their deadlines. And I will see if I can get up with Cahoon, talk him down from this.”
This was very much like securing an audience with the Pope. Hammer’s secretary and
another assistant traded phone calls with Gaboon’s people for most of the day. Finally,
the meeting was barely arranged for late that afternoon, sometime between four-fifteen
and five, depending when a gap appeared in the CEO’s impossible schedule. Hammer
had no choice but to show up at the early end of this interval and hope for the best.
At four she left her police department and walked through downtown on a lovely
afternoon that, before this moment, she had not noticed. She followed Trade to Tryon to
the corporate center, with its eternal torch and sculptures. Inside a huge lobby of
polished stone, she walked briskly, her heels clicking over marble as she passed rich
wood paneling and famous fresco paintings depicting the Shingon philosophy of chaos,
creativity, making, and building. She nodded at one of the guards, who nodded back and
tipped his cap. He liked that lady chief, and had always thought she walked like she
knew how, and she was nice and didn’t disrespect anyone, whether they were a real cop
or not.
Hammer boarded a crowded elevator and was the last to get off at the top of the crown, which at this dizzying level, really was aluminum pipes. Hammer had visited Cahoon
before. Rarely a month went by that he didn’t summon her to his suite of mahogany and
glass overlooking his city. As was true of Hampton Court Palace, visitors were required
to pass through many outer layers and courts to get to the king.
Should a crazed gunman decide to carry out his mission, by the time he reached the
throne, many secretaries and assistants might be dead, but Cahoon, quite likely, would
not have heard the noise.
Several outer offices later, Hammer entered the-one occupied by the executive secretary,
Mrs. MullisMundi, also known as M&M by those who did not like her, which was
virtually all. She was candy-coated, but with nuts. She would melt in the mouth and
break teeth. Hammer, frankly, had no use for this perky young thing who had gotten
married and kept her name while appropriating that of her husband, Joe Mundi.
Mrs. Mullis-Mundi was bulimic, and had breast implants and long dyed blond hair. She
wore size four Anne Klein. Her cologne was Escada. She worked out daily in Gold’s
Gym. She did not wear slacks, and was simply biding time before she sued for sexual
harassment.
“Judy, great to see you.” The executive secretary stood and offered her hand with the same lilting style that Hammer had observed in devout bowlers.
“Let me see how he’s doing.”
A half hour later. Hammer remained seated on a buttery-soft ivory leather couch. She
was reviewing statistics memos, and attending to the armies marching restlessly inside
her briefcase. Mrs. Mullis-Mundi never got off the phone or grew tired of it. She took
one earring off, then the other, then rotated the phone again to a hand less tired, as if to
emphasize the painful demands of her career. Often she looked at her large scratch-proof
Rado watch, and sighed, flipping her hair. She was about to die to smoke one of her
skinny menthol cigarettes that had flowers around the filter.
Cahoon was able, at last, to fit the chief in at precisely thirteen minutes past the hour. As
usual, his day had been long, with far too much in it, and all insisting that they could
speak to no one but him.
In truth, he had never been in a hurry to let Hammer into his office, regardless of the
minor fact that it was he, versus her, who had demanded a meeting. She was ornery and
opinionated, and had treated him like a bad dog the first time they’d met. As a result, he
was one without fail and consistently, when dealing with her. One of these days, he
would send her down the road and bring in a progressive man, the sort who snapped open
a briefcase with the Wall Street Journal and a Browning Hi-Power inside. Now, that was