The Prodigal Spy

Chapter 16

Larry was furious, and wounded. They had lunch in the quiet dining room of the Knickerbocker, overlooking Fifth Avenue, because he wanted to avoid the communal table at the Brook, but even here, so private that business papers were not allowed at table, people came over to say hello, a hand on the shoulder and an innocuous comment about Uncle Ho’s keeping him busy and who was the fine young fellow with him. Larry put on his Van Johnson smile, but Nick could see his irritation, each interruption wasting precious time.

It was a typical Larry meeting, caught on the run, with a return plane to Paris waiting, a phone call expected, so that Nick became marginal, someone he’d managed to fit in. But Nick hadn’t wanted it either. Molly had taken the film to a photographer friend downtown, and Nick had watched it drop into her purse with dismay, afraid to let it out of his hands for even a minute. Outside, with its swarms of bright yellow taxis, New York was rich and busy and filled with sunshine, everything Prague was not, but all he could think about was Molly being followed or the photographer-how good a friend? — amazed at the pictures appearing in the fixing tray. But Larry had insisted; he had only the afternoon. So they both sat there, prickly, like pieces of tinder ready to ignite. When Larry said, “Chicken salad and iced tea. Two,” Nick wanted to jump on him. I can order myself. A kid again.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me? That’s what I want to know. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“I told you, he didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Well, that’s typical, isn’t it? I suppose you know your mother’s a wreck. For Christ’s sake, traipsing around behind the iron curtain without telling anyone. Now, of all times. What do you think I’m doing in Paris, going to the Louvre? Did you ever think how this would look for me?”

“No, Larry, I never thought about that.”

“Well, thanks very much.”

“It had nothing to do with you.”

“Of course it did. You’re my son.”

“I was his too.”

“I’m surprised you wanted to see him. After everything. Why didn’t you ask me to arrange it if it was so important to you? Do it the right way, not sneak around like this. Like some-” He hesitated. “Spy,” he said, unable to resist.

Nick looked at the man his father had thought would help. Mistaken about everyone to the end, except Nick. “What’s the right way? What would you have said?”

Larry looked away. “I’d have tried to talk you out of it, I suppose. What was the point, Nick? All these years.”

“The point was he wanted to see me. Before he died. I couldn’t say no to that.”

“Before he died?”

“I think he knew.”

Larry looked away, disconcerted. “What did he want, to tell you he was sorry?”

“More or less.”

“Christ. So off you go. Not a word. And the next thing I hear you’re in a Communist jail-”

“I was never in jail.”

“And now I’ve got the FBI all over me. Did you know your son is in Czechoslovakia? Oh, really. Fucking Hoover on the phone. Now I’m supposed to owe him one. God knows what that favor will be. Your son’s been arrested, but we got him out. Well, thanks, Edgar, I appreciate it. Do you have any idea what it’s been like?”

“They didn’t get me out. You don’t owe him anything.”

“Well, they still want to see you. Is there something else I should know before they start calling me again? What’s all this business about him coming back? What did he tell you?”

“He said he wanted to come home, that’s all. Maybe the FBI thought he meant it. I don’t know why. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Larry paused. “He said that, about coming back? Christ. What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t real, Larry, just some dream he had.” And here, with the sun flashing on the yellow taxis, was it anything more?

“How could he think-? Come home. He must have been out of his mind.”

“Yes, he must have been,” Nick said, an edge. “He killed himself.”

Larry stopped and looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

Nick said nothing, letting the moment hang there, everything awkward. The chicken salad arrived. Larry sipped his iced tea.

“They said you found the body. That must have been-” He switched tack, avoiding it. “How did he do it? They didn’t say.”

“He jumped off the balcony,” Nick said, matter-of-fact.

“Jumped?”

“It’s an old Prague custom. Like Jan Masaryk.”

“Yes,” Larry said, surprised at the reference. “I remember.”

Another awkward pause, a sip of tea.

“That doesn’t always work. Was he still alive when you found him?” Larry asked, his tone almost delicate, talking around it, like asking a cancer patient the details of his medication because you couldn’t ask how it felt to die.

“No. No last words,” Nick said.

“It must have been terrible. Finding him.”

“Stay away from it. That’s why they thought I killed him, at first. It wasn’t jail, you know, just a few questions.”

“Christ, what a mess,” Larry said. “You’d think he’d have waited. Not while you were still there.”

“I don’t think he was thinking about that, Larry,” Nick said.

“No.” A quick step back.

“Maybe it’s because I was there. His seeing me. That’s what the police think.”

Larry grabbed his arm across the table, almost violent. “Don’t you think that. Ever. Don’t you do that to yourself.” Then he pulled his hand back and looked away. “Hell,” he said, general, meaningless, like shaking his fist in the air. He picked at his salad, letting the polite room settle around them. “What was he like?” he said finally, as if they were just making conversation.

“The same. Different. He was sick. I met his wife.”

“What’s she like? A Russian?”

“No, Czech. They met in Moscow, though. She didn’t talk much. He wanted to talk about old times.”

“Old times?”

“When I was a boy,” Nick said. “Not politics. Not what happened.”

“No, I guess he wouldn’t.”

“Jokes we used to have. You know.”

“No, I don’t,” Larry said, irritated, then caught himself. “Never mind. What else?”

“Nothing. We went to the country. We went to a Benny Goodman concert.”

“God.”

“He was just happy to see me. I thought so, anyway. I had no idea he was thinking about-”

“No, he was always good at that. The old Kotlar two-face.”

“Come on, Larry.”

He sighed and nodded, an apology.

What else? How Nick’s heart had turned over that first night at the Wallenstein? Putting him to bed? His face at the gallery, gazing at the fatted calf? The bottomless regret? None of it. “He showed me his Order of Lenin,” Nick said instead.

“Well, he earned it,” Larry said sourly. “I’m sorry, Nick. A couple of jokes and old fishing stories? I remember other things. I remember you. The way you walked around looking like you’d been kicked in the face.”

“I remember it too, Larry,” Nick said quietly.

“He shouldn’t have done it,” Larry said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Making you go there. All these years, and he just crooks his little finger like nothing happened. Jokes. I’ll bet he was charming. He was always charming.” He spoke the word as if it were a kind of smear. “He charmed me. Well, they’re all good at that. All smiles. You ought to sit across a table from them. Day after day. Not an inch. They don’t want us out, they want us to keep groveling. Showing you his medal-was that supposed to make you proud? What do you think he got it for?”

Nick stared at him, amazed at the outburst.

Larry put down his fork and looked out the window, visibly trying to retrieve control. “He shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “You might have got in real trouble. I didn’t know you were there.”

Nick waited a moment. “I’m sorry you were worried, but nothing happened. I’m back. He wasn’t charming. He was a sick old man. Now he’s dead. It’s over.” He paused. “What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know,” Larry said, still looking out the window. Then he turned back to Nick, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe I’m jealous. It’s hard to share someone.” He picked up his fork, then put it down again, as if a prop would distract him. “You were so stubborn. Like an animal. You wouldn’t trust anyone. And I thought, I’m not going to let this happen to him. Okay, at first it was for your mother. I never thought about having a kid, not even my own. You were just part of the package. But there you were. You wouldn’t give an inch either.” He paused, a smile. “Just like old Ho. Maybe you were my special training. But then it changed a little. Then a little more. The funny thing was, I wasn’t winning you over-it was the other way around. I loved being your father. All of it-all those things I didn’t expect. Christ, those hockey games.” He looked up. “I thought you were mine. You remember the way people would say we were like each other and you’d give me that look, our little secret? But I loved it when they said that. We are a little, you know. I see myself in you sometimes. I don’t know how that happens. Of course, I don’t see myself farting around London when you could be making something of yourself here. Well, I had to say it. But I know you will.” He looked straight at Nick. “You’re the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So maybe I’m jealous when someone has you so easily. One call and you come.”

“And if you called, I wouldn’t?”

“Well, you like to be the only one. Maybe it’s wrong. I never thought I’d have to share you, but I do. So I’ll learn. Even with him. I thought Walter was a fool-I’m sorry, I did, I can’t pretend. But I don’t want you to think I am too.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool.”

“Well, you will if I go on like this. A little unexpected, isn’t it? Maybe I’m getting old, a little fuzzy. But a stunt like this. Christ, Nick. Wait till Hoover tells you your kid is locked up somewhere.” Larry paused and Nick saw the hint of a question in his eyes. “But it’s all over now.”

“Yes, it’s all over.”

Larry glanced at his watch. “I have to run, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear. Go see your mother, she’s expecting you. You might skip the body details-you know, after he fell. She’s been- It brings everything back. So maybe just the old jokes. And how you weren’t in jail.” He paused, a glint. “And his wife.”

He got up and started out, Nick following. “I shouldn’t leave her, but I’ll be back Friday. It’s like the shuttle, back and forth to Paris every week. They love face-to-face in Washington these days, I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t trust the phones. Well, they’re right. Remind me to tell you the latest about Nixon and old Edgar. The War of the Roses. To tell you the truth, I don’t mind the planes. No calls. You get to read the papers.” They were on the bright marble steps, traffic honking, the quiet formal rooms behind them like some misplaced dream of London. “By the way, what’s with the hotel? You’ve got a perfectly good room at home sitting there.”

“I’m with a girl.”

“Really?” Larry said, interested. “Serious?”

But Nick ignored it. “We’re only here for one night. To see you. We go to Washington tomorrow.”

“What’s in Washington?”

“Friends.”

“What friends?”

Nick smiled at him, the suspicious parent. “Hers. This must be your car.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s black and important. Big aerial. Isn’t it?”

“Wise guy,” Larry said fondly.

“By the way, did you get a call from Jack Kemper?”

Larry looked at him, suddenly alert. “No, why?”

“He’s with the CIA in London. I used his name. I told the embassy in Prague I was working for him. That’s why they got me out. Not the Bureau. You don’t owe Hoover anything.”

Larry blinked, taking this in. “How do you know he’s with the CIA?”

“You told me. At the Bruces’ party.”

Larry looked at him, then smiled, an insider’s laugh. “Who said my kid couldn’t think on his feet? They’d better watch you.”

“Well, they may. And you. I heard Kemper was upset. That’s why I thought you should know.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Larry said, taking his hand, but Nick leaned over and hugged him. Larry held him for a moment, surprised and pleased. “I’m glad you’re home,” he said, no longer joking, an apology for the lunch.

“Get us out of Vietnam,” Nick said as Larry got into the car.

“I’m trying, believe me,” he said, then rolled up the window and the car slid toward Fifth Avenue.

The photographer was in a rundown building on Delancey Street, near the bridge, two unlit flights up.

“You Nick, man?” he said, opening the door a crack. Long hair, a face corrugated with old acne scars. When Nick nodded, the door opened into a huge empty space with exposed pipes, littered with tripods, light cables, and back screens. The living quarters seemed to be a camp bed and a trestle table overflowing with Chinese takeout cartons. A young girl in a flimsy short dress sat on a stool, smoking a joint. “Molly’s in there,” he said, nodding toward a bare red bulb hanging over an enclosed space. “Your prints are still drying. What the fuck are they, anyway? I mean, they’re in fucking Russian.”

What had Molly told him? “ Samizdat,” Nick said.

“Samitz who?”

“Underground manuscripts. They have to smuggle them out. You know, like Solzhenitsyn.”

“Far out.”

“Want a hit?” the girl said dreamily, holding out the joint.

Nick shook his head.

“I’m not going to get in any trouble or anything, right?” the photographer said.

“No, nothing like that. I appreciate your help.”‘

“Hey, no problem. Old Molly. Samizyet,” he said, shaking his head.

“What kind of photography do you do?” Nick said, to make conversation.

“Fashion,” he said, grinning. The girl giggled.

Molly came out, stuffing an envelope into her bag. “Hey, thanks, Richie.” She went over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You do great work.”

“Fucking A. You got them all? Don’t leave nothing in there.”

“All here,” she said, patting the bag. “I’ll see you, okay?”

“Yeah. Say hi to your mom.”

As they were leaving, the girl with the joint began lifting the dress over her head, her body as thin as a child’s.

“The people you know,” Nick said when they hit the street, bright after the dark stairs.

“Richie? We went to high school together.” She laughed to herself. “In the glee club.”

They stopped at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue to buy a Russian-English dictionary.

“What’s the point?” Nick said. “We can’t translate this. It’d take months.”

“No, but we might get some idea what it is. What were you going to do, get one of the girls at the UN? Would you mind taking a look at these? Just a few espionage documents I happened to pick up. By the way, do you have a safe-deposit box or something? For the negatives.”

“No. I’ll put them somewhere at home. I have to see my mother anyway.”

“Alone?”

Nick nodded.

“A little too early to take me home to Mom, huh?”

“A little too early for Mom. She’s got other things on her mind.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll run up to Bronxville and see mine. Since we’re being so good.”

“But you’ll be back tonight?”

“Hmm.” She looked at him. “I’m not that good. Besides, I always wanted to stay at the Plaza. How rich are you, anyway?”

He smiled. “Rich.”

“And Catholic. You are Catholic, aren’t you?”

“Baptized, anyway.”

“She’ll die. She’ll just die.”

The photographs, in impenetrable Cyrillic, seemed to be a series of reports, not a simple list.

“See how they’re dated up here? Like memos.”

“This is impossible, Molly. Even if we figure out the letters, we still have to translate the Russian.”

“Well, the numbers help. We can figure out the dates,” she said eagerly. “And see the words in block capitals? They all have them. It’s a format, if we can figure it out. They sign off that way too.”

But the dates, once deciphered, were all recent, none of them reaching back to his father’s time.

“They’re the active ones, that’s why,” Molly said. “These are the reports they’re getting now. I’ll bet the caps are names. Look, this one’s Otto. So who’s Otto?”

“A code name,” Nick said, then sighed. “We have to know the context, Molly. Look at the dates-they’re not consistent. It’s a selection. Maybe they’re the incriminating ones. Each one nails somebody, if you understand it.”

“Hold on,” she said, distracted, looking something up in the dictionary. Nick walked over to the window and looked across the street to where the hansom cabs were idling in the afternoon sun.

“Serebro,” Molly said, running her finger down a page. “Yes. Come look.” But Nick was still eyeing the street, watching the taxis pull up under the 59th Street awning. She brought the book over to him, pointing to the word.

“Silver,” he said. “By him or about him?”

“By him. The signature.”

He glanced at the photograph. A report, exactly like the others, same format, so not original, typed by someone in Moscow. From cables? By Nina, perhaps, his father’s friend, Silver’s admirer. “Yes, but we have to know what it says. Didn’t any of your friends go into the translating business?”

“No, only dirty pictures.” She hesitated. “You could ask your father. He’d know someone.”

“You could ask Jeff,” he answered back. “Want the phone?”

“Look, let’s think about this. What would reports say? Not necessarily who they are, just what they’re passing on. I mean, the reports still might not identify them. You’d have to know who the code names referred to.”

“Great. No, we need the context. I mean, if it’s a trade report, it’s someone in Commerce. Like that.”

“But how would we know exactly who in Commerce? Are you listening to me? What are you looking at?”

“It’s a pickup zone,” Nick said, still watching out the window. “So why is that car just sitting there? The doorman acts like he doesn’t even see it.”

“Maybe it’s waiting.”

“I don’t think so. Two guys. Feels like old home week to me.”

“Let me see,” Molly said, getting up, accidentally knocking the photographs to the floor. “Shit.” She bent down, collecting them.

“One of them’s on the corner, so they’ve got both entrances covered.”

“Don’t get paranoid,” Molly said, still crouched down, sorting the pictures. “I’ll bet it’s a divorce. This isn’t Prague, remember?”

Nick said nothing. The man below lit a cigarette.

“Well, bless me for a fool,” Molly said. “Nick, look.”

“What?”

“I thought they were all alike, but look. At the end.” Nick came over. “It’s a list.”

He took the photograph. “But of what?”

“Code names and addresses. Five of them. See. That’s NW at the end.”

“Washington.”

“There’s Otto. Come on, we can translate this. The street names’ll be in English.”

“What were the letters for Silver?”

She glanced down the list. “He’s not here.”

But someone can lead me to him. “Never mind. Let’s do the others.” He grinned at her. “How’d you get so smart anyway?”

“Bronxville High,” she said. “Look at Richie.”

The maid opened the door, someone new, a thin black woman wearing a housedress and comfortable bedroom slippers.

“She’s in there, feeling sorry for herself. See if you can get her to eat something.”

His mother was sitting on the long couch, staring out across the park. The room was almost dark.

“There you are,” she said, holding out her arms. “I was getting worried.”

He leaned down and kissed her, smelling the gin on her breath. “Want a light?” he said, reaching for the lamp.

“No, leave it. It’s nice like this. Anyway, I look terrible.” Her face in fact was blotchy, like a blur sitting on top the sharp edges of her perfect suit and its gleaming brass buttons. “I’m having a cocktail.” She glanced up. “Just one. You?” He shook his head. “I don’t know why. I don’t really like them.” She took a sip from the wide-mouthed glass. “Did you see Larry?”

He took a seat beside the couch, unnerved by her voice-dreamy, the way it had been the day after his father left.

“He said you were in jail.”

“No,” Nick said. “The police just asked me some questions. I’m all right.”

She turned her eyes back to the window. “What did he look like?”

“The same. Thinner. Not as much hair.”

“Waves,” she said absently. “It’s hard to imagine-” Nick waited.

“Was he happy?” But she caught the absurdity of it herself. “Before the end, I mean.” She reached for a cigarette.

“No. Not happy. I think he just made the best of it. While he could.”

“Isn’t it terrible? I don’t think I could stand it if he’d been happy. Isn’t it terrible. To feel that.”

“He asked about you.”

“Did he?” she said, her voice almost eager, and then she was crying, her face scrunched like a child’s. “I’m sorry,” she said, running a finger under her eyes. “I don’t know why I mind so much. I didn’t expect to. You’d think-” She took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. “I must look like hell. I’ve been doing this all day. Silly, isn’t it? It’s just that I keep thinking-” Nick looked at her curiously. All these years without a word. She blew her nose. “What did he say?”

“He wondered if you’d ever want to see him again.”

“If I’d ever want to see him again,” she repeated dully, staring at the handkerchief. “I won’t now, will I? He’s really gone, not just away somewhere.” She paused. “I’ve never been a widow before. All of a sudden, you’re alone.” She tried to smile, airy. “Nobody to go dancing with. Hear the songs. He was a good dancer, did you know?”

“No.”

“We used to have fun. I’d get all dressed up, he liked that, and-” She stopped again, catching his look. “Don’t worry. It’s just that it all comes back. All the fun.” Her eyes went back to the window, fixed somewhere in the fading light. A silence. “See him again,” she said slowly. “I wanted to see him every day. Every single day.”

I hope you die, she’d said.

“I never knew you felt that way. I mean, after-”

“Didn’t you? No, nobody did. Maybe I didn’t myself. I thought it would stop,” she said to herself, still staring out the window. “How do you stop? I was in love with him,” she said simply. The rest of it doesn’t matter, you know. Not any of it. I was in love with him.“ Her voice was dreamy again. ”People don’t say that anymore, do they? ‘In love.’ “

Nick looked at her, remembering his awkwardness on the train.

