Fatal Reaction

by Hartzmark, Gini

  Danny would have hated to see his place like this. He had loved his new apartment with its high ceilings and glorious views. An avid art collector, he’d recently been forced to move when his taste had turned to works larger than the Mapplethorpe photographs with which he’d begun his collection.

  Had the woman from the management company known that Danny had AIDS? I doubted it. So far Danny had done his best to keep his illness secret. All that blood and all of it HIV positive. I wondered who Stephen was going to find to clean it up.

  I tried to look away, but there were no safe vistas. Even the carpet, sticky under my feet, bore testimony to the violent drama that had been played out here. Mottled footprints started near the sofa and turned to drag marks where Danny must have fallen and then crawled through his own blood, trying desperately to reach the phone. He had died just a few feet short of his goal. A lake of blood marked the spot, so big that it still hadn’t had time to dry.

  A dark soot covered everything. At first I thought it was just the urban grit that drifts through every open window in the city, but the windows were shut tight. Then I realized it was the powder that the police had used to look for fingerprints. The dust scratched at my lungs while everything my eyes rested on tore at my heart.

  “Haven’t you seen enough?” I asked Stephen.

  “I just want to have a quick look at the bedroom,” he replied in a flat voice.

  I followed, not wanting to be left alone. I had been ready to leave thirty seconds after we’d arrived. I could not imagine what could possibly make him want to stay.

  Along the exposed brick of the hallway hung a series of monochromatic blue panels by a Dutch painter whose work Danny admired. I couldn’t remember his name, only that the piece was called A Moment After Sinking and that there was something special about the brushwork.

  The bedroom had apparently escaped the bloodletting. The room’s decor was considerably less restrained than the rest of the apartment. In the center was a wrought-iron bed draped in enough mosquito netting to protect a small expedition down the Nile. There were Mapplethorpes on the walls here, too, but they were the photographer’s graphically sexual work—not the sort you’d want your business associates to see. I turned my back on them.

  Danny’s desk, a large contemporary unit designed especially for a computer, with a pullout keyboard shelf, was near the window. Stephen came to a stop behind the ergonomically correct desk chair and stared forlornly at the black briefcase at his feet.

  “You might as well take it,” I advised him gently. “The police have already been through everything and I guarantee you won’t feel like coming back.”

  Reluctantly Stephen picked up the case and set it on top of the desk. With practiced hands he flipped open the latches and popped the lid. The inside was crammed with file folders and legal pads, all swarming with Danny’s tidy script. Satisfied, Stephen laid his large hands on top of the case and slammed it shut. In the silence of the apartment it sounded like a shot.

  I trailed Stephen into the large bathroom, which was decorated in Danny’s typical eye-catching style. A pedestal sink of white porcelain was set against a wall of exposed brick. The floor was a deep blue hand-glazed tile. A single white towel lay across the lip of the tub, and the toilet seat was up. Stephen reached up and pulled open the mirrored doors of the medicine cabinet above the sink. It was crammed with prescription vials of every description and a veritable arsenal of grooming supplies— bronzers, mousses, gels, and spritzes—even an eyelash curler. No wonder Danny had always looked better than I did.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just looking.” He paused and shook his head. “There’s something very wrong with all of this.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded, feeling the dull ache of apprehension growing in the pit of my stomach.

  Stephen did not answer but instead began to make his way back into the living room. As I followed, I almost tripped over the telephone cord which lay across the entrance to the hall. The table on which the phone usually rested had been overturned in the struggle, scattering squares of notepaper like leaves across the bloodstained carpet.

  “What do you mean there’s something wrong?” I demanded again, and was immediately struck by the idiocy of my own question. There was blood on the ceiling. Of course there was something wrong.

  Stephen, who was making his way toward the kitchen, did not appear to have heard me. I went after him, trying hard to avoid the frieze of dried blood that marked the wall near the door. The kitchen was large and fitted out for the serious cook. A set of Calphalon pots hung from an oval rack above the Viking range. The counters were made of gray-black soapstone, silky to the touch, but porous and prone to scratches. The glass-fronted cabinets matched the bleached oak of the floors. Two bar stools were tucked beneath a narrow counter that served as a kind of kitchen desk. There were no signs of blood anywhere that I could see.

  Stephen lifted the linen shade that covered the window and was rewarded by a depressing view of the fire escape. Beside the sink were dishes from a hand-painted set that Danny had brought back from a vacation he’d taken in Tuscany. Brightly colored, they were stacked in a sleek chrome dish rack, waiting to be put away. On the counter off to one side stood a half-full glass of water. For some reason these domestic details unnerved me more than all the blood.

  “Can we please go now?” I found myself asking in a small, desperate voice.

  Stephen wheeled around almost as if he were surprised to find me still there. Then, without a word, he took my hand and led me out of the apartment.

  As we drove back to my office I tried to focus on the touchstones of the city like a blind man fumbling for familiar objects in the dark. After the grisly scene in Danny’s apartment I needed to reassure myself that the world had not somehow slipped off its axis. I sought comfort in the rumble of the city buses, the enduring twin corncobs of Marina Towers, the hulking permanence of the Merchandise Mart, squat and solid beside the opaque waters of the Chicago River.

