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few generations,
but five hundred years or more.” Pearce’s gaze became solemn,
profound, and full of troubled calculation. “I meant what I said
earlier,” he said finally. “Come to New York, as soon as possible -
this week, if you can. I have to talk to you about something.” He
made a quick, abrupt movement of his head toward Jean de la Valette
who was just then on his way outside. “It’s about The Four
Sisters.”
    He patted Hart on his sleeve and told him he
had to go. He had not taken three steps when he turned back. “I
don’t trust many people, Bobby; not anymore. What I told you about
The Four Sisters - Don’t tell that to anyone, not even that you
know the name.”
     
    Hart watched as the former treasury secretary
made his way through the crowd. Pearce was a small, average looking
man easily confused for an accountant’s assistant, someone brought
into a meeting of government officials to take notes or
double-check figures, until he began to talk and off the top of his
head analyze a budgetary problem or a financial question with the
same cogent ease as someone reading from the printed page. Pearce
had never been short for an answer, never baffled by a problem,
always calm and collected, never irritated or impatient, never for
any reason disturbed - until now. He had not admitted it, not in so
many words, but he had seemed almost frightened of this thing
called The Four Sisters, whatever it really was: an investment
house or, as he had put it, something more than that. Who was Jean
de la Valette, wondered Bobby Hart, and what was his connection to
Robert Constable?
    “That looked interesting.” Charlie Ryan was
standing right in front of him, but Hart had been so lost in
thought he had not seen him approach. “You and Austin Pearce seemed
to be having quite a conversation. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
    “I’m not sure what it was about. He wants to
see me about something. Maybe I’ll find out then,” replied Hart,
glancing at Ryan in a way that told him that was all he could say.
“Have you done the honors?”
    “Yeah, I went through, mumbled a few words
about what a great man he was. I don’t envy her, having to stand
there like that, forced to turn private grief into a public
ceremony. She called me by my first name. They were always good at
that, weren’t they? - making you feel you were someone they
especially liked.”
    Ryan checked his watch. He looked around the
room in case he had missed someone he wanted to see or needed to
speak to. “A few more minutes,” he said to Hart, “then I’ve got to
go.” He nodded toward the receiving line. It was shorter than it
had been. “You haven’t yet, have you?”
    “No, but I guess I better. I’ll catch up with
you later. We’re on for dinner tomorrow, right?”
    Hart took another glass from a passing waiter
and made his way to the back of the line. He tried to think of what
he was going to say, but all he could think about was the great
inconsequence, at times like this, of saying anything. He had never
yet found words that did not sound empty and false when he tried to
express sympathy and support to someone who had lost a husband or a
wife, a parent or a child. He was too honest to imagine that
anything could make much of a difference to someone who was
suffering the unspeakable agonies that come with the knowledge that
someone you loved, someone who loved you, was now gone forever.
Forever, that was the point. The journey had come to an end and
there was no starting over, no chance to make amends for the things
you wish you had not said or done, no chance to do what you had
always planned to do once you had the time, because time was over,
time had died.
    The line kept moving forward, and then,
suddenly, he was standing in front of her, and he still did not
know what to say. The words came automatically. “I’m very sorry,”
he heard himself saying as he held her hand for a brief moment in
his own. “If there is