“What’s your next step with Nora?” Theo asked as we shut the heavy book.

“Nora wants to go for an injunction in state court,” I said.

“And what is it you want?”

“Courts take months,” I said.

“The annual shareholders’ meeting is tomorrow morning.”

At six o’clock I stood in my San Diego hotel room looking down at my open leather suitcase on the luggage rack.

The window faced the Pacific Ocean, where the late afternoon sun had turned the water into flat gray glass.

Theo sat in the armchair by the desk with a pair of printed boarding passes in his hand.