  “What happened up there?” I asked finally.

  “I don’t know,” replied Stephen helplessly as we made our way through morning traffic.

  “Do you think he could have surprised a burglar?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he answered, “but it didn’t look like anything was taken.”

  We drove south on Dearborn in the deep shadow of the el tracks. We were almost to my office before I found the voice to speak again.

  “When are you going to tell Takisawa?” I ventured.

  “Not until it’s too late for them to change their minds about coming,” replied Stephen. “Losing Danny is going to be devastating for us. The Japanese hate it when the players change in the middle of negotiations. Not only that, but you may remember that our original entree to the company was through Danny. He and Takisawa’s son-in-law were friends in law school. To the Japanese, those kinds of relationships are critical. Who knows whether we’ll be able to keep their interest in the project now that Danny isn’t part of the equation.”

  “Maybe you should think about postponing the visit?”

  “Science is a winner-take-all sport, Kate. There are no silver medals in this. Every time I have to wait to hire someone or hold off buying a piece of equipment because I don’t have the money it puts Mikos that much closer to beating us.”

  “I understand that. But even ignoring for the moment the fact that Danny has been the lead man on this from day one, I don’t see how you can possibly be ready without him.”

  “Obviously I’m going to have to find someone to take his place,” said Stephen, pulling into the loading zone in front of my building.

  “Like who?” I demanded, thinking how difficult it would be to find someone willing to plunge into this kind of fast-moving, highly technical negotiation in midstream. “Like you.”

  “You can’t be serious!” I exclaimed in a decidedly unlawyerly display of candor.

/>   Stephen turned slowly in the driver’s seat and took both my hands in his. He is a big man, handsome the way that Hercules was strong and with the kind of charismatic personality that in the closed confines of the car seemed to radiate heat like a bomb site after a blast.

  “It has to be you, Kate. As outside counsel, Danny always kept you up to speed on our dealings with Takisawa. You also know our business inside and out. I can’t think of anyone who is in a better position to evaluate the impact that the different ways we might structure this deal will have on the company.”

  “I have other clients, Stephen,” I protested. “What you’re asking is absolutely impossible.”

  “You could take a leave of absence from the firm,” he countered, “a temporary leave of absence. Lawyers do it all the time to have babies or work political campaigns....” A delivery truck pulled up behind us and the driver pummeled his horn angrily.

  “You’d be better off with almost anyone but me when you’re dealing with the Japanese,” I countered. “Everyone knows that women give them the heebie-jeebies.” Normally I would never have dreamed of using my being a woman as an excuse, but I was desperate. The thought of leaving the firm, even temporarily, to go to work for Stephen every day was enough to give me the bends.

  “My head is on the block, Kate. My jugular is exposed, and from what you’ve been telling me Jim Cassidy is busy sharpening his knife...

  “Which is why you need someone who knows how to deal with the Japanese, someone with a lot of experience with this kind of deal.”

  “No. What I need is someone who knows me. Someone whose judgment I trust.” Behind us the truck driver leaned on his horn. Startled, I snatched my hands away. “I have never asked you to do anything for me before,” Stephen continued, gravely.

  I stared at him for a few seconds, but in the end there was no reply to this but motion. I opened the door of the car, scrambled out onto the sidewalk, and pulled my briefcase out behind me. Then, startled by what I’d done, I tried to stammer out some kind of explanation. But by the time I turned around Stephen had already pulled away.

  CHAPTER 4

  I pushed through the revolving doors of my building and crossed the gray marble of the lobby, which that morning seemed as sterile and oppressive as a tomb. Stopping at the newsstand, I bought a king-size bag of M&M’s for my breakfast. Then I took the elevator to the forty-second floor.

  Passing through the imposing double mahogany doors of Callahan, Ross, Peterman & Seidel, I produced a distracted wave for Lillian, the receptionist. On becoming a partner I had been surprised to learn that, in addition to picking up her weekly hairdressing tab, the firm paid her more than they paid a first-year lawyer. Lillian acknowledged my arrival with a regal nod of her head and then went back to the serious business of answering the phone, murmuring the firm’s multiple names into her headset with the reverence of a prayer.

  Callahan Ross is the third largest law firm in the city, one of the dozen or so biggest in the world. It is also an old firm—old moneyed, old-line, and old-fashioned—the kind of WASP institution forged long ago by men who assumed that theirs was an association of gentlemen and would always be so. Things do change at a place like this—I wouldn’t be there if they didn’t—but usually someone has to die first.

  Turning the corner into my office I made a face at my secretary, Cheryl, who was busy on the phone. She took one look at the bag of M&M’s in my hand and rolled her eyes. I shrugged off my coat and hung it up in the closet, frowning at myself in the dim mirror that hung inside the door. I tucked a stray wisp of my dark hair back into its usual French twist and gave a couple of hairpins a shove for good measure. I thought about putting on some lipstick but decided it wouldn’t do any good.

