Dead Certain

been so long since I’d last felt it that it took me a minute to put a name to the emotion. It was joy.
    Joy, pure and simple. A delight in life. As I stood there in my underwear and old T-shirt, it struck me like a revelation. This was how it was supposed to turn out. Not Russell, wracked with pain and wasting away before my eyes, but Claudia reaching into Bill Delius’s chest and dragging him back from the brink. If that was possible, there could be little else beyond our reach. Bill Delius had cheated death. By comparison, how hard could landing a deal with Icon be?
    When the phone rang, it made me jump. I picked it up, hoping it was Cheryl or Claudia or maybe Mark Mill- man reporting on Bill’s progress. Naturally it was my mother.
    “What on earth are you still doing at home?” she demanded without preamble. “Are you ill? Where have you been? I’ve been making myself frantic trying to reach you, and that secretary of yours is absolutely worthless. She claimed to have no idea at ail of what you’re up to.”
    “And good morning to you, too, Mother,” I sighed wearily.
    “I have no time for chitchat,” she replied, choosing for once to ignore my sarcasm. “I’m leaving for the club, and you have to get downtown for a meeting.”
    “What meeting?”
    “I’ve arranged for you to meet with the people from HCC at ten.”
    I looked at my watch. “But that’s in twenty-seven minutes,” I protested. “I was at the hospital until late last night. One of my clients had a heart attack. I just got up. I’m not even dressed yet.”
    “Then I suggest you’d better hurry,” she cut in, impervious to my excuses. “It’s all set up. You’re meeting at HCC’s law firm. It’s somewhere down there on LaSalle Street—McAdden, Kripps, and some Jewish name. I’ve written it down somewhere....”
    “McAdden, Kripps, and Steinbach,” I replied as I rubbed the dirt on the bottom of my foot off onto the side of my leg. “I know where their offices are. What I want to know is what I’m supposed to be talking to them about.”
    “You’re the big-time corporate lawyer. I thought I’d leave those details up to you.”
    “So what did you tell them?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What reason did you give them for my wanting to meet with them?”
    “I just explained to them that you’re the attorney for the family,” replied my mother brightly. “That and the fact that we are planning to sue them.”
     

CHAPTER7
     
    The offices of McAdden, Kripps, and Steinbach were in one of the newer buildings in the financial district, a black marble edifice so sleek and forbidding that it had been inevitably dubbed the Darth Vader building by the denizens of LaSalle Street. I’m sure HCC’s lawyers didn’t mind—as a matter of fact, they probably liked it. McAdden Kripps attorneys were more upstart than Ivy League, and they had a well-earned reputation for playing both tough and dirty. What that meant in Callahan Ross terms was that while we were busy looking down our noses at them, they were thinking up new ways to kick our ass.
    I got downtown in record time. I figured if I kept up this kind of driving, it was only going to be a matter of time before traffic cops went around with my picture taped to their dashboards and the auto-safety people put a bounty on my head. After handing the parking-lot attendant a twenty, I narrowly escaped being hit by two taxis and a bicycle messenger as I darted across Monroe and arrived breathless in the lobby. I crossed the expanse of marble at an uncivilized sprint and managed to find the appropriate bank of elevators to take me to the thirty-sixth floor on only the second try.
    Riding up alone, I tried to catch my breath. I also silently cursed my mother as I felt the thin silk of my blouse, soaked with sweat, clinging unpleasantly to my back. No doubt she was just arriving cool and collected at the club.
    The elevator doors opened directly into the firm’s reception area, a stark expanse of white marble punctuated by an outcropping of low-slung chairs of such modem design that I suspected it would take a gymnast to get in and out of them without injury. At the far end sat an elegant black woman wearing a telephone headset behind a massive wraparound desk that looked like it had been lifted from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. I gave her my name and politely ignored her suggestion that I have a seat.
    I didn’t have long to wait. A female associate, so fresh