Contract with an Angel

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “We must always do what they tell us to do, must we not, Peter?”

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan, we all know that … . If I may say so, sir, Ms. Neenan seems in exceptionally fine spirits these days.”

  “I’ve noticed that too.”

  Neenan settled back in the cushions of the car, trying to relax as they crawled through the Loop’s rushhour traffic.

  “We’ll take care of her after you’re gone,” Michael promised as he materialized next to Neenan. “You don’t have to worry about her.”

  “You can stop her grief?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said we’ll take care of her and you don’t have to worry about her. Grief comes with being a creature.”

  “Why will you take care of her? Is that part of the deal?”

  “We never lose an account. I repeat, never.”

  “I’m an account?”

  “You and she are part of an account. That’s the closest word in your language. We never give up.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Neenan said with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.

  If the seraph noticed the sarcasm, he choose to ignore it. “What are you going to do after you come back from the lawyers?”

  “Call a meeting of all our executives and outline our plan to resist WorldCorp.”

  “You don’t expect to keep it secret, do you?”

  “Hardly. If they are messing with one of my executives, they’re after others too. They’ll know what I said an hour after the meeting is over.”

  “You want them to know?”

  “I sure do. Give them a bit of a scare.”

  “The old warrior still lives, huh?”

  “For the time being. Anyway, you told me that I should fight them.”

  “Indeed I did. It should be an interesting meeting.”

  “You’re dressed like it’s Friday,” Neenan observed. “How come so casual?”

  The seraph was wearing designer jeans, a powder blue turtleneck, and a tan windbreaker. He was hatless, but the jewel in his ear was larger than the one he had been wearing yesterday.

  “I feel casual. Besides, in our world it is something like Friday.”

  That seemed to settle the issue. A cymbal clang from the apparently present choir reinforced the definitive nature of Michael’s response.

  “The guys are still around, I note.”

  “Sure. They’re always around. They especially want to hear Sam Ramey sing tonight, even though they know there’s no equivalent in the real world to Mephisto.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  Another clang of cymbals.

  “They’re showing off.”

  “I told you that vanity is our worst, indeed practically our only, fault.”

  Neenan reached over and touched the seraph’s arm, just to make sure that he was something more than an optical illusion. Neenan felt solid, very solid, muscle.

  “You’re really there.”

  “My surrogate which is part of me is really here. The Loop would just barely contain me if I were all here. And lots of people would temporarily lose their eyesight.”

  The third clang of cymbals was derisive, a timpani version of the raspberry.

  “I hope they don’t think they can sing with the Lyric’s chorus tonight.”

  “Hey,” Michael said with a distressed frown, “they can do those angel hymns at the end a lot better than Ms. Krainik’s crowd. Of course they’ll sing. You’ll be the only one who can hear it, save for those few other folk who might be able to sense us, and they’ll hear it only from a great distance. You’d better enjoy it, incidentally.”

  “Heaven forbid that I don’t.”

  “You’ve got to consider their feelings.”

  “I understand.”

  They exited the car in front of Sears Tower. Michael ambled along with him.

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  “An angel cold, you gotta be kidding!”

  This time the whole timpani section gave him the raspberry.

  Unfriendly bunch.

  In his office, he returned phone calls, dictated responses to his mail, and told Amy Jardine to summon a staff meeting for two in the afternoon.

  “Tell them that it will only take a half hour and that it will concern our response to the naked aggression of WorldCorp against us.”

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan … . You do remember your ten-thirty appointment with your lawyers.”

  “Thank you for reminding me.” Then he realized that he had never responded that way before when she had harassed him about something he would certainly never have forgotten.

  She was clearly startled.

  Fooled her, he thought to himself.

  He spent a few minutes outlining his remarks for the afternoon. He grinned as he did it. WorldCorp would know all the details before the day was out. They would not be certain that he was serious. So they would be deeply worried.

  He was in fact serious. Mostly. All the plans he would outline were feasible if expensive. He had thought about some of them for a long time. Most of them would take longer than he would have. But his successors might be just ambitious enough to try them. WorldCorp would have to think twice before they went after NE again.

  He put on his coat and left the office.

  “I’ll be back in time for the meeting,” he told Ms. Jardine. “I want you to be there, by the way.”

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan.”

  “I’ll probably stop in at the Chicago Athletic Club on the way back for some exercise.”

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan.”

  “Do you think that altogether wise? In your weakened conditions?”

  “I’m not weak. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep too well last night, mostly because of you.”

  “Mostly because of your lack of faith.”

  Neenan waited for the clang of timpani, but it did not come. Michael may have warned them to shut up.

  In the elaborate and stuffy conference room, four lawyers were waiting for Neenan—the managing partner, Sy Renfro; the ponderous tax lawyer, Jim McGlinn; Neil Higgins, the bantamweight litigator in charge of his account; and a lovely young Asian woman, who had to be Lourdes Kim. It was evident after the first few minutes that Ms. Kim would do all the work on his will and that she was far and away the smartest person and the best lawyer in the room.

