"Half the time I don't know what he's talking about. It's funny, when your child knows more than you do."

He nodded, trying to think of something else to ask her. It wasn't easy: although he had sat in meetings with Kaplan for years, he knew little about her personally. She was married to a professor at San Jose State, a jovial chubby man with a mustache, who taught economics. When they were together, he did all the talking while Stephanie stood silently by. She was a tall, bony, awkward woman who seemed resigned to her lack of social graces. She was said to be a very good golfer-at least, good enough that Garvin wouldn't play her anymore. No one who knew her was surprised that she had made the error of beating Garvin too often; wags said that she wasn't enough of a loser to be promoted.

Garvin didn't really like her, but he would never think of letting her go. Colorless, humorless, and tireless, her dedication to the company was legendary; she worked late every night and came in most weekends. When she had had a bout of cancer a few years back, she refused to take even a single day off. Apparently she was cured of the cancer; at least, Sanders hadn't heard anything more about it. But the episode seemed to have increased Kaplan's relentless focus on her impersonal domain, figures and spreadsheets, and heightened her natural inclination to work behind the scenes. More than one manager had come to work in the morning, only to find a pet project killed by the Stealth Bomber, with no lingering trace of how or why it had happened. Thus her tendency to remain aloof in social situations was more than a reflection of her own discomfort; it was also a reminder of the power she wielded within the company, and how she wielded it. In her own way, she was mysterious-and potentially dangerous.

While he was trying to think of something to say, Kaplan leaned toward him confidentially and lowered her voice, "In the meeting this morning, Tom, I didn't really feel I could say anything. But I hope you're okay. About this new reorganization."

Sanders concealed his surprise. In twelve years, Kaplan had never said anything so directly personal to him. He wondered why she would do so now. He was instantly wary, unsure of how to respond.

"Well, it was a shock," he said.

She looked at him with a steady gaze. "It was a shock to many of us," she said quietly. "There was an uproar in Cupertino. A lot of people questioned Garvin's judgment."

Sanders frowned. Kaplan never said anything even obliquely critical of Garvin. Never. But now this. Was she testing him? He said nothing, and poked at his food.

"I can imagine you're uneasy about the new appointment."

"Only because it was so unexpected. It seemed to come out of the blue."

Kaplan looked at him oddly for a moment, as if he had disappointed her. Then she nodded. "It's always that way with mergers," she said. Her tone was more open, less confidential. "I was at CompuSoft when it merged with Symantec, and it was exactly the same: last-minute announcements, switches in the organization charts. Jobs promised, jobs lost. Everybody up in the air for weeks. It's not easy to bring two organizations together-especially these two. There are big differences in corporate cultures. Garvin has to make them comfortable." She gestured toward the end of the table where Garvin was sitting. `Just look at them," she said. "All the Conley people are wearing suits. Nobody in our company wears suits, except lawyers."

"They're East Coast," Sanders said.

"But it goes deeper than that. Conley-White likes to present itself as a diversified communications company, but it's really not so grand. Its primary business is textbooks. That's a lucrative business, but you're selling to school boards in Texas and Ohio and Tennessee. Many of them are deeply conservative. So Conley's conservative, by instinct and experience. They want this merger because they need to acquire a high-tech capacity going into the next century. But they can't get used to the idea of a very young company, where the employees work in T-shirts and jeans, and everybody goes by first names. They're in shock. Besides," Kaplan added, lowering her voice again, "there are internal divisions within Conley-White. Garvin has to deal with that, too."

"What internal divisions?"

She nodded toward the head of the table. "You may have noticed that their CEO isn't here. The big man hasn't honored us with his presence. He won't show up until the end of the week. For now, he's only sent his minions. Their highest-ranking officer is Ed Nichols, the CFO."

Sanders glanced over at the suspicious, sharp-faced man he had met earlier. Kaplan said, "Nichols doesn't want to buy this company. He thinks we're overpriced and underpowered. Last year, he tried to form a strategic alliance with Microsoft, but Gates blew him off. Then Nichols tried to buy InterDisk, but that fell through: too many problems, and InterDisk had that bad publicity about the fired employee. So they ended up with us. But Ed isn't happy about where he landed."

"He certainly doesn't look happy," Sanders said.

"The main reason is he hates the Conley kid."

Seated beside Nichols was John Conley, the bespectacled young lawyer in his twenties. Distinctly younger than anyone around him, Conley was speaking energetically, jabbing his fork in the air as he made a point to Nichols.

