Chapter 5

Dr. Elena Vasquez straightened with a piece of paper in each hand and did not look at the room. She looked at Ruben.

"You brought folding chairs," she said. "To the oncology floor. Four years ago."

"I did."

"You carried them up the stairs because the elevator was full."

"I did."

Halloway stepped between them. He was smiling again, and now the smile had a job to do.

"Dr. Vasquez, this man walked in here without a ticket, without an invitation he can produce, and handed me a photocopy of a wire transfer. I've called security. This is a private event and I'm going to ask you to step back."

"He said his name," Vasquez said.

"He said a name."

At the head table, Roger Pell had turned in his chair. So had two other board members, and a woman in emerald silk who had been at the bar repeating what she'd been told. Ruben could hear the shape of it moving through the room the way a rumor moves - the same three facts, passed hand to hand.

A man got past the door.

He had a fake receipt.

Grant handled it.

That was the story, and it was a good story. It explained everything without costing anybody anything. Halloway had been telling a version of it for two years to donors, physicians, and press, and the room had already learned to believe him.

Ray Tibbs arrived at last - head of hotel security, gray crew cut, radio in one hand - and took Ruben's elbow with practiced politeness.

"Sir. This way."

"Wait," Vasquez said.

"Doctor." Halloway's voice dropped to something warm and reasonable, pitched for her alone. "You've got a staffing request on my desk for twelve pediatric nurses. I'm bringing it to the board next month. I'd hate to bring it during a mess."

Ruben heard it. He understood it completely. He had spent forty-one years on shop floors, and he knew exactly what a man sounds like when he is buying time with somebody else's job.

He pulled his arm free of Tibbs gently.

"It's all right," he said to Vasquez. "Let it go. I shouldn't have come."

He turned toward the mirrored doors. Rain was still coming down out on the street. He had a bus pass in his other pocket and a long ride home, and Margaret's ring on the chain inside his collar, and he had decided - honestly, finally - that her name did not belong in a room like this one.

He got two steps.

"Let go of him," Vasquez said, and she said it loud enough that the string quartet stopped.