Hardscrabble Road(13)

It was already eight forty-five, and if he hadn’t wanted to see Kate again he should have told someone at the firm what the situation was, and asked to be taken off Drew Harrigan’s account. He should have done that in any case, because he truly hated Drew Harrigan and everything he stood for, and the attitude was plain on his face every time the man’s name was mentioned. The problem was, the rest of the firm felt the same way. Even the secretaries were Old Philadelphia enough to consider Mr. Harrigan something of an embarrassment to the name of Barden, Savage & Deal.

It was eight forty-five and he had to get out of the house. He had to get his car, or find a cab, and go into the office. He had to sit behind his desk and behave as if nothing important was happening, because nothing important was. Kate would not be embarrassed to see him, and he knew it. She would not be intimidated by the idea of negotiating with her ex-husband, and he knew that too. She would not be shy about letting everybody in the room know that they had a long shared past that she didn’t look back on with fondness. She would not let any of this get in the way of the work she was supposed to do, and that was the final straw. Neil would be sitting there barely able to get any work done at all, and Kate would be on the other side of the conference table—she had insisted on either a conference room or a meeting in her own office at the Justice Project, which nobody at the firm was going to agree to—as cool and focused as if she were in her own living room with nobody else in sight.

He was sweating, and the meeting wasn’t until noon. He had the whole morning to get through without throwing up or doubling over in pain from the cramps that kept spasming through him like labor pains. He had no idea why it was this bad, or why Beethoven did nothing to cure it, as Beethoven always had in the past. He just wished it was all over with, and he could go back to worrying about Drew Harrigan’s escrow arrangements, which mattered far more than Sherman Markey at this point, and would matter far more in the future. It would be different if there was any possibility that Drew Harrigan had killed him, but there was no evidence that the homeless old man was dead, and Drew was more securely locked up than he would have been in jail.

Not for the first time, Neil Elliot Savage thought that he might really like to see Drew Harrigan in jail.





2


The nine o’clock show was just about to go on, and not for the first time, Marla Hildebrande felt guilty. She felt especially guilty because it was clear that Frank Sheehy didn’t feel guilty at all.

“It isn’t like we murdered the man,” Frank said, stretched out on the couch in her office again like he was beached there. “We don’t even know he’s dead. He’s just disappeared.”

“For two weeks in weather like this,” Marla said. “You know as well as I do he must have frozen to death somewhere. And we were wishing for it.”

“We weren’t wishing for it. We were just hoping for something to come up that would make it politically feasible for the DA to go for a pretrial diversion program or probation or whatever the hell would get Drew back in front of a mike as soon as possible. And here we are.”

“Assuming he isn’t found. And I’m hoping he’ll be found.”

“So am I, because it doesn’t matter if he’s found,” Frank said. “The disappearing act is going to make him look bad, which will make Drew look better. Really. That’s all we need. We don’t need anybody dead. We don’t need apocalypse and destruction. We just need Drew.”

Marla sighed. She switched on the speaker next to her on the desk. They were keeping Drew’s big opening. It was still The Drew Harrigan Show, after all. The hokey announcer’s voice came on, riding a crest of horn music. “It’s Drew Harrigan, the man with his heart in the right place, coming to you from Philadelphia.” She shut the speaker off.

“After this, you don’t want to know.”

“That bad?”

“I told you. None of them are bad. They’re just bland. And they lack fire. Have you given any thought whatsoever to what I said to you about finding other talent? Even if Drew comes back from rehab and we don’t have to worry about another hiatus, we still need a more diversified list. We can’t go on like this letting one person hold us hostage.”

“So, go looking. Didn’t I tell you you could go looking?”

“Yes,” Marla said. She hesitated a little and opened the long center drawer of her desk. “I have gone looking. Or listening, as the case may be. I’ve been listening to satellite pickup of little stations all over the West.”