as he always did-taking big strides instead of ordinary steps, closing
the door behind him in a grand sweeping gesture. With the unstoppable
determination of a force of nature-rather like a disciplined tornado-he
swept around the room, greeting them one by one.
Hatch would not have been surprised to see furniture spun aloft and
artwork flung off walls as the attorney passed, for he seemed to radiate
enough energy to levitate anything within his immediate sphere of
influence.
Keeping up a continuous line of patter, Gujilio gave Jiminez a bear hug,
shook hands vigorously with Duran, and bowed to each of the nuns with
the sincerity of a passionate monarchist greeting members of the royal
family. Gujilio bonded with people as quickly as one piece of pottery
to another under the influence of super glue, and by their second
meeting he’d greeted and said goodbye to Lindsey with a hug.
She liked the man and didn’t mind the hugging, but as she had told
Hatch, she felt like a very small child embracing a sumo wrestler. “He
lifts me off my feet, for God’s sake,” she’d said. Now she stayed on
the sofa instead of rising, and merely shook hands with the attorney.
Hatch rose and extended his right hand, prepared to see it engulfed as
if it were a speck of food in a culture dish filled with hungry amoebas,
which is exactly what happened. Gujilio, as always, took Hatch’s hand
in both of his, and since each of his mitts was half-again the size of
any ordinary man’s, it wasn’t so much a matter of shaking as being
shaken.
“What a wonderful day,” Gujilio said, “a special day. I hope for
everyone’s sake it goes as smooth as glass.”
The attorney donated a certain number of hours a week to St. Thomas’s
church and the orphanage. He appeared to take great satisfaction in
connecting adoptive parents with disabled kids.
“Regina’s on her way from the ladies,” Gujilio told them. “She stopped
to chat a moment with my receptionist, that’s all. She’s nervous, I
think, trying to delay a little longer until she has her courage screwed
up as far as it’ll go. She’ll be here in a moment.”
Hatch looked at Lindsey. She smiled nervously and took his hand.
“Now, you understand,” Salvatore Gujilio said, looming over them like
one of those giant balloons in a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, “that
the point of this meeting is for you to get to know Regina and for her
to get to know you. Nobody makes a decision right here, today. You go
away, think about it, and let us know tomorrow or the day after whether
this is the one. The same goes for Regina. She has a day to think
about it.”
“It’s a big step,” Father Jiminez said.
“An enormous step,” Sister Immaculata concurred.
Squeezing Hatch’s hand, Lindsey said, “We understand.”
The Nun with No Name went to the door, opened it, and peered down the
hallway. Evidently Regina was not in sight.
Rounding his desk, Gujilio said, “She’s coming, I’m sure.”
The attorney settled his considerable bulk into the executive office
chair beside his desk, but because he was six-feet-five, he seemed
almost as tall seated as standing. The office was furnished entirely
with antiques, and the desk was actually a Napoleon III table so fine
that Hatch wished he had something like it in the front window of his
shop. Banded by ormolu, the exotic woods of the marquetry top depicted
a central cartouche with a detailed musical trophy over a conforming
frieze of stylized foliage. The whole was raised on circular legs with
a can thus-leaf ormolu joined by a convoluted X stretcher centered with
an ormolu urn finial, on toupie feet. At every meeting, Gujilio’s size
and dangerous levels of kinetic energy room, saying, “Here she comes,”
as if she didn’t want Regina to think she had been looking for her.
The sound came again. Then again. And again.
It was rhythmical and getting louder.
Thud- Thud.
Lindsey’s hand tightened on Hatch’s.
Thud Thud!
Someone seemed to be keeping time to an unheard tune by rapping a lead
pipe against the hardwood floor of the hallway beyond the door.