Union Atlantic Page 0,16

to him, and it was through these officers, of whatever rank, that he worked his will. He loved that all the secretaries had crushes on Doug, and that the rest of the department heads loathed him. Deep into the bullshit of management science, Holland had consultants threaded everywhere, hard at work rubber-stamping his plans, providing cover for whenever an initiative failed. But at base such caution bored him, and if he were honest with himself he would have to admit that it embarrassed him too. To all such mealymouthed, process nonsense, Doug was the perfect antidote: a means to direct action. Yet, as with any secret weapon, the pleasure and protection lay in the having of it, not in the use.

"What about our own trades?" Holland asked. "Where do we stand?"

For all his bluster about cash flow, this was why he had asked Doug to his office: to hear news of profit.

"Hong Kong netted thirty-five million last week. Next week, it'll be forty."

Holland glanced up, raised his eyebrows, and smiled. Then he strolled to the opposite side of the office to gaze from the window. Beneath a cloudless sky, the water of the harbor shimmered, a white ferry churned slowly from the pier, planes in the distance glided onto the peninsula of runways at Logan, the whole brilliant vista softened by the tint of the glass.

"That guy from Time called again," he said. "He's coming next week. They've decided to go ahead with the profile after all."

"Congratulations," Doug said.

"Thanks. So what's the news with you? Are we neighbors yet? Have you moved out to Finden?"

"Yeah. Which reminds me. You know a woman named Charlotte Graves?"

"Never heard of her. What the hell are you going to do with all that space, anyway?"

"I don't know," Doug said. "Make a killing maybe?"

Holland laughed. "My wife loathes people like you," he said. "Probably because she used to be one."

Chapter 4

From inside the blooming lilac, Charlotte whispers, Come. You're missing it. Come and see. The pleasure, somehow, always hers. Mother and father with their drinks on the veranda in wicker chairs watching; traffic whirring in the distance on the post road. You're missing it, his sister whispers. The air is soft in the first spring heat. Henry tries to walk toward his sister but his legs are fixed to the ground. Her whispers fill his ears from behind those coned purple flowers, the sunlight on the arced branches a brilliant diffusion. Here, what you've been looking for, here it is, she says, as the siren begins to sound.

Swallowing dryly, turning his head on the pillow, Henry half opened his eyes. The room was pitch-dark, only one edge of it discernible from a strip of light under the door. A hotel, certainly: the familiar hush of conditioned air falling into the padded gloom of rug and curtains and armchair, the tiny red signals of the television and the motion detector. But where? What city? For a moment, the yearning for a world saturated with meaning pulled him back toward sleep, but he caught himself and reached for the bleating phone, the grid of the present regaining administration of his mind, leveling in an instant the fading kingdom of dreams.

He was in a suite on the Atlantic coast of Florida and it was one fifteen in the morning.

"Mr. Graves? Is this Mr. Henry Graves?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"Sir, my name is Vincent Cannistro. I'm vice president of market operations at Taconic Bank."

"Hold on a moment."

He reached up to switch on the light.

"This better be serious," he said. "In which case, why am I talking to you?"

"That's a perfectly fair question, sir. Fred Premley, our CEO, is currently in Idaho and we have been trying to reach him by cell phone for a number of hours now. I have a car headed to his location at this time and we expect to be in contact with him shortly."

"And your chairman?"

"Our chairman, sir, he's in that same location."

Henry sat upright and reached for his glasses, bringing the room into focus. Briefing books for the conference were piled on the desk opposite.

"So you're in a bind and your management's gone fishing. Have I got it right so far?"

"Sir, I would have to say that is more or less correct, yes."

"All right, then, Mr. Cannistro. What's your situation?"

There was a pause on the line. Even in his groggy state, Henry could sense the fellow's unease. He'd heard men's voices like this before, taut as a drum, overly formal, restraining with effort