"Ed Nichols thinks Conley's an asshole."

"But Conley's only a vice president," Sanders said. "He can't have that much power."

Kaplan shook her head. "He's the heir, remember?"

"So? What does that mean? His grandfather's picture is on some boardroom wall?"

"Conley owns four percent of C-W stock, and controls another twenty-six percent still held by the family or vested in trusts controlled by the family. John Conley has the largest voting block of Conley-White stock."

"And John Conley wants the deal?"

"Yes." Kaplan nodded. "Conley handpicked our company to acquire. And he's going forward fast, with the help of his friends like Jim Daly at Goldman, Sachs. Daly's very smart, but investment bankers always have big fees riding on a merger. They'll do their due diligence, I'm not saying they won't. But it'd take a lot to get them to back out of the deal now."

"Uh-huh."

"So Nichols feels he's lost control of the acquisition, and he's being rushed into a deal that's a lot richer than it should be. Nichols doesn't see why C-W should make us all wealthy. He'd pull out of this deal if he could-if only to screw Conley."

"But Conley's driving this deal."

"Yes. And Conley's abrasive. Ile likes to make little speeches about youth versus age, the coming digital era, a young vision for the future. It enrages Nichols. Ed Nichols feels he's doubled the net worth of the company in a decade, and now this little twerp is giving him lectures."

"And how does Meredith fit in?"

Kaplan hesitated. "Meredith is suitable."

"Meaning what?"

"She's Eastern. She grew up in Connecticut and went to Vassar. The Conley people like that. They're comfortable with that."

"That's all? She has the right accent?"

"You didn't hear it from me," Kaplan said. "But I think they also see her as weak. They think they can control her once the merger is completed."

"And Garvin's going along with that?"

Kaplan shrugged. "Bob's a realist," she said. "He needs capitalization. He's built his company skillfully, but we're going to require massive infusions of cash for the next phase, when we go head-to-head with Sony and Philips in product development. Conley-White's textbook operation is a cash cow. Bob looks at them and sees green-and he's inclined to do what they want, to get their money."

"And of course, Bob likes Meredith."

"Yes. That's true. Bob likes her."

Sanders waited while she poked at her food for a while. "And you, Stephanie? What do you think?"

Kaplan shrugged. "She's able."

"Able but weak?"

"No." Kaplan shook her head. "Meredith has ability. That's not in question. But I'm concerned about her experience. She's not as seasoned as she might be. She's being put in charge of four major technical units that are expected to grow rapidly. I just hope she's up to it."

There was the clink of a spoon on a glass, and Garvin stepped to the front of the room. "Even though you're still eating dessert, let's get started, so we can finish by two o'clock," he said. "Let me remind you of the new timetable. Assuming everything continues as planned, we expect to make the formal announcement of the acquisition at a press conference here on Friday noon. And now, let me introduce our new associates from Conley-White . . ."

As Garvin named the C-W people, and they stood up around the table, Kaplan leaned over and whispered to Tom, "This is all fluff and feathers. The real reason for this lunch is you-know-who."

". . . and finally," Garvin said, "let me introduce someone that many of you know, but some of you do not, the new Vice President for Advanced Operations and Planning, Meredith Johnson."

There was scattered, brief applause as Johnson got up from her seat and walked to a podium at the front of the room. In her dark blue suit, she looked the model of corporate correctness, but she was strikingly beautiful. At the podium, she put on horn-rimmed glasses and lowered the conference room lights.

"Bob has asked me to review the way the new structure will work," she said, "and to say something about what we see happening in the coming months." She bent over the podium, where a computer was set up for presentations. "Now, if I can just work this thing . . . let me see . . ."

In the darkened room, Don Cherry caught Sanders's eye and shook his head slowly.

"Ali, okay, here we are," Johnson said, at the podium. The screen behind her came to life. Animated images generated by the computer were projected onto the screen. The first image showed a red heart, which broke into four pieces. "The heart of DigiCom has always been its Advanced Products Group, which consists of four separate divisions as you see here. But as all information throughout the world becomes digital, these divisions will inevitably merge." On the screen, the pieces of the heart slid back together, and the heart transformed itself into a spinning globe. It began to throw off products. "For the customer in the near future, armed with cellular phone, built-in fax modem, and handheld computer or PDA, it will be increasingly irrelevant where in the world he or she is and where the information is coming from. We are talking about the true globalization of information, and this implies an array of new products for our major markets in business and education." The globe expanded and dissolved, became classrooms on all continents, students at desks. "In particular, education will be a growing focus of this company as technology moves from print to digital displays to virtual environments. Now, let's review exactly what this means, and where I see it taking us."

