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housing.”
    In the chair by the window he settled down again. The apartment must certainly be warm, he thought, since it always was, yet tonight it felt as if a chill were seeping through the walls. The Jefferson Memorial looked like a carving in ice, and the world froze. He got up, shivering, to pour a glass of wine. Perhaps it would not only warm him, but put him to sleep. These days he always felt short of sleep.
    Yes, December. I shall always hate the month. As if Cynthia’s catastrophe were not enough, this week is the sixth anniversary of another death: on a Saturday night the firm of Byrne and Sons died. One of the finest architectural engineering firms in the country came to an end. Smashed. Wiped out.
    And at this recollection Lewis’s hands shook, spilling the last few drops of wine on the unread public-housing report. A disaster like that must live forever in one’s mind, he thought. He could still see the headlines in the newspapers, black letters dancing a crazy, evil dance.
    “Three concrete balconies in the new ArrowHotel International collapse. Eighty-three killed and more than six hundred injured. Rescue workers fear many more trapped inside. Toll may go much higher.”
    The horror. And Gene, my brother, my partner, still blames me. No forgiveness, no understanding, just blame.
    That structure—and it, too, he saw as clearly as if he were now standing in front of it—that elegant, milk-white luminescence between the palm groves and the Atlantic, was to have been, if not the firm’s crowning work, then at least another triumph in its list of successes from coast to coast. Arrow Hotels International had, for the past twenty years, engaged no other firm but Byrne to design their projects. And now the glory days were over.
    It had all begun with that scruffy-looking kid, Lewis thought, having an exact recollection of the morning when his secretary had announced that “some young fellow” was insisting upon seeing Mr. Byrne.
    “Some kind of a nut, is he?”
    “I don’t think so, Mr. Byrne, although you can’t always tell, can you?”
    Jerry Victor was his name. The matter was very important, of great concern to the firm, and a matter of conscience.
    “All right, I’ll see him and get it over with.”
    “That’s not a bad idea. He looks like the type who’ll keep coming until you do see him.”
    He was some sort of high-level clerk in the office of Harold Sprague and Company, the contractors. Deliberately untidy, with typically uncombed hair in a ponytail, he was well spoken, very earnest, and obviously educated. You could tell almost from his first few words that he was also a crusader. Some people, and Lewis was one of them, would say at once that he was an agitator. Admittedly, Lewis was a conservative whose tolerance for what he called “cranks” was low. Nevertheless, he listened politely to what Victor had to tell.
    He worked in a small space at the end of a narrow corridor between two offices. On a recent day sometime after working hours, he had gone back to his desk to get some important keys that he had mislaid. Except for a cleaning crew the offices were vacant, so it surprised him to overhear two men in conversation across the passage.He was certain that one of them was Mr. Sprague. The voices were low, but the walls were thin. While he was searching and unfortunately not finding his keys, he could not help but overhear. He was, he said, not accustomed to eavesdropping, but he had been so shocked by the first few words, that he had then concealed himself to hear the rest.
    “Then eight percent, is it?” asked one man.
    “Yes, isn’t that satisfactory?”
    “We had talked of ten.”
    “That’s a bit steep.”
    “You have to consider volume. We have two more jobs for you after this with Byrne. You’ll find it worth your while.”
    “How about nine percent back? How does that sound?”
    “Okay, okay. We’ll compromise. You won’t lose anything. There are more ways than one