The park is small, but the pond in the middle of it is perfectly picturesque and the shadows around the south shore deep as I sit on the bench, watching the basketball game.

Footsteps approach on the gravel path, and I look over, my man appearing precisely on time. He sits down, trying to look casual and failing.

Me? I don’t care if someone sees me. I control this game. I am above most of the rules.

“Sir.”

His tone holds excitement, news he’s eager to share. And because of that, I make him wait, drawing out the moment of anticipation, both for my own delight and the man’s frustration.

“Look at them,” I start in conversationally, keeping my voice low.

I indicate the game across the pond, where the sweaty group of young men continue to pound the asphalt with their rubber ball, wasting their time with their stupid game.

“And they wonder why they’ll never get close to touching power or influence. Some of those boys have been out there for over an hour.”

“It’s a fun sport,” my man says, looking across the pond. “When I was in high school, I played on my school’s team. Small forward. I even got All-Conference my senior year.”

“Hmph,” I reply, unimpressed. I’m finished with the rare attempt at small talk I used to delay the man’s delivery. If he won’t learn from the crumbs dropped from my table, he’ll learn the hard way eventually. “You said you have an update?”

“Yes, sir. It seems that our mutual . . . acquaintance is dipping his pen in a company inkwell.”

“Is that so?” I ask, amused. The Golden Boy, Mr. Perfect, finally doing something that could be turned to my advantage? The timing couldn’t be better. “And how do you know this?”

“Everyone in the vicinity of the twenty-fifth floor on Tuesday around lunch knows,” he says with a degree of disgust. “It was . . . obnoxious to hear his name screamed so loudly. Oh, and she called him ‘Tommy’.” The man’s eye roll is worthy of a teenage brat.

“Hmm, I would’ve thought the Goldstone Building had better soundproofing.”

My man laughs bitterly, nodding. “It does. She’s just that loud.”

Something about the way he sneers is almost more telling about his thoughts than the actual words. He dislikes this woman. Or maybe likes her, and feels affronted anew by her actions with the Golden Boy.

Curious.

I file the information away in my mental rolodex of data in case it ever becomes useful. Frankly, it’s those little tidbits of information that people hand away all the time that make my life possible.

“And Goldstone, he’s enamored with this woman?” I ask, and his man nods. “Interesting.”

“He’s taken her out once, they’re attending the fundraiser on Friday, and he fucked her in the meeting room,” my informant says. “I’m not sure how serious it is, but it’s certainly a vulnerability, even if it’s only because she’s an employee.”

“Then we simply need to apply pressure at the right times, in the right ways,” I muse, feeling the first nebulous tendrils of a plan start to swirl in my mind.

“I want you to bring me every bit of information you have on this woman. We’ll push him, even if there are risks. But we need to move relatively quickly. This deal is worth more than millions. It’s worth a legacy. My legacy.”

“I understand.”

My man gets up and leaves, and I lean back, watching the young men across the pond continue to waste their time playing their stupid game.

I have never been one for such a dirty game. Power is more than your ability to toss a rubber ball through a metal hoop like a trained monkey. Even growing up, I shunned the common games of my classmates for pursuits more befitting someone of my class. Chess, polo . . . even a bit of squash to maintain the heart.

Still, I have to admit, the strength that sports like this form in the young men is admirable. They don’t know it, but it’s building the muscle and dumbing down the mind so that later on, they can become good little minions in the games of the truly powerful.

Like me.

And that, I muse, gives the basketball players a sort of noble futility, poetic in their usefulness. So let them play their games.

“After all,” I whisper, getting up while still remaining totally in the shadows of the warm summer evening, “we all have games we enjoy playing.”