Bitter Business

stiffen beside me at this reference to Stephen. “He says that it wouldn’t be fatal if it was absorbed through the skin. Since it strikes me as unlikely that the two of them were drinking it, where does all of this evidence about who did or did not send the perfume get us?”
    “Maybe nowhere. But right now it’s all we’ve got. I talked to Dr. Gordon at the medical examiner’s office about it. She wants to send the perfume to the FBI lab in Quantico for testing, see if maybe there’s something else in it in addition to the cyanide.”
    “How long will that take?” I demanded.
    “Three to six weeks, but she says she’ll sit on them and see if she can get them to turn it around faster.”
    “I don’t believe it,” I groaned, my frustration mounting. “What the hell are they going to do with it that takes three weeks?”
    “From what Dr. Gordon tells me, the test only takes a couple of minutes, but it’s done on a very expensive, high-tech piece of equipment called a G-mass spectrometer that the FBI has only one of. It’s the waiting list to use the machine that runs the three to six weeks.”
    “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