“But then, we were all like that. Drugged with it. That was our drug. All those songs. It’s what everybody wanted, to fall in love. Maybe it was the war, I don’t know. But I did. Just like in the songs. He would just walk into the room.” She paused. “Just walk into the room. That’s all. And I’d be-” She stopped and looked at him. “Am I embarrassing you? Children never think their parents feel anything.” Her face softened. “But you’re not a child anymore. You look so much like him. The same eyes.”

“He never stopped loving you either.” A kindness, but wasn’t it true? He remembered the look on his father’s face when he asked about her.

“Did he say that?” Her eyes moist again.

Nick nodded, not quite a lie.

“No, you never stop. I don’t think I realized it until I heard.” She turned back to the window. “I thought he — took it with him. Everything. The way he took the fun. And then I heard and it all came back. He was there all the time. Nobody else. I didn’t know.” She started crying again, shuddering, shaking her head. “Nobody told me I’d miss him. Nobody told me. Then you’re alone.” She turned her head, a thin wail, no louder than a sigh.

Nick looked at her, dismayed. “You’re not alone.”

She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I know, honey, I didn’t mean it that way.” She sniffled, visibly pulling herself back. “What would I have done without you? It’s different, that’s all.”

“I mean you have Larry.”

“I never loved Larry,” she said flatly, putting out her cigarette. “I never loved anyone but your father. Not for a day. Didn’t you know that?”

No, I didn’t, Nick wanted to say. “But you married him.”

“Yes. I don’t know why. I suppose to make him stop asking me. Maybe I thought it would be safer-better for you. Who knows why we do things? Maybe I thought it would be a way to forget.” Her hand was still at the ashtray, rubbing the cigarette out. “I was wrong about that. In a way it made it worse, all the pretending. Anyway, I did. Not very fair to him, I suppose, but it’s what he wanted.”

“He’s crazy about you.”

“Larry?” She looked up at him. “Larry was never faithful to me in his life. Not that I cared. Well, at first. Then it was a relief, really. I never had to worry about him. Larry always took care of himself.” She paused. “Now I am embarrassing you.”

“How did you know?” Nick said, disbelieving. Where had he been while their lives were going on?

“Oh, darling, people are always helpful. Telling you things. For your own good. I suppose they thought I’d mind. Divorce him, which is always interesting. But, you see, I didn’t care. I mean, he never flaunted it, there was no reason not to go on as we were. He was always very fond of you.” She shrugged, ironic. “A model husband. It’s just the way he is. So why should I mind?”

“You don’t really mean that.”

“No, not really,” she said quietly. “But that’s the way it worked out. I don’t know what he expected, marrying me. I often wondered. I think he wanted it because he wanted it. The idea of it. But after a while it didn’t matter. You get used to everything, even the looks. ”Poor Livia.“ That’s the only part that used to bother me, the way they’d look at you. As if you didn’t know. Tim was the worst. Those eyes. Like he was praying for you.” She touched Nick’s arm. “You ought to go see him, by the way. He’s had a stroke now. They were giving him speech therapy. Funny, isn’t it, to think of Tim tongue-tied. Funny how life works out. One day you’re-” She broke off. “And the next day you’re a widow. And it’s all gone.” She turned to Nick. “I’m glad you saw him. No matter what. You were everything to him. Was it all right, when you saw him? The way it was? I remember when you were little, that look he’d get on his face-” She reached for the handkerchief. “He couldn’t get enough of you.”

“It was the same,” Nick said, suddenly claustrophobic in the dark room, the air itself swallowed up in her longing.

“He must have known. To want to see you before. It’s terrible, knowing like that.” As if his father had been lying in a hospital bed, waiting for the end, not being hurled over a balcony. The only way she would imagine it now, her dying lover.

Nick stood up and turned on the light. “It’s getting dark.”

She looked up, surprised, then nodded into the handkerchief. “And here I am wallowing. There’s not much point, is there? Going on like this. There,” she said, wiping her eyes again, “all gone. Now. How about taking an old lady out to dinner? We’ll go somewhere nice.” She stood up and glanced at him. “I suppose you’re dressed. It doesn’t seem to matter these days. I’ll just go put on my face.” She stopped. “I’ll be all right. Really. Somewhere nice. Lutece.”

Nick checked his watch. “Can we get in? I mean-”

“Darling. Use Larry’s name.” She started to move away, then turned. “Nick, all this about Larry-I shouldn’t have told you that. You mustn’t mind. He cares about you. All this other-it doesn’t matter, really. It’s just life. My life, not yours.” She tried a smile. “Well, I won’t be a minute. We’ll have dinner. You can tell me everything that happened. How he lived. All that. Was he still funny?”

“Not as funny.”

“Oh,” she said, a catch in her throat, then dismissed it. “Well, everything. Even the bad parts.”

“Are you sure you want to know? Maybe it’s better if-”

“Yes,” she said, looking at him seriously. “It’s important. Everything about him. I have to know. All these years, nobody would talk about him. I was supposed to be-I don’t know, ashamed, I guess. Larry wouldn’t. I think it embarrassed him. Maybe he thought it would hurt me. But it can’t now. I want to talk about him.” She paused, looking down, her voice faltering. “You see, I didn’t know before. There isn’t going to be anyone else. I’m not ashamed. He was the love of my life.” Then she turned and left.

Nick stood for a minute looking at the rich, soft room, the dull sheen of silver boxes and picture frames in the half-light, their old ormolu clock on the mantel, then went over to the window. Across the park, the familiar apartment towers had begun to light up: Majestic. Beresford. El Dorado. Movie castles, not the grim Hradcany, looming over a dark city. None of it had to happen. All their happiness. To protect somebody else.

“I won’t be a minute,” she called from her dressing room, her voice almost an echo.

She took ten. But when she appeared she was ready to go out, hair brushed back, lips red, fixed in a smile, the prettiest girl at Sacred Heart.

“How do I look?” she said.

“You look beautiful.”

Her face softened, a real smile. “You always say that.”

Molly was late.

“Remind me never to complain about Czech trains again,” she said, flinging her bag on the hotel bed, full of energy. “At least they run. I had to wait an hour and then we got stuck. And of course she had to wait with me. Good old Kathleen. Made me realize why I left home in the first place. Still, it was worth it. Wait till you see what I’ve got.” She looked over at him, noticing his distant expression. “How was your mother?”

“Sad,” he said quietly, not wanting to discuss it. “What have you got?”

“What they call evidence.” Molly sat, poking in her bag. “Take a look. Rosemary’s last letter. My mother had it all these years-not a word. She said she never showed it to anyone because it was too shameful. Despairing. Anyway, I wheedled it out of her.”

“A suicide note?” The letter was written on old correspondence paper, one sheet folded over to make four sides, the writing thick and hard, almost pressed through so that the ink had barely faded.

“I don’t think so. Look.” No margins, the girlish handwriting running from side to side in a solid block.

Dear Kathy,

Thanks so much for the $. I know things aren’t easy for you either and I wouldn’t have asked but I’m almost flat. I’ll pay you back when I’m on my feet again. I wish I knew when that will be. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do and when all this business is going to end. I could tell from your letter, Kathy, that you think it’s all my fault but honestly it’s not, please don’t think that. I don’t know how it started, it’s like a bad dream, and I just wish it would end. The newspapers don’t bother me much now but I guess they’ll start up again and then I don’t know what. At least now I’ll have some $ for a new dress.

You ask me if I’m sorry I got involved with the ‘Reds’ in the first place. I suppose you want me to say yes, so yes. But I still think what they say makes a lot of sense. I guess all I can say is that it sounded like a good idea at the time. I am sorry that I got talked into doing what I did. You know I would never do anything against this country. I didn’t think it was ’treason‘ the way they say in the papers. I was just helping out, for a good cause. Well, I know better now but that doesn’t help much. I thought one confession was enough. At least it wouldn’t be on my conscience. But I guess Washington isn’t like the church. They always want more-no absolution. I thought I was finished with it but I guess I wasn’t.

So I don’t know what I’m going to do. Pray for me, if you think God is still listening. Thanks again for the $. Give my love to Molly and don’t be angry with me.

Love, Rosemary

P.S. You’ll be happy to hear I haven’t been seeing my ‘friend’. I wish I was, in spite of everything. Since this business started, it’s been hard. “Good,” I can hear you say, but he’s not what you think. He’s not even married like the other one so don’t worry about that. Just scared, like everybody else here. I’m sort of a famous character here (!). I guess I should leave Washington when all this is over but where would I go? Well, maybe God will forgive this too. Got to run. Thanks again. I’ll pay you back. Promise.

Nick read it twice, trying to connect the simple schoolgirl scrawl to the twisted figure on the car roof. Everybody wanted to be in love then.

“What’s the evidence?” he said finally.

“Well, it has to be some kind of evidence. It’s the last thing she ever wrote. What was on her mind.”

“A new dress,” Nick said quietly.

“Which you don’t buy if you’re going to- Not if you have to borrow money for it.”

“We knew that. You don’t take your nightgown either. Who’s the man? Did your mother say?”

“She didn’t know. Just that Rosemary was seeing somebody. The married one was in New York, before she went to Washington. She and my mother had a big fight about him-you know, how wrong it was-so she was probably a little gun-shy after that about her love life. Especially if she was borrowing money from Mother Kathleen. Anyway, it sounds like he ditched her.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Nick said thoughtfully. “Just scared.”

“Maybe just careful. Of a famous character. Well, that’s one piece of evidence, anyway. It wasn’t my father. He was married at the time.”

“Unless he lied to her.” She caught his look. “Well, people do. All right, I don’t think he did it either.”

She took the letter back and looked down at it. “Maybe I’ll try confession too. Look what it did for Aunt Rosemary. You notice how nothing’s her fault? Her conscience is clear. Pretty crazy, the whole thing, the more you look at it.” She glanced up. “I don’t think she was sorry about anything. She just wanted my mother to think so. The guy’s not so bad. Even the Communists still make a lot of sense. She was just helping out. I love the exclamation mark-little innocent me. Just a bad dream. ‘I don’t know how it started.’ How hard would it be to figure that one out? ‘I don’t know how it started.’ ”

“But she didn’t,” Nick said. “My father told us. She never volunteered. They went after her.”

“Well, either way. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is somebody else started it. Everything that happened.”

But he was talking to himself, another conversation, and Molly wasn’t listening. “‘Give my love to Molly,”’ she said, pointing to the phrase. “If she saw me twice in her life, it was a lot. She was probably just getting ready to put the touch on old Kathleen again. You know, my mother thought she was wonderful. Wild, but-you know. That’s why she kept it. I’ll bet she never thought Rosemary was just fooling her too. God.”

“She wasn’t fooling anybody. She seems more sad than anything else.”

“You keep saying that. You’ve got sad on the brain. You need cheering up.” She reached up and put her hand on the back of his neck, tossing the letter on the bed. “Let’s forget about them. Kathleen asked me if I was in New York with a man.” She giggled. “So I told her I’d seen Richie. I thought she’d die.”

“So would I, if I were your mother.”

“But you’re not, are you?”

“No.”

“And you’re not married.”

“No.”

“So there’s nothing to worry about. Just my soul.” She stretched her neck and kissed him. “Here’s an idea. Let’s smoke a joint and make love. All night.” She nodded to the ceiling. “No microphones.”

“I liked the microphones,” he said, smiling. “Where’d you get the stuff?”

“Well, I did see Richie. There’s no end to his talents.”

He kissed her. “Was he a good kisser?”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t get past the Clearasil. Anyway, I don’t kiss just anybody.”

“No?”

“No. Consider yourself lucky.”

“I do,” he said into her ear, a murmur. “But let’s skip the joint. We have to get up early.”

“We do? Why?”

“Our friends down there left after I got in,” he said, still whispering, back at the Alcron. “So they’re probably on a shift, not working all night. I figure they won’t get here before seven, so if we leave early, they won’t even know we’re gone.”

She pulled back, surprised, as if someone had turned on the news. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“I have help. You’re the one who got the letter.”

“Maybe you should take it up. What are you going to do when this is all over?”

“Go work for Jeff,” he said.

“I work for Jeff,” she said, kissing him.

Chapter 17

They took a taxi at dawn and waited, groggy, at the Eastern terminal for the first shuttle. New Jersey was a nap, and then they were circling Washington, Nick at the window feeling he’d entered a time machine, twenty years compressed into minutes. The monuments lined up as they always had along the Mall, changeless. His house somewhere to the left of the Capitol. But on the ground everything was different, whole streets of boxy new office buildings beyond the White House, bland and faceless, a discount Bauhaus, like a rebuilt city in Germany. They checked in at the Madison, its ornate ballroom still littered with last night’s wedding, then went for a walk. A few of the trees were still in flower. Everyone carried briefcases.

“Where are we going?” Molly said.

“The Mayflower. I want to see it.”

And of course it looked smaller, the awning he remembered near the car in the picture just an awning, the public spaces inside a little tired, no longer waiting for Truman’s car. He stood in the lobby for a few minutes, creating lines of sight between the reception desk and the elevators and the big room where the United Charities ball must have been, then gave it up. He’d imagined it a hundred times, the forbidden place of his childhood, but it was just a hotel.

They rented a car, a plain Buick, and started going down the list, driving out toward the grand houses on Embassy Row, only to discover that the first address was the Russian embassy itself.

“Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?” Molly said. “Maybe it’s like the Americans in Prague. They have to live in the compound.”

“No, there wouldn’t be room. They have too many people. Besides, I’ll bet they like to live out. It’s probably one of the attaches. They’d be in residence. It would help if we had the real names.” He put the car back in gear. “Anyway, I don’t want the Russians.”

“Somebody will.” She looked down at the paper in her hand. “Valuable little list, isn’t it?”

“Yes, they killed him for it.”

“Did they know he had it?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

She looked up.

“This isn’t going to be easy. I thought once we had it-” He remembered that feeling, a jolt of triumph, when his hand had felt it under the woodpile.

“Five names,” Molly said calmly. “They can’t all be Russian.”

The next address was a quiet row house north of Dupont Circle, on a leafy block not far from the Phillips Collection.

“God, you’d never think,” Molly said. “So what do we do, just sit here?”

“Let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll come out.”

When the door opened half an hour later, it wasn’t a man but a white-haired woman, who bent over to water one of the potted plants on the stoop, then idly looked up and down the street-an old woman with all the time in the world.

“This can’t be right,” he said impatiently. There was no one in the street but a mailman making his way down the row. The woman put the watering can inside, then came back on the stoop to wait; evidently the mail was one of the events of her day. She talked to the mailman for a few minutes, her mouth moving rapidly with words inaudible across the street, even with the car window rolled down.

“Look,” Molly said. “She’s getting a lot of mail, I mean a lot. Maybe it’s not just her in the house. You know, maybe she rents out.”

“She acts like it’s hers,” Nick said, watching her flip through the envelopes, absorbed.

“She’s just nosy.”

“Okay, I’ll find out,” Nick said, opening the door.

“What are you going to say?”

“I’m not sure.”

But it was remarkably easy, an unsuspicious world away from Prague. He had only to identify himself as someone from the Government-the Washington password — checking on her boarders, and she leaped at the diversion.

“You mean the Russian girl. There isn’t any trouble, is there? They told me there wouldn’t be any trouble. I mean, I never had a Russian, but she seems all right. Quiet. Of course, she plays these records, but I don’t mind that really. You have to expect things like that when you rent. Has she done something?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Nick said. “We just like to keep tabs, see if she’s giving you any trouble. They’re guests here, you know. Sometimes they forget that. We do get complaints.”

“Really?” she said, interested, settling in. “Well, no, she’s good as gold. No men coming around. Of course, I don’t know what she does on her own time, but she’s been no trouble to me. I won’t rent to men, just girls. That’s what Mr Baylor said before he passed away. When he was fixing up the apartments. They’ll make a nice income, but you don’t want men in the house, it’s not worth it. Me being alone. Of course, these days girls are just the same as men, aren’t they? But Irina’s all right. It’s just those language records. But I suppose she’s learning. The other girl doesn’t complain.”

“She doesn’t live alone?”

“Oh yes, the flats are self-contained. They don’t even have to share a bath. Mr Baylor put another one in, said I could charge more if people had their own place. And they’ll keep to themselves. But of course you can hear the records, the way she plays them. Still, Barbara never complains, so I just leave well enough alone. As long as they pay on time, that’s what Mr Baylor used to say.”

“Mr Baylor.”

“My husband.” She looked at him. “Where did you say you were from?”

“Immigration,” Nick said, on firm ground now. “We just like to check. Thank you. I’m glad there’s no trouble.”

“No trouble at all. Shall I tell her you were here?”

“You can,” Nick said carefully, “but sometimes it upsets them. You know what it’s like where they come from.”

Mrs Baylor nodded. “I do.”

“We don’t want them to think it’s like that here. Not with a routine check.” He had taken out a notepad and was pretending to write. “These last names,” he said, shaking his head.

“Aren’t they something? I can never remember either. Oh, well, here,” she said, flipping through the mail until she found a store catalogue. “ K at the end. Kova.”

He glanced at it. “Thanks.”

“Any time. You couldn’t do better, letting people like her in. Better than some we’ve already got.”

Nick got in the car and waved to Mrs Baylor as he drove off.

“Irina Herlikova,” he said to Molly. “Quiet as a mouse.”

“I wonder what she does.”

“She’s learning the language.”

“No. For them.”

The third address, surprisingly, was on D Street, in a black neighborhood southeast of Capitol Hill. Not a slum, but tattered, the respectable brick fronts frayed around the edges, needing paint.

“Well, at least this one’s not a Russian,” Nick said.

“We can’t stay here. Two white people sitting in a car.”

“No, let’s just get a look at the house. We’ll swing back.”

“As if no one will notice.”

But they were lucky. The house was in better repair than its neighbors, trim, a neat front yard, and on their third pass a man in uniform came out, moved a tricycle to the end of the porch, and, taking out his keys, walked toward a new car parked in front. Nick turned at the corner and waited.

“Let’s see where he goes.”

“Have you ever followed anybody?” she said, her voice eager, enjoying it.

“I’m learning on the job.”

It turned out to be harder than he expected. He waited a few minutes after the car passed, then rounded the corner to find it idling at a red light.

“Don’t slow down. He’ll notice,” Molly said.

Green. Their luck held. Another block and a car came out of a driveway and put itself between them. Nick relaxed. More blocks. The new car moved smoothly, never running lights, as orderly and correct as its owner.

“But where’s he going?” Nick said. “There’s nothing this way. Why doesn’t he go into town?”

They followed for ten more minutes, unhurried, and then Nick saw the wires and gates, the sentry checking passes. The black man held out an ID badge and was waved through. The sentry looked up at Nick, who turned away, pretending to be lost.

“What is it?” Molly said.

“Anacostia. The naval base. I forgot it was down here. Well, that fits, doesn’t it? A little Red dot on the sonar screen.”

They drove up around the Jefferson Monument, then out through the park along the river and over the bridge. The fourth address was in Alexandria, not the Old Town of cobbled streets and ice cream shops but the maze of streets behind, lined with two-family houses. Anywhere.

“They’re certainly not doing it for the money,” Molly said, scanning the street.

“No. A better world.”

“1017. Next to the one on the end.”

They found a space two houses down and parked, then sat and had a cigarette. Another quiet street, a few children coming home from school.

