“Mr. Tomlinson wants to talk with you in private, so don’t leave before the two of you have had a chance to chat, okay?”

Jake nodded, wondering what he should say, what he could say. The waiter reappeared with a tall glass of ginger beer on a silver tray and Amy Wexler melted back into the crowd. Jake looked around for a familiar face, knowing that there couldn’t be anybody he knew in this bunch. These people come from money, he knew. They wouldn’t be caught dead in my neighborhood.

“Some party, isn’t it?”

Jake turned to see a man in a suede jacket and jeans grinning at him. Instead of a tie he wore at his throat a bolo with a jet-black chunk of onyx set in intricately worked silver.

“I’m Bob Rogers,” the man said, extending his hand.

Jake shook hands with him. “Jake Ross.”

Rogers was about ten years older than him, Jake judged. His face was seamed, as if he’d spent a good deal of his life out in the open. He had a lean, leathery look to him, emphasized by the suede jacket and bolo. Crinkly pale blue eyes and wispy sandy hair. He held a tapered pilsner glass in one hand, nearly empty.

“You think all these people will support Tomlinson if he runs?” Rogers asked.

Jake hesitated a moment. Then he replied, “If he runs, I guess they will. They must be his friends.”

His grin widening a bit, Rogers said, “If Tomlinson decides to run for the Senate, he’ll ask them to open their checkbooks. Then we’ll see how many of them are really his friends.”

Jake grinned back. “Yeah, I guess it’s easy to be a friend when the guy’s handing out free drinks.”

Rogers pointed toward the big French doors on one side of the room. “Looks a little less crowded over there.”

Jake edged through the crowd alongside Rogers. Through the tall glass doors Jake could see green hedges baking in the afternoon sunshine and a corner of a swimming pool.

“Bet that’s an Olympic-sized pool,” Rogers said. “Nothing halfway about the Tomlinsons.”

“You know them?” Jake asked.

“I’ve met him and his father a couple of times. At university functions. They’re big donors.”

“Are you at the university?”

“Electrical engineering department.”

Feeling relieved, Jake said, “Astronomy.”

“No kidding?”

“Do you know—”

Jake felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw Amy Wexler standing beside him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, beaming that cheerleader’s smile at him. “Mr. Tomlinson would like to see you now, Dr. Ross. In the library.”

Jake gave Rogers a rueful look. Rogers hoisted his nearly empty glass of beer and said, “I’ll see you later, Jake.”

“Right.” And he let Amy Wexler lead him through the oblivious crowd toward the library and his private chat with B. Franklin Tomlinson.

B. Franklin Tomlinson

B. FRANKLIN TOMLINSON