"Jenny Albritton did a good job with the editing of the interview you gave regarding the Owen murder, and it has been played at least three times over every television outlet. She appreciates the way McGaw and McKay worked with her on it. She also reported that she has all her ducks in a row for the arrival of Mr. Williamson, one of the new Founders of the Society of Merit. He and his family will get very special attention.

"Joe Deets reports receipts up five-point-two percent for the year ending August fifteenth, compared to the previous year.

And the ratio of all expenses to all income from all sources is down by eight tenths of a percent. I have no report from Walter Macy."

"None at all?"

"He promised it and then he said he had been too busy. Too many things had piled up. He said he would get around to it."

"Did he know you wanted it for our weekly meeting?"

"Yes, he did. He seemed very upset about Molly Wintergarten."

"Everyone is upset, of course. Would he have had anything special to report, as far as you know?"

"I don't think so. He just seemed nervous and irritable and confused."

"Go ahead, then. Anything from my sister?"

"She wants to set up a music scholarship so she can attract some better voices for the choir. She's very anxious that everyone try very hard to show the Reverend Tom Daniel Birdy how happy we'd all be to have him here. And she suggests heavier concentration on our mission effort in Guatemala and Peru. That's about it."

"Which brings us down to your special little chores, Finn," John Tinker said.

"Which one first?"

"The media coverage of the Owen murder."

That's softening up fast. They're leaving. I've talked to Coombs and Dockerty, and I've checked it out with Rick Liddy checked what the officials told me and the general feeling is that nobody is ever going to find out who killed her.

Too much time has passed. To keep a story going you need little additives. Even that magazine, Out Front, called their girl back to New York. The husband is waiting for them to release the body for cremation, and then he'll leave."

"Why are they keeping it?"

"Chemical analysis. They might want to do more."

"How about accreditation?"

"All the colleges with a religious orientation have come in except two, and I have promises from them. So we're looking for the right names with lots of degrees. I've suggested we set up the office in Cambridge. Borrow some respectability from proximity."

"How about the medical complex?"

"We have some problems there."

"Like what?"

"It's difficult for me to explain."

"You better give it your best shot, Efflander."

Finn sighed.

"I guess we got off on the wrong foot in the beginning, John. Somehow I've given you the feeling that you can alarm me, personally. Okay, you've detected alarm, but it is just alarm about what might happen to the things I've built around here, the administrative structures, the personnel structures. So when you threaten me and say, "You better give it your best shot, Efflander," in that harsh tone of voice, all I want to do is try to keep you from meddling in the structure, in the lines of authority and responsibility."

"Why should my meddling, as you call it, alarm you?"

"I've spent six years creating something that works. It works in spite of all the reasons it shouldn't work. I don't expect you to be able to understand how delicate that structure can be if you push it in the wrong direction. I've seen a new CEO come into a fairly healthy company and drive it into the ground in eighteen months. I have a lot of loyalty to what I've built."

"And no loyalty to me?"

Finn smiled.

"I do what you tell me to do as best I can."

"And it ends up being done your way."

"Sometimes, John."

John Tinker Meadows sat silently for thirty seconds. Finn could hear the huff of the air vent, a subsonic rumble of compressors, the clatter of elevator doors.

Finally John Tinker said, "So I am not as subtle and wise and all-perceiving as you are when it comes to managing all the little departments and compartments of this place. But I have one damn good idea of direction. I set policy."

"That is quite correct. I carry out the policy you set. And now I have some problems carrying out the policy you decided on for this medical complex. The problem is personnel."

"Why should it be a problem when we have the money to hire the very best? And what a temptation it could be for a good man to be in on it from the beginning."

"In a sense," Finn said, "I anticipated what the problem would be. The land is no problem. We can pick up three thousand acres northwest of here, between our rear line and the Interstate cloverleaf, for two million two. Or the same acreage ten miles south of here for one million seven. Money isn't a problem, according to Joe. He can earmark two hundred million and keep it in securities we can get out of very readily. Both of these would be clean deals. No kickback charitable donations. No overpricing. No planning and zoning problems at all."

"I can't see the point in setting up ten miles from here."

"Let me work around to that," Finn said. The whole thing is one hell of an idea. A teaching hospital, medical school, hotel for outpatients, nursing school, campus, dormitories, nursing homes, therapy center, all focusing on the problems of aging. It is a fantastic fit with what you have here. It makes good sense.

However."

"However what?"

Finn took a typed letter from the folder on the desk.

"I want to read this to you. You remember I told you that in searching for staff I wanted to use an old friend with an executive search group in New York. He's been working on this for six, nearly seven months. Here's what he has to say:

' "Dear Finn, It seems to be time to play a little showdown and time for me to stop kidding you. As you outlined it, it is a dream project. And, as you told me, Doctor Meadows charged you with bringing in absolutely top people for interviews down there.

' "So we have been going after the best. Nose to nose, because phones and letters are no good for this kind of project.

The key man, of course, is the medic who would head up the medical school, research wing, teaching aspects of the hospital, etc. Ideally, because this is long-range, we'd hope to find a man in his forties or very early fifties, with good tickets, good track record, well known, an administrator and a persuader as well as a top scientist, the kind of man whose name connected with anything has given it a cachet of both dignity and success in the past and will continue so to do.

' "Here is what has happened. Without naming names, we identified and isolated six men who have the characteristics you people seek. I can tell you that on the basis of the bare outline to be in charge of a huge geriatric medical center and be in on it from the ground-breaking ceremonies, and not have to get involved in fund raising, at least for many years to come these dudes really salivated, Finn. I saw each one of them personally.

' "They kept on salivating right up to the point where I told them that this was being promoted and financed by the Eternal Church of the Believer. That's when things got frosty. When they said they would consider it, I knew they meant no way.