Final Option

obvious that you hate it?”
    “I do it because I have to.”
    “Be serious,” snapped Cheryl. “I’m not going to let you off that easy.”
    “My mother is very involved in a number of charities. For reasons I don’t understand, it’s important to her that I go to the events she’s involved in. And it’s easier to go than to listen to her abuse me for not going. Stephen obliges by being my escort, and I reciprocate by going with him to functions where he’d rather not go alone. And there you have it—no dress, no shoes, no excuses.”
    “I worry about you, Kate. What do you do for fun? And don’t tell me that you run, because I know for a fact that no one in their right mind runs for fun.”
    I was spared further examination of my social life by a phone call from Herman Geiss, the elusive head of the CFTC’s Enforcement Division. Herman was a veteran of many bureaucratic wars. Like all prosecutors, he was convinced that there was no end to scoundrels in this world. He had pledged himself with the fervor of the underpaid and overworked to stamp out abuses in futures markets.
    Over the years I’d developed a healthy respect for Herman’s intelligence and ribald sense of humor. We had, I thought, always enjoyed as good a relationship as is possible between two professionals who continually find themselves on opposite sides of the fence.
    I picked up the phone expecting some off-color ribbing about my client’s untimely demise, so Herman’s tough-guy act caught me off guard.
    “You’ve had three extensions already, Millholland,” growled the CFTC’s burly enforcement chief. “Either shit or get off the pot.”
    “But the defendant is dead,” I protested. “I’m not making this up, Herman. It was on the front page of the Tribune yesterday.”
    “Read the Wells Notice, Millholland. Our allegations apply equally to Bart Hexter and Hexter Commodities. I don’t care if he’s dead. You’d better have your answer by Friday.”
    “But Herman,” I pleaded, “have a heart. I’m scrambling to keep the company going after what’s happened, You’re being unreasonable, even by bureaucratic standards.”
    “Don’t ‘but Herman’ me. Hexter Commodities has been snubbing its nose at the government since you were in diapers. I’ve been waiting a long time to bring Hexter Commodities down. Stay tuned, Millholland. I’m about to teach you a thing or two about bureaucratic murder.”
     

CHAPTER 10
     
    It was rapidly turning into the kind of morning where I wished my desk chair had come equipped with a seat belt. Besides finding myself in the midst of an intrigue between the CFTC and Hexter Commodities, another matter, long dormant, sprang to life in crisis form. As a result, I was forced to spend the better part of the morning talking on two phones at once, putting out fires.
    When Barton Jr. arrived he found me sitting at my desk cursing. I had just received word that an acquisition agreement that I’d painstakingly negotiated over a period of four months had just disintegrated beyond redemption two days before the final papers were to have been signed.
    “I wasn’t swearing at you,” I explained, waiving him into a seat. He was on his way to Kurlander’s office for the meeting with his sisters about the will. He looked immeasurably tired, as if the weight of what had happened to his father had lodged somewhere between his shoulders, dragging him down.
    “How are you doing?” I inquired.
    “It’s very hard. My father took charge of everything that touched this family. Now, in some reflexive form of primogeniture, everyone is turning to me to take his place. Kurlander calls and lectures me on responsibility, Krissy cries on my shoulder and begs me to take care of her, and Margot... Well, Margot just plain scares me. I never know what she’ll say or who she’ll say it to. Jane and I were up late last night discussing how crazy you have to be to be really crazy.”
    “How’s your mom?”
    “I have to say that during our discussion of craziness her name came up a few times. This—Dad’s being killed, all the publicity—has done something to her. Mother’s always been a bit peculiar, but now she’s gone completely off the deep end. It’s as though she’s been transformed into the Emily Post of funerals. She called me at four this morning to discuss the funeral service. She has the whole thing planned down to the most minute detail. All day long the phone rings and we have these