I said something about that and she cut me off, and what she said is one of about four sentences from that morning that I could reproduce under oath.

She said: “It’s not money.

It’s a document.

The second I cash it, it’s a payment I accepted, and everything after that is a negotiation I lost.”

And then she said: “There’s a fourth thing but I’m not giving it to you on a floor.”

Part Five: The Call

My telephone rang at about 8:20 and it was my mother.

Eleanor Vance was seventy-four and she was not an executive of my company and had not been for nine years, and she called me on average four times a week, and she knew my travel schedule better than my assistant did.