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newspaper were stored
     on microfilm. The master index would have contained file cards for “Millgate” and “Grand counselors,” and from them, Pittman
     would have learned which issues and pages of the newspaper to read on microfilm. That section of the newspaper where the microfilm
     was kept had been traditionally called the morgue, and although computer files had replaced microfilm, death was so much on
     Pittman’s mind that he still thought of himself as entering a morgue when he sat at his desk, turned on his computer terminal,
     and tapped the keys that would give him access to the newspaper’s data files.
    Given Millgate’s secretive lifestyle, it wasn’t surprising that there wasn’t much information: only a few small items since
     Pittman had researched Millgate seven years earlier. Millgate and the other four grand counselors—still retaining immense
     political power, even though they no longer had direct ties with the government—had been feted at a White House dinner, where
     the President had given Millgate the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Millgate had accompanied the President
     on
Air Force One
to an international conference on world economics in Geneva. Millgate had established an institute for the study of post-Communist
     reconstruction in Russia. Millgate had testified before a Senate confirmation committee about his high regard for a Supreme
     Court nominee, who also happened to be the son of one of the grand counselors.
    The phone rang.
    Pittman picked it up. “Obituaries.”
    A fifty-two-year-old woman had been killed in a fire, he learned. She was unmarried, without children, unemployed, not a member
     of any organization. Aside from her brother, to whom Pittman was speaking, there weren’t any surviving relatives. Thus, the
     obituary would be unusually slight, especially because the brother didn’t want his name mentioned for fear people to whom
     his sister owed money would come looking for him.
    The barrenness of the woman’s life made Pittman more despondent. Shaking his head, dejected, he finished the call, then frowned
     at his watch. It was almost three o’clock. The gray haze that customarily surrounded him seemed to have thickened.
    The phone rang again.
    This time, Burt Forsyth’s gravelly voice demanded, “How’s the Millgate obit coming?”
    “Has he…?”
    “Still in intensive care.”
    “Well, there isn’t much. I’ll have the obit finished before I go home.”
    “Don’t tell me there isn’t much,” Burt said. “We both know better. I want this piece to be substantial. Seven years ago, you
     wouldn’t have given up so easily. Dig. Back then, you kept complaining about how you couldn’t find a way to see Millgate.
     Well, he’s a captive interview this time. Not to mention, there’ll be relatives or somebody waiting at the hospital to see
     how he’s doing. Talk to them. For Christ sake, figure out how to get into his room and talk to
him
.”

11
    Pittman stood across from the hospital for quite a while. The building was soot gray. The mid-April day had been warm, but
     as the sun descended behind skyscrapers, cool shadows made Pittman cross his arms and hug himself.
    This was the same hospital where Jeremy had died. Pittman had come to the corner across from the Emergency entrance, the same
     corner where he had often stood late at night after visiting Jeremy. From this corner, he had been able to see the window
     of Jeremy’s room on the tenth floor. Gazing up through the darkness for several hours, he had prayed that Jeremy wouldn’t
     be wakened by the need to vomit because of his chemotherapy.
    Amid the din of traffic, Pittman now heard a siren. An ambulance veered from the busy street and rushed to a stop beneath
     the portal at the Emergency entrance. Attendants leapt out and urgently removed a patient on a gurney. Pedestrians glanced
     toward the commotion but kept walking swiftly onward.
    Pittman swallowed, squinted