  Michael settled into a vacant chair and closed his eyes.

  He outlined what he wanted to do: tear up the prenuptial agreement, rearrange the will so that Vincent would control the company and that there would be a huge trust fund for Anna Maria; and found five chairs at Loyola in honor of her. The other components of the will would remain the same: grants to charities, much smaller trust funds for his two other children, the trust fund to provide for his parents as long as they lived, gifts to Amy and Peter and Maeve and other close aides.

  Michael nodded his approval, though Neenan thought none of this was any of his business.

  There was considerable heavy debate about the details, about tax problems, about the IRS (“the Service”), which most of them despised and not without reason, about the kinds of investments the funds should make, and about how to avoid as much inheritance tax as possible.

  As this nonsense dragged on, Neenan turned to the Asian-American woman.

  “What do you think, Lourdes?”

  Glancing occasionally at her yellow, legal-size notepad—without which no lawyer can think—she outlined exactly what ought to be done, how it could be done, and how long it would take.

  The managing partner looked as if he might object, but instead said, “I think that pretty well sums up our thinking.”

  She had done no such thing.

  “Thank you very much, Lourdes,” Neenan said. “How long will it take?”

  Michael mimed applause, knowing full well that a few days ago Neenan would have played the male chauvinist role just like everyone else. Is this really me? he wondered. I’m cracking up.

&nb
sp; Like the glaciers dissolve into icebergs.

  “We will certainly have to check every detail,” Sy Renfro said.

  “How soon do you want it, Ray?” Lourdes asked, pointedly ignoring her senior partner.

  “I’m planning on naming Vincent Neenan president and COO early next week. I’d like to be able to assure him that he’s locked into that position no matter what happens to me. Could I have it by Monday?”

  “Certainly, Ray, no problem.”

  The three men gasped with surprise.

  “We’ll certainly check it all out for you, Ray,” the managing partner promised.

  Neenan ignored him.

  “I have full confidence in you, Lourdes. I’ll be out of town for the weekend. Should you need me, Ms. Jardine in my office will have my phone number.”

  “I’ll try not to bother you, Ray.”

  Virtually a solemn vow from that one.

  The meeting broke up, the senior partners with vague feelings that they had been upstaged. Neenan took Neil Higgins aside.

  “Neil, can I talk to you for a moment about some potential litigation?”

  The little mick’s green eyes glowed with excitement, not so much for the billable hours that might be involved, as for the sheer love of battle.

  “You bet, R. A.!”

  In Neil’s office, Neenan came straight to the point.

  “I have solid reason to believe that WorldCorp is tampering with some of my officers and interfering in some acquisitions in which we are engaged. Can we get an injunction to stop them?”

  Higgins did not hesitate. He never hesitated. “We can ask for one and that will scare them and give them some more bad publicity, which they don’t need just now. Whether a court will actually grant an injunction remains to be seen. What are the facts of the case?”

  That was one of the things Neenan liked about Neil: facts always came second.

  Michael, who had slipped into the office and was relaxing semiprone on a couch, grinned appreciatively.

  Neenan explained the facts.

  Neil pursed his lips and raised his red eyebrows. “Borderline at this point. We might prevail, we might not, but they’re certainly messing around with more of your executives. Our petition for relief will give them second thoughts.”

  “Good. That’s what I want to hear. Now let me outline some countermeasures that I will propose to my officers this afternoon.”

  Michael sat up straight and listened intently. When Neenan was finished, the angel threw back his head and laughed. The songsters exploded in an instrumental and vocal fanfare, something like “See the Conquering Hero Comes” from Judas Maccabaeus.

  Higgins grinned appreciatively. “That’s brilliant, R. A. Are these things technically possible?”

  “Sure they are. They’d cost a lot of money, but I’ve been thinking about them for some time. We could do them if we had to. We could do them even if we didn’t have to.”

  “The idea being that when WorldCorp hears about them, they’ll take a look at the numbers and figure that you could really do what you threaten, and that will scare the living daylights out of them.”

  Michael bounded across the room and gave Neenan a high five.

  “You are really a dangerous so-and-so,” the seraph observed. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  “I thought it was the other way around.”

  “You got it, Neil.”

  “I’ve never seen you having so much fun over an impending battle, R. A.”

  “You are having more fun than I.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a litigator.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed … . One more thing. Have you had a chance to talk about the pension suit since we discussed it on Monday?”

  “Given what we have on most of their work records, R. A., most of them would not prevail. Moreover, they’ll never get punitive damages, not those which will be sustainable on appeal.”

  “The suit will give us a lot of PR problems, especially with this WorldCorp fight.”

  “I’m sure it would, R. A … . Same terms?”

  “We give their jobs back and guarantee their pensions.”

  “And the same offer to Walsh?”