Molly looked at her watch. “I’ll bet there’s no one home. Not at this hour. They must all do something, work somewhere. Otherwise, what good would they be?”

“I forgot to ask where the Russian girl worked.”

“We’ll find out. It’s only the beginning, you know. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

“It’s not going to happen here at all,” Nick said, putting the key in. “You’re right. We’ll come back in the morning.”

“Wait. Let’s find out who he is, anyway. Be right back.”

She got out, walked over to the house, and rang the doorbell. What would she say if someone answered? She rang again, then looked around once and put her hand into the mailbox, pulling out a few pieces and shuffling through them. It took a second.

“Ruth Silberstein. Miss,” she said in the car.

“Silverstein?”

“Ber.”

He drove past the house. “We’ll come back.”

“She gets the New Republic, if that means anything. Where’s the last one?”

He looked at the list. “Chevy Chase.”

“God, they’re all over the place. Creepy, isn’t it? No one has the faintest idea. You can walk right up and look at their mail. They could be anywhere.”

“Undermining our way of life,” he said, using a newsreel voice.

“Well, they are, aren’t they?”

“We don’t know what they’re doing, Molly. Maybe they’re just passing on the wheat crop estimates so somebody can make a good deal. Do you think Rosemary was undermining our way of life?”

Molly looked out the window, quiet. “Just her own, I guess.”

“Maybe they’re just small fry.”

“Your father didn’t think so.”

“No.” Names he was willing to sell, worth a life.

“What are you going to do after? With the list.”

“I don’t know,” he said, a curve, unexpected. “I’m only interested in one.”

“I mean, they’re agents.”

“So was my father.”

“But they might be-”

“I don’t know, Molly. What do you want me to do, turn them in to the committee? I can’t. It would be like turning my father in. Besides, there isn’t any committee anymore. It’s over. Just cops. Let Jeff catch them. I don’t take sides.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not anymore. Not with this.”

“So Ruth Silberstein just keeps getting her New Republics and doing whatever she’s doing.”

“I guess that depends on what she’s doing.”

“So you’ll decide,” she said quietly. “You’ll be the committee.”

A pinprick, sharp. “Yes, I’ll be the committee,” he said, the sound of the words strange, as if even his voice had turned upside down. “What’s the address?”

The house in Chevy Chase was a snug Cape Cod with shutters and a fussy herbaceous border running along the front. In December there would be a wreath on the door and candles in the window, a Christmas card house. The wide glossy lawn was set off on either end by tall hedges to separate it from the neighbors, modern ranch houses, one with a For Sale shingle stuck in the grass. There was no car in the driveway or other sign of life.

“You going to read his mail too?” Nick said.

“No, it’s a slot,” Molly said, having already looked. “They’re showing the house next door.”

“How do you know?”

“See, they’re huddling, and he keeps looking at the roof. The one in the suit’s the real estate lady. You can always tell. She’s wearing flats. With a suit. They all do that. I guess it’s hard on the feet.”

Nick grinned at her. “Are you kidding me, or do you really know all this?”

“Everybody knows that,” she said, pleased with herself. “You just never notice things.” She turned back to the window and watched the scene on the lawn, another pantomime of gestures and nodding heads. “How’d you like to live in the suburbs?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said, still looking out, “but when you see the right house.” She opened the door, then closed it behind her and stuck her head through the window. “Maybe you’d better stay here. You look like somebody from Immigration.”

He watched her dart across the street and up to the group on the lawn, disengaging the woman wearing flats, a nod toward the hedge, heads together, the couple left to the side, unmoored. A shake of hands, the woman rummaging in her purse for a card, a smile and a wave, every step light and sure. When she crossed the street she seemed to move like liquid, and he thought of her coming toward him at the Bruces’ party, walking into his life, like the songs. Now she was grinning.

“What did I tell you? They’re the CIA of the suburbs. Everything. His name’s Brown, John Brown. Like an alias, but then who’d use that? The house isn’t for sale-she’s tried. They won’t list it. But there are a few others I might like to see, just like it. He’s not married, by the way-he lives with his mother. Which is odd, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Where he works.”

He raised his eyes, waiting.

“How much do you love me?”

“Where?”

She grinned. “The Justice Department.”

“Bingo.”

They couldn’t sit there and wait, however, under the watchful realtor’s eye, so they drove into the next street, then the next, driving finally because they couldn’t stop, just being in motion a substitute for something real to do. Brown wouldn’t leave his office until five, later if he was the diligent type, so they had the rest of the afternoon to kill. Like a homing pigeon, Nick found himself drawn back to Washington, trying to make the streets familiar again.

“We still don’t know who the Russian is,” Molly said as they passed Embassy Row again.

“It doesn’t matter. He’d never use a contact from the embassy. They’re probably watched as a matter of routine. He’d never risk that.”

“So then there were four.”

“Unless Brown makes one.”

It was when they were passing the bland new buildings on K Street, glass boxes of lawyers and lobbyists, that he saw the sign and pulled up.

“United Charities Building,” Molly said. “It’s just an idea.” He pointed to the NO PARKING sign. “Move the car if someone comes. Five minutes.”

He was directed to the Events Office and a pretty blond girl who looked too young to have been alive the night of the ball. A Southern voice and perfect teeth. The office seemed a mystery to her, and Nick wondered whether she was paid or just a nice girl taking a semester off from Sweet Briar, doing good works for credit. She treated him like a prospective date from VMI, all smiles and helplessness.

“A social history? Do they know about it?”

“Not of United Charities, of Washington. Washington society.”

“Oh,” she said, interested now. “You want to know about the ball.”

“I thought you might keep the guest lists. To update them every year. Is there a file like that?”

“Well, I don’t know. I tell you what, you wait right here. I’ll ask Connie. She’ll know.” Another smile. “Nineteen-fifty? Just nineteen-fifty?” Unaware that anything had happened then; a date from the archives.

When she returned, holding a few pieces of paper, she seemed surprised that they existed at all. Nick glanced at the long row of typed names.“That’s it,” he said, nodding.

“Would you like a copy? I can use the machine,” she said, walking over to the copier.

Nick looked at the names as the sheets came out of the machine. On page two, Mr and Mrs Walter Kotlar. He saw his mother dressing, her off-the-shoulder gown.

“I don’t suppose they keep a list of who actually attended. You know, who showed and who didn’t show. One with check marks or something.”

“Check marks? No, this is all there was. You know, most everybody does show. It’s our big event. I was there this year-you know, to help out?”

“I hope they let you dance. They should.”

“Well, aren’t you nice?”

Back in the car, he flipped through the list again. “I wonder how many are dead,” he said.

“I still don’t see what you’re going to do with it,” Molly said.

“Did you see at the Mayflower how easy it would have been? You could go from the ballroom to the elevators without even passing the desk. Two exits, in fact. No one would know.”

“You could also just walk through the front door. Who’d notice, unless you were a bum?”

He glanced down. “The Honorable Kenneth B. Welles,” he said.

She looked at him. “Come on. John Brown’s body lies amolderin‘.”

There was traffic, and Brown’s car was already in the driveway by the time they got there. They sat for an hour, watching the house lights come on in the late spring dusk, occasional shadows moving back and forth behind the sheer curtains. The carriage lamp by the front door was on, as if they were expecting visitors. A dark corner, suddenly visible through the window, curtains open.

“The dining room,” Molly said, watching. “Look, a cozy dinner with Mom.” Brown sat at the table, his back to them.

Afterward the woman cleared, then passed out of sight. A light came on at the other side of the house; the dining room light was switched off. More waiting. Then they saw the blue-white light of a television in one of the upstairs windows.

“Let’s go,” Molly said. “They’re here for the night.”

“Give it an hour. Let’s see if anyone comes. The front light’s still on.”

But it was Brown who stepped into it, a middle-aged man with glasses, disappointingly nondescript, more clerk than G-man. He crossed to the driveway quickly and got into the car. A few seconds later, the glowing red taillights backed out into the street.

“Look alive,” Nick said, waiting until Brown’s car had turned the corner before he started his own.

They drove through quiet suburban streets, then finally into the busy broad sweep of Wisconsin Avenue.

“He’s going back to town,” Molly said. “Meeting somebody?”

“Maybe he’s just going back to work, now that Mom’s tucked in.”

They stayed several lengths behind, almost losing him once in the confusion of a traffic circle, but he swung onto Massachusetts and they found him again and followed, unhurried, all the way into town.

The left turn came out of nowhere, without a turn signal, and Nick missed it. He doubled back, making a u-turn in front of an annoyed taxi. Brown’s taillights were at the end of the block, turning right. At the next corner he took a right again, heading back to the avenue.

“He knows,” Molly said. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t think so. He’s not trying to lose us.”

“No, to catch us, see if we’re here. Look, there he goes again.”

Another diversion, then back into the light traffic.

“Maybe it’s standard procedure. To make sure nobody’s following.”

“Before a meeting? I always thought they met on park benches.”

They drove past the White House, where Nixon was plotting the peace, then down around the Willard and back up 13th Street. The old downtown was deserted now, abandoned to drunks. Brown stopped at an intersection just down from New York Avenue and pulled over.

“He’s parking,” Molly said. “Well, it’s not a bench.”

The storefront was outlined with a marquee of flashing light bulbs, its papered-over windows shouting XXX-RATED. MAGAZINES. NOVELTIES. PEEPS 25c. Brown walked over, looking around furtively, and went in. A few minutes passed.

“The one place nobody looks at you,” Nick said.

“They don’t?”

“Stay here. I want to see who he meets.” Nick crossed over to the store but turned to the window, startled, when the door opened again. Brown. He glanced toward Nick, then, unconcerned, walked back to his car, a bag under his arm.

Keeping his head down, Nick pushed into the store, dazzled by the harsh fluorescent glare. Racks and racks of magazines, a riot of breasts and pink skin, but no one looking at them. In the back, a dimly lit room of cubicles for the film loops. The place was deserted. At the cash register, enormous plastic dildoes hanging behind, a kid in a T-shirt with shoulder-length hair pulled into a ponytail looked bored, or stoned.

“That guy who was just in here,” Nick said. “He talk to anybody?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Back there,” Nick said, nodding at the cubicles. “He go back there?”

“Fuck you.”

Nick glared at him, a cop’s look. “You want me to close you down?”

“Hey, man, I just work here. You see anybody back there? It’s slow, you know what I mean? He bought a magazine, that’s all. You want to buy one?” The kid reached under the register and picked up a baseball bat. “Then get the fuck out. You’re not fuzz. I know fuzz.”

“You sure?” He saw the kid hesitate, but let it go and turned to the door. His hand on the knob. “What’d he buy?”

“A lez mag. So he likes lez. What the fuck.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, leaving.

“Yeah, peace. Hey, close the fucking door.” Brown’s car was still there as Nick crossed the street. “He’s just sitting there,” Molly said. “What do you think he’s doing?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said, disappointed. “Beating off. He likes lesbians.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“We’re wasting our time. He wasn’t shaking a tail, he just wanted to be sure no one saw him buying dirty magazines.”

“There he goes. Let’s make sure.”

But the trip back to Chevy Chase was uneventful, no diversions, and when he went back into his house the carriage lamp went off.

“Now they can both settle in for the night,” Nick said. “I wonder if he locks his door.” He turned to Molly. This isn’t working.“

“Yes, it is. It just takes time. They’re spies. We know that. Sooner or later-”

“But how much later?”

“Let’s get another car. That way at least we can cover two of them at once.” She glanced at him. “Unless you don’t think I can do it.”

He smiled. “I think you can do anything. All right, I’ll start with Ruth. You take the Russian girl.”

“I thought you said he wouldn’t use a Russian.”

“Not at the embassy. Let’s see where she works.”

He was in Alexandria at dawn, but not up before Ruth Silberstein. A small light on upstairs, presumably the bathroom. He sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, prepared this time for a stakeout.

Twenty minutes later she was out of the house. Nick leaned forward and looked closely. Probably in her forties, carefully made up, dark hair teased into a kind of beehive helmet, like the Johnson daughters‘, a belted raincoat even though the morning was already warm. High heels and a black purse, the car keys ready in her hand, everything in its place. Even her walk was efficient, like the professional secretary she probably was. She got into a Volkswagen and ran the motor a few minutes before she pulled away. Ruth Silberstein, who are you? What do you do?

She took the direct route to the parkway, driving fast, breaking lanes. The river, shiny with sun, flew past the window. Nick got into the lane for the bridge, anticipating her, but she turned over to the Virginia side and he was forced to dodge cars to get back. Toward the cemetery. He stared at the little car, keeping her in sight, ignoring signs.

When she pulled off into a side road he had no idea where he was until he saw the vast parking lot, acres of it ringing the five-sided building. Well, the Pentagon, yes. Early, to get a space near the building, to minimize the distance in high heels. Or maybe her boss liked to start early, whoever he was, who probably thought the world of Miss Silberstein, because she knew where everything was. Nick watched her walk into the building, ready for whatever paperwork came her way, running two copies, to be on the safe side.

It was still early, so he decided to make another pass at Chevy Chase. The black Navy man seemed unlikely somehow-would Silver pass on sub designs? — and Brown, whatever his taste in magazines, was somebody at Justice. The street still seemed asleep, only a garbage truck clanking its way down the row of cans, but after two cigarettes Nick saw the door open and Brown come out, his mother on the stoop waving to him after a kiss goodbye. He was carrying a suitcase. He got in the car without even looking at the street.

This time he didn’t leave Wisconsin but headed toward the river, past the Georgetown cliffs and then over the bridge Nick had expected Ruth Silberstein to take, so that Nick found himself back on the parkway, going in the opposite direction. Not toward the Justice Department.

The car turned off for National Airport and inched its way through the crowded, winding access roads to the terminal’s long-term parking lot. Nick circled around, to see if Brown actually went into the terminal, then pulled into a space and sat, not sure what to do. The Eastern entrance. New York. Or maybe New York to somewhere else. For an instant Nick was tempted to go after him, hide behind a newspaper a few rows behind, follow his taxi. But what if it turned out to be as pointless as the adult store?

He drove back to Washington. Anacostia was down to his right, the Pentagon behind him, Chevy Chase beyond, a little necklace of spies-what did they actually do? — ringing the unsuspecting city. Or half of it, the only part he’d seen. He looked up at the Capitol in the distance. If he kept going straight on Constitution, he’d be there. The house on 2nd Street. He turned a sharp left. Never.

“I think he spotted us,” he said to Molly when he got back to the hotel room, slumping on the bed. “Going away the next day.”

“It might not be the next day to him. Maybe he’s on vacation.” She smiled slyly. “That’s why he got a magazine for the plane.”

She took out the telephone book and flipped some pages.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m finding out. If you want to know something, the easiest way is to ask.” She started dialing.

“What about Irina?”

“She works at the embassy,” she said over her shoulder.

“So.” Then, to the mouthpiece, “John Brown’s office, please.” A minute. “Yes, is he in, please? Oh, and he told me to call today. I see. Well, when do you expect him? Uh-huh. All right, I’ll try back. No, no, it’s just a friend of his mother’s.” She hung up and turned to Nick. “Was that hard? Not a vacation. He had to go out of town today, she doesn’t know why, he just called from the airport. But I should try back. He’s very good about checking in.”

“Which tells us what?”

“That he wasn’t planning to go. Something came up. I suppose we could try the New York field office, but that’s probably stretching it. I mean, what if he is there?”

“We don’t even know if he’s actually with the Bureau,” Nick said.

“Mm. Or just someone down the hall.”

“So now what?”

“Well, I knew you’d be bored. While they were at work. So I had a little idea of my own. Remember the police report on Rosemary? I got the name of the signing officer. Retired, but still alive. So I called. He’ll see us. I think he was amazed.”

“I’ll bet. Where does he live?”

“Actually, not too far from Ruth Silberstein. Al McHenry. He wheezes. Maybe he drinks. Still.”

The house smelled of medicine and old age, an oxygen tank and face mask standing guard near the lounge chair. He made tea, shuffling around in a cardigan and slippers. “It’s the emphysema. There’s not a damn thing you can do for it, either. It’s all the smokes, I guess. Well. Just throw it over there,” he said to Nick, who was fiddling with the bulky sofa pillow. “So what can I do for you? I wasn’t on that case long, you know. The FBI took it over. Moved right in, the way they do. National security. Noses up in the air, all of them. Like we’re just flatfeet. But I don’t see they got anywhere either, did they? We did everything right, you know, at the scene-the dusting, the plastic bags, the whole works, the way it should be. They’ll say we didn’t, but it’s a lie. We did it all. The fact is, there was nothing left for them to do, that’s the truth of it. If there’s one thing I’m always careful about, it’s the scene of the crime.”

“So you didn’t think it was suicide?”

He looked carefully at Nick. “Well, let me put it this way. If it was, someone drove her to it. Right there with her. She was entertaining, you know. That’s a crime to me, never mind what the book says.” He stopped and looked again at Nick. “No, I never thought it was suicide. They didn’t either, the Bureau boys, that was just the official line. I could never see it. They have a lovers’ quarrel and she gets hysterical and jumps out the window? Hell, by the time she got it open he could’ve stopped her. No.”

“Unless he never turned up. Maybe she got depressed, waiting, knowing he wasn’t coming,” Nick said, playing devil’s advocate.

“Oh, he was there all right. They had a drink. Now look, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to get the lay of the land here. Girl checks into a hotel. No clothes, just her nightgown-not the wool kind, the other kind. You know. And she brings her douche.” He turned to Molly. “Pardon. Then she orders a setup from room service. For two, mind you. Ice, bottle, mixer, two glasses. I’d say she had company.”

“But no one saw anybody going in.”

“No. That was a bad break. You know hotel people. Notice everything. Can’t wait to help you out, whether they’ve seen anything or not. Gets them off work. But that night-well, they had everyone running around with that dance. People everywhere. Nobody’s got time to notice anything.”

“Like somebody leaving the dance and taking the elevator to the sixteenth floor.”

McHenry looked up from his tea. “I thought about that too. Couldn’t prove it, though. Couldn’t prove it. Might have been anybody. The only one I can prove went into that room was the waiter.”

“And he didn’t see anybody.”

“No. Hadn’t got there yet. But she was getting ready for company. Said she was putting her lipstick on when he brought the setup.”

“Then how do we know he was there?”

“There was liquor in both glasses. Why pour two?”

“Prints?”

“No,” McHenry said slowly, looking at Nick, as if trying to assess where the question came from. “But he was there. He was there and he killed her. I’m sure of it.”

“Because both glasses had liquor?”

“Because it makes sense. And there were the marks on the window.” He waited for Nick’s reaction. “You see, I thought to look. Even a flatfoot could figure that out. They had those sash windows, you know, you lift it up.” He stood up to demonstrate. “Now you don’t usually push someone out face first. I mean, what would they be doing at the window in the first place, getting some air? Usually their back’s to it and you surprise them, they don’t know there’s nothing behind. Then they start falling, and the natural reaction is to grab on to something. Like this.” He turned his hands around and lifted them as if he were holding on to the sash, then fell back in the chair. “The nails dig in, you see? Then they slip. Or someone loosens them for you. And down you go. But you’d leave the scratches.”

“And she did.”

