My immediate boss was there to provide an audience. Feiner had black curly hair and the rapt ascetic look of a man seized by some compelling inner vision. It had taken me about two months’ acquaintance to perceive that the inner vision involved McGuire’s job. McGuire was either too self-obsessed to notice or too secure to care; he let Feiner dog him like a skinny shadow. I suspected that McGuire was fonder of pets than people.

“We’ve got something big here.” McGuire spoke in bursts, as if complex sentences required too much patience. “Where the hell were you?”

“Conferring with my secretary.” I sat facing McGuire and tried for an expression of polite interest. “What have you got?”

McGuire stared at me a moment longer, as if I’d insulted him. Then he leaned back from the table and eyed the ceiling, as if gathering his thoughts. Feiner assumed an expression of grave attention. “This is a very sensitive thing,” McGuire began.

I was surprised. “Sensitive” was not in McGuire’s standard lexicon, in any context. “Why?”

“Do you know William Lasko?” McGuire asked.

“Sure. The President’s favorite industrialist.”

McGuire nodded. “We got a tip while you were gone that someone was playing some games with the price of his company’s stock.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me. Someone called me last week.”

I was interested in spite of myself. “And that’s all he told you?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at Feiner. “What about Ike’s market watch people? They spot any pattern in the stock?”

“No.”

“Any idea who called?”