Gorham muttered a curse. The truth was he didn’t really like John Vorpal; however, they both served on the co-op board, so he had to make efforts to get along. But since Vorpal became chairman of the board, he and Jim Bandersnatch were doing a bunch of things that Gorham didn’t approve of.

“John, I can’t talk now.”

“We need to discuss 7B. They want an answer. Are you around on Sunday?”

“No, I have to be up in Westchester.”

“That’s too bad, Gorham.”

“After dinner tonight?”

Maggie gave him a dirty look. But what could he do? At least this might keep it brief.

“After dinner then.” Vorpal wasn’t pleased either.

But if John Vorpal insisted on having a private talk about 7B, which was already on the schedule for the meeting next Wednesday, well, to hell with him. He could stay after dinner.

There was only one problem. If John Vorpal was going to say what Gorham thought he was going to say, then he, Gorham Vandyck Master, was going to have a very serious disagreement with him. It could be a blazing row. And one really didn’t want to have a blazing row with the chairman of the board of a Park Avenue building.

The game was due to start a little after 1 p.m. They really needed to get going.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re taking the subway.”

“We are?” his son said, in astonishment.

Didn’t anyone in this family use public transport? When the nanny took young Gorham, Jr., or his siblings to any of their appointments, she took a taxi. When Bella ran errands for Maggie, she probably took a taxi too. At least, he thought, it cost less than having your own car and driver, which several of the people in the building did.

The Masters kept just two cars. The Mercedes sedan in the garage round the corner, and a nice blue SUV for Maggie, which lived in the garage of the country house.

“Getting in and out of Yankee Stadium can be a hassle,” he said firmly. “The subway will be quicker.”

As they rode in the subway, Gorham looked at the three boys with affection.

Gorham Vandyck Master, Jr., a thirteen-year-old, fair-haired son of privilege; Richard, eleven years old, a thinner, wirier version of his brother; and young Gorham’s best friend, Lee.

Gorham could never figure out Lee’s Chinese name exactly, but it didn’t matter, because everyone called him Lee. He had met Lee’s parents one time when they had come to collect him from the apartment. They lived up in Harlem, hardly spoke a word of English; the father was a plumber or something. But their son was a genius.

It always seemed to Gorham Master that Lee was totally round. His friendly face, under a mop of black hair, was round. His body wasn’t fat, just round. His temper was so easy that Master reckoned his psyche must somehow be round, so that everything bounced off it. Lee took the subway from Harlem each morning and, Master was convinced, just turned himself into a ball and rolled along the sidewalk from the station to the school.