“That’s all there is to it.”

Under the table I touched the brass clasp.

It was the first time he had ever told me the truth about the company, and he told it the way a man explains a parking ticket.

“Five hundred thousand,” he said once more.

“Think it over.”

He paid with a black card and walked me out to the lot behind the restaurant.

It smelled of hot asphalt and the cedar chips under the hedges.