She was hard-headed, she prided herself on being hard-headed, and had nothing even slightly spiritual on her mind as she walked down Second Avenue toward her business (an accounting firm called Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel) with her canvas carry-bag and her purse slung over her shoulder. One of GF&P’s clients was a chain of toy stores called KidzPlay, and KidzPlay owed GF&P a goodly sum of money. The fact that they were also tottering on the edge of Chapter Eleven meant el zippo to Trudy. She wanted that $69,211.19, and had spent most of her lunch-hour (in a back booth of Dennis’s Waffles and Pancakes, which had been Chew Chew Mama’s until 1994) mulling over ways to get it. During the last two years she had taken several steps toward changing Guttenberg, Furth, and Patel to Guttenberg, Furth, Patel and Damascus; forcing KidzPlay to cough up would be yet another step—a long one—in that direction. And so, as she crossed Forty-sixth Street toward the large dark glass skyscraper which now stood on the uptown corner of Second and Forty-sixth (where there had once been a certain Artistic Deli and then a certain vacant lot), Trudy wasn’t thinking about gods or ghosts or visitations from the spirit world.
