“I have to get to the hospital.” Maggie was probably already there now.

“Vot can I do if he don’t move?”

Nothing. Should he get out and pick up a cab on Madison? If he did that, the minute he got to Madison, the blockage would clear. Then the Russian would go by and wouldn’t stop if he hailed it again. Then there wouldn’t be any more taxis on Madison. Such things had happened to him before. Gorham Master swore quietly to himself and closed his eyes. Patience. Clear his mind. Keep calm.

And try not to think of the other business. The business he hadn’t told Maggie about.

On the whole, during the last ten years, his life had still gone according to plan. He’d made VP years ago, and the bank seemed to think well of him. He’d shown a real talent for client relations, and he’d been shrewd in picking his corporate mentors. Several years he’d been awarded six-figure bonuses on top of his salary. This spring, he’d been made a senior vice president. That was important. But even more important was something else he’d been offered shortly afterward.

Stock options: the chance to buy bank stock at advantageous prices. Golden handcuffs, as they were known—for they were structured so that, to get the real benefit of the options, one needed to stay at the bank. A VP might get a promotion and a higher salary, but the only way to tell whether the bank really valued him was to follow the money. If the bank really wanted to keep him, it gave him stock options.

The city seemed to be prospering too. In 1977, just after the terrible arson and looting of the blackout, the new, feisty Mayor Koch was elected. The first thing he’d set out to do was restore the city’s disastrous finances. And he’d been remarkably successful. In a few years, the city budget was even out of the red. In ’81, Koch had actually been nominated by both the Democratic and Republican parties—such a thing had never happened before. “How am I doing?” the mayor would call out whenever he saw a crowd, and most of the time they told him he was doing pretty well.

And Gorham had married Maggie.

Their courtship had been typical of those where at least one of the partners is working a ninety-hour week. That certainly hadn’t been in the original plan.

Sometimes Gorham Master wondered, did the big law firms and investment banks overdo it a bit with the hours? It showed the young associates were serious and committed, of course, but was there an element of sadistic pride in it, like pledging for a fraternity? But unlike the frat pledges, this went on for years, until one made partner.