Leland began to hear something faintly as the elevator approached the thirty-second floor. The doors rumbled open and he was hit by a blast of thumping disco. Strobe lights flashed against the walls. Jesus, Stephanie wanted him to find her in this? Did she have the kids here? A half dozen people had spilled out here into the corridor, holding drinks, passing joints, and writhing to the music. Beyond them, in what looked, in the dark, like the whole southwest quadrant of the building, fifty or sixty adults and teenagers flailed to a sound so loud, so acoustically true, or both, that it made the prestressed concrete floor vibrate like the loft of a barn.

"Hi," a blonde said, "Merry Christmas. You smoke this crap? It's good commercial Colombo."

"The doctors at the sanatorium told me not to. Do you know Ms. Gennaro? She wanted me to meet her here."

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"Always have. I'm her father."

"Jesus. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Wait a minute." She ankled out to the middle of the corridor. "You see that door over there? Mr. Ellis's office. The last time I saw her, she was in there with the other big wheels. Oh, Christ, excuse me. Hey, forget I said that, huh? Please. Tell her Doreen said Merry Christmas — and congratulations."

"What for?"

"This!"

"What's this?"

"You don't know, do you? Mr. Ellis and Ms. Gennaro just put over a one hundred and fifty million dollar deal! Hey, go find out! Let her tell you — then come back and join the party! We'll take care of you!"

"I'm too old for your mother!"

"But not for me, you old fox!"

He winked and blew her a kiss.

"That's Gennaro's father," he heard her say, giggling, when he was supposed to be out of earshot. He didn't look back, because he didn't exactly like the way she had said his daughter's name.

The desks in the big room had been pushed back against the walls to create a dance floor, and Leland had to elbow his way through the onlookers who were three-deep most of the way around. Ellis's door led to his secretary's office, but the furnishings here were a big step up from the brightly colored metal and plastic outside. Thick green carpeting, rosewood walls, and an imitation stained glass ceiling fixture, all for a secretary. Like everybody else, the Klaxon executives took advantage of tax-deductible, business expense provisions in the revenue code to fit themselves out with the kind of accoutrements that would make a pharaoh's jaw drop. The door to the inner office was ajar, but the thumping of the music vibrating beneath his feet did not let Leland hear anyone on the other side. He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe.

"Who is it? Come in."

Three men turned in their chairs. Steffie, beyond them on the sofa, leaped to her feet.

"Daddy! Merry Christmas! You're just in time!" She rushed across the room, hugged him, and kissed his cheek. In his arms, she felt too soft and out-of-condition to suit him. With her arm around his waist, she turned to the others, who were standing now, and introduced him. Ellis, behind the desk, was in his forties; the man Leland's age was a Texan named Rivers, executive vice president for sales; and the boy in his twenties, Martin Fisher, was Stephanie's new assistant.

Rivers was the first to shake his hand. "Welcome, Mr. Leland. A pleasure and an honor. We heard about your accident in St. Louis. Well, it doesn't look like much." Stephanie looked at his forehead. Rivers turned to the boy. "Do you know how many German planes this man shot down?"

"Oh, yes." He was looking at Leland, trying to match what he had been told to the man standing in front of him.

"It's ancient history," Leland said to him. "Your parents don't even remember it."

"Not true," Ellis said, stepping in front of the desk, smiling. "Not true at all. Welcome. Perfect timing. This is the biggest day of our lives." He pumped Leland's hand with an unpleasant energy that put Leland off at once.

"I heard something about one hundred and fifty million dollars."

"That's right," Ellis said. "It's the biggest contract Klaxon has ever done outside of petrochemicals."

"We're in the bridge-building business, Daddy. In Chile."

"Show him that watch," Ellis said to her.

"He'll see it later," she said.

"I've got a model of the bridge upstairs in my office, Mr. Leland," Rivers said.

"Call me Joe. I feel old enough without a graybeard like you treating me like Santa Claus." Or Lucky Lindy, he thought, as images of the past few hours rose in a flurry, stirred like leaves in a wind.

"I was in the South Pacific, myself," Rivers said.

"The whole thing should be put on bubble gum cards, as far as I'm concerned," Leland said. "Stef, I'd like to clean up a little, if I may. It's already been a fourteen-hour day. I'd also like to use the telephone."

"Something wrong?" Rivers asked.

Leland shook his head. He was thinking of the old cop downstairs, but what he had seen on Ellis's desk, a rolled-up dollar bill, made him want to be cautious. "I want to call San Diego." Leland gave Steffie a smile. "Something nice happened on the plane."

"Old goat," she said. "You took the through flight to San Diego, didn't you? She won't be home by now."

"The lady has an answering service or a machine, one or the other. She didn't say so, but I'll bet on it."

"Being a policeman is like having a sixth sense, isn't it?" Rivers asked.

"More like a way of putting things together," Leland said, not looking at Ellis.

"Who isthis?" Stephanie asked, pulling at Leland's jacket.

"The stewardess," Leland told her. "Don't worry, she's older than you — though not by much. What's this about a watch?"

"I bought myself a present. Why do you call her a stewardess?"

"I usually call them flight attendants. In this context, I wanted it to be clear that I was talking about a woman."

The male laughter made her blush.

"We all hear this," Ellis said. "We're all getting re-programmed."

"Deprogrammed," she said with a smile. Leland turned to Rivers.

"I'd enjoy seeing that model later."

"Sure thing."

Who Stephanie slept with was her business — she was old enough to know that office intrigues usually led to trouble — but Leland didn't like the idea of cocaine. Beneath his salesman's gloss, Ellis was as grisly a specimen as Leland had ever seen. Stephanie still seemed incapable of learning the lesson of her life, and Leland could only accept the burden of his failure with her. He gave her another hug. "I'll use your office. I know where it is."

"I'll come with you," she said. "We weren't doing anything but patting ourselves on the back."

"She's the one," Rivers said to Leland. "She put a lot into this. It wouldn't have gone over without her."

"That's just great," Leland said.

In her office, diagonally across the building from the party, Leland went to the window and looked down into the street. The Jaguar was gone. Leland had scared the fellow off, or made him change his plans.

Judy and Mark were here, lost in the crowd and darkness. The party had been Rivers's idea. The call from Santiago had come in this morning, and the place had gone wild. The deal had been very complicated, negotiations with the ruling junta had been delicate, everything was still secret. Klaxon had had to keep her in the background because of the machofactor, which made her angry. Rivers had assured her that her bonus would be "just as good" as the others. She was waiting to see.

Leland thought she looked tired. For years she had been five pounds too heavy, and now it looked like ten. With cocaine in her life, he had to be glad to see that she was still eating. She looked deeply fatigued. Maybe she would be ready to listen to him in a few days. Not now. The first thing he wanted to tell her was how proud of her he was.