Chapter 20: Escorted Out

The chairman did not raise his voice.

He stood at the head table with both hands on his cane.

Four hundred people waited to hear what he would say.

"Whitney," he said. "Is it true?"

"Father, it's a stunt.

"She's a grieving woman with a tape recorder and a grudge."

"I didn't ask what she is.

"I asked whether you went to a hospital clerk and bought the name of a donor."

Whitney opened her mouth.

I watched her look for the line that had always worked.

"You told me," the chairman said slowly, "that you arranged Dalton's transplant through the Hartwell fund.

"You told me you had persuaded a surgeon to move him up the list.

"I was proud of you.

"I have told that story at three dinners."

"It was close enough," Whitney said.

"It was a lie that made a young man your servant."

He turned to the woman in the green dress.

"Madam, I believe you were at the Club that Friday."

The woman put down her glass.

"I was at the next table, Mr. Chairman," she said. "I heard every word.

"She said the girl would give him anything and could never count the dates."

A sound went through the lobby.

It was a low sound, many people shifting at once.

The chairman nodded once.

"And the ambulance?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

The bellhop, at the foot of the stage, lifted his phone.

"I have the call, sir."

"Play it."

He played it.

Whitney's voice came out of the house speakers, soft and perfectly pleasant, over the heads of the donors.

Nobody calls 911, not at the front doors.

Ten minutes. She'll keep.

Four hundred people listened to it in the same lobby where it had been said.