A dozen implications unfolded. His mind was already at work planning the campaign. He was thinking of people to see, wires to pull, angles to check.
"I guess I accept," he said quietly.
Raymond smiled and reached into his desk. He handed Harker a check drawn on a Manhattan bank for $2,400, payable to James Harker, and signed Simeon Barchet, Treasurer.
"What's this?"
"That's four weeks salary, in advance. Barchet's the trustee who administers the Beller Fund. I had him write the check yesterday. I was pretty confident you'd join us, you see."
Harker spent a quietly tense weekend at home with his family. He told Lois about the assignment, of course; he never kept things from her, even the most unpleasant. She was dubious, but willing to rely on his judgment.
He worked off some of his physical tension by playing ball in the backyard with his sons. Chris, entering adolescence, was developing an athlete's grace; seven-year-old Paul did not yet have the coordination needed for catching and throwing a baseball, but he gave it a good try.
On Sunday the four of them drove upstate to a picnic ground, ate out, even went for a brief swim though it was really too early in the season for that. Harker splashed and laughed with his sons, but there was an essential somberness about him that Lois quietly pointed out.
"I know," he admitted. "I'm thinking."