“Yes, sir, she did. But I couldn’t prove that either.” He gasped, out of breath from the demonstration, and sucked some air from the mask. “These days, there’d be all sorts of ways. Just one little flake of something under those nails and the lab boys’d have it licked in a minute. But back then-” He took more air. “We just had eyes.”

“The report says you found a lighter,” Nick said, getting to it.

“Yes, I did.”

“My father’s.”

“Yes.”

“So you think he killed her.”

“No, I don’t,” he said flatly, looking up at Nick. “Does that surprise you? You thought he did, is that it? Well, he didn’t. I’m not trying to be nice. As far as I’m concerned, he was a traitor. I’d have put him away for that in a minute. But murder, that’s something else, that’s police work. I suppose it isn’t easy having a traitor for a father.

“Course, mine thinks he has a fool for a father, so take your pick. But you don’t have to have this hanging over your head too. No, I don’t think he did.”

He took a deep breath, wheezing slightly, then continued. “Everybody else thought so. Everybody wanted it to be him. Nothing makes me more suspicious than everybody wanting it to be someone. I think, you know, they just wanted to nail him for something. They couldn’t get him for what he did do, but if they got him for this, it sure as hell would look like he did the other-why else kill her? Of course, in the end they couldn’t get him for anything. You can’t try a man who isn’t there, not even the Bureau.” He smiled. “I have to say, I guess they were frustrated, the bastards. They keep the murder stuff out of the papers, thinking they’re going to get him-you know, pull the rabbit out of the hat the way they liked to do. I kept my mouth shut. They want to say it’s suicide, fine, I can’t prove otherwise. I can see they’re just waiting. Then by the time they find out where he is, it’s too late. Who gives a rat’s ass? You can’t hang a man who isn’t there. You can’t even accuse him. No point.”

“If you’ve already proved your point. That he’s a traitor,” Nick said, thinking.

“Well, he gave them that one himself. From what I saw, they weren’t going to prove nothing. But I guess he was right to go. For him, I mean. They sure as hell would have got him for this. He had the motive, all right.”

“And you had the lighter. Why didn’t you think it was him?”

“Well, there was a funny thing about that lighter. Very funny, I thought. No prints. None. Wiped. We dusted right away, don’t let them tell you different. I knew about prints. We got hers all over the place. But the lighter’s all smooth and clean. You asked before about the glass-no prints there either. Now that I can understand. You have a drink, you kill somebody, you wipe the glass, nobody knows you’ve been there. But who’d wipe their own lighter and then leave it behind so we’d find it anyway?”

“Somebody who wanted it found.”

McHenry nodded. “Right. I mean, if you’re worried enough to wipe it, why not take it with you? Somebody else planted that lighter.”

“Who?”

“That I don’t know. They were all out to get him, but who’d want to get him that bad? Like you said, he had the motive and we had the lighter. Case closed.”

“Even if you didn’t think he did it?”

“Well, it wasn’t my case, was it?”

“No.” Nick paused. “You know, the lighter never appeared in the Bureau report.”

“It didn’t? Well, they sure as hell had it. I gave it to them myself. In a bag, sealed, everything the way it should be.”

“Why wouldn’t they mention it?”

“That I don’t know either. Who knows why they do anything there? It’s all politics over there, not police work.”

“Who did you give it to? Who specifically?”

“The guy running the case, the Canuck. French name. La something.” He snapped his fingers. “Lapierre. That’s right. One look, he’d freeze your blood. Snotty little bastard.” Again to Molly, “Pardon. Anyway, that’s who had it. After that, I don’t know. Maybe they got it over there with Dillinger’s prick, who knows?”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No idea. Still there for all I know. Well, twenty years-” He did a mental calculation. “Maybe not. Not with their pension. I wish I had it. Not this chickenshit they give you on the force.” He waved his hand around the room, living proof. “You want to see him too?”

“Maybe there’s something else.”

“Well, I doubt it. Like I said, we did everything right. What are you expecting to find, anyway? Who did it?”

“No, just who didn’t. My father did a lot of things, but I never thought he did this. I just wanted to be sure. Anyway, thanks. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No bother, no bother. What else would I be doing but hacking my lungs up?”

He walked them to the door, reluctant to see the meeting end, his eyes lively with interest, back on the case. “One other thing that never came out. Not about your father,” he said to Nick. “About the girl. It was really out of respect to the family.” This to Molly, tentative. “We figured they had enough on their hands already. Terrible thing, suicide, for a Catholic.”

Molly looked at him, waiting.

“Maybe she didn’t know it herself,” McHenry said. “She didn’t need the douche. She was pregnant.”

Molly was thoughtful in the car.

“Is that possible?” Nick said. “Not to know?”

“I suppose. For a while, anyway. Maybe she did, though. Maybe that’s why she wanted the money. Not for a dress.”

“A good Catholic girl?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“I don’t know. Remember in the letter how she made this big point about his not being married? I’ll bet she thought it was going to be all right. Once they got past the hearing.”

“I wonder if he knew.” She moved her hand, brushing the thought aside. “Anyway, you don’t kill somebody for that. You get it taken care of.”

“He did.”

Molly worked her phone magic again with the Justice Department’s Personnel Office, pretending to be unaware that her old friend had retired, and got Lapierre’s address out in Falls Church. They decided not to call first.

“What if he says no?” Nick said. But when they got there, a condo development pretending to be colonial row houses, there was no question of his not opening the door-he was in the garden. A slight man, still wiry, digging on his hands and knees. When he got up, slowly, his whole body seemed wary, not standing but uncoiling. His face was blank when they explained themselves, then drew even further behind an official wall. But his eyes stayed on Nick, curious, as if he were looking at an old photograph. “I can’t discuss cases.”

“It’s not a case anymore,” Nick said. “The statute of limitations was seven years.”

“On espionage. Not murder.” He wiped some dirt from his hands. “It’s still an open case.”

“My father’s dead.”

“Yes? I hadn’t heard that.” He looked at Nick again. “You were the kid. I remember you. At the house.” A man holding his hat, his face unfamiliar, just a blur even then. “Said you were playing Monopoly, wasn’t that it?”

“Scrabble.”

“Scrabble.” He nodded. “Right. Scrabble.” Noncommittal.

A woman opened the back door. “Dad, you all right?”

“Fine. We’re just talking here.”

She looked at them suspiciously, wanting more information, then had to give it up. “Don’t forget your pills,” she said, reluctantly going back in.

“My daughter,” he said. “She’s worse than Hoover.” But the interruption had the effect of drawing him to them, like a little boy not ready to be called inside. His body relaxed. “Tell me something, since you’re here. I always wondered after. Did he tell you to say that, about the Scrabble? Did you know he’d skipped?”

Nick shook his head. “I thought he was hiding somewhere.”

Lapierre took this in and nodded again. “He had us all going, didn’t he?” he said, his voice reminiscent. “They must have had every man in the Bureau on it. Turning over rocks. And all the time we were just chasing our tails. But who knew? The director didn’t want to hear it. Just find the sonofabitch. I remember that all right. Of course, we were too late. We started late. You get the locals in, trail’s cold before you get to it.” He glanced at Nick. “Kid says he’s home all night. Why not? We never thought he skipped. We checked everything. How’d he do it anyway? Do you know?”

“He went to Philadelphia, then Detroit, Canada.”

Lapierre’s face was busy putting pieces in his own puzzle, but all he said was, “Philadelphia. Huh.”

“Now can I ask you something?”

Lapierre looked at him, wary again.

“He wasn’t being accused of murder,” Nick said. “That would have been a police case anyway. Unless they asked you in. Which they didn’t. You just came.” Lapierre didn’t respond. “He wasn’t being accused of anything else either. So why the big hunt? Every man in the Bureau.”

“Well, when you don’t turn up at a congressional hearing, that’s-”

“The excuse,” Nick finished. “You put a dragnet out for a subpoena violation?”

Lapierre glanced at him shrewdly, intrigued. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

But Nick kept staring at him until finally Lapierre nodded, conceding the point, wanting to go on, playing one more hand to see what Nick knew. “Let’s just say the Bureau likes to take care of its friends. Welles was a very good friend to the Bureau, close to the director. Nobody likes to lose a star witness. All of a sudden you’re sitting there holding the bag. So I would guess he asked for a little help. That’s just a guess,” he added quickly.

“You did it as a favor?” Nick said skeptically.

“Maybe you don’t understand how things work. Everybody thinks the Bureau’s on its own, but it isn’t. Hoover’s got his boss too. Sometimes the AG’s on your side, sometimes not. Depends on the man, whatever his agenda is. That was a funny time. Tom Clark had just left-never any problem with him. He never gave a damn one way or the other. But the new one-” He left it unfinished, still discreet. “And you never knew what his boss would do. The director hated Truman. Mutual, probably. So it was important to take care of your friends in Congress. Kind of an insurance policy.” He stopped. “Well, that’s the political side. The director wasn’t going to let Welles hang out there. He made Welles. But the fact is, Kotlar was guilty-you don’t need an excuse to go after a spy. You can’t blame the director for that one. I don’t say he does everything right-that case was no picnic for us, I can tell you. No let-up. But hell, you’ve got a Red spy and you don’t go after him? That’s like putting blood under a hound’s nose and then sticking him in a cage. He’s got to do it. I don’t think you can blame him for this one.”

“I don’t blame him. I just want to know how he knew.”

Lapierre looked puzzled. “Kotlar was guilty. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Not now. But what made you so sure then?”

“I don’t think I understand you,” he said cautiously.

“One woman’s testimony. Not proven. What made you believe her? What made you go after her in the first place?”

Lapierre took a step backward, physically retreating. “That’s all before I got into it. You want to know that, you’re going to have to ask Hoover yourself.”

“And he’ll tell me,” Nick said sarcastically.

“The director?” A cool smile. “Not even on a good day.” He turned. “Anyway, what’s the difference? Turns out he was right. He usually is.” He looked at Nick, appraising again. “What do you really want to know? Is that why you came all the way out here? You know what happened. There’s no mystery about it. You know where he was. We looked for him, we didn’t find him. So what do you want to know?”

Nick waited. “What happened to the lighter,” he said finally, watching Lapierre’s reaction. “The police gave it to you. You didn’t put it in your report. Why did you lose it?”

Lapierre’s eyes narrowed, a new appraisal, and Nick saw that what interested him was not that Nick knew but how-a bureaucratic reflex, a fear the system had been violated. “The Bureau doesn’t lose things,” he said simply.

“But it’s not in the report.”

“That depends on which report you saw.” Again the narrow curiosity: how had Nick seen it? “Nothing was lost.”

“There’s more than one report?”

“The files are cross-indexed. It may be confusing to someone from outside.”

“So’s double bookkeeping.”

He glanced up, annoyed. “We’re an investigative agency. That means sensitive material. Sources, for instance. It’s more prudent not to keep everything in one place.”

“Where somebody might see it.”

“ We don’t own the files. A request comes down from the AG’s office-” He shifted, careful again. “It’s not always appropriate. You don’t want the files used for, say, political reasons.”

“No, of course not.” Almost a laugh.

Lapierre hesitated. “You say he’s dead?”

Nick nodded.

“All right, you ask, I’ll tell you. The official file wasn’t the same as the internal one. Couldn’t be. We were investigating Communists, not murder. There are some who would have preferred that, you know, for political reasons. To take people’s minds off the real issue. But we didn’t want it to be a murder case.”

“Then it might have been sent back to the police. Right out of your hands.”

Lapierre looked at him sharply, then nodded. “With predictable results. You keep forgetting, he wasn’t there. There would have been no case. They’d be spinning wheels.” He paused. “Besides, we didn’t want to get him that way. Not for murder.”

“Welles would lose his Red.”

“You don’t think much of the Bureau, do you? Think we’re just like the feet. Fact is, I didn’t run it as a murder case because I never thought it was. I always thought she killed herself.” He looked up. “While he was playing Scrabble.”

“Then how did the lighter get there?”

Lapierre looked at him with mild scorn, as if he had missed the obvious. “She put it there. There weren’t any prints, you know,” he said, watching Nick. “A little clumsy anyway, don’t you think? Leaving it like that. It was her. She wiped it on her skirt, or something-and out. She was going to take him with her one way or the other. What you said before, about going after her? It was always my understanding that she went to Welles. Her idea. Of course, I don’t know where your information comes from.” Lapierre’s eyebrows went up.

“Welles got everything from the Bureau.”

“Well, maybe you know that. I don’t.”

Nick stood for a minute looking at the ground, thinking. “But you kept it. Even though-”

“You can’t destroy evidence. That’s illegal.”

“So is hiding it.”

“It’s not hidden,” Lapierre said blandly. “I don’t know where you get this idea. To my knowledge, no one’s ever asked for it.”

“You kept it just in case you needed it,” Nick said to himself. “A little insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“If the statute of limitations ran out.”

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you. We didn’t expect it to run out. We expected to catch him.”

Nick looked up. “And tell him you had it, in case he wasn’t feeling cooperative with the committee. Loosen his tongue.”

“I don’t know about that. I was just supposed to catch him. But I didn’t.” He shrugged. “So the statute did run out.”

“But there’s no statute on murder.”

Lapierre looked at him, eyes cold again. “That’s right. Not on murder.”

“You would have hanged him with it.”

“That would have been up to the jury.”

“With your help.”

“I would not have withheld evidence, no, if that’s what you mean. The Bureau would never allow that.”

Nick felt a band of heavy air tightening around his chest, a land of noose.

“What the jury made of it-” Lapierre wiped his hands again, free of dirt.

“One way or the other,” Nick said, again to himself. “He could never come back.” Silver’s insurance.

“Come back? Why the hell would he come back? He got away with it.”

The woman came to the back door again. “Dad.” Insistent this time.

“All right,” he said, turning back to Nick. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. Everybody wants to get something on the Bureau these days. The Bureau didn’t do anything to your father. We never got the chance. We were the ones looking like jerks, not him. He got away with it.”

“Yes. He got away with it,” Nick said, seeing his father’s thin white legs as he put him to bed.

Lapierre began walking away.

“Tell me one more thing,” Nick said, stopping him. “You must have seen the Cochrane file.” A beat. “The internal one.”

Lapierre waited, interested.

“Was there a description of it, how she approached Welles?”

Lapierre thought for a moment. “No,” he said, “just the first interview.”

“Then how do you know she did?”

Lapierre began backing away. “Well, I guess I don’t know that either.” He gave Nick a thin smile. “Maybe you should ask Welles. He was there, not me.”

Molly, who’d been silent during the meeting, opened up in the car. “That was a mistake,” she said. “He’s going to report it. He thinks he’s still working for them. Did you see his eyes? Just like Jeff. I know something you don’t know. Even when they don’t. I’ll bet they’re all like that-they don’t know how to stop.”

“Well, so what? What if he does?”

“They’ll start watching again. How are we going to watch our friends if somebody’s watching us? God, it’s getting like Prague. Everybody watching everybody.”

“Maybe they’ll do the Navy guy for us,” Nick said lightly. “You don’t like the neighborhood anyway.”

“I’m serious. If they start tailing us, it’s like handing them the list. You know that.”

Nick nodded. “They have to find us first. Anyway, they’re not watching now. You want to take Mother Brown?”

Ruth Silberstein went to the movies. While Molly was parked in Chevy Chase, waiting for Brown, Nick trailed the Volkswagen to a suburban shopping mall. Her friend, a woman waiting at the box office, handed her a ticket and began a conversation that would last off and on through the show and into dinner afterward. They both chose the chef’s salad. Ruth drank several cups of coffee, her friend shared an envelope of snapshots-relatives or an office party, Nick guessed, when he passed by the table to look-and Ruth picked up a pint of ice cream on her way home. Then he saw the blue glow of the television set upstairs, the bathroom light as she got ready for bed, a small reading lamp for twenty minutes, and darkness. Nothing. It occurred to Nick as he sat smoking in the car that the only exciting thing about being a spy was the end, the final adrenalin jolt of exposure.

John Brown hadn’t returned.

“Just an evening with Mom,” Molly said, weary.

“One of them’s the connection,” Nick said. “It’ll happen.”

“I hope so. Who’s on tomorrow?”

“Try Irina again. I’ll do the Navy. Then I think I’ll take the Bureau’s advice and go see Welles.”

“Why?” Molly said, looking up.

“I want to know how it started, why she talked to him. It’s important.”

“Is it?” Molly said quietly, watching him.

“Silver didn’t start this. He just did what he had to do. Once it did. I want to know who started it all.”

“Who did it to you, you mean.” Her voice still quiet.

“Not just to me,” he said quickly, disconcerted. To all of us.

Molly started to say something, then backed off. Instead she went over to the mirror and started brushing out her hair.

“What makes you think Welles will talk to you?” she said. “You’re the last person he’d want to see.”

“I’ll use Larry’s name,” Nick said, thinking of Lutece. “It’s a real door-opener.”

Chapter 18

He drive to Anacostia the next morning was as uneventful as before, a careful swing southeast through the back streets, toward the sun and the crisp sentries’ uniforms. When the black officer’s car slid through the gates, barely pausing for its badge check, it seemed to melt into the lot in the slow motion of a dream. Navy whites. A few official cars. What did he do here? Nick watched his dark face move toward the building, unhurried. He decided to take a chance on the guard.

“That guy who just came in? I think he put a dent on my car.”

“Lieutenant Williams?” the guard said, amazed.

“I guess. How do I get in touch with him?”

“You can’t. Not without a pass.”

“You have an extension? I just want to call, for the insurance.”

The guard checked a clipboard. “5207,” he said. “Big dent?”

“No, just a scratch. Thanks.”

Nick pulled away, the guard not even bothering to look at the car, turning his face to the sun. The whole base was dozing, far away from the war.

The Senate Office Building, on the other hand, bristled like a command post, phones ringing, secretaries’ heels clicking along the halls, busy with itself. Nick dialed the Anacostia number from a pay phone in the lobby. A girl’s voice. “Naval intelligence.” Nick put the receiver back, nodding to himself, and went to find Welles’s office.

There were two secretaries, both with beehive hairdos, both wrapped in sweaters against the air conditioning. A leather couch, piled with unopened mail, the walls filled with photographs of Welles shaking hands with everybody in the world. A portrait of Nixon. A framed campaign poster. Peace With Honor. Nick heard voices coming from the inside office, laughter.

Now that he was here, he felt a quiet panic at the ordinariness of it all, that the demon swirling through years of his imaginative life would be reduced to a man making jokes in an office, harmless, like a funhouse ride after the doors open. Welles belonged in the newsreel, gavel banging, cowing them into silence, always oversize, his malevolence so large it needed an expanse of screen or it would become invisible, too large to be seen in a small room with posters and crank mail. His father had said that when you shook hands with Stalin, the act itself was a violation of scale, allowing you to believe he was just a man.

The inner door swung open. No longer screen-size but still large, grown fat, his bulk filling the door frame. Everything the same, the straight nose and square face softened by the years of extra flesh. He was wearing a bow tie and red-white-and-blue suspenders, sweating a little in the cool room. His arms were draped around a middle-aged couple whose faces had the pleased look of pilgrims granted an audience. When he saw Nick, his smile froze for a second, then spread back across his face.

