John Marshall kept his door unlocked when he was in the office. The incident with the blonde hooker had taught him that a locked door made it too easy for people to assume you were being caught with your pants down, especially when they were. That implication had only happened once and no one could prove a damned thing. But still, he had learned and the only time he locked his door was at night. He did; however, have an iron clad rule that if the door was closed, it wasn’t to be opened by anyone. He could give up screwing in his office, but he couldn’t give up privacy.

The rule was so engrained into his secretary’s mind that when a criminal defendant went from room to room looking to kill anyone he could find, the secretary couldn’t figure out how to deal with the rule. In the end, the shooter wasn’t going after Marshall; he was just looking to kill people. Marshall’s secretary saw the man with the gun, and was so frightened of violating the closed door rule, that she had crawled across the floor and actually knocked to warn John. She had knocked, trembled and waited on the floor until the door opened.

John had looked quizzically down at her while she informed him that he needed to hide there was a crazy man with a gun coming down the hall. John didn’t hide in his office. He stepped into the hallway hid behind a pillar. The hapless gunman hadn’t even seen him coming. What shooter expects a lawyer to fight back? John knocked the surprised little bastard out, with a portable computer and then continued to beat the assailant until he was pulled off by his staff. Even while in utter amazement at swiftness, bravery, stupidity and sheer brutality of the attack, the secretary often wished she had warned the lunatic with the gun and maybe he would have gotten a lucky shot off into Marshall’s chest. On further reflection, she wondered if a gun shot to the chest would kill a heartless man like Marshall, but again, she was stoic and more than a little frightened so she kept those thoughts in her deepest fantasy and never ever opened his office door without permission.

So, it came as no small surprise that his assistant, Scott Hunter raced to the door and threw it open. She hadn’t had a chance to warn Scott. He just flashed past her on a suicide door run. She hoped Marshall wasn’t holding a computer when the door swung open.

Scott burst into the room breathless and instantly dodged to the right. As if on cue, Marshall launched his stress ball, the only thing near Marshall’s hand. He missed by inches and followed the volley with a curse, “Fucking knock!”

Breathless in victory Scott announced, “I’ve got `em. There’s a hooker working at Power Exchange and she’s got a rap sheet I can turn her with.”

Marshall instantly forgot the forbidden incursion, “Who and what do you have on her?”

Scott picked his own chair this time, “Jerry Thompson, the fat detective in Vice sent me a note. I’ll get the details as soon as I can, but he said this chick had been a big dollar hooker who combined S. and M. with sex about a year ago; still within the statute of limitations for charges. We own the bitch.”

Marshall sounded like he was having an orgasm, “I want details, now before I go into the place. Myself.”