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one.”
    â€œI don’t want a second round,” she said. “I’m going to push the folks in Hartford for a quick response to Szulz’s offer. ‘Quick’ as in ‘yesterday.’”
    â€œI’d say that’s a unanimous view.”
    The cop stood up and replaced his pen in a little side-slit beside the left front pocket on his blue uniform shirt.
    â€œI’ll let you know if we come up with anything,” he said.
    â€œRight.” Proxy gave him her patented earnest gaze. “Can you leave me a copy of your report?”
    He did. Exit cop. That left Proxy and me alone. I wanted to tell her it was okay to tremble with rage or fear and not be sure which it was; okay to cry just to wash the nervous tension out of her system; okay to puke; okay to have me fetch some brandy; okay to bark at me just because there weren’t any other candidates around. I’d been in combat and I’d seen damn good soldiers—soldiers better than I claimed to be—do all those things. As she gazed up at me and smilingly got ready to speak, I could tell she read me like an Excel spreadsheet.
    â€œHow soon can I get back to my unit, doc?”

Chapter Nine
    Cynthia Jakubek
    â€œOne veggie wrap, please.”
    â€œYou got it. Chips or drink?”
    â€œNope, I’m good.”
    I pulled toasted dough wrapped with origami-esque elegance around grilled rabbit food from the shiny aluminum counter of the Woodshed Meal Wagon parked outside the McCallister Building in downtown Pittsburgh. I gave a five to my client, Sean McGeoghan, got a one and change in return, and dumped the coins into a plastic cup serving as tip-jar. I have a little zinger about how, at three-fifty a pop, these must be the finest veggie-wraps in the world, but Sean had heard that one so I skipped it.
    This was early afternoon on the Monday after the three-way negotiation with Transoxana and Pitt MCM. I hadn’t heard from Shifcos yet, and I’d halfway expected to by now. I had heard from Rand, but he’d been calling about another matter—which was why I was now investing in slightly overpriced fast food.
    Sean pronounces McGeoghan “McGuffin.” Don’t ask me why. My genes are Slavic. My ancestors were as far from Celts as you can get and still be on the same continent. Sean takes the McGuffin pronunciation pretty seriously. He gets a little testy the third or fourth time someone tries to turn his name into MICK-GO- HEE -GAN or MICK- GO -AGAIN.
    â€œIf I step out for a talk with you does that mean the cost of the sandwich goes on my bill?” Sean flashed me a grin under twinkling blue eyes. Maybe I should have used the zinger after all.
    â€œNo, I’ll take it as a business expense. That way if I have a good year Uncle Sam will pick up thirty-seven-and-a-half percent of it.”
    â€œI’m on my way, then. Helping people pay lower taxes is the reason God put me on Earth.”
    I chanced a nibble on the veggie-wrap while Sean was getting his coat, bidding farewell to Tommy Andreopolous, the guy who actually owns the Woodshed, and extricating himself from the lunch-wagon. I’d call the wrap good but not great. Tomatoes, lettuce, and so forth aren’t really the Woodshed’s point. Specialty of the house is roast beef on warm rolls, grilled over a real wood-chip fire. Hence the lunch-wagon’s clever name. Veggie-wraps are a grudging sop to my end of the downtown gender-demographic, so that couples hooking up over the noon hour can get lunch-on-the-run at the same place. Sean didn’t get to an eight-figure net worth by being dumb. Adding meat-free entrées to the Woodshed’s menu was his idea.
    Sporting a black cashmere overcoat and Greek fisherman’s cap, Sean pulled on sleek black leather gloves as he came around the wagon’s near end to join me on the sidewalk. Sean’s is the middle name in Werther-McGeoghan-Warburg Group. WMW puts small