to walk out on the ill-bred.
    John Cotton Mather has been dead now for more than twenty-five years. But I think he would have smiled on my leave-taking of Caroline and her crew. I never ever looked back.
     
     

CHAPTER 9
     
    As I took the stairs back up to eighty-five, I reflected that my victory over Caroline and her crew was likely to be but temporary. If they really wanted me gone, they weren’t going to forget about it just because I had walked out on them, however elegantly. Not one of them had risen to power in the snake pit that Marbury Marfan had become by giving up after a first defeat. I needed to watch my back.
    More immediately, I needed to keep my appointment with Jenna and Oscar Quesana. We had agreed to meet in my office at two-fifteen, and I like to be on time. I had to get a move on. As I hurried past Gwen’s desk on the way into my office, she thrust an e-mail at me, still printer-hot. I shoved it in my pocket, to be looked at later.
    Jenna and Oscar were already there, sitting side by side on the couch. I hadn’t seen Oscar in maybe ten years, but he hadn’t changed. Same small, lithe, wiry body. Same unlined face. Same bow tie. Same not-quite-the-right-fit gray suit. Probably bought at Suits Way Below Cost .
    “Sorry guys,” I said. “Unexpected meeting.”
    Oscar sprang off the couch and came toward me, hand extended. “Robert, good to see you again after all these years. Wish the circumstances could be better.”
    Then he gripped my proffered right hand with both of his, using that clasping double handshake that is supposed to communicate “so very sorry,” or “I like you so much” or some other patently false sentiment. A device known to the unctuous and to undertakers everywhere. But then, a criminal defense lawyer is an undertaker of sorts if you think about it.
    “Good to see you, too, Oscar.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jenna smiling at me, still on the couch, making no move to get up. She was wearing a white silk blouse and tailored black pantsuit, with a small cloisonné dragon perched on the lapel. Emerald green and spouting a bright red flame from its mouth.
    Oscar dropped our handshake, and I moved quickly behind my