Page 100 of His Wall

He was not alone.

A man by the window. Large. Still. A dark windbreaker. The right side of his jacket was opened enough to show the holster at his hip.

A woman beside Conrad on the couch in a dark navy suit, dark hair pulled back, a leather portfolio open across her knees. She did not look up at me.

A lawyer.

"Julian. I let myself in. I hope you don't mind."

Keys gripped in my right hand. Phone in my jacket pocket. The man by the window eased his weight forward — a quarter-inch.

I stayed where I was.

Conrad lifted the whiskey. He drank. He set the glass down on the coaster I had bought four years ago and had never put a cup on. He stood up.

He crossed to the vinyl shelf. He ran his finger down the spines of three of the records. He lifted one out — Mingus, the Town Hall concert, the original 1962 pressing my mother had bought me for my eighteenth birthday — and he held it up at me with a small fond smile.

"I bought you a Mingus once. Thursday lunch. The week before your mother — "

"Don't."

He paused.

"Don't talk about my mother, Conrad."

He set the Mingus back on the shelf.

He turned. He crossed to my desk. He looked at the sketches I had not put away — the twelve-story building, the bridge, the doorway that led nowhere. He picked up the bridge.

"You still draw."

I did not answer.

"Your mother would have liked that, Julian."

"I asked you not to talk about my mother."

He set the bridge down. He turned to face me. The warm look did not flicker.

"I want to tell you a story about a young man I met ten years ago, Julian. Brilliant. Broken. Needed someone to believe in him."

"I know the story."

"Then you know how it ends. I gave you the capital. I opened the doors. I built the foundation you are standing on. And your partners kept every dollar of it and forced me out of the building like I was the problem."

He took a step back to the couch. He sat down. He nodded at the woman beside him.

She opened the portfolio.

She slid a stack of bound documents across the coffee table toward me. The cover page was tabbed with three small flags. The header read Acquisition Agreement: Vanguard Group Holdings.

"You know this is not my style, Julian."

He picked up his whiskey.

"This was supposed to be quiet. Documents at a conference table in three weeks. A press release written by people who get paid to write press releases. A handshake. But you have been pushing me, son."

"Don't call me that."