Fatal Reaction

back.
    “No, they don’t,” agreed Elliott. “Especially once they’re dead.”
     

CHAPTER 9
     
    Elliott wanted to have a look at Danny’s personnel file, so I walked him down to human resources. While I was there I had my picture taken and my employee ID made. It took only a few minutes, but to me it seemed like a momentous step, a laminated piece of plastic that identified me as an employee—a person under Stephen Azorini’s control. Well, identify might have been too strong a word. The company used one of those cameras that spit out a computer-generated image and the quality of the likeness that appeared on the ID was so poor that it looked like a Xerox of a morgue shot taken in bad light.
    That done, I left Elliott to make his own way through Danny’s personnel file and find his own way out of the building. Now that I was officially employed by Azor it seemed like a good idea to do something about earning my keep. I had a long way to go before I felt comfortable taking the helm of the negotiations with Takisawa and it was time I did something about it.
    Walking down the corridor that housed all the company administrative offices, I noticed that Stephen’s door was open and saw him sitting behind his desk doing something on the computer. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and called out for me to come in.
    “When are you and I going to have some time to sit down and talk about Takisawa?” I asked him, folding my arms across my chest.
    “I was hoping to block out most of the afternoon on Saturday. That way we’ll hopefully have fewer interruptions.”
    “Don’t forget we have to go to the Benefactors’ Dinner that night,” I said, congratulating myself that I’d remembered. It was a dinner at the Museum of Contemporary Art honoring its biggest donors. Skip Tillman, the firm’s managing partner, had recently been named president of the MCA’s board of trustees. As a result, Callahan Ross partners were now expected to take an active role in the museum. Worse yet, Skip’s wife Bitsy and my mother were friends, so I had gotten both arms twisted about going.
    Stephen pulled a large, thick envelope from the top of a pile and tossed it toward me. “This just came this morning,” he said, moving on to other things.
    I opened it. Inside was a set of interrogatories at least an inch thick. These were the written questions posed to Azor by the plaintiff’s attorneys in the most recently filed Serezine case. They represented round one in what would no doubt turn out to be a lengthy—and for Stephen, expensive—discovery process.
    “I’m going back downtown to my office this afternoon. I’ll deliver them to Tom Galloway myself. He’ll want to set up a time to meet with you early next week to go over your answers.”
    “Can’t this wait until after the Takisawa visit?”
    “Unfortunately, interrogatories have to be answered within ten days. Don’t worry, Tom will make it as painless as possible.”
    “Sure. The only place it’ll hurt will be my wallet.” He looked down at my Azor ID, which I’d clipped to the lapel of my jacket, and smiled. “At least I get a break from paying you by the hour for a while.” He picked up another piece of paper from his desk and handed it to me. “This fax came in from Takisawa overnight.”
    I read it through quickly. It was a letter, brief by Japanese standards, informing Stephen that the company’s chairman, old man Takisawa himself, would be making the trip to Chicago.
    “I take it this is good news?” I asked.
    “Very good. But it certainly ups the ante on their visit, especially when it comes to planning the logistics.”
    “In what way?”
    “The Japanese traditionally read a great deal of meaning into how they are treated, and believe me, senior executives like Takisawa are used to being treated like royalty.”
    “So you book them into a suite at the Four Seasons and hire a limousine to take them back and forth,” I said, figuring that’s what Stephen was already planning.
    “It’s a little more complicated than that. You’re thinking about this like a business meeting when it’s really much more like a state visit for a foreign dignitary. For example, it is expected that we’ll come up with someplace special for dinner on the first night they’re in town.”
    “What did you have in mind?”
    “Someplace unique and not generally available. Preferably someplace with a sense of ceremony.”
    “What about church?” I