Dead Certain (22 page)

From elation to desperation in under three blocks— anyone who didn’t like the ride should avoid transaction work. As I crossed Michigan at Chicago Avenue to get back to my car, something at the news kiosk caught my eye. From the front page of the afternoon’s
Sun-Times,
a picture of my mother and me looked back at me. The headline was big enough to read from the corner: SOCIALITES BATTLE HOSPITAL GIANT. I could hardly wait to hear what Skip Tillman was going to say about this latest public service announcement for Callahan Ross from the women Millholland. I figured it might not be a bad time to start thinking about a new job—in Australia.

A quick phone call to Cheryl confirmed my worst fears. Not only was Tillman beating the drums for me, but my mother was on the warpath. According to Cheryl she was calling every couple of minutes. From what my secretary told me, it sounded like she was in the middle of a full-fledged nervous breakdown.

Driving back to the office, I tried to set that particular anxiety aside and called Jeff Tannenbaum with the good news about Icon. I felt entitled to have someone share in my sense of victory, if only for as long as it took for me to drive back into the Loop. Besides, there was a ton of document preparation that needed to be done and Tannenbaum was the one who was going to get stuck doing it.

By the time I got upstairs to my office, Cheryl was looking a bit shaken. My mother, the undisputed world champion of underling abuse, had clearly gotten to her. I asked her to bring me a cup of coffee and pulled out my emergency stash of M&M’s as I settled down to wait for my mother to call.

It didn’t take long. Cheryl hadn’t exaggerated when she’d reported that my mother was on a three-minute schedule. But, if anything, Cheryl had played down the thermonuclear intensity of her anger. Perhaps she was afraid if I knew the kind of tantrum my mother was having, I wouldn’t have come back to the office at all.

“Where have you been?” snapped Mother. “I’ve been trying to reach you for almost an hour.”

“I was out of the office on another matter,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Why have you been trying to reach me? Has something happened?”

“Has something happened?” she echoed sarcastically. “Has something happened? Not unless you count my complete and utter public mortification as ‘something.’ „

“Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” I suggested as I emptied the bag of M&M’s on top of my desk and began sorting them by color.

“I was in the middle of doing my live interview with CNN. We were all set up in a lovely private dining room at the Ritz-Carlton, and I was talking to that very pretty girl, Suzanne or LuAnne or something like that, you know, the one with the dark hair and those startling periwinkle eyes? Well, it was all going along quite well...”

“Just tell me what happened.”

“This horrible little man barged in and right on camera he thrust this nasty wad of papers into my hand.”

“What kind of papers?”

“Legal papers. It turns out he was some kind of process server,” she declared, sounding aghast. “I’ve been sued by HCC on national TV!”

I told myself that I should have seen it coming. If I’d been in HCC’s place, it was exactly what I would have done—gone after my mother with both barrels for violating the confidentiality agreement. However, even I had to admit that suing her for $540 million in damages for derailing the company’s negotiations with the archdiocese was a truly sharklike touch. Naturally my mother, who’d managed to live her entire life blissfully unaware of the evil that lawyers do to each other, was beside herself. Even so, she couldn’t say I didn’t warn her.

I decided that the time had come for us to start playing hardball. I buzzed Cheryl. I told her to call Abelman & Associates and set up a meeting with whichever senior investigator had time to see me right away. I figured I was entitled to as much in my role as would-be girlfriend.

In spite of my distress, or perhaps because of it, I felt a sense of relief when a few minutes later I pushed through the revolving doors of the Monadnock Building. The Monadnock was a historic treasure. Once slated for the wrecking ball, the lovingly restored Victorian masterpiece was now the unofficial home of Chicago’s defense bar. On any given afternoon celebrity defense lawyers and their equally well-known clients could be seen crossing the mosaic floor of the lobby on their way to see the judge.

I took the wrought-iron staircase up to the second floor and made my way down the narrow corridor to the smoked glass door whose Sam Spade lettering indicated that I’d reached the offices of Abelman & Associates. The small waiting room was empty, as usual. The sensitive nature of Elliott’s business made it awkward for his clients to have to wait. I gave my name to the receptionist, a motherly woman in her fifties who I remember Elliott had said was a retired matron from the county jail. She beamed at me knowingly and ushered me back to Elliott’s office, where the boss himself stood unexpectedly there to greet me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, giving me a long hug and then stepping back to hold me at arm’s length long enough to give me an inquiring look.

“That depends on how you define
okay,”
I said. “I’ve got all my teeth and my limbs are still attached, so I guess that’s something. However, my love life is not progressing nearly as smoothly as I’d hoped, and several other parts of my life seem to be bumpy, as well.”

Elliott bent his head and kissed me slowly, making a very satisfactory effort to remedy my first complaint. It was lovely while it lasted—all six seconds of it—until a young woman barged in with a stack of files and bumbled out again, embarrassed and stammering out apologies.

“We don’t seem to be able to catch a break,” sighed Elliott as we pulled apart and drifted to our respective places. His desk was an antique deal table of well-worn oak with an old-fashioned wooden office chair to go along with it. Behind him was an antique telescope in perfect working condition, a gift from a grateful client.

“So what are you doing back in town?” I asked. “Did you get a summary judgment?”

“No. The judge is giving her instructions to the jury this afternoon, but Carlson thinks that the earliest we’ll get a verdict is tomorrow afternoon. I was worried because I jobbed out that background investigation you needed on Cypress Computer, that outfit out of Seattle, and I wanted to check in and see how things are going. I know how important this computer thing is to you.”