And she proceeded to do it all-hypermedia, embedded video, authoring systems, work-group structures, academic sourcing, customer acceptance. She moved on to the cost structures-projected research outlays and revenues, five-year goals, offshore variables. Then to major product challenges-quality control, user feedback, shorter development cycles.

Meredith Johnson's presentation was flawless, the images blending and flowing across the screen, her voice confident, no hesitation, no pauses. As she continued, the room became quiet, the atmosphere distinctly respectful.

"Although this is not the time to go into technical matters," she said, "I want to mention that new CD-drive seek times under a hundred milliseconds, combined with new compression algorithms, should shift the industry standard for CD to fullres digitized video at sixty fields per second. And we are talking about platformindependent RISC processors supported by 3z-bit color active-matrix displays and portable hard copy at 12oo DPI and wireless networking in both LAN and WAN configurations. Combine that with an autonomously generated virtual database especially when ROM-based software agents for object definition and classification are in place and I think we can agree we are looking at prospects for a very exciting future."

Sanders saw that Don Cherry's mouth was hanging open. Sanders leaned over to Kaplan. "Sounds like she knows her stuff."

"Yes," Kaplan said, nodding. "The demo queen. She started out doing demos. Appearance has always been her strongest point." Sanders glanced at Kaplan; she looked away.

But then the speech ended. There was applause as the lights came up, and Johnson went back to her seat. The room broke up, people heading back to work. Johnson left Garvin, and went directly to Don Cherry, said a few words to him. Cherry smiled: the charmed geek. Then Meredith went across the room to Mary Anne, spoke briefly to her, and then to Mark Lewyn.

"She's smart," Kaplan said, watching her, "touching base with all the division heads especially since she didn't name them in her speech."

Sanders frowned. "You think that's significant?"

"Only if she's planning to make changes."

"Phil said she wasn't going to."

"But you never know, do you?" Kaplan said, standing up, dropping her napkin on the table. "I've got to go-and it looks like you're next on her list."

Kaplan moved discreetly away as Meredith came up to Sanders. She was smiling. "I wanted to apologize, Tom," Meredith said, "for not mentioning your name and the names of the other division heads in my presentation. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. It's just that Bob asked me to keep it short."

"Well," Sanders said, "it looks like you won everybody over. The reaction was very favorable."

"I hope so. Listen," she said, putting her hand on his arm, "we've got a slew of due diligence sessions tomorrow. I've been asking all the heads to meet with me today, if they can. I wonder if you're free to come to my office at the end of the day for a drink. We can go over things, and maybe catch up on old times, too."

"Sure," he said. He felt the warmth of her hand on his arm. She didn't take it away.

"They've given me an office on the fifth floor, and with any luck there should be furniture in by later today. Six o'clock work for you?"

"Fine," he said.

She smiled. "You still partial to dry chardonnay?"

Despite himself, he was flattered that she remembered. He smiled, "Yes, I still am."

"I'll see if I can get one. And we'll go over some of the immediate problems, like that hundred-millisecond drive."

"Okay, fine. About that drive-"

"I know," she said, her voice lower. "We'll deal with it." Behind her, the Conley-White executives were coming up. "Let's talk tonight."

"Good."

"See you then, Tom."

"See you then."

A the meeting broke up, Mark Lewyn drifted over to him. "So, let's hear it: what'd she say to you?"

"Meredith?"

"No, the Stealthy One. Kaplan was bending your ear all during lunch. What's up?"

Sanders shrugged. "Oh, you know. Just small talk."

"Come on. Stephanie doesn't do small talk. She doesn't know how. And Stephanie talked more to you than I've seen her talk in years."

Sanders was surprised to see how anxious Lewyn was. "Actually," he said, "we talked mostly about her son. He's a freshman at the university."

But Lewyn wasn't buying it. He frowned and said, "She's up to something, isn't she. She never talks without a reason. Is it about me? I know she's critical of the design team. She thinks we're wasteful. I've told her many times that it's not true-"

"Mark," Sanders said. "Your name didn't even come up. Honest."

To change the subject, Sanders asked, "What'd you think of Johnson? Pretty strong presentation, I thought."

"Yes. She's impressive. There was only one thing that bothered me," Lewyn said. He was still frowning, still uneasy. "Isn't she supposed to be a late-breaking curve, forced on us by management at Conley?"

