A black sedan pulls up to the curb beside us. A tall man in a dark coat steps out into the rain.
“Mr. Victor Alvarez?” he asks. “We’ve been searching for you.”
I say nothing.
The man raises his hands calmly. “My name is Nathan Cole. I’m an attorney from Cole, Whitaker & Dunn in San Francisco. We’ve been trying to locate you for months.”
He shows me a business card and several legal documents. One name on the papers catches my attention.
Whitaker.
The envelope in my pocket suddenly feels heavier.
Nathan glances at our suitcases and then at the house behind us. Smart men recognize humiliation quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “But I have to ask… do you still have the original agreement?”
For a moment the rain fades away, and I am no longer standing on a wet street.
I am back in a machine shop in Oakland almost forty years earlier, standing beside Richard Whitaker as he stared at a strange prototype on a workbench.
“Someday this design will be worth a fortune,” Richard had told me.
Back then I laughed.
Men like me didn’t imagine fortunes.
Now I look back at the lawyer.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
Nathan studies me carefully.