Bitter Business (31 page)

“If I can find you one somewhere else—in a research lab somewhere—could you release a sample to be tested?”

“It would be up to Dr. Gordon. She’s the one who’s responsible for maintaining evidentiary integrity at this stage of the game.”

“But if I could make arrangements for the perfume to be tested privately and could get Dr. Gordon’s permission, the police department would have no objections.”

“Again,” Blades replied, “I can’t speak for the department. If it’s okay with Dr. G, it’s okay with me. Between the two of us, the sooner we know what else—if anything—was in that bottle, the better.”

When I got to the office Cheryl informed me that Ken Kurlander had spent the better part of the morning in Skip Tillman’s office screaming bloody murder, claiming that I had encouraged Dagny’s daughter, Claire, to change attorneys.

“For God’s sake, Cheryl,” I moaned. “This is the absolute last thing I need to deal with today. Can’t Kurlander think of anything better to do—like retire?”

“Mr. Tillman said he wants to see you in his office as soon as you get in. Also, there’s a pile of stuff on your desk chair that Daniel Babbage’s secretary, Madeline, says goes with the Superior Plating file.”

“Wonderful. Why don’t you put it on the pile with the rest of the Superior Plating stuff I have no intention of reading. And while I’m tap-dancing in Tillman’s office, will you get Bob Halloran at Goodman Peabody over here today? Jack Cavanaugh’s finally given permission to get a valuation started on Superior Plating, so I’ll need you to pull a copy of their incorporation papers and any financials we have as well. And make sure that I call Stephen when I get back. I have to ask him for a favor on the Superior Plating file.”

“When you’re through with your trip to the woodshed,” my secretary continued as she followed me down the hall, “Wesley Jacobs wants you to call him on Cragar Industries and Adam Beeson says he needs your opinion before three o’clock on that securities offering he sent you the memo on.”

“What securities memo?” I asked, rounding the comer toward the managing partner’s office. Cheryl rolled her eyes heavenward and struck a dramatic pose of martyred secretarydom.

“I’ll put it on the top of the pile.” She sighed.

Having already frittered one hour away that morning in cop talk with Joe Blades and Elliott Abelman, I found the time wasted in Skip Tillman’s office unruffling Ken Kurlander’s feathers especially painful. The truly sickening part of the whole thing was that all three of us, including Tillman, who reportedly billed three hundred and eighty dollars an hour, would undoubtedly bill the time spent reinflating Ken Kurlander’s ego to the Superior Plating file. It was a perpetual mystery to me how the clients put up with it.

Prodded by Cheryl, I managed to get Stephen Azorini on the phone about the G-mass spec test and the problem we were having getting the cyanide-laced bottle of perfume tested. It turned out that Azor Pharmaceuticals possessed no fewer than three G-mass spectrometers, any one of which Stephen was more than willing to put at our disposal. When I brought up the possible objections of the medical examiner’s office, Stephen merely took Dr. Gordon’s phone number and said, “Leave her to me.”

The rest of the afternoon flew by. Bob Halloran at Goodman Peabody and I played at least six rounds of phone tag before actually speaking to each other. When we finally made contact I set up a meeting for six o’clock at my office. I also spent a couple of hours on Frostman Refrigeration, a deal I’d mentally filed as completely sewn up that suddenly showed alarming signs of coming unraveled. Between phone calls, I also sat down with a highly regarded third-year associate named Nora Masterson, who agreed to take on the matter of Claire’s estate.

Elliott Abelman called at some point to report that the box that the perfume had been delivered in was made of plain brown corrugated cardboard. Furthermore, the package had arrived regular U.S. mail and was postmarked on February 12. While the exterior of the box was covered with the fingerprints of half of the U.S. postal service, the interior was negative for prints. The only item of any possible significance was that neither the address nor the return address had been written on the box by hand. Instead, one of Chip Polarski’s business cards, identical to the one that had been included with the perfume, had been taped to the upper-left-hand corner while one of Jack Cavanaugh’s business cards had served as the address of the intended recipient.

I had no time to either absorb or contemplate the implications of any of this. I had less than two hours before the meeting with the investment bankers from Goodman Peabody. In desperation, I took the memo on the proposed securities offering that Adam Beeson had sent me more than a week before and read it in the ladies’ room on the couch usually reserved for typists with the vapors. By the time I flipped the cassette onto which I’d dictated what I hoped was a coherent legal opinion, Cheryl came to tell me that Stephen was on the phone, saying that it was urgent.

“What is it?” I demanded, once I’d gotten to the phone and had Stephen on the line.

“I need to see you for a few minutes,” Stephen said.

“When?” I demanded.

“Now.”

I looked at my watch. The investment bankers from Goodman Peabody were due in just about an hour.

“Has something happened with the Swiss,” I demanded, “or can it wait? I’ve got a meeting at six.”

“It can’t wait, but it will only take ten minutes,” he replied cryptically.

“What is it?” I demanded again.

“I can’t tell you,” he replied. “You have to see it for yourself.”

26

It was raining, so naturally, every available taxi in the city of Chicago had vanished from the face of the earth. The address where Stephen had asked me to meet him was on the north end of the Magnificent Mile. From the number I figured it was either the Drake or the Mayfair Regent. As I made my way miserably up LaSalle Street, waving frantically at every yellow cab that passed, I wondered who or what it was that I had to see in person and not be told about over the phone.

Finally, a cab pulled to the curb. There was already someone in it, an associate at the firm whose name I had once known but could no longer remember. He was on his way to a Bar Association function and had spotted me slogging through the rain. Out of either charity or an unwillingness to pass by an opportunity to suck up, he decided to stop and offer me a lift.

