Dead Certain

thinking.
    I prayed that my faith in Joan Bornstein, in whose hands Claudia’s future now rested, was not misplaced. Of course, I was also furious at Gavin McDermott for having put her in a situation that put everything she’d worked so hard for, for so many years, at risk. I was disgusted by his calculation and his cowardice, not to mention his eagerness to offer her up as sacrificial victim.
    But overriding all of this was a terrible sense of fear, fear not just for Claudia, but for myself. Sitting in Joan Bornstein’s office with my old college roommate brought home the fact that it is a small world filled with overlapping relationships and conflicting loyalties. The truth is I didn’t know what I would do if it came down to choosing between saving my roommate’s reputation or that of Prescott Memorial Hospital.
     

CHAPTER 15
     
    In a perfect world I would have not only driven Claudia home but also made her a cup of tea, chatting with her until she’d drunk it and drifted off to sleep. Having spent thirty-six hours at the hospital before being dragged in front of the M8cM panel, my roommate was starting to resemble an ambulatory corpse. But today of all days I was acutely aware of the world’s imperfections, and I had to settle for putting Claudia in a cab and sending her back to Hyde Park by herself.
    As we were walking out of Joan’s office her receptionist handed me a message from Cheryl. It said that Gabriel Hurt was returning to the West Coast earlier than expected. The only time he was now available to meet with Delirium was two o’clock at the Four Seasons. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to two. I hoped that the words your secretary will coordinate written on the message pad meant that Cheryl had managed to get in touch with Millman and that he and Bill Delius’s graduate student were on their way.
    As I watched Cheryl’s taxi disappear from view I realized that I had ten minutes and the Four Seasons was nine blocks away. I suddenly felt exhausted, as if I’d lived half a dozen lifetimes since I’d stood beside my mother on the courthouse steps that morning. As I stepped out into the street to flag down another cab I tried to remind myself that this was what I lived for.
    I had the driver drop me at the corner of Walton and Michigan. The entrance to the hotel is on Walton, but the street is one-way the wrong direction. At this time of day it could easily take ten minutes to just make it around the block. On foot, I made it to the Four Seasons breathless, but with two minutes to spare.
    The actual lobby of the Four Seasons is on the fifth floor of the Magnificent Mile building. All that greeted guests on the street level was a smallish marble foyer with a security desk and a bellman’s station. It was here that I found Millman pacing like an irritated jungle cat. Doing his best to stay out of his way was a scraggly youth with dirty blond hair pulled into a scrawny ponytail and what I’m sure he hoped passed for a goatee on his chin. Fie was dressed in a pair of enormous blue jeans, so wide they might have been wings, a rumpled plaid shirt, and a pair of much-worn black Converse high-tops.
    I’m not normally the sort of person who likes to touch people in the course of conversation. I was raised believing that unless you’re engaged to be married, a handshake is more than enough. But as soon as I spotted Millman, I cast repressed Waspdom to the winds and put my arm around his shoulder. The gesture was meant to reassure, but I was the one who was relieved when all I smelled were Altoids on his breath. Delius’s computer prodigy might look like a dopey skateboard delinquent, but at least he hadn’t driven Millman to drink. It was much too early to tell what effect he would end up having on me.
    Millman introduced us. The young man’s name was Floyd Wiznewski, and he looked so nervous that you’d think he was about to meet God, or the Lord High Executioner, or both. I put my arm around him, too.
    “Listen,” I said, as Millman pushed the button to summon the elevator. “Gabriel Hurt is a man just like anybody else. He chews his food. He gets wet when it rains. Don’t let him scare you.”
    I looked at Floyd to see how he was taking this. He looked like he’d just swallowed a mouse.
    The elevator stopped, and we stepped out into the lobby, opulent by any standards but all the more incongruous for being on the fifth floor. I didn’t know anything about Floyd Wiznewski, but