“Certainly,” the woman’s voice replied.

I looked around the room for the microphone and speaker, but they were well hidden. I wondered if the intercom was always open or if Barrett’s assistant was voice-activated. Like the virtual assistant on my desk, Marcia’s wake word was her own name.

“You’ll need to review the documents for privilege—I assume you know how to do that?”

“Of course,” I said stiffly. This was Document Production 101.

“And indexed—”

I’d already made a start on that task my first day on the job, when I went through the boxes that had been haphazardly stored in my office. “Of course,” I said again.

“And organized according to which document request they relate to—”

These were insultingly basic tasks. I couldn’t believe he was paying me the salary he was to do work that a paralegal or even a document clerk could have done. But thoughts of my salary made me keep my game face on. I was being paid, well paid, to do this, and I would do it well. Perhaps after this project, he’d realize he was wasting my talents and assign me something more meaningful.

“And one more thing. There may be a number of documents pertaining to our employees at PsT, their medical conditions and so forth. We have a duty to safeguard that kind of private information. So you’ll need to pull those as well.”

A knock sounded on the door. “Here’s Lester,” Marcia Post announced, and stepped aside to usher in a tall Black man in a navy-blue blazer. He strode up to the seating area, and I scooted aside on the sofa to make room for him. But he made no move to sit. He assumed a military at-ease posture, with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Shay Lambert, Lester Willard.” Barrett made the introductions with quick finger jabs. “Lester will act as your paralegal on this project,” he said to me.

I looked up at him. And up. He must have been six-six. But his height was the least of my surprise. Paralegals were typically young white women, not middle-aged African American men. I was impressed with CDMI for breaking the stereotype this way. I stood and extended my hand, and after a fleeting recoil, Lester unclasped his hands from behind his back to shake it.

“Lester, you’ll show her where everything is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it. Marcia,” Barrett called to the ceiling as he stood. “Get me Yves in Tours.”

It seemed our meeting was over. I turned to mumble some closing remark, thank you or see you soon or something, but Barrett was already strolling to his wall of windows with his hands in his pockets.

“The documents are on the twenty-ninth floor,” the man named Lester said.

I followed him through the antechamber past Marcia and into the corridor and halfway around the floor to the elevator bank. “How long have you worked here?” I asked him as we waited for the elevator to arrive.