Wren watched the Wiz check his watch. He seemed distracted. He had seemed so since his arrival, as if other things commanded his attention and he was just putting in his time here until he could get to them. They had agreed to meet for drinks after Simon had been detained earlier in the day at a meeting with the mayor and been unable to keep their noon appointment. When he was done here, the Wiz had a TV interview scheduled. Maybe that was what he was thinking about. No rest for the wicked, Wren thought sourly, then immediately regretted it. He was being perverse because he hadn’t found anything bad to write about Simon Lawrence. No skeletons had emerged from the closet. No secrets had revealed themselves. The anonymous tips had not panned out. His instincts had failed him. He sipped at his drink some more.

“I appreciate your meeting me, Andrew,” Simon said, smiling now. He was dressed in a dark shirt, slacks, and sport coat, and he looked casually elegant and very much at ease amid the convention suits. Wren, in his familiar rumpled journalist’s garb, looked like something the cat had dragged in. “I know I haven’t been able to give you as much time as you would like, but I want to make sure you feel you’ve been given full access to our records.”

Wren nodded. “I’ve got no complaints. Everyone has been very cooperative. And you were right. I didn’t find so much as a decimal point out of place.”

The smile widened. “You sound a tad disappointed. Does this mean you will be forced to write something good about us?”

Wren pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Looks that way. Damned disappointing to have it end like this. When you’re an investigative reporter, you like to find something to investigate. But you can’t win them all.”

Simon Lawrence chuckled. “I’ve found that to be true.”

“Not lately, I’ll wager.” Wren cocked an eyebrow expectantly. “Lately, you’ve been winning them all. And you’re about to win another.”

The Wiz looked unexpectedly skeptical. “The shelter? Oh, that’s a victory all right. It counts for something. But I wonder sometimes what it is that I’m winning. Like that general, I keep thinking I’m winning battles, but losing the war.”

Wren shrugged. “Wars are won one battle at a time.”

Simon Lawrence hunched forward, his dark eyes intense. The distracted look was gone. “Sometimes. But some wars can’t be won. Ever. What if mine against homelessness is one?”

“You don’t believe that.”

The Wiz nodded. “You’re right, I don’t. But some do, and they have cogent arguments to support their position. A political scientist named Banfield posited back in the early seventies that the poor are split into two groups. One is disadvantaged simply because it lacks money. Give them a jump start and their middle-class values and work ethic will pull them through. But the second group will fail no matter how much money you give them because they possess a radically present-oriented outlook on life that attaches no value to work, sacrifice, self-improvement, or service. If that’s so, if Banfield was right, then the war effort is doomed. The problem of homelessness will never be solved.”