Dead Certain

faced she couldn’t have been more than a year or two out of law school, appeared almost immediately to take me back to the meeting. Shining with self-assurance, she wore a suit with a skirt so short it would have immediately sent half the partners at Callahan Ross into apoplexy. As we made our way back through the brightly lit corridors lined with secretarial cubicles, she explained that Mr. Packman was on a very tight schedule and would be able to give me only ten minutes. It took a conscious effort to keep surprise from breaking my stride. I don’t know what it was that I was expecting from this sit-down with HCC, but it certainly wasn’t a personal tête-à-tête with HCC’s chief executive officer.
    My first instinct was to be furious with my mother. If she was really serious about quashing the deal with HCC, how could she even think about sending me into a meeting with its CEO completely unprepared? It struck me as yet one more indication that my mother had no idea of how things worked outside the constricted sliver of her country-club world.
    In spite of myself I felt my heart quicken. Just the fact that Packman was in town spoke volumes about the relative importance of Prescott Memorial to HCC, and there was enough of Everett Prescott in me that I relished the opportunity to size up a potential adversary. That still didn’t mean I was convinced that fighting HCC was a good idea, but there was no doubt that seeing the trauma team in action firsthand had made the discussion much less abstract.
    Disconcertingly my escort stopped dead in front of a blank wall at the end of the corridor. At the push of a button, the wall turned out to be a hidden panel. Even I had to concede that it was a nice touch, a way to knock adversaries off balance before they even made it through the door.
    The panel opened silently to reveal a long, narrow conference room dominated by a massive table milled from a single, enormous piece of black marble polished until it shone like patent leather. At the far end sat Gerald Packman—alone. Behind him hung an enormous painting that looked like a bucket of crimson paint had been hurled at a white canvas. The top of the table was completely empty except for a single glass of water and a small clock of the kind used to time moves in chess competition.
    I knew little more about Packman beyond what Joan Bornstein had told me. There were only snippets about him in the newspaper clippings about HCC my mother had sent over. Neither had prepared me for the sheer force of the personality of the man himself. He was a big man in his early forties with the bearing of an athlete and the manicured hands of an investment banker. Well groomed beyond the boardroom standard, he exuded confidence from every pore. It was no wonder he’d set his sights beyond fried chicken.
    “You have ten minutes,” he said, reaching forward to press the switch on top of the clock that set the hands moving.
    “Then perhaps you should spend it telling me why I shouldn’t do everything in my power to keep you from buying Prescott Memorial Hospital,” I said matter-of-factly. I’d seen all kinds of outrageous behavior in my time. Packman’s gimmick with the chess clock may have been original, but I wasn’t that impressed.
    “It would only be a waste of both of our time,” he replied. “Our purchase of Prescott Memorial Hospital is a done deal. The board of trustees has voted and the letter of intent has been signed. My lawyers tell me that it’s a lock.”
    “I’m sure they also tell you what a great guy you are,” I pointed out, surprised by his unwillingness to even pay lip service to diplomacy, “but that doesn’t necessarily make it true.”
    “You’re a very rude young lady,” he said. It was a statement of fact.
    I looked pointedly at the clock. “And you think you’re more important than you are.”
    Packman leaned back in his chair, unmoved, and pressed his steepled fingers to his lips, focusing his gaze on me like a high-priced shrink.
    “I didn’t get to where I am today without being a pretty fair judge of people. I’m going to venture a wild guess and Say your mother put you up to this,” he observed.
    “I’m here representing the interests of the people whose donations built the hospital you seem to think you’re buying.”
    “In that case, let me offer you some advice.”
    ‘What’s that?”
    “Just let it go.”
    “What?”
    “Walk away.”
    “Why would I want to do