I kept my hand in my pocket with my thumb on the key.

“Is there anything today that isn’t obvious?” Evelyn asked the receptionist, who couldn’t possibly have known.

Marcus came out at two twenty holding a folder and his gold fountain pen.

He shook Arthur’s hand, then Evelyn’s, and didn’t offer his to me.

“Nothing formal,” he said.

“Just the terms.” He held the door with one finger on the brass push plate.

The conference room held a long table, five chairs, a dying ficus in the corner, and a window facing the back of a sandwich shop.