I wasn’t in the mood to waste time hunting out cheap parking. I pulled into the lot next to the Humboldt Building on Madison. Stopping just long enough to comb my hair in the rearview mirror, I headed into the shark’s cove.

The Humboldt Building housed the company’s corporate offices. Like most manufacturing conglomerates, the real business went on in the plants spread across the globe, so I wasn’t surprised that their headquarters could be squeezed into twenty-five stories. It was a strictly functional building, with no trees or sculptures in the lobby. The floor was covered with the utilitarian tile you used to see in all skyscrapers before Helmut Jahn and his pals started filling them with marble-lined atria.

The old-fashioned black notice board in the hallway didn’t list Gustav Humboldt, but it told me the corporate offices were on twenty-two. I summoned one of the bronze-doored elevators and made my slow way up.

The hall that I entered from the elevator was austere, but the tone had changed subtly. The lower half of the walls was paneled in a dark wood that also showed on either side of the pale green carpet. Framed prints of medieval alchemists with retorts, toads, and bats hung above the paneling.

I headed down the green pile to an open door on my right. The green carpeting continued past the door, where it spread into a large pool. The dark wood was picked up in a polished desk. Behind it sat a woman with a phone bank and a word processor. She was impeccably polished herself, her dark hair pulled back in a smooth chignon to show the large pearls in her shell-shaped ears. She turned from the word processor to greet me with practiced courtesy.

“I’m here to see Gustav Humboldt,” I said, trying to sound authoritative.

“I see. May I have your name please?”

I handed her a card and she turned with it to the phones. When she’d finished she smiled apologetically.

“You don’t seem to be in the appointment calendar, Ms. Warshawski. Is Mr. Humboldt expecting you?”

“Yes. He’s been leaving messages for me all over town. This is just my first opportunity to get back to him.”

She returned to the phones. This time when she finished she asked me to take a seat. I lowered myself into an overstuffed armchair and flipped through a copy of the annual report thoughtfully placed next to it. Humboldt’s Brazil operations had shown a staggering growth last year, accounting for sixty percent of overseas profits. Their capital investment of $500 million in the Amazon River Project was now paying handsome dividends. I couldn’t help wondering how much capital development it would take before the Amazon looked like the Calumet.

I was studying the breakdown of profits by product line, feeling a proprietary pleasure in the good performance of Xerxine, when the polished receptionist summoned me—Mr. Redwick would see me. I followed her to the third in a series of doors in a little hallway behind her desk. She knocked and opened the door, then returned to her station.