"That's what I heard. Why?"

"Her presentation. To put together a graphic presentation like that takes two weeks, at a minimum," Lewyn said. "In my design group, I get the designers on it a month in advance, then we run it through for timing, then say a week for revisions and re-do's, then another week while they transfer to a drive. And that's my own in-house group, working fast. For an executive, it'd take longer. They pawn it off on some assistant, who tries to make it for them. Then the executive looks at it, wants it all done over again. And it takes more time. So if this was her presentation, I'd say she's known about her new job for a while. Months."

Sanders frowned.

"As usual," Lewyn said, "the poor bastards in the trenches are the last to know. I just wonder what else we don't know."

Sanders was back at his office by 2:15. He called his wife to tell her he would be home late, that he had a meeting at six.

"What's happening over there?" Susan said. "I got a call from Adele Lewyn. She says Garvin's screwing everybody, and they're changing the organization around."

"I don't know yet," he said cautiously. Cindy had just walked in the room.

"Are you still getting a promotion?"

"Basically," he said, "the answer is no."

"I can't believe it," Susan said. "Tom, I'm sorry. Are you okay? Are you upset?"

"I would say so, yes."

"Can't talk?"

"That's right."

"Okay. I'll leave soup on. I'll see you when you get here."

Cindy placed a stack of files on his desk. When Sanders hung up, she said, "She already knew?"

"She suspected."

Cindy nodded. "She called at lunchtime," she said. "I had the sense. The spouses are talking, I imagine."

"I'm sure everybody's talking."

Cindy went to the door, then paused. Cautiously, she said, "And how was the lunch meeting?"

"Meredith was introduced as the new head of all the tech divisions. She gave a presentation. She says she's going to keep all the division heads in place, all reporting to her."

"Then there's no change for us? Just another layer on top?"

"So far. That's what they're telling me. Why? What do you hear?"

"I hear the same."

He smiled. "Then it must be true."

"Should I go ahead and buy the condo?" She had been planning this for some time, a condo in Queen Anne's Hill for herself and her young daughter.

Sanders said, "When do you have to decide?"

"I have another fifteen days. End of the month."

"Then wait. You know, just to be safe."

She nodded, and went out. A moment later, she came back. "I almost forgot. Mark Lewyn's office just called. The Twinkle drives have arrived from KL. His designers are looking at them now. Do you want to see them?"

       "I'm on my way."

The Design Group occupied the entire second floor of the Western Building. As always, the atmosphere there was chaotic; all the phones were ringing, but there was no receptionist in the little waiting area by the elevators, which was decorated with faded, taped-up posters for a 1929 Bauhaus Exhibition in Berlin and an old science-fiction movie called The Forbin Project. Two Japanese visitors sat at a corner table, speaking rapidly, beside the battered Coke machine and the junk food dispenser. Sanders nodded to them, used his card to open the locked door, and went inside.

The floor was a large open space, partitioned at unexpected angles by slanted walls painted to look like pastel-veined stone. Uncomfortable-looking wire chairs and tables were scattered in odd places. Rockand-roll music blared. Everybody was casually dressed; most of the designers wore shorts and T-shirts. It was clearly A Creative Area.

Sanders went through to Foamland, the little display of the latest product designs the group had made. There were models of tiny CDROM drives and miniature cellular phones. Lewyn's teams were charged with creating product designs for the future, and many of these seemed absurdly small: a cellular phone no larger than a pencil, and another that looked like a postmodern version of Dick Tracy's wrist radio, in pale green and gray; a pager the size of a cigarette lighter; and a micro-CD player with a flip-up screen that could fit easily in the palm of the hand.

Although these devices looked outrageously tiny, Sanders had long since become accustomed to the idea that the designs were at most two years in the future. The hardware was shrinking fast; it was difficult for Sanders to remember that when he began working at DigiCom, a "portable" computer was a thirty-pound box the size of a carry-on suitcase and cellular telephones didn't exist at all. The first cellular phones that DigiCom manufactured were fifteen-pound wonders that you lugged around on a shoulder strap. At the time, people thought they were a miracle. Now, customers complained if their phones weighed more than a few ounces.

Sanders walked past the big foam-cutting machine, all twisted tubes and knives behind Plexiglas shields, and found Mark Lewyn and his team bent over three dark blue CD-ROM players from Malaysia. One of the players already lay in pieces on the table; under bright halogen lights, the team was poking at its innards with tiny screwdrivers, glancing up from time to time to the scope screens.

"What've you found?" Sanders said.