By the time we got out of the loop, we were in the thick of rush hour and traffic on Michigan Avenue had coagulated to its usual near standstill in front of the Water Tower, so I thanked him and bailed out, deciding that I’d cover the last four blocks faster on foot. I dodged through the crowds of aggressively fashionable shoppers on Michigan Avenue like a running back.

Stopping under the awning of the Drake, I scrabbled through my pocket for the scrap of paper on which I’d jotted the address that Stephen had given me. He wasn’t at the Drake. Sodden and out of breath, I continued walking toward the Mayfair Regent, reassuring myself that the numbers increased as I proceeded toward the lake. I stopped in front of the Mayfair Regent to check the number and was surprised to see that I still had a couple of buildings to go. Everything west of the Mayfair was residential—beautiful old buildings that had been built at the turn of the century, a quiet pocket of real grandeur set between Michigan Avenue and the lake.

Fifty feet ahead of me I spotted Stephen standing beneath a dark blue awning. There was a woman at his side with whom he chatted amiably. No doubt expecting me to arrive by car, their eyes were fixed on the street.

I was in a snappish mood, my feet were soaked, and I was feeling damp and overheated from running in my raincoat. Moreover, I was anxious about getting back to the office in rush hour in time for my six o’clock with the investment bankers.

“Stephen, what is it?” I asked breathlessly, once I’d gotten close enough to speak. He held his hands out to pull me into the circle of their conversation.

“Patty, this is Kate Millholland. Kate, Patty Malloy.”

“Are we ready?” Patty inquired, pertly.

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to take her up alone,” he said.

“Of course.” Patty smiled knowingly and handed Stephen a set of keys as I looked on, bewildered. “I’ll just wait for you downstairs.”

“What is it?” I demanded. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” said Stephen, taking me by the arm and steering me into the building. The doorman snapped to attention and swung the door open for us, putting his gray-gloved hand to the bill of his cap and wishing us a good evening.

After the wet dusk outside, the lobby of the building seemed bathed in a golden light. The walls were covered with butter-colored damask. A crystal chandelier glittered above an enormous arrangement of yellow roses and calla lilies set on an antique pedestal table of carved rosewood. Very little had changed since I was a little girl.

The elevator doors slid open silently and Stephen and I stepped in. My heart turned over when he pushed the button for twelve, but I did not say a word. My heart was beating absurdly fast and suddenly the air seemed thin— I knew exactly where I was going.

When the doors opened I stepped out into the apartment that had been my home until just before my sixth birthday. Stephen turned the key in the door and I brushed past him to get inside. The place was completely empty and smelled vaguely of Murphy’s oil soap and old lady. I ran from room to room like a little girl, my high heels clattering on the parquet.

It was an enormous apartment—eight bedrooms, if I remembered, with a formal double drawing room and a separate ballroom—in what was arguably the city’s most opulent address. Fourteen-foot ceilings and a wall of windows in the living room that seemed to actually own the lake. Every apartment took up an entire floor of the building, but my grandparents, who had once occupied the apartment upstairs, had given their apartment to my parents so that Mother could combine the two. They hired an architect and broke through the ceiling in the living room to accommodate a grand staircase and an upstairs portrait gallery.

Whoever had lived there after us had done little to alter my mother’s decorating. There were so many things I remembered: the yellow chintz in the sunroom, the enormous six-burner restaurant range in the kitchen, the black-and-white checkerboard of linoleum on the floor. There was a dumbwaiter that still worked in the butler’s pantry, as did the bell system that was connected to the servants’ quarters, which were located in the basement of the building.

I climbed the kitchen stairs that led to the second floor, taking them two at a time. I hurried past the rooms once occupied by my parents, the nanny, and my older brother, Teddy. The door to my old bedroom was closed. I turned the handle and stepped inside. The wallpaper was still the same—Regency stripes of Wedgwood blue on a white background; Mother believed that anything that smacked of the nursery was in poor taste. I walked into the closet and turned on the light. There on the inside of the doorjamb were the tiny penciled marks that set out my growth through the years.

I went to the cathedral window and stood looking out at the traffic snaking northward on Lake Shore Drive, the headlights forming a luminous necklace against the edge of black water beyond. Stephen came up behind me and put his arms around my shoulders.

“So what do you think?” he asked softly.

“It’s so strange,” I said, turning to face him and taking a step away. In the best of times just the size of him makes me feel like a little girl. Standing in the bedroom of my childhood, the feeling was overwhelming. “I haven’t been here since I was five years old. I cried so much the day we moved I gave myself a fever. You know, from the day Mother bought the house in Lake Forest, she’s been redecorating it. Nothing stays the way it is long enough to get attached to it. But this place hasn’t changed at all. I know I lived in the house in Lake Forest for more years, but when I close my eyes and think of home, this is the place I always remember.”

“That’s good,” said Stephen, “because I just bought it this afternoon.”

I took another step back and felt my face stretch into a cartoon of surprise.

“Remember the other night at dinner when I told you that my banker tipped me off about an apartment that was coming on the market? When your parents bought their house in Lake Forest, they sold this apartment to Lucille West and her husband. He died four years later, but she stayed here, living alone until she had a stroke six months ago. I made her son an offer this afternoon and he accepted it.”

I just stood there, gaping at him like an idiot.

“I was hoping you’d come and live here with me,” Stephen continued quietly.

“So it’s done?” I finally managed to stammer. “You made him an offer and he took it? The deal is done?”

“Subject to inspection and the approval of the co-op board, naturally.”

I think I opened and closed my mouth, but I knew that no words would come out. Stephen took a step closer and laid his hand against my cheek.

“Tell me that you love it,” he said.

“I love it,” I replied, still hollow with surprise.

“Tell me you can’t wait to move in.”

I turned to look him in the face, but my eye caught the watch at his wrist.