“Well, there he is. Looks like Betty’s got them back-to-back this morning. I swear, they don’t give me time to pee sometimes.” Genial, for the benefit of the couple, who smiled. “Now, bless your heart, you tell the club I wouldn’t miss it. Wouldn’t miss it. You just make sure Betty here has that date.” He turned to one of the secretaries. “Darlin‘, you circle this one now, hear?” Then, to Nick, “Well, come on in if you’re coming.” And then a flurry of goodbyes and Nick suddenly felt himself being led into the room by a hand on his shoulder, everything smaller after all.

“Well, I was surprised. Your call. But you know, your dad-Larry and I go back a ways, both sides of the aisle, so I guess I owe him a favor or two. Hell, I owe everybody favors. Now, what’s so important he couldn’t call himself? They got phones in Paris last time I heard.” Before Nick could reply, he held up his hand. “Let me tell you up front, if it’s this peace talk business he’s got himself into, I can’t do it. No help at all. The people don’t want it-they’d have themselves a lynching party with me in the rope. And I don’t blame them. Peace with honor,” he said, last year’s slogan for war. “That’s what we’re looking for here. Now, Larry knows that. Hell, that was the whole campaign. Can’t have him giving everything away over there. We’ve been there before. All our fine boys getting shot up and we’re just going to hand it to the Commies? Another Yalta? No, sir.” His cheeks puffed now, like bellows. Everything the same.

“He didn’t send me. I wanted to see you myself.”

Welles stopped, surprised. “You did,” he said, marking time, not sure what was happening. “Well, what can I do for you?”

“Larry’s my stepfather. You know my real father was Walter Kotlar.”

A tic of recognition, not alarm, a reflex to a surprise question. “That’s right. Larry married the wife. I never did understand that. There was a kid.” Just a detail, lost over the years. “That’s you?”

Nick nodded.

“Walter Kotlar,” Welles said, sitting against the edge of the desk. “A lot of water over that dam.”

“He died last week.”

“Died? Well, that’s something,” he said slowly. “Dead. I’m sorry to hear that.” He caught Nick’s expression. “Oh, he was no friend of mine. Matter of fact, he was anything but for a while there. No end of trouble. Whole thing just folded up on me. But dead-” He shook his head. “You know, it’s not just your friends. Makes you feel old when the other ones go too. Maybe more. Nobody left who knows the war stories. Kids don’t want to hear it.”

“I do.”

Welles lifted his head. “No, you don’t. There’s no percentage in that. Scratching sores, that’s all that is-you’re better off letting them alone. It don’t pay, staying mad. Your dad, he almost put me out of business. Terrible, him and that woman. But what are you going to do? You pick yourself up and roll with it. You don’t want to look back. That’s what’s great about this country-you just go on to the next thing.”

Nick looked at him, amazed. Just something that had happened to him. Was it possible it had never really mattered, the whole thing no more important than a hitch in the campaign, patched over with a booster’s platitude? Or was this just another way of telling Betty to circle the date, a hand on your shoulder on your way out the door.

“My parents never talked about it.”

“Well, that’s right. They wouldn’t.” He peered at Nick. “So you came to see me, is that it? It’s all there, you know. Matter of record.”

“Not all of it.”

Welles gave him a serious look, on guard.

“Look,” Nick said, “my father’s dead. It can’t hurt anybody anymore. It’s history. I’d just like to know, to fill in the gaps.”

Improbably, this made him smile. “History. Well, I guess it is now. We did make some history there, didn’t we? He did, anyways. What do you want to know?”

“Did Rosemary Cochrane really have new testimony, the way you announced? Did she tell you anything?”

This was clearly unexpected. “She would have,” he said, with a sly glance back.

“But she didn’t.”

Welles frowned. “Now look, I’m not raking this up again. They all said I drove her to it, but that’s b.s. I didn’t drive her to nothing. You had to know how to handle her-you needed a little pressure if you were going to get anything out of her. In the beginning, you know, when she told me about your father, I have to say I scared her into it-had to, wouldn’t have got anywhere otherwise. She knew she had to give me something. Then she just clammed up again. My opinion? Her friends got to her. God knows with what-probably scared her worse. But she still knew plenty. Thing was, how do you get her to open up? You had to turn the heat on somehow. Hell, that’s just politics. You’re from a political family, you ought to know that. You tell the papers she’s already confessed, she’s not going to have her friends to fall back on. Can’t trust her. They’re running for cover. She’s out there all alone. Maybe facing perjury, if you play it right. And she didn’t want to go to prison in the worst way.”

“She was pregnant.”

Welles looked at him, stunned. “How do you-” A sputter, like a candle.

Nick didn’t wait but slipped in under the confusion. “Look, I never said you drove her to it. I just want to know what she said. After Hoover told you to talk to her, did she mention my father right away?”

Welles missed it. “I told you, with her it was always pressure. She knew she had to give me a name.”

“Or you’d go after her.”

“Of course. What else?”

“By the way, how did Hoover know?” Nick said, trying to sound casual.

“How does he know anything? You don’t ask.”

“But she didn’t mention anyone else,” Nick said, moving away from it. Hoover.

“No, just Kotlar.”

“And she thought that was the end of it.”

“I don’t know what she thought. How could it be the end?”

“But you offered immunity.”

“From espionage charges,” he said carefully.

“Which you couldn’t prove anyway. Without bringing the Bureau into it.”

Another sly look, nodding. “That was the tricky part. But she bit. She thought we could. You know, she was guilty. There’s no doubt about that.”

“No.”

“And after she gave me a name, well, then I had her.” He smiled, then looked down, troubled. “How do you know she was pregnant?”

“She told her family. It never came out.”

“I didn’t know that. It explains a lot. Why she’d be so upset. To take her own life.” Welles shook his head.

“If she did.”

He peered at Nick, alert. “What’s all this about?”

“I always wondered,” Nick said flatly. “If he killed her.”

“Killed her?” Welles said, surprised. “Now, don’t you start thinking that way.” He raised a finger. “He was your father,” he said, as sanctimonious as his peace platform.

Nick shrugged. “It’s possible. You must have wondered. There were a lot of people in the hotel. Anybody could have gone up and- Well, couldn’t they? I mean, you were there at the time.”

“Yes, I was,” he said slowly. “With Mrs Welles.” Only his name on the list.

“But you weren’t married,” Nick said involuntarily. Two glasses.

“We married later,” Welles said evenly. “She was my date.”

Nick tried an apologetic grin. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t asking for an alibi.”

“I don’t care what you’re asking for. Your time’s up.” Welles glanced at his watch, physical evidence, then stood up. “Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t be like your father, going off half cocked. That woman was probably crazy, I don’t know. You have to work with what you’ve got. What I do know is, it’s over and done with. You’d best put your mind at ease and get on. You don’t want to go digging around the past-there’s no percentage in it. I’ve lived a long time in this town and I learned. There’s only the next thing. There isn’t any past here. You let your father be.”

Nick nodded, message received, then glanced up at his eyes, now the same hard eyes that had peered over the microphones.

“When you looked at him,” he said, “at the hearing, what were you thinking?”

Welles stopped, framing an answer. “That he was the smoothest goddamned liar I’d ever seen. That I’d never get him.”

“Maybe it takes one to know one.”

Instead of taking offense, Welles smiled. “Maybe it does, at that.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, taking his hand, wanting to see how it felt. Small. Welles raised his eyebrows. “For your time. For telling me what I wanted to know.”

But Welles misinterpreted. “It’s true. Never thought I’d get him. And I knew he was guilty.”

“What about all the others?”

“The others?” All forgotten, like campaign workers.

“The ones who weren’t guilty.”

“Well, they must have been guilty of something,” Welles said easily, “or they wouldn’t have been there.” Attending meetings. Running mimeograph machines. Flubbing loyalty checks. Thousands. Welles put his hand on Nick’s shoulder and smiled. “You know, son, you don’t know shit about politics. You should just get on to the next thing.”

Welles walked him to the door, taking a deep breath and drawing up his shoulders, ready for a new meeting. As Nick watched, the buffoon suspenders seemed to expand, his body filling back up with air, almost newsreel size.

The break came the next day. Molly took the vigil in Chevy Chase again, and Nick decided, as if he were sticking a pin in a map, to follow Irina. He drove to Dupont Circle, and by seven A.M. he was waiting halfway down her sunny street, thinking that the whole random exercise was futile. They needed five watchers, not two. He imagined the contact being made-an exchange on a park bench? How was it done? — while they were both somewhere else, never in the right place at the right time. In this lottery, Silver’s luck could hold forever while Nick drew empty mornings of delivery vans and dog-walkers. Anyway, where was she? She’d be late for work if she didn’t leave the house soon. Nick stared at her door, so preoccupied he didn’t hear the steps behind him, stopping at his open window.

“There you are.” A woman’s voice. “I suppose I have you to thank.”

Mrs Baylor, carrying a brown grocery bag. Nick looked up blankly.

“I thought she’d be someone you’d want. Why send her back, if you don’t mind my asking? Was something wrong?”

“You mean she’s gone?” First Brown, now Irina.

Well, don’t you know?“

Nick shook his head, confused.

“Oh. Of course, she did say it was temporary, but she seemed to like it here.”

“When did she leave?”

“Yesterday. Said she found something better. I don’t know what she means by better. There’s nothing wrong with the apartment. It’s self-contained. I thought you people sent her home.”

“No, nothing like that. Did she leave an address? They’re supposed to.”

“No. Of course, they come and go, the girls. But one month? No more for me, I can tell you, no more foreigners. Not that she wasn’t nice.”

“She was only here a month?” Could the list have been that recent? But his father must have had it earlier, when he had first planned to leave.

“One month. Hardly worth the time it takes to clean the place. Flighty.” Mrs Baylor’s arm shot up in the air, waving. “There’s Barbara.”

Nick looked toward the house, where a girl on the stoop was waving back. His eyes stopped, and he felt a tingling along his scalp. Not the Russian, the other girl. She started down the street.

“Thanks, Mrs Baylor. Sorry for your trouble. She’ll probably check in with us this week, when she’s settled. If she does send an address, let us know, okay? Just in case.” He turned on the ignition. “By the way, how did she find you? She give you references?”

“Well, I never thought to ask. Barbara told her about it. They met at work, I guess. Not that I blame Barbara. She was good as gold about those records.”

By the time Nick was able to pull away, the girl had turned the corner into the next block, shoulder bag swinging. A miniskirt, short heels, blond like Molly. Reliable Barbara, who’d met Irina at work. But she was heading downtown, away from the embassy.

Nick followed slowly, but even at this pace the car was bound to overtake her. She passed a bus stop, clearly intending to walk. He went through the light into the next block, keeping her in his rearview mirror. A car pulling away from the curb. He slammed on the brakes and backed into the spot, adjusting the parking angle until she went by. When he started down the sidewalk he kept his eyes on her hair, a tracking beam, so that everything around her blurred out of focus.

She was walking quickly, not stopping to look at windows, heading toward Farragut Square. She took a diagonal path across the park, unaware of Nick in the crowd. Downtown. The Bureau wasn’t far away. Then she went into a coffee shop, forcing Nick to stop at the corner, exposed. He fed some coins into a newspaper vending machine and took out a Post. A peace rally. District police requesting additional crowd-control units. People streamed by, carrying briefcases. What if she was just a boarder after all? But the address had been there, on the list.

When she came out, sipping from a Styrofoam cup, Nick turned away and almost lost her. Then, in front of a DON’T WALK sign, the blond hair came into view again. She crossed the street and disappeared through a door: EMPLOYEES ONLY. Nick looked around, then at the block-long row of plate-glass windows, trying to orient himself. It was only when he stepped back to the curb, taking the whole building in, that he finally recognized it, as familiar to him as an old dream. Garfinkel’s. Still. His father had said the reports never changed, the same pattern. You could tell just by the prose. One of them will lead me to him.

Nick went through the door. Don’t show yourself. But how else could he be sure? He walked past aisles of cosmetics and women’s handbags. She could be anybody. But when he reached the men’s department, there she was, just arrived behind the counter, talking to another clerk as she arranged the tie display, the shelves behind her lined with row after row of white shirts.

“We have to figure out a way to get in there,” Nick said later, excited. “I can’t spend all day trying on suits.”

They were in the lobby bar at the Madison, the soft spring light still flooding into the windows from 16th Street, not yet evening. Molly, unexpectedly subdued, picked out a cashew from the bowl of nuts.

“You want me to be her,” she said, not looking up.

“No, he probably knows her by sight. But if you were there. They’re always looking for extra help. You could talk your way in. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”

“No, I meant her. Rosemary. You want me to be her.”

Nick said nothing, surprised at her mood.

“Do I have to?”

“Molly, we’re so close.”

She nodded and looked out the window. In the corner, a man in black tie was playing the piano. Cocktail hour. These Foolish Things‘, one of the songs his mother must have danced to.

“It’s funny,” she said. “All my life, my mother kept telling me I was like her. Political. That’s what she said when I wanted to go to Kennedy’s funeral. A whole bus went down from school. You don’t want to get mixed up in anything, not like her. God. Every time I brought someone home. You’ll turn out boy-crazy, just like-” She broke off. “But I never thought I was. I didn’t even know her. That was just my mother. Half the time I didn’t know what she was talking about. Now it turns out maybe she was right. I am like her. I know just how she felt.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she did it for him, didn’t she? Mr Right. Anything, right up to the end. New dress. Order up a bottle-I’ll bet it was the kind he liked. Everything was going to be all right.”

“Everything is going to be all right.”

A weak smile, ignoring him. “And now I’m going to be her, do everything she did. Even sell the shirts.”

“Molly, if it bothers you, don’t do it. We’ll figure out something else.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll do it.” She paused. “I am like her. I’ll do it for you.”

“No. Do it for her.”

She sighed. “She’s dead, Nick.” She turned from the window. “I’ll do it for you. So you’ll be finished with it.”

“We’re so close,” he said again. “What do you want to do, walk away from it? I need to do this for him.”

Another wry smile, looking down at the nuts.

“What?” Nick said, annoyed.

“Not for him,” she said. “Don’t you know that?” She raised her hand, stopping his response. “It’s okay. I want you to bury him. But how do you end it, Nick? What are you going to do if this works, if you do get Silver? Have you thought about it?”

Nick looked down, embarrassed because he hadn’t. It had seemed enough to know, to see a face. “This one we turn in,” he said finally.

“But not the others.”

“He’s a murderer.”

“Maybe they are too.”

“And maybe they just sell shirts. Would you have turned Rosemary in?”

She shrugged, shying away. “I guess not. I don’t know.”

“Molly, what’s wrong?” he said, touching her arm. “What are you so worried about?”

“You’re just so determined.”

“We’re going to get him.”

“Then what? Push him over a balcony? Nick, let’s just give the whole thing to the FBI now. Let them do it.”

Nick took a drink, calming himself, so that when he spoke his voice was steady and reasonable. “Molly, for all we know it is the FBI.”

“You just want to do it yourself.”

“Yes,” he said, still calm. “I want to do it myself. I want to see his face.” A beat. “Then it’ll be over.”

“Will it?”

He held her eyes, sure. “Yes.”

She glanced out the window, avoiding him, then busied herself lighting a cigarette. She exhaled, then nodded. “When do I go to work?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Selling seashells by the shore,” she said. “Let’s hope I don’t end up the same way she did.” Then, before he could answer, “And just when I was getting somewhere with Mr Brown.”

“What do you mean? I thought you said he wasn’t there.”

“He wasn’t. But there’s another thing, if you had let me finish. I took a drive over to the parking lot at National-that’s where you said he left the car, right? Well, it wasn’t there. So what is he up to?”

Nick thought for a minute, then frowned. “It doesn’t matter. It isn’t him.”

“But funny, don’t you think?”

“We don’t have time. She’s the only one who matters now.”

“Well, you have to do something while I’m playing salesgirl. Why not find out? Unless you want to protect him from the FBI. One of your innocent spies.”

“What are you talking about?”

“See the guy at the end of the driveway? He’s been keeping an eye on us.”

Nick looked out the window. “You’re sure?”

“I’ve developed this instinct-in my new professional capacity,” she said airily, then nodded. “Pretty sure.”

“He follow you here?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. I just noticed him while we were talking. I told you Lapierre would have them put a tail on us.”

“Then he’s interested in me. Good. We can’t have anyone walking you to work.”

“Take the car out tomorrow and see.”

“Damn. Why now?” Nick said, worried. “What do they want?”

“Like old times, isn’t it?” Molly said, her eyes back at the window.

“We have to get rid of them.”

“The FBI?”

“Hoover can.”

She glanced back, amused. “That would do it.” Then, seeing he meant it, “Right to the top. Larry’s name again?”

“No.” He smiled. “I thought I’d use Jeff’s.”

But he didn’t have to use either name: Hoover sent for him.

He drove out to National in the morning, avoiding Chevy Chase, his eyes almost fixed on the rearview mirror, but the tail, if it was there, had been trained in a better school than Zimmerman’s-he seemed to be alone. He went slowly through the parking lot. No car. Had someone taken it? A day ago he would have felt uneasy; now it was only a piece of a different puzzle.

He took the direct route home, then doubled back across the Mall, where they were putting up a stage for the peace rally. Still no obvious tail. Then, at the hotel, he saw they hadn’t bothered. The two men approached him in the lobby, said the boss wanted to see him, and led him to the car. When they hustled him into the back seat with a peremptory shove, he was at Holeckova again, the same helpless anxiety, his palms damp, as if he were back in handcuffs.

The office, a suite of rooms, was on the fifth floor of the Justice Department, past a secretarial pool and a corridor lined with autographed pictures and plaques and framed awards, the tokens of a grateful nation. The visitors’ office made Welles’s look like a closet: a huge room with an oversize desk between two flags, whose only purpose seemed to be for taking pictures. A vast blue rug with the Bureau seal. A ghoulish death mask, mounted-Dillinger, 1934. More photographs, all of them with Hoover. Burly, in a double-breasted suit and crisp fedora, leading a fugitive up the stairs. Bending over to shake hands with Shirley Temple.

Nick’s escorts knocked on the inner office door, nodded to the prim woman in a high collar who opened it, and backed away, like courtiers. One more large room, with windows looking out over Pennsylvania Avenue, this one for working-a line of wooden memo trays, another football-field desk, with telephones and a single open file. Standing behind the desk was the director himself, bulldog jaw sticking out just like it did in his pictures, glowering up at Nick with a theatrical intensity. A silence.

“Am I under arrest?” Nick said.

“No. I want to talk to you,” Hoover said, the words coming as fast as bullets. Nick wondered if he had worked on it, practicing in front of a mirror until speech too had become an intimidating prop. “I hear you want to talk to me. If you don’t, you can leave right now. I’m a busy man. Thank you, Miss Gandy,” he said to the secretary, so that, ironically, the next sound Nick heard was the door clicking shut behind him.

“Now we could start friendly, but I haven’t got the time. Nobody bothers my agents, Mr Warren. Nobody. Interrogating them. Who do you think you are? Of course I know who you are.” He tapped the open file with his finger. “The only reason I’m talking to you at all is that your father’s been a friend to the Bureau.” Nick realized after a second of confusion that in Washington he was always Larry’s son first. “Sometimes. Depending. But I don’t hold grudges, and the Bureau takes care of its friends.”

“I’ll bet.”

Hoover jerked his round head and stared at Nick. “Don’t do that again,” he said evenly. “Talk smart to your father. Maybe he’s used to it. I don’t like it. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just some kid who thinks he’s having fun with the Bureau, and that’s not smart. Ask your father, he’ll tell you.”

