Dead Certain

sounded even more annoyed than usual. What’s going on with her, anyway? Are you really going to try to stop the sale of the hospital? „
    “Do I look like an insane person to you?” I demanded.
    “I elect to exercise my rights under the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that a truthful answer may have an adverse impact on any future job-performance evaluations.”
    “Thanks for that vote of confidence,” I cracked, “but in response to your question, no, I am not. Not only is my mother’s name to be found in the legal dictionary under the heading client from bell, but trying to block the sale of Prescott Memorial would be like trying to stop a locomotive by standing on the tracks.”
    “Then what do you want me to tell your mother when she calls?”
    “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you tell her that I’ve fled the country under an assumed name.”
    Cheryl gazed balefully around the office, her eyes traveling from the pink message slips that littered my desk like confetti to the stacks of files that lay in ramparts*! covering every available surface.
    “I have a better idea,” she suggested. “Why don’t I give you a hundred and you take me with you?”
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    Now that the pinball machine was on its way to the Four Seasons, I found myself having second thoughts. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid that Hurt wouldn’t want it. If he didn’t, I figured I always had room for it in the new apartment. It was more that I didn’t want to look foolish—no, scratch that, desperate—in the eyes of Jeff and the other associates who’d been working on Delirium. Large law firms like Callahan Ross are like feudal kingdoms, where the number of knights you control reveals the size of your castle. While far from power hungry, I still had no desire to embarrass myself in front of the troops.
    In the meantime I had other clients, clients who all had one thing in common—they expected to have their phone calls returned. As I worked my way through a three-day backlog of messages, I found myself glad to be diverted by other matters. I was also glad that Bill Delius and Mark Millman were busy at the COMDEX show at McCormack Place since it kept them from calling to ask what I was doing to resurrect negotiations with Icon. Under the circumstances I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell them.
    I don’t know what made me think that Gabriel Hurt would call. The telephone was hardly his metier, but nonetheless every time Cheryl buzzed to tell me I had a call, I felt a small jolt of adrenaline followed by the in-l evitable letdown of disappointment. It was just chance that I thought to check my e-mail. Usually I left it to Cheryl to sort through the interoffice spam, but Cheryl had another interview, so I logged on and gave it a cursory scroll.
    The message from Hurt was very cool. When I clicked it open, a character that I recognized from the Dark; Invaders pinball game appeared on the screen, walked forward, and knelt before me, beckoning with a graceful gesture of his hand. Unlike the figure illuminated on the back panel of the game, this warrior was three dimensional and astonishingly real. Behind him loomed an enormous iron gate whose intricately wrought arch spelled out the word ENTER.
    Clicking my way through it, I was treated to a performance by three brightly clothed computer-generated figures from the game, doing impossible handsprings and acrobatics. Finally they scampered off, and a herald in rich medieval garb took their place and blew a fanfare. Lowering his horn, he unfurled a parchment scroll, which he seemed to turn for me to read. Written in Gothic script and beautifully illuminated in the margins, Gabriel Hurt’s message thanked me for my gift and invited me “and my seconds from Delirium” for a Dark Invader tournament at the Four Seasons “commencing at nine o’clock this evening.” I whooped my way down the hall to Jeff Tannenbaum’s office to tell him about our summons from the king. Delighted, I told him that he needed to figure out a way to get in touch with Delius and Millman right away, even if it meant going down to McCormack Place with a bullhorn. Rolling his eyes, Jeff punched up the numbers he had for the two men on his computer Rolodex, but before he dialed, he fished a single sheet of paper from the in-tray on his desk and handed it to me.
    “What’s this?” I demanded, scanning the sheet on which were the names and addresses of what looked like three different bars.
    “The