Dead Certain

My mother, the undisputed world champion of underling abuse, had clearly gotten to her. I asked her to bring me a cup of coffee and pulled out my emergency stash of M&M’s as I settled down to wait for my mother to call.
    It didn’t take long. Cheryl hadn’t exaggerated when she’d reported that my mother was on a three-minute schedule. But, if anything, Cheryl had played down the thermonuclear intensity of her anger. Perhaps she was afraid if I knew the kind of tantrum my mother was having, I wouldn’t have come back to the office at all.
    “Where have you been?” snapped Mother. “I’ve been trying to reach you for almost an hour.”
    “I was out of the office on another matter,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Why have you been trying to reach me? Has something happened?”
    “Has something happened?” she echoed sarcastically. “Has something happened? Not unless you count my complete and utter public mortification as ‘something.’ „
    “Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” I suggested as I emptied the bag of M&M’s on top of my desk and began sorting them by color.
    “I was in the middle of doing my live interview with CNN. We were all set up in a lovely private dining room at the Ritz-Carlton, and I was talking to that very pretty girl, Suzanne or LuAnne or something like that, you know, the one with the dark hair and those startling periwinkle eyes? Well, it was all going along quite well...”
    “Just tell me what happened.”
    “This horrible little man barged in and right on camera he thrust this nasty wad of papers into my hand.”
    “What kind of papers?”
    “Legal papers. It turns out he was some kind of process server,” she declared, sounding aghast. “I’ve been sued by HCC on national TV!”
     
    I told myself that I should have seen it coming. If I’d been in HCC’s place, it was exactly what I would have done—gone after my mother with both barrels for violating the confidentiality agreement. However, even I had to admit that suing her for $540 million in damages for derailing the company’s negotiations with the archdiocese was a truly sharklike touch. Naturally my mother, who’d managed to live her entire life blissfully unaware of the evil that lawyers do to each other, was beside herself. Even so, she couldn’t say I didn’t warn her.
    I decided that the time had come for us to start playing hardball. I buzzed Cheryl. I told her to call Abelman & Associates and set up a meeting with whichever senior investigator had time to see me right away. I figured I was entitled to as much in my role as would-be girlfriend.
    In spite of my distress, or perhaps because of it, I felt a sense of relief when a few minutes later I pushed through the revolving doors of the Monadnock Building. The Monadnock was a historic treasure. Once slated for the wrecking ball, the lovingly restored Victorian masterpiece was now the unofficial home of Chicago’s defense bar. On any given afternoon celebrity defense lawyers and their equally well-known clients could be seen crossing the mosaic floor of the lobby on their way to see the judge.
    I took the wrought-iron staircase up to the second floor and made my way down the narrow corridor to the smoked glass door whose Sam Spade lettering indicated that I’d reached the offices of Abelman & Associates. The small waiting room was empty, as usual. The sensitive nature of Elliott’s business made it awkward for his clients to have to wait. I gave my name to the receptionist, a motherly woman in her fifties who I remember Elliott had said was a retired matron from the county jail. She beamed at me knowingly and ushered me back to Elliott’s office, where the boss himself stood unexpectedly there to greet me.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, giving me a long hug and then stepping back to hold me at arm’s length long enough to give me an inquiring look.
    “That depends on how you define okay,” I said. “I’ve got all my teeth and my limbs are still attached, so I guess that’s something. However, my love life is not progressing nearly as smoothly as I’d hoped, and several other parts of my life seem to be bumpy, as well.”
    Elliott bent his head and kissed me slowly, making a very satisfactory effort to remedy my first complaint. It was lovely while it lasted—all six seconds of it—until a young woman barged in with a stack of files and bumbled out again, embarrassed and stammering out apologies.
    “We don’t seem