“He’s my stepfather.”

“I know that too. I know everything about you.” He touched the file again. “War record. Not much, but at least you weren’t one of the dodgers. I’m not surprised you changed your name. We can’t help our parents-I don’t hold that against you. Maybe I should. They usually don’t fall far from the tree. But right now I just want to know what you think you’re doing. Talking to Lapierre, playing cute with us in New York.”

“I wasn’t trying to play cute. I just left early. They weren’t there around the clock.”

“You’re not worth twenty-four-hour surveillance,” Hoover said. “You’re not that important.”

“I’m not that important now, either. So call off the guys you have watching me here. I haven’t done anything. If there’s something you want to know, ask and I’ll tell you. I don’t like being followed. I had enough of that in Prague. But you expect it there. I didn’t think we were like that yet.”

Hoover peered at him curiously, sizing him up, then moved out from behind the desk. Involuntarily Nick glanced down to see if his shoes had lifts. Hoover had always been described as short, but here, on his carefully constructed set, the sight lines seemed to exaggerate his bulk, and the broad shoulders and thick neck gave the impression of a large man barely contained by his suit. What caught Nick’s eye, however, was the hair, short but still dark, at his age a color that could only have come from a bottle. Nick wondered if he did it himself, towel wrapped around his neck at the mirror, or if a barber had been sworn to secrecy.

“Not yet, Mr Warren. And we’re not going to be. We’ve still got a free country here, no thanks to people like Walter Kotlar. Why did you go see him?”

“Because he asked me to. Look, you’re busy-let me make this easy for you. He sent a message that he wanted to see me. I went. I spent a few days with him and his wife. He didn’t tell me any state secrets and he didn’t tell me about the old days. He did tell me that he was sick and he’d like to come home. One of your people there-a legat, isn’t that what you call them?”

Hoover nodded almost imperceptibly.

“A legat found out about it and ran with it, all the way back to the Bureau, where they started ringing bells so loud even you heard them. Is that about right so far? But he didn’t come back. He killed himself. I found him. The Czech police thought I did it, or caused it somehow, or whatever. Who knows what they think? I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. I got out as fast as I could, only to come home and get the same treatment from you. Which I would like you to stop.”

Hoover looked at him for a moment. “I know all that,” he said finally. That doesn’t tell me anything.“

“What do you want to know?”

“Why he thought he could come back.”

“I don’t know that he did think it. He just said he wanted to.” Nick paused. “He didn’t know you had the lighter.”

Hoover said nothing, stone-faced.

“I’d like it back, by the way. It’s mine now. It’s not evidence anymore. He’s dead.”

“You’re talking about Bureau property.”

“No, I’m not. The Bureau doesn’t officially have it. You do. You’ve always had it. In one of your special files. Just in case. But you can’t get him anymore. He got away again.”

“You think you know all about it.”

“No. Just that it was you. All along. You fed Welles. You fed McCarthy. That was your little war. Years of it.”

“You think it wasn’t a war? You’re too young to know, all of you. The only reason you’re walking around free today is-” He stopped. “It was a war. And we won it.”

“Well, you did anyway. You’re still here.” Hoover glared at him. “And so is the lighter. The one time you really had somebody and he slipped through your fingers. But at least you could always get him for something he didn’t do-if he came back.”

“He did do it.”

“Your agents don’t think so. Neither did the police.”

Hoover looked at him steadily, his voice low. “But I did. Naturally you don’t want to.”

“It doesn’t matter what we think anymore, does it?”

“Then why are you bothering Lapierre? Nosing around where you don’t belong? What are you really doing in Washington?”

“Research. Not your kind. History, that’s what it is now. It’s important to talk to who was there while they’re still around.”

Hoover’s eyes widened as if he’d been personally insulted. “Research,” he said sarcastically. “For who? That pink in London you’ve been working with?”

“Yes, that pink.”

He snorted. “Not far from the tree. Well, not with my agents, you’re not. Don’t expect any help from this office. And keep the Bureau out of it.” Hoover held up a finger. “I mean that. I’m not interested in history.”

And Nick saw suddenly that it was true, that all the stagecraft was there not to trick the future but to keep things going now, attorney general after attorney general, Hoover still at the desk. The only idea he’d ever had was to hold on to his job.

“Then it won’t matter,” he said.

“You know,” Hoover said, more slowly now, “a lot of people come into this office just set on showing me they’re not afraid of me. It’s a thing I’ve noticed. Smart talk. They don’t leave that way.”

“How do they leave?”

“With a little respect for this office and what we’re doing. They find it’s better to be a friend of the Bureau.” The eyes so hard that Nick had to look away.

“Would you tell me something?” he said.

“For your research?” Almost spitting it.

“No, for me. Just one thing. It can’t possibly matter to you anymore.”

Hoover looked up, intrigued.

“Who told you about Rosemary Cochrane? You told Welles, but someone told you.”

“What makes you think I told Welles?”

“Because he told me you did. He didn’t intend to, but he told me.”

Hoover twitched, annoyed. “Well, that’s not what I would call a reliable source. Ken doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Never did. Did a lousy job with your father, too.”

“Despite all the help.”

Hoover said nothing.

“You knew about her. How? It can’t matter anymore.”

“It always matters. That’s Bureau business. We never divulge sources-wouldn’t have them, otherwise.” He paused. “But in this case, since it matters to you.” He glanced up. “It was an anonymous tip. A good one, for a change. We never knew who.”

“Yes, you did,” Nick said.

“You’re sure about that,” Hoover said, toying with him.

“Yes.”

Hoover glanced away. “I don’t remember.”

Nick stood, waiting.

“I don’t think you understand how things work here,” Hoover said, looking back at Nick. “Information, that’s like currency to us. We don’t spend it. We don’t trade for it.”

“Yes, you do.”

For the first time there was a trace of a smile. “But you see, you’re not a friend of the Bureau’s.”

Nick stared at him, stymied.

“Now I’ll ask you something,” Hoover said. “Why you? All those years, and you’re the one he sends for, says he wants to come home. Why not just go to our people in the embassy?”

“Would you trust them? Every embassy has informers. If the Russians had found out-”

“Well, they did, didn’t they?” A shot in the dark.

“If they did, Mr Hoover, then they got it from you. Only the Bureau knew. Is that what you think happened, a leak in the Bureau?”

“No, I do not,” he said, steel again. “We don’t have leaks.”

“You must have had one once. My father had his file.”

Hoover frowned. “Lapierre said you’d seen that,” he said, diverted now to the office mystery. Another witch-hunt, irresistible.

“But he might have got it a while ago. Actually, I never thought the Russians did know. But if they did, that means-”

“I know what it means. And that never occurred to you.”

“No. I thought he committed suicide.”

“With you there? He makes you go to Czechoslovakia so he can kill himself while you’re around.”

“People who commit suicide don’t always make a lot of sense.”

Hoover looked at him, then turned to the window, pretending to be disappointed. “I don’t think you do either,” he said, looking down at Pennsylvania Avenue. “Don’t have too much fun at our expense-it’s not worth it. I’ve been here a long, long time. And I knew your father. I studied your father. You want me to think it was just a pipe dream. Our man didn’t think so. Some pipe dream. Your father knew how things worked. If he wanted to come back, he knew he’d have to buy his way back. But what was he going to buy it with? You’d need a lot of currency to do that.” He turned back and stared at Nick. “And somebody to make the deal. Close, like family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, holding his gaze.

“I hate to see good information go to waste, get in the wrong hands. Hate it.” He paused. “Most people find that it makes sense to be a friend to the Bureau.”

“I can’t afford it. It’s too expensive.”

Hoover nodded and moved toward the table behind the desk. “There’s all kinds of information,” he said, and pressed a button on a tape recorder. Nick heard a scratch, then his voice, Molly’s.

“Here’s an idea. Let’s smoke a joint and make love. All night. No microphones.”

“I liked the microphones. Where’d you get the stuff?”

“Well, I did see Richie.”

Hoover clicked it off and looked at him for a reaction.

Not the Alcron, looking up at ceilings. The Plaza, where they were safe.

“Where was the bug?” Nick said, stalling.

“The phone.”

“You can’t use it.”

“No? For two cents I’d set you up, you and your hippie girlfriend. I can do it. For two cents.”

Nick stared at him, the bantam chest and dyed hair, his eyes shining, about to win. The way it worked. “But you won’t,” he said finally. “You can’t afford it either. Larry Warren’s a friend to the Bureau.”

Nick saw the tic, the flesh of Hoover’s cheek quivering as if he’d been slapped.

“Two cents,” Hoover said, machine gun speed again, trying to recover. But the air had gone out of it, his skin now slack with age.

Nick turned away. “Keep it with the lighter, just in case. Can I go now?”

“Think about what I said. Hard. Maybe something will come back to you.”

Nick walked toward the door.

“Don’t push your luck,” Hoover said, wanting the last word. “Not with me. I hear you had a rough time over there. You might learn something from that. How things are.”

Nick turned from the knob and looked at Hoover. “I did learn something. You know, when I walked in here I was afraid of you. The Boss. You want some history? That was Stalin’s nickname too. Just like you. But you’re not that scary. You’re just a guy who likes to go through people’s wastebaskets.” Hoover’s face went blank, amazed. “You know what I learned? Nothing is forever. You think you are. You’re going to be disappointed.”

For a moment Hoover just stood there, seeming paralyzed by the impertinence, then his eyes narrowed. “You’ll change your mind. They always do. It’s better to be a friend.” He walked back toward his desk, pulling himself together. “So I’ll give you something free. As a friend. The Bureau isn’t following you. Maybe we should be, but we’re not. And maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are. Just a little paranoid.”

“Maybe.”

“You see how it works. Now you give me one. I know he talked to you. How else would you know about the lighter?”

Nick smiled and opened the door. “An anonymous tip.”

He walked over to the Mall and sat on a bench watching them build the scaffolding for the rally. Kids in T-shirts and Jesus hair with hammers. Portable toilets. In a few days the buses would pour in. Speeches and peace balloons. All of it happening somewhere else, in the present, while he waited to find someone in the past. Hoover hadn’t dyed his hair then. He’d been a real monster, not a creaky vaudeville turn, hanging on. He’d made Welles, McCarthy, Nixon, all of them. Passing out his currency. Now some were dead and one was in the White House and everyone had moved on to the next thing. Except Nick.

He noticed some men in suits loitering by the construction site. The Bureau, getting ready? He should get up and go home. Which was where? A hotel with a piano player in the lobby. A room in London he couldn’t even remember. He looked up toward Capitol Hill. That wasn’t home either. But he was still living there, on 2nd Street, trying to find his way out. The trouble with history, his father had said, is that you have to live through it. A crime story where everyone did it, without even thinking, as careless as an anonymous tip. And then went on. But what if it stopped, a freeze frame? What if you were the one caught in the picture? Stuck-unless you found the one with his finger on the shutter. Who had told Hoover?

Molly was already at the hotel when he got back. “They said no?” Nick said.

“No. Half-day. Orientation. They jumped at it once I said temp-no health plan.”

“Her department?”

“Well, they rotate. But I told them that’s where I’d done it before, so it should be okay. I start with ties-no sizes, even I can do it. She was doing hats today. I mean, who wears hats anymore? Everybody switches around except for the men selling suits. I suppose you really have to know about suits.”

“What was she like?”

“Nice, but not too nice. She probably thinks I’m going to be a pain. You know, who needs a trainee? But the point is, I can see her no matter where they put me. It’s all open except for the fitting rooms. So.”

“So now we wait.”

“You do.” She grinned. “I’ll be on my feet. And they’re already killing me.” She took her shoes off and lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “I wonder if she’s in love with him too.”

“He’d be a little long in the tooth now, don’t you think?”

“Oh, men just keep going.” She smiled at him. “At least I hope they do.”

He sat on the bed and began rubbing her feet.

“Mm. What every working girl needs. Brown’s still not back, by the way.”

“You went out there?” Nick said.

“Well, I had the time. Just a drive-by. I was curious. There’s something going on-it doesn’t make sense.”

Nick shook his head. “We should leave the others alone. What if they spot us? We don’t want to complicate things now.”

“I don’t think anyone followed me.”

“No. Hoover said they’re not tailing us.”

“Really? What about the man outside the hotel? He wasn’t just waiting for a cab. I know he wasn’t.”

“That’s what he said. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time he lied.”

The real waiting began in the morning. Nick stayed at the hotel, afraid he’d miss Molly’s call if he left, unable to read or think about anything else. So close. He played a game with the United Charities list, checking it against the phone book to see who was still alive, still in Washington. The others he could run through the Post obituary files, finally winnowing it down. Some names he could deal with by sight-politicians gone after failed elections, senators old even then, his parents, still together on the list. But there were too many. He might as well be doing crossword puzzles, just passing time. His father had said the reports were irregular. How was it done? Was there a prearranged signal, a call, or did he just stroll into the store, a man shopping on his lunch hour? Nick’s worst fear was that he might appear without their even knowing it, the waiting all for nothing.

The next day, too restless to stay inside, he walked over to 14th Street and circled the building to fix the likely exits in his mind. When he walked into the men’s department, Molly looked up in surprise, then cocked her head toward the blond girl folding sweaters. There were only a few customers. Nick moved slowly past the counters, browsing, familiarizing himself with the floor layout. You could see everything from the fitting rooms. He made his way to the shirt counter, where Molly was waiting, glancing at him nervously.

“Fifteen and a half, thirty-three,” he said, then stopped. Not even his size. When she reached behind her and handed him the shirt, he felt, eerily, that he had crossed some invisible line into his father’s life. Exactly the way it must have been, no one noticing. He fingered the shirt wrapped in plastic. You could slip an envelope underneath. Rosemary could take it, hand you another, ring up the sale, and carry the shirt back to the stockroom. A crime so easy no one would ever see. He realized then that Molly was staring at him, disconcerted.

“I’ll come back,” he said, embarrassed, and walked away.

After that he stayed with the list, not trusting himself to go out. He reread Rosemary’s letter, trying to imagine what her voice had been like. Throaty, maybe, like Molly’s. The hotel room was claustrophobic, so he sat for hours gazing out the window, going over everything that had happened in Prague, some clue he might have missed. He wondered what had happened to Zimmerman, what Anna Masaryk had done with the exit visas. He could see them both vividly and realized that this is what people in prison did-floated out of their cells into some imaginative other life. She had been putting lipstick on when the bellboy brought the setup. Two glasses. Happy to see him.

The phone rang twice before Nick came back to his own room.

“She asked to switch with me Friday. Tomorrow. To do the shirts,” Molly said. “I don’t know if it means anything or not. But why switch? Nick?”

“I’m here.”

“So what do you think?”

He paused, not sure.

“Well, it might be, don’t you think?” Molly said eagerly. “Why don’t you buy yourself a suit tomorrow?”

He tried on several, lingering in front of the mirror with one eye fixed on the shirt counter. Finally, when the salesman became impatient, he picked a blue pinstripe and stood on a raised platform while the tailor measured for alterations. But how long could he string it out? A few men, all of them too young, bought shirts. The blond girl, Barbara, kept looking around as if she were expecting someone, but nothing happened.

When the floor manager told her to go to lunch, Nick followed. A sandwich in a coffee shop, eaten quickly. When she went back to Garfinkel’s, Nick stopped himself at the door, his excuses to go inside exhausted. He went across the street and kept watch from a doorway. Smoking, waiting to meet a friend. Then another corner, a newspaper. The afternoon dragged on. How much longer?

He went back into the store and caught Molly’s eye. A quick shake of her head. He crossed the floor, positioning himself next to ladies’ scarves, then bought some perfume, all the while keeping the men’s department in sight. Almost closing time. Barbara looked at her watch and then toward the door. A missed connection, or just a salesgirl eager to go home?

When the bell rang, Nick’s heart sank. He’d made himself conspicuous and no one had showed. He watched her close the register with Molly, chatting, then had no choice but to follow the other customers out. He waited across the street again and then, on the chance that she was meeting him after work, moved toward the employee entrance. A group of women, talking. He picked out the blond hair easily and began to track it back toward Dupont Circle. Maybe a drink after work? But Barbara, the reliable tenant, went straight home, and when he saw her go through Mrs Baylor’s door he knew the day, with all its nervous expectations, was gone.

“But she asked to switch again,” Molly said later. “Maybe he couldn’t make it for some reason.”

“And maybe she just likes shirts,” Nick said, depressed.

“No, she never asked before. It has to be. Anyway, you could use the clothes.”

The next morning was like the first: sleepwalking past the sales tables, picking through the suits, the clerk puzzled at his being there again but still wanting to make a sale. Nick said he’d try a few on, hoping the salesman would go away, and went into one of the changing rooms. The door was louvered, so that if you bent a little you could see between the slats. Barbara at the shirt counter. But he couldn’t stay here forever, peering out. The clerk had someone else now and was leading him toward the tailor, but he’d knock in a minute, wanting to know if everything was all right. Nick thought suddenly of the station men’s room, the sick feeling as the footsteps came closer.

He was about to give up and open the door when he saw Barbara’s head rise, relieved, recognizing someone. She turned and pulled two shirts off the shelf, ready, then glanced to either side of her to see if the coast was clear as the man’s back came into view. For a second Nick didn’t breathe. The man was picking up a shirt, handing the other back to her, turning slightly as she went to the register. Nick grabbed the slats with his fingers, lightheaded, steadying himself as his stomach heaved. He’d seen the face. A shouting in his head. He opened the door.

“Ah, and how did we like the gray?” the salesman said, but Nick walked by him, one foot in front of the other, as if he were underwater. Moving toward the shirts, a hundred pictures flashing by him, rearranging themselves in place. The same face through the cubicle slats, in a slice, just like the crack at the study door. Molly watching him, her mouth open. And then he was there, behind the familiar shoulders.

“Hello, Larry,” he said.

Chapter 19

“He told you.” They were on a bench in Lafayette Square, across from the Hay-Adams, everything around them drenched in sun, surreal, Larry’s voice as calm as the quiet park. A man feeding birds, a young woman pushing a pram-no one had the slightest idea. Larry had led him here by the arm, guiding him out of the store as if he were a patient, one of those men in Nick’s unit who’d been too near a bomb and had to be helped away.

“No. He never knew,” Nick said, almost whispering, foggy. “Except at the end.” His voice was coming back now. “That’s why he changed his plan that day. He figured out the lighter-that you were the only one who could have taken it. From the study.”

“That was an accident. I must have put it in my pocket. But then I had it-”

“He was going to use you to make the deal for him. Then he realized you were the one person he couldn’t use. He’d have to do it himself.”

“He must have been out of his mind.”

“Yes.”

“Come back. Really, Nick-”

“Are you going to kill me too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my son.”

“You killed the other one.” Then, to Larry’s blank expression, “She was pregnant. Rosemary Cochrane. It was yours, wasn’t it?”

Larry was silent. “I didn’t know,” he said finally, past denial.

“Would it have made any difference?”

“No.” He looked away. “It was too dangerous.”

“She wouldn’t have named you. She was in love with you.”

“You can’t trust that,” he said dismissively. “She was just a girl. Then she got-emotional. And she slipped up somehow. They got on to her. It was dangerous. She knew about me.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. But he was going to crack. I saw it that night.” He glanced over. “When you were spying on us.”

