Fatal Reaction

on business before coming to Chicago and asking whether Danny might be free to meet him for dinner in New York later in the week. He would be staying at the St. Regis and had an extra ticket for Sunset Boulevard.
    “We have to tell them,” I said. “But more important we have to tell Hiroshi.”
    “I don’t know,” said Stephen.
    “What do you mean you don’t know? What if Hiroshi calls him here? Do you want him to hear that Danny’s dead from whoever happens to be covering the switchboard that day? Or maybe you’d prefer to instruct all the secretaries that if anyone with a Japanese accent happens to call to speak with Danny they’re to lie and say he’s in a meeting.”
    “You’re right. I’ll write them.”
    “I’ll draft something formal for you to send to Takisawa,” I said. “But I had something else in mind for Hiroshi.”
    “What?”
    “I think I should go to New York and tell him in person. I’m sure he’ll appreciate being told privately,” I said, thinking of the regrettable way Tom Galloway was dealt the news. “It’ll also give me the opportunity to ask for his continued support for the deal.”
    “You mean you’re planning on blackmailing him,” said Stephen, vastly amused.
    “Absolutely not,” I replied, genuinely shocked. “I am merely going to explain to him how much I admire the finely honed Japanese traditions of loyalty and honor.”
     
    * * *
     
    I didn’t speak to Elliott until the end of the day. He was being deposed in an insurance-fraud case and had spent the day being grilled by a phalanx of defense attorneys. I wanted to tell him about what I’d learned about Tom Galloway and Danny, but he had other news that he was eager to share and that he managed to get to first. It turned out that despite his being otherwise occupied, someone from his office had managed to track down the tape from the surveillance camera in Danny’s building. He suggested that we get together to have a look at it.
    We agreed to meet at my office downtown at seven. When I hung up the phone I called Cheryl and asked her to please make sure that she set up a TV and a VCR in my office before she left. Driving back to the city I felt guilty. There was a mountain of work sitting on my desk in Oak Brook and I was leaving it undone in order to spend time with Elliott Abelman.
    Back at Callahan Ross I stopped in the ladies’ room long enough to brush my hair and put on fresh lipstick. As I pulled the pins out of my French twist I looked at myself in the mirror. Never quite beautiful under even the best of circumstances, today the face that looked back at me was tired and preoccupied. I wondered what Elliott saw in it that attracted him.
    I knew what my mother would have said; I could even imagine her tone of voice: It wasn’t my face he was interested in—it was my money. Having the Millholland family name was like wearing a bankbook around your neck. No one could look at you without attempting to calculate your net worth. Growing up I’d endured endless sermons on the subject of what men were really after. Girls with my kind of background were taught to protect their inheritances as assiduously as maidens in other centuries safeguarded their virginity.
    Elliott arrived right on time, the videotape tucked under his arm like a box of chocolates. It had started snowing and the dark wool of his topcoat was dotted with melted flakes. As we walked back toward my office I asked him how his testimony had gone and he just rolled his eyes. Back in my office I took his coat and waved him into the same seat Tom Galloway had occupied that morning. Not wanting to change my mind, I immediately plunged into an account of Galloway’s relationship with Danny.
    “I was wondering what the story was behind the cup you sent over,” he replied. “You’ve got to admit he’s got one hell of a motive. He’s gunning for a partnership, he’s married with little kids, and his father-in-law is up for reelection. If he was the one in the apartment he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Danny when the paramedics showed up.”
    “He says Danny was alive when he left him.”
    “You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of this guy, would you?”
    I rooted through my desk drawers until I found a copy of the firm directory, which was known around the office as the face book. In addition to names and phone numbers it also contained head shots of every attorney at the firm. Callahan Ross had gotten so big and had