“As it turns out we don’t need the information anymore,” I said. “I’m sorry. The good news is we were able to make a deal without it. The even better news is that my client will be able to pay whatever bill you send them.”

“That good?”

“That good. But I’m still sorry you made the trip for nothing.”

“I had to come back anyway to get some work started for a new client. As soon as I finish up, I’ll be heading back to Springfield to help keep the vigil.”

Never having been a trial lawyer, I’ve never had to endure the suspended animation of waiting out the verdict. However, I’d heard enough from other people to understand the reasons the legal team needed to suffer through it together. For everyone who’d worked on the trial, the agony of waiting rendered even the simplest of tasks beyond their attention and made them unfit to be with normal people. I imagined them filling in the hours back at the Ramada pacing the halls and talking over the evidence and arguments of the trial. Suddenly I felt ashamed for barging over like a spoiled child and demanding my share of Elliott’s attention.

“So who’s your new client?” I asked.

“Your mother.”

CHAPTER 16

“Please tell me that you’re kidding,” I begged.

“What’s the big deal? I get assignments from Denise all the time. She wants us to do a quick backgrounder on HCC.”

“I understand, but it seems weird to think of you working for my mother,” I sighed.

“In my experience it never hurts to have Mom on your side,” Elliott pointed out with a sly grin that immediately brought to mind thoughts that would have made my mother blush.

“So what have you dug up?”

“I’ve had people working the phones since yesterday, talking to anybody who’s had dealings with HCC. We started out targeting transactions that are similar to the one they’re attempting with Prescott Memorial.”

“So what have you found out? Anything?”

“Well, for one thing, there’s no shortage of people eager to talk to us. Usually people are reluctant to spill their guts when they get a phone call from an investigator out of the blue, but apparently the people who’ve been burned by HCC are just panting to tell their stories. One of my people suggested that we bill the people she’s talked to, charging them for a therapy hour.”

“So who have you talked to?”

“Mostly doctors and hospital administrators. Like I said, the problem isn’t getting these people to talk, it’s getting them to shut up.”

“So what are they saying?”

“Basically that HCC is a take-no-prisoners operation.“

“There’s no law against being ruthless,” I reminded him. “True. But there’s ruthless and then there’s breaking the rules.”

“Any proof that HCC has done the latter?”

“Do you know what it says below Gerald Packman’s picture in his high school yearbook?”

“Please tell me that you didn’t actually check to find this out.... No, I take that back, tell me that you’re not
billing
me for the time it took to find this out.”

“Are we thorough or what?” he countered, smiling. “Under his picture it says, ‘If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.’ ”

“I don’t think I want to live in a world where people are held accountable for what it says in their yearbooks. As I recall, I think I quoted some Warren Zevon lyrics. You know the one: Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad get me out of this.”

“It’s just interesting in light of a common thread that seems to be popping up in a lot of these interviews.“

“Which is?”

“People keep hinting that one of the reasons that HCC is always able to close their deals so quickly is that they have someone inside the target hospital feeding them information.”

“What kind of information?” I demanded.

“What kind of information would you want if you were trying to take over a hospital?”

“Financial information, inside dope on the medical staff, like which docs are calling the shots and which ones are bringing in the bucks. I’d want to know about the physical assets, the property, buildings, and equipment, union contracts, relationships with suppliers, any formal referral contracts they have in place—”

“So who would have access to that kind of information?”

“Depends on the hospital, but it would be someone at the top, either a doctor or an administrator. Do you think there’s any chance that they’re pulling the same stunt in Chicago?”

“I have no way of knowing, but in my experience companies aren’t that different from the people who run them. They tend to stick with what they know and what has worked for them in the past.”

“Is there some way to find out for sure?”

“You know our motto. There’s always a way to find out; all it takes is time and money.”

“We don’t have much time.”

“Then it would help if we could narrow down the field. Who at Prescott Memorial is in a position to provide the kind of information we’re talking about to HCC?”

“Not too many people. Most of the docs at Prescott Memorial are only there a couple of days a week. They’re not involved in the running of the hospital per se. That puts Kyle Massius on the top of the list. He’s the president of the hospital, and he’d not only have access to the information, he’d know most of it off the top of his head. The only trouble is that he’s also made no secret of the fact that he’s in favor of the sale.”

“Why would that be a problem?”

“Because it makes him either incredibly altruistic or incredibly naive.”

“Why is that?” Elliott prodded.

“One of the first things HCC will probably do if they take over the hospital is fire him and bring in their own people.”

“Not if he’s already cut a deal with them. One of the things we keep hearing from people is that after HCC takes over, unexpected people wind up on top.”

“Which is why everyone thinks the winners in the takeover were secretly working for HCC before the fact. I don’t know. The whole thing sounds like a mixture of sour grapes and paranoia to me. Besides, what kind of incentives could HCC offer? Villas in Tuscany?”

“How about a cut of the profits? According to the company’s annual report, and I quote, ‘Aligning physicians through financial incentives is one of HCC’s primary tools for medical efficacy.’ ”

“Meaning that the best way to get doctors to do what you want is to cut them in on a piece of the action. How big a piece do you think we’re talking about?”

“I don’t know, but apparently the dollar amounts are huge,” Elliott replied. “According to one source there was a radiologist in Kansas City who actually did buy a villa in Tuscany after HCC took over.”

“Yeah, but you couldn’t even buy a cheeseburger with what Prescott Memorial makes a year. They lose money.”