Astonishing. The kelp was real. The sunfish. The eels. The coral. All real. The sharks especially, with their supple gray skin, their singular eyes, their choreography of motion like elegant fencers.

So beautiful. So rich. You were there, you were part of the ocean. Part of the chain of nature.

There was not, as yet, much content in 4K—you needed special cameras to shoot it—but it was coming. If only the family on the rocks at Asilomar had lingered but a minute longer he might have given the Get their ultra-high-definition deaths; his Samsung Galaxy featured such a camera.

Somebody’s not happy…

The landline phone rang and he snagged it, eyes still on the waving kelp, so real it might have been floating in the room around him.

The receptionist announced that a Larry Johnson had arrived.

“Thank you. Send him over.” Wondering why that pseudonym.

A few minutes later Christopher Jenkins was at the door.

March let his boss into the entryway. A handshake and then into the luxurious suite. Once the door was closed, a hug too.

Mildly reciprocated.

Jenkins, who, yes, resembled March somewhat, was in his fifties, broad-shouldered, compact—a good six inches shorter than his employee—and tanned. His hair was blond, close cropped and flat against his skull. A military bearing because he had been military. He glanced up at March’s shaved head.

“Hmm.”

“Had to.”

“Looks good.”

Jenkins didn’t really think so, March could see, but he’d never say a word against his favorite employee’s appearance. To March, Jenkins seemed no older than when the two men had met three years ago. He was a bit heavier, more solid. Jenkins had his own Get, but it wasn’t March’s. Amassing money was what numbed Jenkins’s demon. Whether buying a Ferrari for himself or taking a boy out for a thousand-dollar dinner or finding a Cartier bauble…that was what kept Jenkins’s Get at bay.

Odd, how their respective compulsions worked. Symbiotic.

“Carole says hello.”

“And to her too.”

One of the girls Jenkins had dated on and off. March wasn’t sure why he kept the facade. Who cared nowadays? Besides, you can’t cheat the Get, which knows what you want and when you want it, so why complicate things. Life’s too short.

“Your drive good?”

“Fine.” Jenkins had a faint Bostonian clip to his voice. He’d lived in a suburb of Bean Town before the army.

March had ordered the best—well, the most expensive—wine on the list, a Château Who Knew from France. A 1995. Had to be good; it was six hundred dollars. It was already open, He’d had a taste. It was okay. Not as good as Dole.

“Well. Excellent!” Jenkins said, looking over the label—all Greek to March, a private joke, considering his heritage.

He allowed Jenkins to pour him some of the sludgy wine and they tapped glasses, toasting their success. Over the past few days they’d made several hundred thousand dollars.

“Always loved it here, the Cedar Hills.”

Chris Jenkins reminded March of the people in those infomercials: the handsome man, next to the beautiful woman, on a Florida or Hawaiian porch, boats in the background, palms nearby, talking about how they’d made millions with hardly any effort in the real estate market or by inventing things. In Jenkins’s case, his fortune arrived from selling something very, very rare and valuable.