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.”