Fatal Reaction

wasn’t ready to think about a living will. Even though he was sick, he wasn’t planning to die of AIDS— he said he was going to beat the virus.”
    “Then maybe he was with someone whose judgment was impaired. Maybe whoever it was was on drugs or something.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe he just didn’t want it known that he was in a gay man’s apartment.”
    “Oh, please,” I protested, “in this day and age? I guarantee you, as we speak, gay couples are registering for wedding china at Marshall Field’s and deciding who gets to wear the wedding dress.”
    “The world is not as liberal and forgiving as the media would have you think, Kate. How many attorneys are there at Callahan Ross?”
    “Worldwide?”
    “Just in the Chicago office.”
    “Five hundred and something.”
    “How many men?”
    “Close to five hundred.”
    “Something like ten percent of the male population is homosexual. So how many of your colleagues would you expect to be gay?” He let that one sink in for a minute. “Now how many of them are open about it?”
    “Okay, I get your point. But still, even if it was someone who wasn’t public about his homosexuality, calling the paramedics is not the same thing as putting up a billboard with a picture of yourself in drag next to the Dan Ryan with the caption ‘I am gay.’ The only people who would know would be the paramedics and even then I guess you could give a phony name.”
    “Unless you were someone well known.”
    “You mean a celebrity?”
    “Yes, but not necessarily in the way you’re probably thinking. It could be anybody the paramedics might recognize, anyone who could be hurt by that kind of whispering—a politician, a newscaster, a judge, someone prominent and recognizable—anybody who would have reason to be afraid that one of the paramedics would sell the story to the tabloids.”
    “That narrows it down some....” I mused.
    “Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Stephen in frustration. “This is a big town and I don’t think there’s any shortage of people leading secret lives.”
    Eventually we had no choice but to turn the conversation to Takisawa.
    “I spent a long time in the firm’s library last night,” I said as we began laying out various sections of the burgeoning Takisawa file on the long table Stephen used for meetings. “I was reading up on negotiating with the Japanese.”
    “Did you learn anything?”
    “Just enough to understand the extent of my ignorance, which is frankly pretty vast. Enough to know that I am definitely the wrong person to be doing this. It’s going to be bad enough that Takisawa is going to have to deal with a new face, but I’m exactly the kind of face you don’t want sitting next to you at the negotiating table. I’m serious, Stephen. I want you to think seriously about bringing in someone else, someone with greater experience in dealing with the Japanese.”
    “You mean a man.”
    “As much as it hurts me to say it, yes. You need a man. A man with experience in negotiating with the Japanese. This is going to be hairy enough without my gender complicating things further.”
    “And I think it’s already so complicated that you could be a green Martian and it wouldn’t matter. Do you really think that after they’ve had a look at Lou Remminger they’re going to give a damn about you?”
    “That’s the reason you need an experienced male negotiator, to help balance that out. You can’t make a deal without Lou Remminger, though somebody has got to talk to her about her clothes. As unpalatable as she may be to the Japanese, she’s the key to what you’re trying to do with ZK-501. I’m the least important variable in this equation.”
    “I think you’re wrong. It’s true that it’s going to make them nervous that we’re changing people in midnegotiation. After all, most Japanese businessmen work for the same company for their entire lives. They find the kind of movement that takes place in American business completely incomprehensible. But Danny didn’t leave to work for a competitor. Surely death is understandable in every culture. If you take Danny’s place, then at least it’s an orderly progression. As a member of the board and chief outside counsel, you rank above Danny in the hierarchy. It is logical that you would step in to take his place. I guarantee Takisawa will have done their homework. They will know that you and I have a relationship outside of the office and the fact that you