Fatal Reaction

was at least a fifty-fifty chance that the deal was dead and all the orchids and the seating charts would have been for nothing.
    “Before I forget, you have to call Mimi,” declared Mother. “She phoned this morning to say she received an oral report from the structural engineers who came out to look at the apartment.”
    “What did they say?” I asked.
    “They said it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars to remove the soil from the top of the building and repair the damage to the roof.”
    “Forty thousand dollars? How long will it take?” I demanded, no doubt suffering from the lawyer’s predisposition to measure everything in hours billed.
    “I have no idea, but they say work can’t begin until after the ground thaws in the spring. They also say they can’t guarantee it won’t cost more if we have a lot of snow this winter, because in that case it’s likely there will be even more damage to the roof and they’ll have trouble using their heavy equipment.”
    “There is no way I am going to write a check for forty thousand dollars,” I announced.
    “Naturally dear. It’s Paul Riskoff who’s going to have to pick up the tab.”
    She was right, of course. But Mother didn’t know Riskoff like I did. He was one of the most litigious businessmen in the city. It would definitely take a lawsuit to pry that kind of money from him—a prospect that I, in my current state of mind, did not relish.
    What next? I thought to myself, hanging up with my mother. Boils? Frogs? Running sores? Clearly I was being punished for something I had done in my past life. As I turned onto Hyde Park Boulevard I half expected to see flames leaping out of the windows of my apartment.
    Instead I saw Elliott’s Jeep parked in front of the building. I parked in the alley out back and walked around to the front of the building and tapped on his window. I waited while he rolled it down.
    “Are you staking me out?” I demanded, resting my elbows on the door.
    “By the time I got your messages and called you back, they said you’d already left to go home. Cheryl gave me your car phone number, but your line was busy so I figured I’d take a chance and catch up with you here.”
    “I was up all night working on something,” I said. “Do you want to come inside and talk?”
    “Sure. Have you eaten anything today?”
    “Today? I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
    “Do you have any food in your refrigerator?”
    “Maybe I have some eggs or something...” I replied, but it was the lack of sleep talking. Not only did I have no recollection of ever seeing any eggs in my refrigerator, but when it came to food preparation my experience was severely limited and did not actually extend to poultry products.
    “I’ll tell you what,” Elliott said. “I’m starved. Let me run out and pick something up. I’ll be back in a minute.” I went inside and checked the answering machine. No messages. I took a deep breath and told myself that the longer we didn’t hear from the Japanese the better. While Elliott was off rustling up dinner I took a shower. It didn’t wake me up, but at least I felt clean. I put on a pair of old jeans and an old U of C sweatshirt. I was just hunting through drawers for a rubber band for my hair when the buzzer rang.
    Elliott had gone to Picolo Mondo and picked up Italian food which he insisted on serving on real dishes—dishes he quickly washed and dried before setting out onto the table. After what he’d seen of my housekeeping, he explained, a person couldn’t be too careful.
    Over creamy risotto with grilled chicken and crisp pinot grigio I told him Tom Galloway’s story about Danny and the experimental AIDS drug.
    “Is there any chance there really is a new drug like that out there?”
    “Of course it’s possible,” I replied. “That’s why Danny bought it. But I don’t think it was an AIDS drug in that syringe. Stephen seemed pretty sure from the photos of the liver tissue that it was PAF.”
    “I’m surprised Danny talked through his decision to try the new drug with Tom Galloway. You’d think Stephen would be the logical choice.”
    “He didn’t talk to Stephen because he knew Stephen would be against it. It would be acting ahead of the facts, something Stephen would never approve of.”
    “So who at Azor could plausibly come to Danny with the offer of the drug?”
    “Plausibly? It could be anyone. These guys move around so much—from drug company