Interface

Dad was nothing more than a silhouette. The windows were all metallic and reflective; you could only see into them when it was dark outside. But sometimes when the sky was profoundly overcast in the middle of the day, it was possible to look in those windows and see dim shapes underneath the silvery reflections. And that was what some enterprising cameraman had captured on videotape: Dad, sitting in a wheelchair, looking out his window.

The image was gray and indistinct and so you couldn't tell that Dad was, in fact, strapped into the wheelchair to keep him from slumping over. He had been turned squarely toward the window and so you couldn't see the support that rose up behind his head to keep it from flopping around. He was lit from behind so you couldn't see the drool coming out of his mouth and the moronic expression on his paralyzed face.

A couple of standing silhouettes were visible behind him: a nurse and a slender young man. James. James pushed the wheelchair closer to the window so that Dad could see out. Then he left Dad alone there and disappeared from the frame. The camera pa

The parking ramp covered about half a square block. Parking was not hard to find in the area, so few cars ever made it all the way up to the rooftop level. Right now, half a dozen vehicles were scattered around. Most of the remainder of the roof was covered with people. Hundreds of them. They were carrying signs and ba

Of course it was - they were in front of a hospital. They had to be quiet.

The camera zoomed in on a long, crudely fashioned ba

There were a couple of shots of other hospital patients, in their fla

He waved out the window.

Which wasn't possible. Most of his body was paralyzed after the second stroke. But he was doing it. He was waving vigorously to the crowd.

Something looked fu

It was James. He must be down on his knees next to Dad, concealed behind the windowsill, holding up his hand and waving for him.

Cut back to the crowd, waving their ba

Cut back to the window. James was till waving, pretending to be Dad. Then his hand stopped waving and became a fist. Two fingers extended from the fist in a V sign.

Mary Catherine shot upright and spilled her club soda on the limousine's wool carpet. "You bastard," she said.

Back to the crowd. Finally they lost it, forgot they were in front of a hospital, started screaming and cheering. Hospital security cops jumped forward, waving their arms, telling them to keep it down. And then they cut back to network headquarters, where all of this was being watched by their afternoon anchorman. Pete Ledger. Former pro football player, turned sportscaster, turned newscaster.

A well-respected, middle-aged black guy with a sharp, fast tongue who'd probably end up having his own talk show one of these days.

His eyes were red. He reached up with one hand just for an instant and wiped his ru

"My God," Mary Catherine said out loud to no one. "We're in deep shit."

She flinched as the door of the limousine came open, letting in bright unfiltered light. The car had stopped.

She'd lost track, but something about the light told her they were near downtown, hemmed in by skyscrapers. They were in a crowded little side street, just south and west of the Board of Trade, stopped in front of a brownstone with a first-floor restaurant. An awning extended from the front door, across the sidewalk, to a loading zone along the curb. An uniformed doorman had opened the door for her.

He reached in with one hand and helped her out, which was a nice, if superfluous, gesture. He was an older guy, a kindly white-haired doorman type, and as he was helping her out on to the sidewalk, he gave her hand an extra squeeze, nodded at her, looking at her in a way that was almost worshipful.

There was another man, a guy in a plain old dark suit, standing under the awning waiting for her. Dad had once told her that you could gauge the quality of a restaurant according to how many people you spoke to before you actually got around to ordering food. She wasn't even into the door of this place yet and she had already encountered two people.

"Howdy, Miz Cozzano," the man said, "I'm Cy Ogle."

"Oh, hello," she said, shaking his hand. "Did you just get here?"

"Nah, I nailed down a table for us," he said. "But I figured that since I dug you out of work like this on such an ugly day, least I could do was come out and say hi."

"Well, that's very nice," she said noncommitally.

So far, he didn't seem like the cynical, media-manipulating son of a bitch that he was supposed to be. But it was way, way too early to be jumping to conclusions.

Another guy in a suit, who clearly did work here, nearly killed himself bursting out the front door of the place, and met her halfway up the sidewalk, holding out one hand, bending his knees as he approached so that by the time he reached Mary Catherine he was practically duck-walking. Mary Catherine could see in his whole face and affect that he was Italian.

He was crying, for god's sake. He pumped her hand and grabbed her upper arm with his left, as if only all the willpower in his body prevented him from violently embracing her. He said nothing but merely shook his head. He was so overcome with emotion that he couldn't speak.

"We were just watching CNN over the bar," Ogle explained. "It was incredible."

Some kind of a huge commotion was going on inside the place. It got louder as Mary Catherine moved toward the door, led by the crying Italian and followed by Ogle, and as she crossed the threshold, it exploded.

The back of the restaurant was all quiet little tables, but the front of the place was a sizable bar, currently packed with bodies. They were all men in suits. This was an expensive place where people in the commodities business, and the lawyers and bankers who fed off them, gathered to fortify themselves with martinis and five-dollar mineral water.

And right now they were all on their feet, howling, applauding, stamping their feet, whistling, as if the Bears had just run back an interception for a touchdown. They were going nuts.

And they were all looking at Mary Catherine.

She came to a dead stop, shocked and intimidated by the noise. Ogle nearly rear-ended her. He put one hand lightly on top of her shoulder and bent toward her. "Pretend they don't exist," Ogle said, not shouting but projecting a deep actor's voice that cut through the noise. "You're the Queen of England and they're drunks in the gutter."

Mary Catherine stopped looking at them. She stopped making eye contact with any of them. She focused on the back of the rnaître d', who was plunging through the crowd of pinstripes, making an avenue for her, and she followed him straight through the thick of it and into the restaurant proper. The people at the bar were chanting now: Cozzano! Cozzano! Cozzano!

Half of the people dining in the restaurant area stood up as she came through. Nearly all of them applauded. The maître d' led them straight to a table at the very back of the place, behind a partition. At last, they had privacy. Just Mary Catherine and Ogle.