"I know, Mr. DeAngelis, yes, I know. I'll have him phone you back the second he's off the phone. Yes, thank you." Sydney Chen was desperately fielding calls from the Advertising and Marketing Departments at Cummings Footwear. The agency had pitched the multi-million-dollar account, which was up for grabs, and the sneaker manufacturer's decision was narrowed down to two agencies: Hillyer, Jones and another.

Now, the Advertising Director, DeAngelis, was calling to set up a final round of presentations and wanted to talk to Mr. Hillyer. Sydney couldn't interrupt his long-distance call to London, but now she was getting nervous. DeAngelis had called twice.

As she sat at her workstation waiting for the light on Hillyer's private line to go out so she could have him phone DeAngelis back, Sydney had the sneaking suspicion that the agency was falling apart around her. Bernadette was still off in Montana, Cy Lefkowitz was who-knew-where, Lucien Brandt was acting strange and paranoid, and Hillyer was spending all his time on the phone to London. But Sydney knew they needed the Cummings account.

Behind the door in his mahogany-paneled office that was a little too "CEO" in its decor than most ad-agency executives enjoyed in these lean times, Jim Hillyer sat back in his $2,000 leather chair with his feet propped on a file drawer that had been pulled partially out. It was his favorite position to assume when talking to Meg Townsend -- who, these days, was living in London.

He hadn't MEANT to have an affair. Of course, they never do. "It had just HAPPENED," Jim Hillyer will later whine to his wife. And she'll buy it, begrudgingly, like the wife in Connecticut always does. For a late-middle-age guy like Hillyer, Meg Townsend is the ultimate trophy. But in this relationship, dear reader, which one is the user -- and which one the used?

Meg Townsend was a Sports Today swimsuit-issue cover-girl-turned-supermodel. Actually, more a would-be supermodel -- since she hadn't reached the Cindy Crawford/Naomi Campbell level yet -- not even close, in fact. But she was determined. And as one of the most powerful men in the advertising business, Jim Hillyer was definitely someone she wanted to cultivate. That was a polite way of saying she'd been having an affair with him for over a year.

Hillyer had met Meg Townsend when the agency was doing a campaign for British-based Anson Cosmetics. Then unknown, Meg Townsend had been chosen as the face of Anson, and Hillyer had attended a photo shoot and been smitten. Married 25 years himself and never having strayed, Hillyer was a neophyte when it came to affairs with pretty models. But he'd gotten the hang of it fast, and had made six trips to London in the past year alone. And the agency's international long-distance phone bills, to which Agnes Ramirez could attest, were through the roof.

Oddly, no one at the agency knew what was going on except Sydney. Not because Hillyer had told her, but because she saw, and knew, everything. At the moment, she continued to stare at the little red light indicating Hillyer was still on the phone to London, and decided she had to interrupt. Pressing the intercom button, she prepared to speak, but, before she could, she heard Hillyer's voice and realized she was -- once again -- eavesdropping.

"I'll be over this week," Hillyer's voice resounded on the intercom.

"Sure. I'll try for Friday."

"I know, I know. Me, too."

"I promise. I'll do my best."

Meg Townsend was obviously pressuring him for something, Sydney thought. Typical. She continued to hold the button down, gathering more information.

"Okay. Friday, then. I'll call you when I get in. Big kiss."

Sydney released the intercom button and as she quickly busied herself, the door to Hillyer's office opened and he stepped out.

"Sydney, I need you to call Travel and get me on a flight to London Thursday night."

"Yessir," she said, a little more subserviently than usual. "Mr. Hillyer, Mr. DeAngelis called -- twice. I think you'd better return the call."

"Sydney, please don't tell me how to manage my business, okay?" he snapped at her, walking away.

Hillyer seldom talked to Sydney that way, and she was more than a little hurt as she dialed the phone, dutifully.

Down the hall, in the Art Department, Lucien Brandt sat staring at his computer. He was ostensibly looking at a JPEG file on the monitor attached to his Power Mac 9500, viewing the new logo his assistant art director had designed for Cummings Footwear . . . but in reality he'd been staring blankly at the terminal for over two minutes.

Lucien was paralyzed with fear about what to do about Artemis's blackmail threat. Regardless of what Artemis assumed, Lucien didn't have $100,000 he could get his hands on. Sure, he had some IRA money stashed aside, a little bit of a profit-sharing nest-egg, even some life insurance he could cash in -- but no savings to speak of. Lucien spent every penny he made in salary on expensive vacations, and his generous annual bonuses were blown on everything from furniture from Zona for his loft to more Hugo Boss suits than any normal person needed in a lifetime.

Bummer. Funny how a combination of guilt, fear, and hatred can slow down a workday. As Lucien stares at his computer keyboard his eyes fall on the keys marked HOME, DELETE, MEMORY, RETURN, CONTROL, SHIFT, and ESCAPE. Each, metaphorically speaking, seems pertinent to his current dilemna. If only there were one marked PANIC.

The ominous words "You'll hear from me," uttered by Artemis after he'd left the diner the other night, resounded in Lucien's head. But his trance-like state was broken by Jim Hillyer walking brusquely into his office.

"Lucien," Hillyer said, in the tone he always assumed when talking to his colleagues at the agency -- that of football coach, collegial but just condescending enough to remind them that he was the boss -- "I've got to return a call to DeAngelis at Cummings. If he wants to have a meeting, can you do it tomorrow or Thursday -- to be out of here Thursday night on a flight to London."

"Sure, no problem," Lucien said absently. "You think we're going to have to come back at them with some new concepts? Like . . . overnight?" Lucien dreaded the idea of an all-nighter. He was getting too old for this. But that was a lot of what the agency business was about. Last minute crashes.

"Maybe. But I wanted to check with you before I call him back. I'm going to go and try to get him on the horn now and see what's up."

Hillyer stood up and walked out of Lucien's office as quickly as he'd come in.

"The horn?" Lucien thought, amused at the quaint, antique, preppy phrases that characterized Hillyer's speech. He looked back at the computer screen. He hadn't touched the mouse in a few minutes, and as his screen-saver had kicked in, a pixillated nighttime Manhattan skyline slowly began to form.

Lucien took a ragged breath, and nervously drummed his fingers.