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“Thanks for getting back to me,” Bernstein joked.

“Well, hello, Mr. President.”

“I’d say call me Matt, but I like Mr. President.” He got a little laugh out of her. “Where am I reaching you?”

“I’m in Arizona.”

“You live there?”

“Most of the year, yes.”

“That sounds great. Can you take a day or two and come see me?”

“When, sir?”

“How’s tomorrow?”

“That would be fine.”

“I’ll give you back to Annie; she will make the arrangements. I really look forward to sitting down with you.”

“May I ask what this is about?”

“If we like each other and we get along, I’m going to offer you a job. A good job. A great job. That’s all I can tell you now.”

“Okay. I’ll be there. See you then.”

This was a good sign. If she was really retired and had no interest in returning to work, she would have balked or asked more questions. He liked her voice and her attitude. He purposely did not want visual communication on this first contact; he would wait until they were face-to-face. It always made a bigger impression that way.

* * *

The Chicago Center would be filled to capacity. Almost ten thousand people, all over the age of seventy, and most over eighty. This was the typical Sam Mueller audience. He was one of the preeminent speakers to the older crowd. Some thought the experience of hearing him speak was almost evangelical. Maybe because he cured cancer, they would be cured of something, just by being in his presence. It was why his lectures always sold out.

He and his son were driven to the Chicago Town House, a small, very upscale boutique hotel located just two blocks from the event. They were taken to the fifth floor, where they had one side of the hallway for themselves. The hotel had joined all of the suites together so they had a total of five bedrooms, three living rooms, and three master baths with steam rooms and whirlpools. Plus kitchens and a gym and a gorgeous player piano.

Sam, no matter how rich he became, was always knocked out by this stuff. He just never could believe this was where he had wound up. Mark was a different story. This was all he knew. His father was disappointed that this didn’t wow his son in the same way, but he accepted it. “What do you think of the spread?”

“Cool,” Mark said. “I’ll take the room at the end.”

“Why don’t you take the suite next to mine? Why go all the way down there?”

“I don’t know, I like it down there.”

“Fine. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m going to take a little nap. If you go out, be back by six so we can walk over together.”

“We have to walk?”

His father tried not to lose his temper. “Mark, it’s two blocks. I want to walk.”

“Okay, that’s cool.”

“Thank you.” His father closed the door to his suite. This is my fault. They have too much. It’s my fault. And as he lay down for his hour nap he started to think of ways to correct it. No inheritance? Military school? Change the shrink or the medicine? He didn’t know what to do. Maybe Mark would snap out of it, although with each passing day in the spoiled kingdom that seemed less likely.

Kathy and Max arrived at the event early. They left the urn locked in the trunk. They had a momentary thought that it could be stolen, but what was the worst that would happen? That someone would discard the ashes somewhere else? Maybe they would even put them in a prettier place, like a golf course or a garden, or the aquarium. But of course, no one was going to steal it.

They bought the cheapest seats, which were in the last two rows of the balcony. They were four hundred dollars each, which in 2030 was considered a bargain. They wanted to be the first ones in the auditorium so they could watch the crowd. See who all of these older people were who idolized this man. See exactly who it was who would pay big bucks to hear a lecture called “Aging Without Pain.”

There were so many new medicines for pain; it was one of the largest aspects of the big pharmaceutical companies. The science of pain medicine had advanced over the years