It lasted only a second or two.

It did not need to last longer.

I did not have to show anyone the photographs of my body — those were already logged with the police — because every powerful person in that room understood, in that one or two seconds, that the man on the stage was not a brilliant executive.

He was a violent man who had beaten his wife and forced her to sign fraudulent papers with a belt in his hand.

Standing there while that sound crossed the ballroom was the hardest thing I did in the whole affair, harder than signing, harder than the rain, harder than walking through those doors.