Laura Caldwell: Red Hot Lies

John Mayburn-A sought-after Chicago P.I. often hired by Izzy’s firm. He is currently working a case against Michael DeSanto, who allegedly works for the mob. He is in his forties with a medium build and prides himself on being able to blend into his surroundings.

Michael Desanto-An executive of Bank Midwest suspected of laundering funds for the mob. He is slick and mean and lives in a well-guarded mansion in Chicago ’s Lincoln Park.

Lucy Desanto-Michael’s wife. She is kind and beautiful and completely unaware of her husband’s illegal activity. She is a stay-at-home mom.

O ne day can shift the plates of your earth.

One day can age you.

Usually, I pride myself on my intuition. I listen to that voice that says, “Something bad is happening…” or maybe, “Get out now, you idiot.”

But on that Tuesday at the end of October, my psyche must have been protecting the one remaining day while I still believed that the universe was kind, that life was hectic but orderly. Because I didn’t hear that voice. I never saw it coming.

Day One

“McNeil, she’s not signing this crap.”

“She told me she was signing it last week.”

“She told you she was considering it.”

“No.” I moved the phone to my other ear and pinned it there with my shoulder. With my hands free, I shifted about ten stacks of papers on my desk, looking for Jane Augustine’s contract. I punched the button on my phone that would send a bleating plea to my assistant. “She told me she was signing it. Period.”

“That’s insane. With that lame buyout clause? No way. No. Way. You have no idea what you’re doing, kid.”

I felt a hard, familiar kernel of fear in my belly.

“It’s the same buyout clause she had in her last contract.” I ignored the personal comment he’d lobbed at me. I had gotten my fair share of them while representing Pickett Enterprises over the past three years and, although I acted like such comments didn’t sting, I often thought, You’re right. I have no idea what I’m doing.

I finally found the current contract under a pile of production-facility agreements. I flipped through it as fast as I could, searching for the clause in question.

My assistant, Q-short for Quentin-stuck his head in my office with a nervous what now? look. I dropped the document and put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Can you get me Jane’s last contract?”

He nodded quickly, his bald, black head shining under the fluorescent lights. He made a halfhearted attempt to find it amongst the chaos that was my law office-redwell folders that spanned the length of my visitors’ couch, file folders, motions and deposition transcripts stacked precariously on my desk. Throwing his hands up, Q spun around and headed for his own tidy and calm workstation.

“I’m not messing around, kid,” Steve Severny continued. Severny was the biggest agent/lawyer in town, representing more than half of Chicago ’s broadcasters and nearly all its top actors. “Change the buyout or we’re walking. NBC has been calling, and next time I’m not telling them no.”

I swallowed down the tension that felt thick in my throat. Jane Augustine was the most popular news anchor at the station owned by Pickett Enterprises, my client. The CEO, Forester Pickett, was a huge fan of hers. I couldn’t lose Jane to another station.

Meanwhile, Severny kept rolling. “And I want a pay-or-play added to paragraph twenty-two.”

I flipped through the contract and found the paragraph. It was tough, yes, and it was favorable to Pickett Enterprises, but as much as I couldn’t lose Jane, I couldn’t simply give in to anything her agent wanted. My job was to land the terms most favorable to Pickett Enterprises, and although the stress of that job was always heavy, sometimes so heavy I could barely see through it, I would do my job. There was no alternative.

“No pay-or-play,” I said. “It’s nonnegotiable. I told you that last time, and I’m telling you again. That comes from Forester himself.” It always helped to throw Forester’s name in the mix, to remind people that I was here, making their lives tough, because he wanted me to.

“Then let’s talk about the non compete.”

“Let’s do that.” I thumbed through the contract, grateful to have seemingly won a point. Q darted into the room with Jane’s previous contract, cleared a space on my desk and put it down.

I nodded thanks.

Q then placed a sheet of white paper on top of it, giving me a sympathetic smile. In red ink, he’d written, Izzy, your meeting with the wedding Nazi is in forty-five minutes.

“Crap,” I said.

“That’s right,” Severny said, his voice rising. “That’s what I told you before. It is crap. And we’re not signing it!” And with that, he hung up.

“Mother hen in a basket!” I yelled, slamming down the phone.

I was trying not to swear anymore. I thought it sounded crass when people swore. The problem was it sounded great to me when I did it. And it felt so damn good. But swearing wasn’t appropriate at a law firm, as Q had reminded me on more than one occasion, and so I was replacing things like goddammit with God bless you and Jesus Christ with Jiminy Christmas and motherfucker with mother hen in a basket.

Q sank into a chair across from my desk. “I know you’re crazed, and I know you have to leave soon, but first I need some of your fiery, redheaded decisiveness.”

I sat down, crossed my hands on my desk and gave Q my army-general stare. “I could use a quick break. Hit me.”

Q was wearing his usual crisp khakis and a blazer. He tugged at the blazer to try to hide the slightly protruding belly he hated-his personal nemesis to the perfect gay physique. Not that this deterred him from sizing up the rest of the male species. Q had emerged from the closet six years prior, and though he had a live-in boyfriend, Max, he still enjoyed the “new gay” privilege of ogling every man he came across.

He paused dramatically now. “Max’s mother is coming to town tomorrow.”

“I see your problem.” Max’s mother was a former Las Vegas showgirl, an eccentric woman with whom you’d love to grab a martini, but who wears you out after two hours. The last time she’d come to Chicago, Q nearly broke up with Max just for an excuse to get out of the house.

“How long is she in for?” I asked.

“Two weeks.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“I know it’s not going to work.”

“You can make her help with your Halloween party this weekend.”

He nodded, reluctantly conceding the point. “What am I going to do the rest of the time?”

“Watch a lot of football?” Q had retained many of his straight-man tendencies. A love of football was one of them.

Q had gray eyes that I’d always found calming, but they flashed with irritation now. “That’s another not decisive, Izzy. There’s a question mark at the end of that sentence. And you know she’ll hover and talk, hover and talk. I won’t see a single play.”

“Okay, okay. Tell Max she has to stay in a hotel, and you guys will pay for part of it.”

Q ran his hands over his head again. “I guess maybe that would work.” He sighed. “God, I hate being in a relationship.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

Just then Tanner Hornsby, a high-ranking partner in his mid-forties, walked by my office. He was tall, with deep-black hair (dyed, I suspected) that arched into a widow’s peak. He was rumored to run five miles a day, every day, before work, and so he was lean and wiry, but he had the tired, slightly puffy eyes of a career drinker.

He stopped now and frowned at us.

Q turned in his seat. “Oh, hello, Mr. Hornsby,” he said in a breathy, effeminate voice, which he doled out only to annoy certain people like Tanner and his father.