Fatal Reaction (16 page)

“It wasn’t that he didn’t try,” I replied, thinking of the bloody wall by the kitchen door and the pool of blood by the fallen telephone. “Danny tried with everything he had. But whoever was with him in the apartment forcibly restrained him. That’s how the apartment got tom apart. It wasn’t because someone was trying to kill him. It was because whoever was with him when he started to die physically held him down to keep him from going for help.”

CHAPTER 13

For a long time we just kept going over it, laying out the few nuggets of hard fact we had, hoping there was some way of putting them together that told a different, less terrible story. But in the end it always came out the same way. While Danny was bleeding to death someone had wrestled him down to keep him from summoning help.

“But why?” I asked for the dozenth time. “Do you think maybe he just panicked at the sight of the blood?”

“If that were the case you’d expect him to stand back or even run away. The last thing you’d think he’d want to do is get any closer. No, whoever did this wanted Danny dead.”

“If he’d gotten help right away do you think Danny would have lived?”

“If the paramedics were able to get there quickly, then yes, there’s a good chance he would be alive right now.”

“Maybe whoever was with him didn’t know that. Did Danny have a living will? Maybe he’d told whoever was with him that he didn’t want to be resuscitated if something happened to him.”

“Danny 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 have my ear both professionally and privately will give you greater credibility than any negotiator I could ever bring in from the outside.”

“That may be, but I still don’t have enough experience dealing with the Japanese. No matter what you say, I’ll be flying blind.”

“You’re not just the toughest negotiator I know, Kate, but you’re also the most intuitive. You’ll figure out how to deal with Takisawa,” Stephen reassured me. “Now, tell me, have you had a chance to speak to your mother about using her house for dinner on the first night?”

“I took her out to lunch today,” I reported. I could tell by the look on Stephen’s face that he was impressed. “Not only has she agreed to personally act as hostess for the dinner, but she has agreed to take charge of all the arrangements for the entire visit—hotel, meals, transportation, everything. It turns out that the husband of one of her good friends was ambassador to Japan under Reagan, so she’s got the inside track on everything we’re going to need to do. You’ve been to my mother’s parties. Everything will be perfect.”

“I can’t believe you got her to agree to do all that. Are we going to have to pay her anything?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“She doesn’t want any money from you—indeed, she’d be insulted if you offered. But if it comes down to a choice between putting up cheap wallpaper and the one my mother likes, we’ll be putting up the one my mother likes.”

“Fair enough,” replied Stephen, thereby demonstrating his complete ignorance of what hand-painted French wallpaper could cost. “But I still can’t believe she’d take on all of this. This is going to take a lot of time. No offense, but your mother has never struck me as someone who’s itching to roll up her sleeves and work at something.”

“You don’t understand,” I replied. “To mother, this isn’t work. This is throwing an elaborate party for some people she doesn’t particularly like. She does that all the time. Besides, that’s not why she said yes.”

“Then tell me. Why did she?”

“Because she knows there is no way I am ever going to compete with her in her world.”

“So?”

“So this is Mother’s chance to show me that while I can’t play on her court, she can sure as hell beat me on mine.”

Driving back into the city, I cursed the suburban hordes who were already clotting the expressway as they made their way into the city for Saturday night. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the MCA dinner were only a law firm function. After all, my partners were used to my pared-down—my mother would call it frumpy— style. The trouble was that my parents were going to be there, too, and even though I had been in my mother’s debt only since lunch, I already felt the pressure to pay her back.

As a result I found myself, twenty minutes before Stephen was supposed to pick me up, standing in front of my bedroom mirror in my underwear fumbling with a set of electric rollers that I hadn’t used since college. The worst part was I kept getting their little spines tangled in my hair, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the weird metal clips were supposed to attach to my hair. Claudia wandered in in midepithet and took a seat on the corner of my bed, looking vastly amused.

“If I ever fall off a ladder or bum myself or get electrocuted while we’re alone together in the apartment,” she said, “please do me a favor and don’t give me first aid.”

“Why not?” I asked, wishing desperately that I either had longer arms or eyes in the back of my head.

“Because I would be terrified to have you touch me,” replied my roommate, ever the surgeon. “It’s remarkable what a klutz you are.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Do you want some help with that?”

“No thank you.”

