He went back to retrieve it. Obviously, he must be more upset than he realized. You couldn't get anywhere in the DigiCom buildings without a passcard. Sanders bent over, picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket.
Then he felt the second card, already there. Frowning, he took both cards out and looked at them.
The card on the floor wasn't his card, it was someone else's. He paused for a moment, trying to decide which was his. By design, the passcards were featureless: just the blue DigiCom logo, a stamped serial number, and a magstripe on the back.
He ought to be able to remember his card number, but he couldn't. He hurried back to his office, to look it up on his computer. He glanced at his watch. It was four o'clock, two hours before his meeting with Meredith Johnson. He still had a lot to do to prepare for that meeting. He frowned as he walked along, staring at the carpet. He would have to get the production reports, and perhaps also the design detail specs. He wasn't sure she would understand them, but he should be prepared with them, anyway. And what else? He did not want to go into this first meeting having forgotten something.
Once again, his thoughts were disrupted by images from his past. An opened suitcase. The bowl of popcorn. The stained-glass window.
"So?" said a familiar voice. "You don't say hello to your old friends anymore?"
Sanders looked up. He was outside the glass-walled conference room. Inside the room, he saw a solitary figure hunched over in a wheelchair, staring at the Seattle skyline, his back to Sanders.
"Hello, Max," Sanders said.
Max Dorfman continued to stare out the window. "Hello, Thomas."
"How did you know it was me?"
Dorfman snorted. "It must be magic. What do you think? Magic?" His voice was sarcastic. "Thomas: I can see you."
"How? You have eyes in the back of your head?"
"No, Thomas. I have a reflection in front of my head. I see you in the glass, of course. Walking with your head down, like a defeated putz." Dorfman snorted again, and then wheeled his chair around. His eyes were bright, intense, mocking. "You were such a promising man. And now you are hanging your head?"
Sanders wasn't in the mood. "Let's just say this hasn't been one of my better days, Max."
"And you want everybody to know about it? You want sympathy?"
"No, Max." He remembered how Dorfman had ridiculed the idea of sympathy. Dorfman used to say that an executive who wanted sympathy was not an executive. He was a sponge, soaking up something useless.
Sanders said, "No, Max. I was thinking."
"Ah. Thinking. Oh, I like thinking. Thinking is good. And what were you thinking about, Thomas: the stained glass in your apartment?"
Despite himself, Sanders was startled: "How did you know that?"
"Maybe it's magic," Dorfman said, with a rasping laugh. "Or perhaps I can read minds. You think I can read minds, Thomas? Are you stupid enough to believe that?"
"Max, I'm not in the mood."
"Oh well, then I must stop. If you're not in the mood, I must stop. We must at all costs preserve your mood." He slapped the arm of his wheelchair irritably. "You told me, Thomas. That's how I knew what you were thinking."
"I told you? When?"
"Nine or ten years ago, it must have been."
"What did I tell you?"
"Oh, you don't remember? No wonder you have problems. Better stare at the floor some more. It may do you good. Yes. I think so. Keep staring at the floor, Thomas."
"Max, for Christ's sake."
Chapter 5
Dorfman grinned at him. "Do I irritate you?"
"You always irritate me."
"Ali. Well. Then perhaps there is hope. Not for you, of course for me. I am old, Thomas. Hope has a different meaning, at my age. You wouldn't understand. These days, I cannot even get around by myself. I must have someone push me. Preferably a pretty woman, but as a rule they do not like to do such things. So here I am, with no pretty woman to push me. Unlike you."
Sanders sighed. "Max, do you suppose we can just have an ordinary conversation?"
"What a good idea," Dorfman said. "I would like that very much. What is an ordinary conversation?"
"I mean, can we just talk like normal people?"
"If it will not bore you, Thomas, yes. But I am worried. You know how old people are worried about being boring."
"Max. What did you mean about the stained glass?"
He shrugged. "I meant Meredith, of course. What else?"
"What about Meredith?"
"How am I to know?" Dorfman said irritably. "All I know of this is what you told me. And all you told me is that you used to take trips, to Korea or Japan, and when you came back, Meredith would-"
"Tom, I'm sorry to interrupt," Cindy said, leaning in the door to the conference room.
"Oh, don't be sorry," Max said. "Who is this beautiful creature, Thomas?"
"I'm Cindy Wolfe, Professor Dorfman," she said. "I work for Tom."
"Oh, what a lucky man he is!"
Cindy turned to Sanders. "I'm really sorry, Tom, but one of the executives from Conley-White is in your office, and I thought you would want to"
"Yes, yes," Dorfman said immediately. "He must go. Conley-White, it sounds very important."
"In a minute," Sanders said. He turned to Cindy. "Max and I were in the middle of something."
"No, no, Thomas," Dorfman said. "We were just talking about old times. You better go."
"Max-"
"You want to talk more, you think it's important, you come visit me. I am at the Four Seasons. You know that hotel. It has a wonderful lobby, such high ceilings. Very grand, especially for an old man. So, you go right along, Thomas." His eyes narrowed. "And leave the beautiful Cindy with me."