  When I kicked the closet door shut I found Cheryl waiting for me, a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of pink message slips in the other. She looked very well put together in a deep blue suit. I was on the verge of complimenting her on it when I remembered that it was an old one of mine that I’d given her at the end of last season.

  “Which do you want first?” she asked, offering me both. I took the coffee cup and we made for our usual places—me to my desk and Cheryl to the wing chair I’d rescued from one of my mother’s many redecorations.

  “What’s been going on?” I asked.

  “Maybe you’d better have your M&M’s first,” Cheryl suggested. She was three years younger than I was, with an intelligent, heart-shaped face and straw-colored hair.

  “That bad?”

  “Larry Hanlon at Dexter & Brock is screaming for the registration documents on Nuland Petroleum and Bob Preston says that Lydia Cavanaugh’s investment bankers are having heart attacks about the valuation figures that you okayed as final. Oh, and Mrs. McCreary has already called me twice this morning. She’s threatening bodily harm if you don’t turn in your time sheets.”

  Mrs. McCreary was the firm’s billing administrator. All the lawyers were accountable to her for keeping track of their time, which was billed to the client in six-minute increments—tenths of an hour.

  “She made me promise that you’d have them in by the end of the day. I also didn’t know if you’d make it back in time, so I rescheduled your ten-thirty conference call for one o’clock. Also, Ted Nicholdson at First Chicago wants to set up a meeting today or tomorrow to go over the offering documents on McKenna. Oh, and John Guttman just called. He wants to see you right away.”

  “What did he want?” I asked, reaching for chocolate. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Cheryl whispered, suddenly catching sight of him coming down the hall. “Here he comes.” She sprang to her feet and beat a hasty : retreat.

  I took a deep breath and mentally braced myself. “What’s this about you not being willing to help Stephen Azorini on this deal with Takisawa?” demanded Guttman, charging in without even bothering to knock. “Isn’t this exactly what I warned you about yesterday?”

  “Why don’t you have a seat, John,” I said quietly. Inside I was seething. The minute I’d gotten out of the car Stephen must have gotten on his mobile to Guttman, looking for another lever to get me to do what he wanted.

  “Of all the times for Danny to pick to drop dead! I can’t believe you would even consider deserting Stephen at a time like this!” He made no move to sit down, so I got out of my chair and walked around my desk to face him.

  “I have other clients besides Azor, John. Don’t you think I also have an obligation to them? What do you propose I do with them while I’m spending all my time haggling with the Japanese?”

  “Farm them out for a while. Get a couple of associates to help carry the load. Delegate, for Christ’s sake. What are we talking about? A month? Two months? If you want, I’ll go to Skip Tillman for you and make sure you get the help you need.”

  Skip Tillman was the firm’s managing partner. The thought of him and Guttman discussing the handling of my cases infuriated me.

  “Perhaps you should be the one taking over for a month or two at Azor?” I suggested, knowing it would gall him.

  “I’m not the one that Stephen seems to want,” countered John, sounding bitter in spite of himself. “Let me ask you something. You’re so worried about your relationship with your other clients, what do you think will happen to your relationship with Azor Pharmaceuticals if you refuse to get involved and the deal with Takisawa goes sour?”

  “You know how difficult negotiations are with the Japanese. What makes you think it will be any different than what will happen if I do get involved and it goes sour anyway?”

  “Allow me to refresh your memory, Miss Millholland. If I’m not mistaken, we serve our clients by representing them,” thundered Guttman, “not by refusing to do so. Or has your judgment been so distorted by personal considerations that you’ve lost sight of that fact?”

  By the time my feet hit the pavement all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears and the sharp intake of my own breath. I hurried along the sidewalk, trying not t
o think too hard about what it was that was propelling me. I told myself I needed to get out of the office, to put some distance between me and Guttman. I told myself there was no other reason, absolutely none, for me to go talk to Elliott Abelman in person rather than from the relative safety of the telephone.

  I also rationalized that I was putting first things first. After all, if I was really going to take a leave of absence from the firm in order to take over the work of Danny’s life, that meant I needed someone else to follow through on the details of his death. No doubt the police were hard-nosed professionals who would do their job. However, I knew enough about how Chicago works to know that it also wouldn’t hurt to have someone making sure they did it right.

  I hadn’t seen Elliott in nearly six months. A former prosecutor and an ex-marine, Elliott had parlayed his legal training and connections with the city into a thriving practice as a private investigator. He’d also managed to get under my skin in a way that Stephen, with his matinee-idol good looks, never had.

  Elliott had done work for me on a number of cases; however, the most recent one had ended badly. The fault was mine, not Elliott’s. In my zeal to find the truth I’d given no thought to its consequences, which had turned out to be devastating. Unfortunately, in the emotional aftershock of its discovery I’d also come perilously close to behaving foolishly with Elliott.

  I took the stairs to the second floor of the Monadnock Building and gave my name to the receptionist. While I waited I pretended to examine the Art Institute prints that punctuated the walls, too nervous to sit down. I sensed him before I heard him call my name. So many things came back at the sight of him—the smell of his skin, the gentle pressure of his hand on the small of my back....