The mug on his desk was half full. Nicole decided to take him up on his offer – a show of solidarity, as it were; her first cup of coffee as a partner in the firm. She filled one of the styrofoam cups by the coffee machine. When she tasted, her eyebrows leaped upward. “Is that Blue Mountain?” she asked.

“You’re close.” He smiled. “It’s Kalossi Celebes. A lot of people think it’s just as good, and you don’t have to rob a bank to buy it.”

As if you need to rob a bank, Nicole thought. Her office window looked out on the street, and on the office building across it. His offered a panorama of the hills that gave Woodland Hills its name. He had a mansion up in those hills; she’d been there for holiday parties. Serious money in the Valley lived south of Ventura Boulevard, the farther south, the more serious. Sheldon Rosenthal lived a long way south of Ventura.

He made a couple of minutes of small talk while she sipped the delicious coffee, then said, “The analysis you and Mr. Ogarkov prepared of the issues involved in the Butler Ranch project was an excellent piece of work.”

There. Now. Nicole armed herself to be polite, as polite as humanly possible. Memories of Indiana childhood, white gloves and patent-leather shoes (white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day, never either before or after), waylaid her for a moment. Out of them, she said in her best company voice, “Thank you very much.”

“An excellent piece of work,” Rosenthal repeated, as if she hadn’t spoken. “On the strength of it, I offered Mr. Ogarkov a partnership in the firm this morning, an offer he has accepted.”

“Yes. I know. I saw him downstairs when I was coming in.” Nicole wished she hadn’t said that; it reminded the founding partner how late she’d been. Her heart pounded. Now it’s my turn. Let me show what I can do, and two years from now Gary will be eating my dust.