  “We’ll tell him we’ll pay his expenses, as reasonably estimated. After we’ve negotiated with him over that, he’ll still be billing us too high by about ten percent, which should be enough to keep him happy.”

  “And he knows how much a suit is going to cost him if he goes ahead on a contingency basis,” Neil agreed with a nod of his head and a wicked leprechaun grin. “He also knows that he’s not going to get punitive damages in the long run. He’s looking at a major loss if we go to trial.”

  “So I’m told. I also hear that some of his clients are so angry at me that they will insist on punitive damages. Probably the ones for whose termination we have the best evidence.”

  “Then Timmy has himself a problem, doesn’t he, R. A.? A pretty big problem. He likes the good press clippings, but he doesn’t enjoy losing money.”

  “Unlike most other lawyers.”

  Higgins laughed nervously. “Do you want me to contact him?”

  “Not yet. As you pointed out the other day, he’ll be at the opening of Faust tonight. I’ll approach him personally, as you suggested. Give him something to think about, and then tell him to get in contact with you.”

  “You’re in such a feisty mood today, R. A., that I have no hesitation in recommending that you take him on.”

  “An angel suggested this strategy to me,” Neenan said with a laugh.

  Higgins laughed too, not sure what to make of that remark.

  Michael covered his face in mock horror.

  “I’ll get back to you first thing in the morning about his reaction, though I think it will be pretty predictable.”

  Outside on La Salle Street, Michael continued to amble along with Neenan.

  “You are really one baaad SOB, Raymond Anthony.”

  “I assume that in the present context that is a compliment?”

  “I just want to point out to you that you would not be having as much fun as you are now if you didn’t know that you were going to die soon.”

  Neenan stopped in his tracks.

  “I suppose that’s true. You approve?”

  “You’re using your God-given talents the way you should have used them all your life.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I am. Why, you didn’t even indulge in lewd thoughts about that attractive Korean woman.”

  “Come to think of it, I didn’t. Maybe I am changing. Would a certain amount of erotic appreciation have been inappropriate?”

  “You’re still a human male, aren’t you?”

  Again Neenan felt as if he were cracking apart, like the ice floes on Lake Michigan when the first southwest wind of spring blew across the city.

  “Hey,” Neenan continued, “how did we get to Madison Street?”

  “We should have turned the other direction when we came out of that ugly building of theirs.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “Am I your tour guide for Chicago?”

  “You’re my guardian angel, aren’t you?”

  “Only in a very remote sense of that word … . Look down Madison, there’s St. Peter’s Church.”

  “So what?”

  “Wouldn’t this be an appropriate time to go to confession?”

  “Confession? You gotta be kidding! Are you some kind of Catholic angel or something? I haven’t been to confession since the night before I married Anna Maria, and that was a disaster. You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

  “We live in a different economy of salvation, as your theologians say. However, you believe in confession, even if you’re not willing to admit it to yourself. Moreover the ritual of reconciliation, which what the sacrament is called these days, is a very useful reminder that you are community-dependent animals, just as we are. Finally, once a Catholic, always a Catholic, as you well
know.”

  “I don’t want to go to confession,” Neenan said stubbornly.

  “Naturally not. Neither would I if I were in your shoes. Nonetheless, you will have to go sometime. Why not do it now and get it out of the way?”

  “You deliberately led me in the wrong direction so you could pull this on me, didn’t you?”

  “We have even arranged to have a most sympathetic and sensitive Franciscan priest, a certain Father Sixtus, in the confessional to which I will direct you.”

  “You mean that I don’t have any choice?”

  “Certainly you have a choice. But, since I have been right on every count since I appeared to you, you are quite likely to take my advice. Besides, you will enjoy even more the end of the opera in which the angels sing Marguerite into heaven.”

  Promptly the angelic choir burst into the song at the end of the opera. Neenan had never heard it sung so well.

  “I really don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “I told you once that wasn’t true. You always have a choice, but, as you yourself know, you’d be a fool to pass up this chance.”

  So, with slow and heavy feet, Neenan turned down Madison Street and against the chill wind sweeping in off the lake.

  Inside the vast, mausoleum-like, marble structure that was St. Peter’s-in-the-Loop, as it now called itself, Neenan paused. Michael, who had ostentatiously made a giant sign of the cross with holy water, pointed in the direction of a confessional. No one was in line.

  They had arranged it very well, hadn’t they?

  “I can’t go in right away,” Neenan pleaded. “I have to examine my conscience.”

  “No way. You just go into the box and tell Father Sixtus that you’ve been away from the sacrament of reconciliation for a long time and you want to straighten out your life.”

  So Neenan did just that. Amazingly the priest was kind and helpful. He was more interested in the reasons for the penitent’s return than for the detailed listing of his sins.

  “I hate to admit it, Father, but I went through a very scary airplane ride last week. I thought I’d better change my life. I haven’t been at the new life for long, but I am much happier.”

  “Remarkable,” the priest murmured. “Maybe we should have more such flights.”