“I didn’t understand anything.”

Larry sighed. “Well, neither did Walter. That was the problem. He didn’t understand how serious it was. He thought-I don’t know what the hell he thought. Buy them off with a name and live happily ever after? It doesn’t work that way. Once you start, you go to the end. And what name? He only had Schulman.”

“Who recruited him.”

Larry looked back, surprised. “That’s right. And me. At Penn. The one point of connection. I couldn’t risk that. If he’d given them Schulman, it might have led them to me.” He wrinkled his face. “The way things work out. I was the one who suggested he try Walter. He was always looking for prospects. I told him Walter might be promising material. But he turned out to be the weak link. You see that, don’t you? He might have brought the whole thing down.”

Nick looked at him, incredulous. Was he being asked to agree?

“They had to protect me. I was in the White House. We’d never had a chance like that.”

“Why didn’t you just kill him too?”

Larry looked at him with an indulgent expression. “Is that what you think of us? Of course we didn’t kill him. Anyway, you take care of your own, unless there’s no other choice. That would have been a foolish risk to run. Two deaths? No one would have believed the other was suicide. There’d be no end to it.”

“The police didn’t believe it anyway. You made sure of that. With the lighter.”

“No, I was making sure of him. I wasn’t sure he’d go. Walter was unpredictable.” He paused. “He had reasons to stay. He might have thought he could tough it out, not accept our invitation.”

“But not if he thought he’d be accused of murder. Then he’d have to go.”

“Well, it never came to that. It was just a precaution. He did go.”

“Convenient for you.”

“Convenient for everybody. Except old Ken Welles, I suppose, but that couldn’t be helped. Oh, you think we wanted him stopped? No-he was useful. He was so busy looking for Commies in all the wrong places, nobody thought to look in the right ones. Loyalty oaths for schoolteachers — Christ. But even a fool gets lucky once.”

“You had Hoover looking too.”

“Well, I didn’t want him looking at me. All I had to do was suggest that Walter must have been tipped off by someone in the Bureau and he was off. Catching his rats.” He stopped. “I never wanted to hurt Walter.”

“You killed him.”

“We got him out. It was the best we could do. He had a life there, you said so yourself. We had to do it.”

“Not then. Now. You killed him. Or had him killed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“We’re sitting here, aren’t we? How do you think I got to you?”

Larry looked up at him, serious. “How did you?”

“First tell me why.”

“Why. What else could we do? Coming back. That could only mean one thing. He found out. I don’t know how-we were careful about that. All those years. I knew how he’d react. He’d make it personal.”

“It was personal.”

“No. I was just another agent.”

“Who took his wife. And set him up for a murder charge. And got rid of him to cover your own ass. You ruined his life, Larry. What do you call personal?” Larry turned away. “Why did you have to kill him? He was never going to get out-you know that.”

“He didn’t have to get out. Once he knew, he could have told anybody. A journalist. The spooks at the embassy. He wasn’t safe if he knew.” He paused. “Given everything.”

“But he didn’t know, Larry. Not until the end. You had him killed for nothing.”

“What do you want me to say, Nick? I’m sorry? It’s a death wish, to want to defect. There’s only one way to do it. If he didn’t know about me, then he knew others. He was going to turn them. This isn’t school. What did you expect them to do?”

“Once you told them.”

“Yes, once I told them,” he said impatiently. “Of course I told them. You don’t wait. We’re all at risk when somebody defects. He had to be stopped before anything got out. It had to die with him.”

“It didn’t,” Nick said quietly. “He told me. That’s what led me to you. Names. Her, your new friend. You ought to change your pattern, Larry. You made it easy. It didn’t die with him.”

Larry crossed his legs and looked down at his trousers, picking at the fabric, seemingly at a loss. “Well, that creates a little situation, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. You’ll have to kill me too.”

“Does anyone know?” Larry said.

“Just me. Once I’m gone, you’re safe.”

“I didn’t mean that. I was thinking of you. Are you sure? What about that girl?”

“No,” Nick lied. “Just me. You’d be safe.”

“Don’t talk crazy. Kill you.” He turned to Nick, his eyes suddenly old and unguarded. “You’re all I care about. Don’t you know that?”

Nick felt a tremor, another shock to the system. Not a lie. His boy, the unexpected thing in his life, a knot too tangled to untie. Nick looked away.

“You should have been more careful in Prague then,” he said. “I almost didn’t make it. Or were you going to get me out of that one too?”

“But I didn’t know you were there,” Larry said, reaching over and putting his hand on Nick’s arm. “I didn’t know. You have to believe that. I would never involve you. Nobody said you were there.”

“Didn’t Brown tell you?”

“Brown?”

“One of yours. Over in Justice-”

Larry held up his hand. “Don’t. I’m not supposed to know. It’s safer.”

“Then who did?”

“Hoover. He called. He had a report from one of his legats saying that Walter was planning to come back. Did I know anything about it? I suppose he thought I might, because of your mother. He never said anything about you. Why would I even think it? It was a damn fool thing for Walter to do, involving you. What was in his head? You don’t do that.”

“He trusted me.”

“He didn’t even know you. I was there, not him. No matter what you think of me now, that part’s still true. He wasn’t there. I was. I gave you everything.”

Nick looked at him, amazed. “No,” he said. “You took everything.”

A pause. Then Larry looked down at his watch. “Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere. And I have a meeting.” He looked up. “You’re being sentimental. Walter was a damn fool. But you’re all right, that’s the main thing.”

“You have a meeting?” Nick said. Was he just going to walk away?

“Yes, at the White House. Walk over with me.” He stood up.

“Do you really think I’m going to let you do that?”

Larry raised his eyebrows, genuinely puzzled.

Nick got up, facing him. “I know everything you’ve done. Your code name. What happened at the hotel. How you report. All of it.”

“You’ll make an awful mess trying to prove it.”

“I can do it. I have documents. He gave them to me.”

“Ah,” Larry said, looking away. “Then I guess I’m in your hands. You might say we’re in each other’s hands. Sort of a protection racket.”

“I’m not in your hands.”

“Well, a minute ago you said I was going to kill you. Which I’m not, of course. But you’re not going to do anything either. What did you have in mind? Turning me in? Your own father? I don’t think so. You know, Nick, you’re more like me than you think. We’re both pragmatists. We take the world as it comes. You just got thrown a curve, that’s all. But don’t do anything foolish. What’s in it for you? Patriotism? Not very pragmatic.”

“You bastard. Listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me. Calmly. We’re going to walk out of the square, and in a few minutes I’m going to sit down at a table and listen to fools and crooks tell me how they want to run the world. I’ve been listening to them for thirty years, different crooks, same fools. But I’m at the end. This is my last job. After that I won’t be a threat to anybody, least of all the country. That you think you care so much about. It’s over. Walter told you things he had no right to tell. You’re lucky, no one knows except me. So you come back playing detective, all fired up to change the world. Just like Walter used to be. But you’re not going to change it. Nobody does. What you might do is cause a scandal that would embarrass the Government-not a bad thing in itself, given who they are. But it’ll be a lot worse for us. It would kill your mother.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“And what about you? You know what it would mean. Do you want to go through all that again? I’m not doing anything more than what Walter did. You want to make him a saint, that’s your business, but don’t drag the rest of us down trying. Do you think anybody wants to know? That time is over. You think Nixon wants his old Red-baiting days brought up again? Mr Statesman? Hell, the only one who still cares at all is Hoover, and he’s been nuts for years. No one wants to know. Who would you be doing it for?”

“For me.”

“For you. Why? Settling someone else’s scores. And you’d still have to prove it. I don’t know what you think you have — is it really enough? I’d have to fight you, and I’m good, I’ve been doing it for a long time. I don’t want to fight you, Nick. You’re my son. You are, you know. We’d be killing each other. Like scorpions. We’d both go down.”

“You killed someone, Larry. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Listen, Nick, I’m going to a meeting now with men who are killing thousands, and people think they’re heroes. I didn’t make the world. At least I did it to protect myself — that’s the oldest instinct in the book. What’s their excuse? Come on, walk with me. I’ll be late.”

Numbly Nick fell in step at his side. “I don’t care about them, Larry. You killed him.”

“He killed himself, Nick. He killed himself the moment he decided to turn. Those are the rules. They’d do the same thing to me-or you. Be smart. Let’s all just retire in peace. Think of your mother. You don’t want to do this to her.”

“Look what you’ve done to her.”

“I hope I’ve made her happy.” He turned. “She can’t know about this.”

“What’s the difference? A wife can’t testify against her husband.” Nick stopped. “Is that why you married her?”

“Of course not. I love your mother. I always have.”

“You’re a liar, Larry. You don’t even know her.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Nick. I did my best, that’s all I can say.”

“You even lie to yourself.”

“Well, we all do that.” They stopped near the entrance to the White House, across the lawn behind the tall railings. Barriers along the street to keep protestors away. Larry waved to one of the guards and turned. “But I’m not lying to you. There’s no advantage here. Be smart.”

“Like you. Maybe I’m one of the fools. Are any of them smart, or are you the only one?” Nick cocked his head toward the gate, where a black limousine was pulling onto the driveway.

“Well, they’re not very bright,” Larry said. “Anyway, it won’t be much longer. I’ll be out this fall. Would you like me to resign sooner? Would that ease your conscience?”

Making a deal, the way he always did. Sure of himself. Nick looked at him, the familiar face suddenly inexplicable. “Tell me. Why did you do it?”

“I thought I explained-”

“No. It. Are you a Communist? I mean, do you believe in it?”

“I used to. I thought it would fix things.”

“But not anymore.”

“I’m too old to believe you can fix things.”

“Then why did you keep going?”

“Well, you have to.” An easy answer, but then he stopped, thinking. “I don’t know if you’d understand. It was the stakes. It was-you’d sit at a table, in there.” He jabbed his thumb toward the gate. “You’d sit there while they all talked, and none of them knew.”

“That you were betraying them.”

“That you had the secret. This big secret. None of them knew.” He shrugged. “But that’s all over now. My son’s going to insist I retire.” He smiled his old Van Johnson smile and turned to the gate. “Call me after lunch.”

“But-” Nick reached out to stop him, but Larry had already moved out of reach, so that Nick’s arm just hung in the air, as if he were holding a gun. Then slowly he dropped it, unable to pull the trigger.

Molly was still at the store, waiting.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “What happened?”

“Where’s the girl?”

“She split. But I got this.” She held up the envelope. “She was too freaked to argue. Just ran.”

“Did you look?”

Molly nodded. “What we’re going to say in Paris. Talk about a stacked deck. If this doesn’t put him away, nothing will. What happened? No more than what your father did-another lie. He was prolonging the war.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“I can’t,” she said, indicating the unmanned register. “There’s no one here.”

“Now,” Nick said sharply. Then, seeing her surprised face, “What if she comes back?”

Molly grabbed her purse from underneath the counter. They walked down 14th Street toward the Mall, hearing the sound of loudspeakers in the distance, a chant. Molly listened to him without interrupting, her face worried. They turned up Pennsylvania Avenue. Nick could see the Justice building, Hoover’s balcony overlooking the street, where he watched the parades. A short elevator ride, a deal-that’s all it would take.

“So what are you going to do?” Molly said finally.

“Why did it have to be him?” he said, almost to himself.

“Because it is.”

“I don’t know,” he said, answering her question.

“Finish it. That’s what you came here to do. End it.”

“It won’t end. It’ll start all over again.”

“Nick,” she said softly, “if you don’t do this, it’ll never stop.”

“Just name a few names.”

“That’s their politics. I’m tired of being them. He’s selling us out now. Us. I can’t be that neutral. Is this how we’re going to live, like them? They made a mess of their lives.”

“But we won’t,” he said ironically.

“Well, we can do it our own way. At least then we won’t know how it comes out.” She took out the envelope and handed it to him. “Here. It’s yours. You decide.”

Nick looked down at the envelope. “I can’t be his executioner, Molly.”

“Somebody’d better be. He’ll do it to you too.”

“He’s not going to kill me.”

“Yes, he is. Every time you look at him.” She hesitated. “It’s a lousy deal, Nick.”

He watched her turn away.

“Where are you going?”

“Over to the rally. If you want to join the living, meet me by the monument.” She stopped. “Then I’m going back to New York. I hate this place.” She looked up at him. “Come with me?”

“I’m not finished here.”

“I am,” she said, and walked away.

He went toward the Justice Department and stared up at the balcony, the envelope like a weight in his pocket. A lousy deal. But would this one be any better? Could you really buy freedom in a pact with the devil?

The lobby was busy, full of men in suits and short-cropped hair, Bureau style. A bank of phones. Guards, armed. Where Hoover had started the phony war that had finally circled them on 2nd Street and now-beyond an irony, something grotesque-Nick would hand him, so many years later, the unexpected paper to win it. The pragmatic deal.

But as he walked toward the reception desk, surrounded by Hoover’s foot soldiers, he knew he couldn’t do it. Not here. The old enemy. He saw Hoover snatching the prize, vindicated, unassailable at last. Which was worse, Larry for a few months or Hoover tape-recording for the rest of his life? How did you measure the damage? Molly had to see that. He’d be one of them. He turned, pretending he’d forgotten something, and walked out past the indifferent guards.

The rally was noisy and crowded. He walked past the line of police and portable toilets and parked ambulances-were they expecting trouble? — and into the mass swarming over the Mall. He felt a million miles from the somber candle vigil for Jan Palach. Bubbles and painted faces and scraggly hair. Shirts off in the sun. The defiant smell of dope. In the distance was a concert stage with loudspeakers, a group at its base yelling “Out now!”, the chant rippling back through the crowd in a wave. Homemade posters and peace buttons.

Where was she? Everyone looked young. Nick realized with a start that no one in the huge eager crowd had ever heard of the hearings, that the old war was not even a distant memory to them. Like Welles, the survivors had moved on to the next thing. An embarrassing moment in the republic, not even worth teaching in school, so the children, absorbed in their own war, would not even know it had happened. And Larry would survive this one too, betraying them all. A lousy deal. Molly was right. They needed to breathe their own air.

He’d never find her in this. He scanned the broad slope by the monument. A scuffle had broken out near the transverse road, and policemen were wading in to contain it. A kid next to him was watching it through binoculars.

“Pigs,” he said. “There go the pigs again.”

“Could I borrow these for a sec?”

“Look at the pigs, man,” he said, handing the glasses to Nick.

It wasn’t yet an incident. People stood watching without getting involved, like a highway accident. The police were leading two men away, but no one was protesting. Probably a fight someone had to break up, not a bust. People stepped back to clear a path, then started up the road again. Nick moved the binoculars across the young faces, then stopped, jarred by something out of place.

The woman was looking away, a little farther up the hill, annoyed she’d had to stop, anxious. In the carnival of the rally her determined face stood out like a warning. Not just any face. Ruth Silberstein. Nick followed her, hypnotized. What was she doing here? And when she turned to speak to the man with her, Nick felt the fear begin. Ponytail and acne: the guy from the adult store. Then Ruth pointed and Nick followed her finger to Molly, standing on the curb, looking around. Waiting for him.

“Hey, man,” said the kid, reaching for the binoculars.

“Just a minute. Please.”

It hadn’t been Hoover’s tail. He’d been telling the truth. Rrown, or someone, had been following her. Or had Barbara called in an alarm? And now they were here, just a few feet from her. He wanted to shout out. Hopeless. But she’d know them, run for it. Except she’d never seen Ruth Silberstein, never been in the store. Nick watched through the binoculars as they approached her. What story would they have? At first she smiled. Then a moment of panic on her face, a quick glance around for help. She stepped away, but Ruth pulled her in and the ponytail moved behind her, close to her back, and then they were moving off together toward Constitution Avenue in a huddle. Run.

Nick dropped the binoculars and started racing through the crowd, bumping into people, dodging section leaders with bullhorns. The chant came back from the stage again, and those who had been sitting, picnic style, jumped up. “Out now!” Nick tried to push through a wall of people, not even able to see the road anymore. Flailing through vines in a jungle, shoving them aside. “Hey, where’s the fire, man?” Someone said “Peace,” as if the word itself had power. Had they known all along, been aware of their amateur shadows? Brown’s elaborate route, a lure. Not just a dirty bookstore. Nick’s mind raced through the crowd, faster than his blocked feet. But why here, in public? What would have drawn them out? The envelope. They knew she’d taken the envelope. And then, as he edged around a group of girls, stalled, the other thought occurred to him. Larry. Of course he’d lie. There had never been any deal. You don’t wait. The oldest instinct in the book. She really had become Rosemary.

By the time he reached the road, calling out her name now, they had disappeared. He ran faster, trying to catch up. Police glared at him. Then he saw a car across the avenue, the ponytail bundling her in. He screamed her name. As she got into the car, she turned her head as if, impossibly, she’d heard him, and he thought, a final panic, that it could be the last time he’d ever see her. He ran across the avenue, halting traffic, but the car was pulling away, too far for him even to make out the license plate, and then sped around the corner.

He stopped and stood still, heaving. They’d question her first. But for how long? It was the lawn at Holeckova again, feeling utterly helpless. He glanced toward the line of police. But what would he say? And then, another jolt, what if they were following him too? Or was she just bait, Larry’s new bargaining chip? Bastard, he thought, and began running toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Somewhere they wouldn’t follow, if he could make it.

He tried to calm his breathing as he walked into the Justice Department. Don’t look out of place. He went to the row of phone booths and pulled out some change. If it had been Larry, they might not even question her. He already knew. Nick tried the Hay-Adams-not there. But you couldn’t call the White House. Unless your life depended on it. He dialed. The switchboard believed the emergency-the operator could hear it in his ragged breathing.

“Nick, are you crazy?” Larry said when he came on. “Pulling me out of a meeting. What-”

“Be quiet. I’m at the Justice Department. I’m going up to Hoover’s office unless you let her go. Do you understand?”

“No. Nick, these phones.” Hedging. “They’re not secure.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Let her go.”

“Calm down. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You kidnapped her. Molly. I fucking saw them. Ruth and the freak from the porno store. They probably had Brown in the car. Where’d they take her, Larry? Christ.”

“Stop it. You’re babbling. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Was it possible? “Look, come over here. I’ll meet you outside. Not the phones.”

“Forget it. I’m not leaving here. It’s safe. Even you wouldn’t try to get me here. I’ll go upstairs, Larry, I mean it. I’ll tell him everything.”

“What do you mean, safe? Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. They’ve got her. They’ll kill her unless you stop it.”

“Nick, I’ll say it one more time. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She was following Brown. He must have spotted her. Or your girlfriend.”

“Nick-”

“I don’t give a fuck!” he yelled. “You have to get her. Fix this. That’s what you do, isn’t it? They’re your people-talk to your boss. You must have one. He’ll know. Tell him I’m already at the Bureau. If they touch one hair, one hair, I’ll blow the whole fucking operation. I can do it. I have the names, Larry. You want to hear them? You’re not supposed to know. Nobody’s supposed to know. But they will. Tell him I have the envelope too.”

“What envelope?”

“Your envelope. Your last fucking report.”

“Nick-” A beat. “Stay where you are. I’ll be right there. Where in Justice?”

“In the lobby. Right next to an armed guard.”

