Chapter 12: The Gala

On Wednesday morning Adrienne's key card stopped working.

On Thursday afternoon my expense account came back frozen.

The lawyer called me himself.

"Mr. Merrick has invoked an emergency provision," he said.

"He's put the account under the board's control until the ninety days end."

"You can't spend a dollar of the company's money."

"Can he do that?"

"He can do it for a week. Maybe two."

"I have forty-one dollars."

"I know. Wesley, I can pay for things personally."

"No," I said. "Don't. Let him think he's winning."

The Lowry Foundation's autumn gala was on Friday night, in the ballroom on the twenty-ninth floor of the tower.

Gordon had sent me an invitation by courier, in cream-colored paper.

I went in a rented suit.

My roommate had lent me his good tie and his father's cuff links.

"Don't punch anyone," he told me at the door.

"I'm not going to punch anyone."

"The ring is going to want to."

"The ring doesn't want things."

"Wes," he said. "You get this look when it heats up."

He was right.

I had started hearing it like a second pulse, humming when I was angry.

I rode the elevator up alone and tried to breathe.

The ballroom was gold and white, with a hundred round tables and a string quartet.

Women in long dresses stood in clusters, and men in black ties held glasses and told each other the same stories.

Everyone turned when I walked in.

I felt their eyes go to my suit, my shoes and my plain gray ring.

A silver-haired woman in a green gown approached me with a bright smile.

"Mr. Gilligan," she said. "Such a pleasure. We're all behind you."

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