Dead Certain

was one of the few people who could get past the dandruff and greasy hair i to see it.
    As I outlined the situation with Prescott Memorial and HCC, Sherman honed in on the key issues before I even had a chance to articulate them. Inside of five minutes he outlined his plan to hunt down any legal precedent that could potentially be used to block or, at the very least, f delay the sale. He also promised to dig up any other relevant information about HCC: for example, the outcome of any other attempted purchase of a charity hospital or whether in the company’s six-year history they’d ever been sued.
    What I didn’t tell Sherman was that these efforts merely constituted a backup plan. With three out of five trustees voting in favor of the sale, the easiest way to thwart HCC wasn’t going to be to sue them, but simply to convince one of the trustees to change their vote. I even had my candidate for “most likely to be swayed” picked out. By the time Sherman departed for the library, Cheryl was already on the phone trying to set up an appointment for me to see Prescott Memorial’s chief of surgery, the famous Dr. Gavin McDermott.
    In the meantime I put in a call to Denise Dempsey. Denise was one of the city’s top PR specialists. Highly professional and extremely well connected, she also made no secret of the fact that she preferred social rather than business issues. The rap against her was that in her heart of heart she was antibusiness. In short, she was perfect.
    I spent a little over a half an hour on the phone with Denise, selling her on the idea of stopping HCC and explaining what I was trying to do. When I was done, she offered up a thumbnail sketch of a public relations battle plan. Listening to her, I had the fleeting sense that all of this just might work. Then I reminded myself that plausibility and persuasiveness were the PR expert’s stock in trade.
    It wasn’t until we got down to talking about money that I started getting nervous. I must confess that I was shocked to learn that Denise charged even more an hour than I did—likability obviously being in much shorter supply than legal acumen. I wondered what Mother had been thinking when she said that she would do whatever it took to fight HCC. Well, I thought to myself as I said good-bye to Denise, I was definitely giving her the chance to put her money where her mouth was.
     
    For the rest of the afternoon things pretty much went downhill—particularly when it came to Delirium. First I called the hospital to find out how Bill Delius was doing, but all they would tell me was that he was still in the cardiac intensive care unit and listed in stable condition. Then I tried to get in touch with Claudia, only to be told by the page operator that my roommate was seeing clinic patients all afternoon and was taking only emergency calls. To make matters even worse, I was convinced that Mark Millman was deliberately avoiding me. I left messages at every number I had for him, but my only reward was a profound and persistent silence.
    Gabriel Hurt and everyone else from Icon were equally uncommunicative. In between calls to people who were not there, were on the other line, or whose cell phones Were switched off, I checked my e-mail at ever shortening intervals, going so far as to read the day’s list of firm birthdays and a memo outlining the partnership’s Policy on personal use of frequent-flyer miles. Jeff Tannenbaum, the associate who’d carried the heaviest load on Delirium, stopped in for an update and ended up moping around my office because I felt too guilty to tell him to get lost.
    His yearly review was coming up, and his name was going to be considered for partnership. Closing the deal with Icon would have clinched the matter for him. While he didn’t say it, I knew what he was thinking. It was easy for me, a partner with fuck-you money in the bank, to ride out the ups and downs of a difficult transaction, but it was Jeff’s future on the line as much as it was Delirium’s. Hunched inconsolably at the end of my couch, his presence was a physical reminder that I should be spending my energy getting talks with Icon back on track instead of letting myself be drawn into a futile and self-indulgent pissing contest with HCC.
     
    By four o’clock I was more than happy to get out of the office in order to go see Gavin McDermott who had grudgingly agreed to squeeze me in between patients at his office at the Northwestern Memorial medical