But there was always a way out. Corvallis’s dad was the designated photographer at family reunions. He was not a hugger, but he did a dynamite job of taking pictures of people hugging; no hug could escape the sleepless gaze of his bleeding-edge Nikon. Corvallis was enormously relieved now to have a specific task in which expressing emotions was not merely unnecessary but actually somewhat counterproductive. He opened his laptop. He figured out how to get on the hospital’s guest Wi-Fi network. He forced himself to ignore all of the email that had piled up during the hour or so since he had last checked it and went to the website for Argenbright Vail. This was a Seattle-based law firm with branches in San Jose and a few other centers of the tech economy. Formerly a small, white-shoe sort of practice, it had, during the decades since Microsoft had taken root in this area, grown to the point where it now had something like a thousand lawyers. Argenbright Vail had helped Dodge form Corporation 9592, accepting payment in the form of an envelope of twenty-dollar bills, and had represented both him personally and his company ever since. Corvallis didn’t know whether Dodge even had a will, or, if he did, where it might be found, but this was an obvious place to start looking.

Argenbright Vail occupied ten floors of an office tower that was directly visible out the window of this very room. When Corvallis dialed the extension of Stan Peterson, the partner there whom he deemed most likely to know the answer to his question, he could almost imagine that Stan was visible through one of those windows, the white French cuff of his shirt flashing as he reached out to pick up his handset. For once, the telephone gods were smiling upon Corvallis, and he was able to get through on the second ring. It probably helped that he was the CTO of a hot startup, his name, title, and photograph enshrined in Argenbright Vail’s awesome high-tech phone system and displayed on the screen of Stan’s computer at the same time the phone rang.

“Corvallis Kawasaki, as I live and breathe!” Stan called cheerfully.

“Stan, are you in your office? Someplace private?”

“Yeah, let me just close the door.” Corvallis heard Stan doing so. “What’s up? Should I get Laura?” He was referring to another partner there who handled the account of Nubilant—the company Corvallis now worked for. Stan, on the other hand, was Dodge’s personal lawyer. Perhaps he was assuming that Corvallis was confused and had dialed the wrong extension. Happened all the time.

“No, this is about Dodge.”

“Is he in trouble again?” Stan asked with feigned exasperation that was meant to be humorous, and would have been, if Dodge hadn’t been brain-dead.