Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

lot. It was her righteous, callous family and the Church he’d run to himself at the earliest opportunity for ultimate approval. Holy Mother of God. He too had deserted her for his own petty salvation.
    Matt probed for the right bills as he paid off the cabby and got out to face a fifties building of pale stone and castlelike crenellations.
    He didn’t need this. Want this. His mother did. A bad idea. If he... she... learned nothing, it was another disappointment in a life replete with too many. If they learned something, it was... a slap in the face; they weren’t wanted here, not even Matt with his seminational media profile.
    Still. He had his natiönal TV suit on, which was a lot better than Dr. Phil’s, and his new seriously slick briefcase, and his smooth, photogenic media cool. None of it was bedrock real, but then neither were the high-priced lawyers from this firm who had bullied a naive young mother into settling for down-at-the-heels real estate as shabby security instead of real information about the most traumatic, and apparently transcendental, moment of her life.
    How much you want to bet a Chicago lawyer even knew what transcendental meant?
    Matt walked in, read the tiny white type on the big black plaque by the elevator, and was whooshed, ears quickly blocked, to the forty-fifth floor.
    Brandon, Oakes, and McCall offered a reception suite paved in plush plum carpet and furniture upholstered in espresso-dark brown leather.
    The receptionist reminded Matt of a high-priced Las Vegas call girl: tall, chic, managing to be both icy and sexy.
    He ought to know, thanks to his latest unwanted adventure in the land of neon and sex for sale.
    The woman’s demeanor warmed as he neared the desk. She glanced down at the appointment ledger and frowned. “Mr.... Devine? You requested an appointment with a senior partner.”
    “Yes.”
    A few junior female clerks were dashing in and out of the smooth wooden door beyond the receptionist’s arena that kept the uninvited out. They glanced at him, then looked again, then outright gawked.
    Okay. He was getting used to these epiphanies among the female population. Maybe it was his blond Polish good looks. Maybe familiarity from his stints on The Amanda Show. Maybe it was the highlight job from his last bizarre undercover turn in Temple’s Everlasting Carnival of Crime and Detection.
    Ms. Fashionista Receptionist smiled intimately at him in recognition of his high profile in the waiting room.
    “You may go right in. Miss—” She hesitated before bestowing the honor on just the right one of the paralyzed paralegals. “Miss Hendrix will escort you.”
    Miss Hendrix leaped forward, clutching a bouquet of legal-length manila folders to her pin-striped heart.
    “Certainly, Mr.—?”
    “Devine.” He expected his name to generate references to his latest appearance on Chicago TV, but Miss Hendrix blinked as if confounded, then stuttered forward like a geisha on her four-inch spike heels toward the unmarked, exotic zebrawood door.
    Puzzled, Matt followed. Certainly his yellow hair alone hadn’t merited this reception. But if they didn’t recognize his media ties, what else could account for this quick and cordial reception?
    The office he was ushered into was the size of a racquetball court and about as welcoming.
    Glass winked coldly from a ring of expensive modern Prints. Leather and wood was slathered everywhere, enormous distances separating desk and chairs from facing walls of built-in bar and audio-video equipment. Beyond all this, looking like a gigantic print, was the sweep of distant gray skyscraper towers through a window-wall.
    “Mr. Brandon will see you shortly,” said Miss Fluttering Legal Briefs. “Please. Be seated.”
    He took one of the three tufted brown leather wing chairs placed before the desk, set the silver briefcase beside it, and commenced to wait.

    “Mr. Devine!”
    The voice from the doorway was both powerful and jocular.
    “My wife loves your appearances on Amanda’s show. What brings you to our offices?”
    So that was it. Mr. Big himself had recognized his name.
    The voice advanced on him from behind, its energy bouncing off the window-wall. Matt turned in the wing chair, started to rise.
    “Charles Brandon.”
    His... host, it sounded like, came into view around the curl of the chair’s obscuring wing.
    A chubby hand accessorized with a three-carat star sapphire ring was extended.
    Matt rose to take it, then watched shock