He took ten minutes. Nick sat in the booth, sweating, the receiver cradled at his ear, the constant dial tone drowning out the buzzing in his head. All that mattered-not any of the rest of it, all the complicated loyalties. He saw her walking past the guards on the Prague station platform. In the room at the Alcron. His. The only thing he hadn’t lost yet. By the time he saw Larry walking into the lobby, the fear had set into something harder, without margins. The oldest instinct in the book.

“It wasn’t me, Nick,” Larry said, his voice brisk, setting things straight.

“I don’t care. Just get her. John Brown works upstairs somewhere. He’s the one who’d know her. He’s probably had her watched. What about Barbara-she take packages from anybody else?”

Larry nodded.

“Then she must have tipped one of them.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Larry said, getting into the booth. “I can’t promise anything. I don’t know the others. It may be out of my hands.”

“But you’re in mine. Do it.”

Larry picked up the receiver and began closing the booth door. Nick put his hand on it. “Secrets, Larry? Still?”

“Theirs.”

He closed the door and dialed. Nick stood outside the booth, watching the Bureau pass by, unaware. Larry was right, there was an excitement in knowing the only secret at the table. He heard him make another call, brusque, a man used to getting his way. Nick looked at his watch. They’d question her first.

“All right,” Larry said as he came out. “They’ve got her somewhere. They want to know what’s going on.”

“They tell you where?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

“One thing.”

Nick stopped and turned.

“I’d like the envelope,” Larry said, holding out a hand. Even now.

“And if I don’t?”

Larry just looked at him.

Nick reached into his pocket. “Here.” He tossed it at him. “You’re a lousy deal anyway.”

“Nick-”

“Let’s go.”

Outside, they walked to the waiting black car. Larry opened the driver’s door.

“Personal errand,” he said. “Take an hour and I’ll meet you back at the White House.”

The driver, surprised, handed him the keys. “They don’t like that.”

Larry winked. “Wouldn’t want to do anything personal on Government time, huh?”

“No, sir.”

When they pulled away, Larry said, “In my briefcase. Left compartment.”

Nick took the case from the back seat, opened it, and pulled out a gun, staring at it.

“Just put it in my pocket.”

“Why?”

“The man holding her doesn’t know me. If my person doesn’t reach him, we may need a little help. Just in case.”

“God, Larry.”

“Still enjoying yourself?”

They drove up 13th Street toward New York Avenue and stopped-why hadn’t he thought of it? — at the adult store.

“That’s why you didn’t want the driver.”

“They talk,” Larry said simply.

There was a CLOSED sign on the door, nothing visible inside. Larry knocked.

“We’re fucking closed.” The ponytail.

“Joseph sent me,” Larry said.

“Who?”

“John Brown,” Nick said. The one man he’d have to know.

The door opened a crack. “What the fuck do you want?”

“We came for the girl,” Larry said. “Come on, open. Quick. Before someone sees.” He pushed the door.

The man was holding the baseball bat, his eyes widening as he recognized Nick. “Who the fuck are you? Nobody said anything about the girl.”

“Where is she?” Larry said. “ Now.”

The man nodded toward the film cubicles in the back. “Nobody said nothing about this.”

“Nobody had to. Put the bat down. You look like an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, who the fuck are you? I gotta make a call.” He went toward the register counter.

“Just put it down,” Larry said, holding the gun. “And the bat.”

“Fuck,” the ponytail said, amazed. He dropped the bat, which clattered on the floor.

“I thought you said just in case,” Nick said.

“Just get her. Where?” he said to the man.

“In the back on the right.”

Nick stared at Larry, suddenly frightened, then moved quickly into the back. Dim, after the garish front room. Doors with light bulbs over them.

“Molly?”

He heard a pounding inside one of the cubicles. His eyes adjusted to the dark. At the end, a chair was propped against a door.

“Molly.” He threw the chair aside and pulled the door open. She was standing there cowering, holding her forearm. “You all right?”

She nodded, still stunned. Her face was blotchy, and she moaned when he took her in his arms, hugging her.

“It’s my wrist. I think it’s broken. He grabbed-Oh God, Nick. What’s happening?”

“Come on.”

He held her by the side and walked her out of the dark room.

“They’re coming back,” she said. “Who are they?”

“Later. Come on.”

She blinked when the light hit her eyes, dazzled by the slick covers full of flesh. “Where are we?” Then she saw Larry holding the gun and drew closer to Nick, clutching him.

“Get her to the car,” Larry said.

“Nobody told me about this,” the ponytail said.

“Shut up.”

“Fuck you.” He moved toward Molly.

Larry raised the gun. “Don’t. I mean it.”

The man stopped, glowering.

“Get in the car,” Larry said to her. “Quick.”

She looked at Nick, who nodded and opened the door.

“You don’t know what fucking trouble you’re buying,” the ponytail said.

“I always know what I’m buying,” Larry said. “Now you can use the phone.”

The man snorted and turned toward the counter. The blast caught Nick by surprise, making him jump, so loud it was still ringing in his ears as he watched the man fall onto the counter, then slump and slide off, with magazines slipping around him. When he hit the floor Nick heard his head crack. He stared at the blood. Like the war — blood coming out, quietly. He looked up at Larry, for a second expecting the other shot. But Larry was taking a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the gun, then tossing it next to the man.

“He saw me,” he said simply.

Nick said nothing, lost in the stillness that follows a violent death. It had been that easy. No witnesses. A girl falling out the window. Barbara next, whoever else might be a threat. His father jerking under the pillows. No end to it, ever.

“Now get out of here,” Larry said. “You’ve got her. We’re quits.”

“I saw you too,” Nick said quietly.

“Then I’m in your hands again,” Larry said, matter-of-fact. “But we have a deal.” He wiped his hands. “Come on, Nick, we have to get out of here. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.” He moved toward the door.

“You’re going to get away with it.”

“Yes, I am. Come on.”

He lifted his hand to the door, his back to Nick, the familiar shoulders. No end to it. I won’t be his executioner. Not to Hoover, giving comfort to the enemy. But no end to it. He reached down and picked up the gun. Larry turned. Nick looked down at his hand, outstretched, the way it had been at the White House gate, unable to pull the trigger. Locked together in the tangle Larry had made.

“Nick. Leave it. They’ll-”

Nick fired, the sound splitting the room again. He saw Larry’s shocked face, his graceless stumble and fall to the floor.

“Nick.” A gasp, like a plea.

Nick wiped the gun, just as Larry had, and threw it toward the clerk. Then he went over, leaned down, and took the envelope out of Larry’s pocket. No scandal. Just a crime. Larry’s eyes were still open. “Don’t worry,” Nick said to the ground. “Your secret’s safe with me. That was the deal.”

A pounding on the door. “Nick!”

He slid out, not opening it wide enough for her to see, and he took her good arm, leading her away from the corner.

“Leave the car. If anyone asks-when they ask-just say he dropped us at the hotel. We didn’t see him after that.”

“The shots-”

“They’re both dead.”

“We can’t just leave.”

He turned to her. “We were never here, understand? Nobody will ever know.”

She nodded, frightened.

“Come on, we’ll pack and get you to a hospital.”

“Pack?”

“For New York. But first we’ll see about the wrist.”

“I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not. Besides, I have one more thing to do. Stay at the hospital until I get back. Don’t leave. You’ll be safe there.”

She looked at him. “One more thing,” she said dully.

“I have to see Hoover.”

She glanced at the envelope.

“No,” he said. “Only the others. They still know about us. Now I have to.”

“But not him.”

“No.” He tore the envelope into small pieces, then bent over and tossed them into a storm drain, where they would float, like a shirt, to the Potomac. “He’s not a spy anymore.”

“They’ll find out. What would he be doing there?”

“What does any man do in a store like that? They’ll cover that up. Out of respect,” he said, an edge in his voice. “He’s a crime victim, Molly. Mugged. It happens in Washington all the time.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

He looked at her. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s over.”

“Except for one more thing.”

“Yes.”

They took a taxi to the hotel and he made the phone call while Molly packed. No one was outside, watching. He drove her to a hospital out in Georgetown, the late sun still glowing on the buildings.

“Why Georgetown?”

“It’s on the way to Hoover’s. He said he’d see me at home.”

“God, his home,” she said, sounding better, as if movement itself had begun to rub away the shock. “I never thought of him living anywhere.”

“Remember, don’t leave,” he said as they pulled up to the hospital. “For any reason. They’re still out there.”

Thirtieth Place was a quiet cul-de-sac near Rock Creek Park, large brick houses with Georgian windows set back on narrow lawns. For a second Nick stopped, disbelieving. Hoover’s grass, a hardy even green, was Astroturf.

A Negro houseman opened the door and led him into the living room. At first Nick thought he had walked into a gift shop-there were hundreds of antiques, vases and statues, silver teapots and curios, oriental carpets laid on top of each other so that every space was filled. An oil portrait of a young Hoover on the stair landing. Hoover himself, in an open-necked shirt and slacks, came into the room followed by two Cairn terriers, who sniffed at Nick’s ankles, then padded away. The voice, still quick, had lost its machine gun effect, as if it too had been softened by domesticity.

“Drink?”

A drink with Hoover.

“No. I can’t stay.”

Hoover indicated the overstuffed couch. He took the chair next to it, sinking into the cushion so that his body became foreshortened, the round head bobbing on it like Humpty Dumpty’s. He made the first move, extending his hand and opening it. The lighter.

Nick took it, staring at the initials. No longer shiny, a dull gold, from the days when they used to go dancing. “Thank you,” he said.

“Now what have you got for me?”

“I want to make a deal.”

“The Bureau doesn’t make deals.”

“That’s no way to do business. You haven’t heard what I’ve got.”

A flash of irritation, then a slow smile. “The father’s son. Larry never comes empty-handed. What have you got?”

“Names. I want to trade you some names.”

Hoover looked surprised, then distracted as a thin, once good-looking man shuffled vaguely into the room.

“Speed?”

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Clyde.”

“Oh, I thought it was time for drinks.” He was illness thin.

“Why don’t you start? I’ll be down as soon as I’m finished with my young friend here.”

The man nodded, still vague, and headed for the basement stairs, the rec room, where Larry had told him Hoover had an obscene cartoon of Eleanor Roosevelt. A joke from the past.

“Clyde’s staying here for a few days,” Hoover said, as if he needed to explain him. The rumored companion. But it was impossible to think of Hoover being intimate with anybody. Nick wondered what they talked about over, dinner. The Dillinger days, maybe, filled with public enemies.

“Speed?” Nick said.

“A nickname,” Hoover said, annoyed. “What kind of trade?”

“Five for one. Five Russian spies. Here, in Washington.” Hoover looked at him, impressed. “You were right about my father. He knew he’d have to buy his way out. This is what he had. It’ll be a coup for the Bureau. Headlines. You can pick them up now.”

“On your say-so.”

“The names are good. He knew.”

“Proof?”

“You’ll find it once you’ve got them. The Bureau’s good at that, isn’t it?”

Hoover’s face was wary and eager at the same time. “Why so helpful all of a sudden?”

“My father wanted you to have them. You were wrong about him. He wasn’t disloyal, he was trapped.” Hoover looked confused. “This was his way of giving something back.”

“A friend of the Bureau,” Hoover said, almost sneering. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the office?”

“I’ve been checking them out. But I’m not as good as you are-they caught me doing it. They know about me. Now I want you to pick them up.”

A slow smile. “That’s more like it. So you want me to save your behind. For two cents I’d let them take care of you. Not ‘disloyal’-your father was a traitor. You just want me to save your behind.”

“And yours,” Nick said easily. “You could use a little press. Nixon wants you out. You made him, but now you make him nervous. You could use this.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? One of them’s in Justice.”

Hoover raised his head, as if he’d heard a bell.

“If you don’t want them, maybe Nixon will. He could make you look awfully pathetic. Director’s so past it he doesn’t even know he has a spy in his own department. He’d do it. With a speech about your long record of service.” A twitch in Hoover’s jowls; anxious now. “But I’d rather give them to you.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, I don’t trust him to get them off the street in time. You could do it in an hour. Keep my behind safe for walking around.” He paused. “And I want something from you.”

Hoover peered at him, waiting.

“I want to know who told you about Rosemary Cochrane. One name.”

“For five.”

“Well, four, to be precise. One of them’s at the Russian embassy. I only have the code name. But you probably know all the players there anyway. Maybe on tape. I’d like that destroyed too, by the way, the tape you played the other day. I always sound funny on tape.”

“A real wise guy, aren’t you?”

Nick shrugged. “I grew up in Washington. You get to know how a place works.”

“No, you don’t. A trade. What makes you think I wouldn’t get them out of you anyway?”

“What, with a rubber hose? Like the Commies? You don’t do business that way. You do business this way.”

Hoover said nothing.

“One name.”

“What do you want it for?”

“I just want to know. It’s worth it to me. But not as much as my names are worth to you. It’s a good deal.”

Hoover watched him, thinking, then leaned over and picked up a silver pen from an antique set on the coffee table. He scribbled on a notepad, then tore off the page and held it up.

“There’s not much you can do now anyway,” he said with a sly smile, making the better bargain.

Nick reached over, but Hoover raised his eyebrows. Nick nodded and took the sheet of names and addresses from his pocket. He handed it to Hoover with a formal gesture, like a diplomatic exchange, then looked at the small piece of paper.

It took a second to sink in-a name, just a squiggle on a piece of paper. Rosemary’s letter. The overlooked clue. One confession is enough. The start of everything that had happened to them.

“You’re surprised,” Hoover said, enjoying it.

Nick stood up. “Thank you for the lighter.”

“I knew you’d be a friend to the Bureau.”

Nick looked at him. That’s one thing I’ll never be.“ He pointed to the list in Hoover’s hand. If you start now, you can probably get them before you go down for drinks.”

“You’re a cold bastard,” Hoover said, a kind of admiring salute.

“I didn’t start that way,” Nick said.

He found her in the emergency room, her wrist taped but not in a sling.

“It’s just a sprain. They don’t know why I’m still hanging around.”

“Just sit tight for a few more minutes. I have to pay a visit.”

“Your face,” she said, studying him.

“I’ve just been with Hoover.”

She nodded at the TV monitor in the waiting room. “There’s been nothing on the news, by the way.”

“There won’t be. Store’s closed, remember? I doubt if any of our friends are running to report it. I’ll be right back.”

“A visit here?”

“An errand of mercy. Five minutes.”

The night-duty nurse was sympathetic. “It’s after hours. Just a few minutes, okay? He gets tired. It’s difficult for him to talk. He still slurs.”

Nick went into the private room and closed the door. There was a small reading lamp, but no books. Father Tim’s head was raised on an inclined pillow, his body motionless. Only the eyes moved in recognition.

“Nick,” he said, the word muffled by the twisted face. A string of drool hung out of one side of his mouth. His hands still had some movement. He was clutching a rosary, a nurse’s call button nearby. “Nick,” he said again, that awful forced sound. “Livia-?”

“You hateful bastard,” Nick said.

Tim’s eyes blinked in astonishment.

“You told me to think of him as dead.”

A gargled sound came from the bed.

“Shut up. He is dead now. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No-”

“It was you. Hoover told me. One confession. That poor, stupid girl. She’d never imagine, would she? It’s supposed to be sacred. Did you run right over from church to tell him? You interfering sonofabitch. One of Hoover’s little helpers. Root out the Communists, protect the Church. Christ.”

“Godless,” Tim mumbled, struggling to explain.

“She didn’t know you were just like the party. Means to an end. She trusted you. You were a fucking priest. But you’re the real party. No doubts.”

Tim’s eyes darted about the room in frustration.

“Just one bad moment, when you thought you caused her death. But you forgave yourself, didn’t you? God always forgives if you ask him in time, isn’t that the way it goes? And for such a cause. But I don’t forgive you. I want you to die knowing that. Never. You ruined our lives. For what? So you could have dinner with Clyde and Edgar? Do God a favor? Rosemary Cochrane was murdered. My father was murdered. Does God forgive that? Maybe yours does, but it’s a chance, isn’t it? What if you’re wrong? Maybe they’re just beads.” He brushed the rosary in Tim’s hand.

“Communists-”

“Yes, they were Communists. So what? Anyway, they died for it. I want you to see their faces when you go. Do you know how my father died? Somebody took a pillow, just like this one, and held him down till he couldn’t breathe. Till his legs stopped kicking. Yours wouldn’t even move.”

Tim, his eyes wide with fright, moved his hand toward the call button, but Nick snatched it and put it on the table, out of reach.

“Don’t worry. I’d like to, but I won’t. You’re not worth it. Let God do it.” Nick leaned over. “I just wanted you to know what you did. So you can live with it too.” And then suddenly, the fury broken, Nick felt his eyes fill with tears. “You started everything. You unholy bastard. Just so you could be somebody-with your lousy piece of gossip.”

He looked down at the figure, the still, wasted frame, the twisted face, already punished. What was the point? Tim’s eyes leaping.

“You thought I’d never know,” Nick said calmly. “All that time, watching it happen. My mother. Nobody blaming you. Not even blaming yourself-not after putting yourself in God’s hands. I’ll bet you made a private confession. Only a fool would trust the box.”

“Nick-” Another gurgle, his breathing ragged.

“But I do know. So die knowing that. I do know. No absolution.”

Nick turned to go. A frantic sound. He looked back. The breathing was a gasp now, Tim’s hands motioning toward the call button. Nick started toward the table to get it, then stopped.

“No,” he said. “Let God do it. He owes you.”

The old man’s eyes wild now, afraid. A grunt.

“Pray, Tim,” Nick said, backing away. “Maybe he’ll hear you.”

Molly, seeing his face, said nothing in the car, fiddling with her bandage instead.

“Who were you seeing?” she said finally.

“An old friend of my mother’s. He’s dying.”

“What a good little boy you are.”

“The best.”

She looked at him. “You all right?”

He nodded. “It’s over. We’re going to New York.”

“They’ll call. About your father.” For a moment she was quiet. “You killed him, didn’t you? Not the other man.”

He looked straight ahead. “Yes.”

She bit her lower lip. “Was it-self-defense?” Wanting it to be true.

Nick saw Larry’s surprised face, finally betrayed. “Yes,” he said. She was about to speak again when he turned to her. “It’s over.”

She nodded, then placed her hand on his, just a touch, and looked out the window at the river. “I wonder if they’ll find John Brown,” she said finally.

“Count on it. I hope Hoover nails him personally. He’d be just right. They both lived with their mothers.”

He turned the car toward the Mall.

“This isn’t the way to the airport.”

“No. I thought we’d take the train. For old times’ sake.”

She looked at him, the first hint of a smile. “Okay.”

He drove past the Mall, where crews were cleaning up litter from the rally, then up the hill, turning into the street behind the Supreme Court, the lighted Capitol dome. A spring night in the South, the magnolias thick and glossy, lights on in the row of houses. The big forsythia bushes spilling over the wrought-iron fences. He stopped the car, idling.

“Was that your house?” Molly said.

“Yes.”

Lights on upstairs. His bedroom window no longer scratched by the tall tree, which must have been taken down. When? Inside, a woman passed in front of the window. Everything was quiet in the street.

“Does it bother you?” she asked softly.

“I thought it would.”

And for a second, just one, he was looking out the back window on that last day, the sidewalk covered with moving cartons.

“But it’s just a house,” he said, shifting into drive, the frozen picture moving again.

She looked at him. “Your house.”

“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”