Rough Trade

toilet. The team was in shambles. Coach Bennato was in jail getting ready to stand trial for murder. His wife, Marie, and his daughter, Debra, brought him casseroles every day.
    My shoulder had needed surgery. Luckily I drew the same crew who’d tried to patch up Jeff. Chrissy and I were even roommates again, this time in the intensive care ward, but only for one night. Her recovery was quick and complete. She brought baby Katharine to visit me every day.
    Stephen came, too, but it was more obvious now than ever that without a business problem to chew on between us there was really nothing to say. He brought flowers and left sheepishly. He only came the one time.
    As usual, Cheryl had been right. Not only that it was about time that I broke things off with Stephen, but that my partners would eventually forget about Avco and the $250,000. Gus Rolle, my nemesis on the management committee, was discovered to have embezzled something like $2 million from a client’s trust account in order to feather a love nest for his twenty-two-year-old secretary. By the time the Brandt brothers were finally indicted on charges of selling child pornography, my transgressions had, for the most part, been forgotten.
    The shoulder had turned into a real pain. Not only did I need surgery, but I had to wear it in a weird kind of suspension splint that kept my elbow above my ear. Wearing anything but a cape was nearly impossible, and sleeping was a real treat. Eventually it was replaced by an arm cast and now, finally, just a sling. I had reached the point where the temptation to use the arm was practically irresistible, and Cheryl had taken to scolding me whenever she caught me at it.
    The new apartment was finished, gorgeous, and empty. While Paul Riskoff and I had become the best of friends, Stephen and I had been reduced to squabbling over the furniture. That’s why I was at the apartment that Sunday morning, enjoying the thin January sunshine as it poured in through my perfectly arched windows. I was going through the apartment matching the furniture that had already been delivered to the checks that had paid for, trying to figure out who owed who what. I was surprised when the house phone rang and the doorman asked me if I wanted him to send Elliott Abelman up.
    We hadn’t seen that much of each other in the weeks since I’d been hurt. He’d come to the hospital, of course, and we’d resumed our phone-friend habit, but nothing more. I sensed a certain reluctance in him, a desire not to crowd. I think he was waiting for me to come to him. For the time being, I thought I might as well leave it at that.
    Apparently Elliott had been out running. He appeared to be almost totally swathed in Gore-Tex, and his face was ruddy from the cold.
    “I brought you a housewarming present,” he said. “I was just planning on leaving it with your doorman, and then I saw your car out front.” He pulled a flat paper bag out of his warm-up and handed it to me.
    “Classy wrapping paper,” I remarked.
    “It’s for your coffee table,” he said, as I pulled the latest issue of Milwaukee Magazine from the bag. On the cover was a picture of a smiling Chrissy Rendell, her arms thrown around Paul Riskoff’s shoulders. The title ran : MILWAUKEE’S NEW DYNAMIC DUO.
    “Thank you,” I said. “I shall treasure it always. Now all I need is a coffee table.”
    “You know, that Chrissy is quite a fox,” remarked Elliott with a wolfish grin. “Now that she’s single again I was wondering if you’d mind fixing me up with her.”
    I took the magazine and heaved it at him with my good arm. I only missed him by an inch.
     

A Conversation with Gini Hartzmark
     
    Q: Describe Kate Millholland. How is she different from otherfemale sleuths?
    A: Kate is a young Chicago corporate attorney specializing in the kind of fast-paced, transaction-driven law that is only done in large firms like Callahan Ross, the staid and self-satisfied firm of which Kate is now a partner. She is also a Millholland, which means that her family is a big deal in Chicago in the same way that the Kennedys are a big deal in Boston.
    Kate is smart, she is strong, and—like most other female sleuths—she is also an outsider. What makes her different is that the worlds that she stands outside of are those of the quintessential insider —old money and corporate law. She is not only independent but difficult. (Some would say impossible.)
     
    Q: Is Kate modeled after someone you