"Ah, hell," Lewyn said, throwing up his hands in artistic exasperation. "Not good, Tom. Not good."

"Talk to me."

Lewyn pointed to the table. "There's a metal rod inside the hinge. These clips maintain contact with the rod as the case is opened; that's how you maintain power to the screen."

"Yes..."

"But power is intermittent. It looks like the rods are too small. They're supposed to be fifty-four millimeters. These seem to be fiftytwo, fifty-three millimeters."

Lewyn was grim, his entire manner suggesting unspeakable consequences. The bars were a millimeter off, and the world was coming to an end. Sanders understood that he would have to calm Lewyn down. He'd done it many times before.

He said, "We can fix that, Mark. It'll mean opening all the cases and replacing the bars, but we can do that."

"Oh sure," Lewyn said. "But that still leaves the clips. Our specs call for 16/10 stainless, which has requisite tension to keep the clips springy and maintain contact with the bar. These clips seem to be something else, maybe 16/4. They're too stiff: So when you open the cases the clips bend, but they don't spring back."

"So we have to replace the clips, too. We can do that when we switch the bars."

"Unfortunately, it's not that easy. The clips are heat-pressed into the cases."

"Ah, hell."

"Right. They are integral to the case unit."

"You're telling me we have to build new housings just because we have bad clips?"

"Exactly."

Sanders shook his head. "We've run off thousands so far. Something like four thousand."

"Well, we've got to do 'em again."

"And what about the drive itself?"

"It's slow," Lewyn said. "No doubt about it. But I'm not sure why. It might be power problems. Or it might be the controller chip."

"If it's the controller chip . . ."

"We're in deep shit. If it's a primary design problem, we have to go back to the drawing board. If it's only a fabrication problem, we have to change the production lines, maybe remake the stencils. But it's months, either way."

"When will we know?"

"I've sent a drive and power supply to the Diagnostics guys," Lewyn said. "They should have a report by five. I'll get it to you. Does Meredith know about this yet?"

"I'm briefing her at six."

"Okay. Call me after you talk to her?"

"Sure."

"In a way, this is good," Lewyn said.

"How do you mean?"

"We're throwing her a big problem right away," Lewyn said. "We'll see how she handles it."

Sanders turned to go. Lewyn followed him out. "By the way," Lewyn said. "Are you pissed off that you didn't get the job?"

"Disappointed," Sanders said. "Not pissed. There's no point being pissed."

"Because if you ask me, Garvin screwed you. You put in the time, you've demonstrated you can run the division, and he put in someone else instead."

Sanders shrugged. "It's his company."

Lewyn threw his arm over Sanders's shoulder, and gave him a rough hug. "You know, Tom, sometimes you're too reasonable for your own good."

"I didn't know being reasonable was a defect," Sanders said.

"Being too reasonable is a defect," Lewyn said. "You end up getting pushed around."

"I'm just trying to get along," Sanders said. "I want to be here when the division goes public."

"Yeah, true. You got to stay." They came to the elevator. Lewyn said, "You think she got it because she's a woman?"

Sanders shook his head. "Who knows."

"Pale males eat it again. I tell you. Sometimes I get so sick of the constant pressure to appoint women," Lewyn said. "I mean, look at this design group. We've got forty percent women here, better than any other division, but they always say, why don't you have more. More women, more-"

"Mark," he said, interrupting. "It's a different world now."

"And not a better one," Lewyn said. "It's hurting everybody. Look: when I started in DigiCom, there was only one question. Are you good? If you were good, you got hired. If you could cut it, you stayed. No more. Now, ability is only one of the priorities. There's also the question of whether you're the right sex and skin color to fill out the company's HR profiles. And if you turn out to be incompetent, we can't fire you. Pretty soon, we start to get junk like this Twinkle drive. Because no one's accountable anymore. No one is responsible. You can't build products on a theory. Because the product you're making is real. And if it stinks, it stinks. And no one will buy it."

Coming back to his office, Sanders used his electronic passcard to open the door to the fourth floor. Then he slipped the card in his trouser pocket, and headed down the hallway. He was moving quickly, thinking about the meeting with Lewyn. He was especially bothered by one thing that Lewyn had said: that he was allowing himself to be pushed around by Garvin-that he was being too passive, too understanding.

But Sanders didn't see it that way. When Sanders had said it was Garvin's company, he meant it. Bob was the boss, and Bob could do what he wanted. Sanders was disappointed not to get the job, but no one had promised it to him. Ever. He and others in the Seattle divisions had come, over a period of weeks, to assume that Sanders would get the job. But Garvin had never mentioned it. Nor had Phil Blackburn.