“Come on. I’m afraid you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“What do you know about electric curlers?” I shot back. Claudia’s parents were sixties radicals who to this day lived from one protest march to the next. When I first met her she hadn’t even seen a tube of mascara before.

“If I can sew two ends of a severed blood vessel together, I can put rollers in your hair. Now, come over here and sit down. What did they feed you growing up to get you this tall?”

“I’m only five eleven. Just think of how much taller I’d be if I’d actually received maternal love as a child.”

“I take it your mother’s going to be wherever you’re going, otherwise you wouldn’t be torturing yourself like this. What disease is it tonight? Muscular dystrophy? Cancer?”

“Modem art. It’s the Benefactors’ Dinner for the new Museum of Contemporary Art.”

Claudia responded by making snoring noises.

“So what are you doing tonight?” I asked.

“Packing. I’ve got an interview at Stanford on Monday for their fellowship program.”

“Eye surgery?”

“Surgery.”

“I can’t see you in California.”

“I can’t see you in an evening gown, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to put one on.” She eyed my dress that was hanging from the top of my closet door. “Is that what you’re going to wear?” she asked, rolling up the last section of hair.

“Yeah.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure. How long am I supposed to keep these things in for? My head is starting to get hot,” I complained.

“Just be quiet and put your makeup on,” she said, climbing up on a chair to take down the dress. It was a deep copper color and the fabric had a dull metallic sheen to it, not enough to be shiny, but enough to catch the light when the fabric moved. It was off the shoulder with a set-in waist and a full skirt, much more dramatic than what I usually wear.

“It’s gorgeous,” sighed my roommate, “but you didn’t buy this, did you?”

“No, Mother ordered it for me when she was in Paris for the couture shows.”

“How much does something like this cost?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said, concentrating on my mascara.

“Ballpark?”

“It’s better if you don’t know. I don’t want you throwing up right before you leave for your trip.”

“I know it won’t fit me, but could I try it on?”

I turned and looked at my roommate in surprise. “Of course.”

Claudia quickly stripped out of her scrubs and kicked off her running shoes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worn a long dress,” she confided, slipping it off its hanger and holding it up to herself in front of the mirror. “That is, if you don’t count the times I wrapped an old tablecloth around my waist to play princess when I was little. It used to make my mother furious.” She undid the zipper and stepped into it.

“Here,” I said, setting down my lipstick and turning to help her. “Let me zip you up.”

The dress was so long it pooled around her ankles. I grabbed my evening pumps from the floor of my closet. “Put these on,” I instructed. Claudia slipped her tiny feet into my shoes. They were so big, she looked like a little girl playing dress-up. I stepped behind her and pulled the extra material back so that the dress appeared to fit smoothly in front.

Claudia took her glasses off, revealing dark circles from hours spent in the OR, and squinted at her image in the mirror. “I feel just like Cinderella,” she announced.

“Believe me,” I informed her sagely from over her shoulder. “Four hours in those shoes and you’ll feel like a tired old cleaning lady with arthritis waiting at the bus stop.”

A city like Chicago erects a new museum perhaps only once a generation. As Stephen and I pulled up to the new Museum of Contemporary Art I felt fairly certain our grandchildren would someday stand on this very spot and wonder what on earth we must have been thinking. From the street it looked like something out of a scary Bauhaus dream. Everything about the building was hard and forbidding, from the mountain of knife-edged stairs leading up to the second-story entrance, to the cast-aluminum panels that covered the building like high-tech graham crackers.

Even though the building had been lit up for the evening’s festivities and a red carpet laid down like a slash against the sharp limestone steps, I still felt like I was about to pay a visit to Dr. No. The building seemed as welcoming as a twenty-first-century jail—a feeling that was only reinforced by the phalanx of black-clad security guards with arms clasped behind their backs and black earpieces plugged into their ears. They looked like extras in a futuristic thriller.

It was, I noted as we passed through the doors, not your usual benefit crowd. Besides the smattering of the old guard who’d turned out for Skip’s wife, and the lawyers from Callahan Ross and their sullen wives, it was definitely an arty group. There were lots of grayhaired men sporting ponytails, no doubt telling themselves that their black collarless shirts not only made them look younger but were slimming as well. Their wives wore hand-painted dresses and looked like they patronized the same hairdresser as Lou Remminger.