As a result, Sanders felt he had no reason to gripe. If he was disappointed, it was only because he had done it to himself. It was classic: counting your chickens before they hatched.

And as for being too passive what did Lewyn expect him to do? Make a fuss? Yell and scream? That wouldn't do any good. Because clearly Meredith Johnson had this job, whether Sanders liked it or not. Resign? That really wouldn't do any good. Because if he quit, he would lose the profits pending when the company went public. That would be a real disaster.

So on reflection, all he could do was accept Meredith Johnson in the new job, and get on with it. And he suspected that if the situation were reversed, Lewyn, for all his bluster, would do exactly the same thing: grin and bear it.

But the bigger problem, as he thought it over, was the Twinkle drive. Lewyn's team had torn up three drives that afternoon, and they still didn't have any idea why they were malfunctioning. They had found some non-spec components in the hinge, which Sanders could track down. He'd find out soon enough why they were getting non-spec materials. But the real problemthe slowness of the drives-remained a mystery to which they had no clue, and that meant that he was going to

"Tom? You dropped your card."

"What?" He looked up absently. An area assistant was frowning, pointing back down the hall.

"You dropped your card."

"Oh." He saw the passcard lying there, white against the gray carpet. "Thanks."

He went back to retrieve it. Obviously, he must be more upset than he realized. You couldn't get anywhere in the DigiCom buildings without a passcard. Sanders bent over, picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket.

Then he felt the second card, already there. Frowning, he took both cards out and looked at them.

The card on the floor wasn't his card, it was someone else's. He paused for a moment, trying to decide which was his. By design, the passcards were featureless: just the blue DigiCom logo, a stamped serial number, and a magstripe on the back.

He ought to be able to remember his card number, but he couldn't. He hurried back to his office, to look it up on his computer. He glanced at his watch. It was four o'clock, two hours before his meeting with Meredith Johnson. He still had a lot to do to prepare for that meeting. He frowned as he walked along, staring at the carpet. He would have to get the production reports, and perhaps also the design detail specs. He wasn't sure she would understand them, but he should be prepared with them, anyway. And what else? He did not want to go into this first meeting having forgotten something.

Once again, his thoughts were disrupted by images from his past. An opened suitcase. The bowl of popcorn. The stained-glass window.

"So?" said a familiar voice. "You don't say hello to your old friends anymore?"

Sanders looked up. He was outside the glass-walled conference room. Inside the room, he saw a solitary figure hunched over in a wheelchair, staring at the Seattle skyline, his back to Sanders.

"Hello, Max," Sanders said.

Max Dorfman continued to stare out the window. "Hello, Thomas."

"How did you know it was me?"

Dorfman snorted. "It must be magic. What do you think? Magic?" His voice was sarcastic. "Thomas: I can see you."

"How? You have eyes in the back of your head?"

"No, Thomas. I have a reflection in front of my head. I see you in the glass, of course. Walking with your head down, like a defeated putz." Dorfman snorted again, and then wheeled his chair around. His eyes were bright, intense, mocking. "You were such a promising man. And now you are hanging your head?"

Sanders wasn't in the mood. "Let's just say this hasn't been one of my better days, Max."

"And you want everybody to know about it? You want sympathy?"

"No, Max." He remembered how Dorfman had ridiculed the idea of sympathy. Dorfman used to say that an executive who wanted sympathy was not an executive. He was a sponge, soaking up something useless.

Sanders said, "No, Max. I was thinking."

"Ah. Thinking. Oh, I like thinking. Thinking is good. And what were you thinking about, Thomas: the stained glass in your apartment?"

Despite himself, Sanders was startled: "How did you know that?"

"Maybe it's magic," Dorfman said, with a rasping laugh. "Or perhaps I can read minds. You think I can read minds, Thomas? Are you stupid enough to believe that?"

"Max, I'm not in the mood."

"Oh well, then I must stop. If you're not in the mood, I must stop. We must at all costs preserve your mood." He slapped the arm of his wheelchair irritably. "You told me, Thomas. That's how I knew what you were thinking."

"I told you? When?"

"Nine or ten years ago, it must have been."

"What did I tell you?"

"Oh, you don't remember? No wonder you have problems. Better stare at the floor some more. It may do you good. Yes. I think so. Keep staring at the floor, Thomas."

"Max, for Christ's sake."