king once that he was at his best when things were easiest, and Danzig had always loathed him for it. Other images came before him: Jews marching into ovens, slaves politely assisting their traffickers, Christian martyrs smiling in the flames or animal pits. The weak perished: another law, as binding as that of entropy and, in a certain way, related.
All right, he told himself: to work.
He rattled through the papers before him, various drafts of ideas, theories of conspiracy, lists of men and organizations that could benefit by his death. The list was impressive.
Maybe you
But a step creaked and he knew it was an Agency security man with an Israeli submachine gun and an earplug and he went back to work.
The promotion sat like an anvil on Lanahan, bending him to the earth. His small eyes were even shiftier than normal and he was breathing raggedly and too hard. He would not let Chardy alone, had followed him through four rooms now.
“What did he say, Paul? Did he say anything about me? Did you calm him down? You know he said I was working for the Russians, he really did. Paul, he’s crazy. Paul, is he settling down? He said he was going to call reporters. Oh,
Chardy had seen it before: the brilliant underling who knows 3 percent more than any man who ever gave him an order finally gets the chance to give a few himself and is destroyed by it. He who talked so loud behind the backs of others is now devoured by imaginary conversations behind his own; he trusts no one, wants to know everything.
“I think he’s calmer now. He had a bad night.”
“I always did think he was a little manic-depressive; you could see it even when he was in his prime. What’s his beef?”
“The standard. Conspiracies, secret plots, that kind of stuff. Nothing you haven’t heard before. He’s finally realized he might catch one in the back of the neck. It’s tearing him apart.”
“Okay. I want you around. In case he throws another one of those horror shows.”
“He’s all right now. He just wants to go through his files.”
“Still, you stay here. It’s what Sam wants; it’s what I want. Just in case. You can reach him. Nobody else can. It’s that—”
“I’ve got something to do, Miles.”
“Chardy—”
“Sorry.”
“Chardy.”
“Fire me, Miles. See how that goes over with Danzig. See what he does then. See if you make archbishop then, Miles.” Chardy smiled. “Be good, Miles. Don’t forget late mass.”
He turned and stepped out the door into the bright Georgetown morning.
Chardy made the Chevy in the traffic of Colesville Road, out near the Beltway. It was green, with a high aerial. Nothing ever changes, does it? You’d think they’d get new cars, but they were always dark Chevys. He slowed, it slowed. He sped up, it sped up. He pulled into a station, it pulled to the side of the road.
He filled the tank and paid the kid.
“Isn’t there a town called Columbia around here?”
“It’s out further. Straight out. About ten more miles.”
“Thanks.”
He pulled back into the lane of traffic and the Chevy moved to join it too. Chardy lagged a little, and cars started to honk behind him, then swing by him. Several people cursed as they wheeled past. He was going about twenty in a thirty-five zone, and stopping occasionally with indecision. Suddenly there were no more cars behind him except the green Chevy, which could not pass. In his rearview mirror he could see two grim young faces staring fixedly ahead. He stopped for a light.
When the light changed, Chardy dropped into reverse and hit the accelerator. The two cars met with a huge smash that whipped Chardy back against his seat. He shook his head clear for just a second, came up to first, and fired out of there. As he drove away, he could see the smashed grille of the car behind him, and a pool spreading under the engine block. One of the agents was out, screaming.
“Chardy, you motherfucker!”
Chardy sped down Colesville.
He paused. So unlike D.C. or any eastern or midwestern city. Perhaps something of California or an easterner’s dream of California. Chic wood houses, fading fashionably from brown to gray; windows full of ferns; sensible cars like Volvos and Rabbits; loopy, winding streets that led nowhere except back to their own beginnings. He’d wandered in the rolling, hilly utopia for an hour now, searching out a fanciful address: 10013 Barefoot Boy Garth. Could there really be 10,000 houses with 10,000 Volvos and 10,000 ferns on this garth? And what the hell was a garth, anyway? But at last he’d connected. He’d found the garth — it was just a street — and come to a grouping of mock-Normandy farmhouses whose numbers were of the proper dimension. He tracked as he traveled, until he saw it, on a circle linked to the main road, a solid place. He pulled in, noting a child’s plastic trike on its side, bright orange and slung low. So maybe there were kids. Or maybe the guy she’d married had them. He got out, stepped over the trike, and headed up a short walk.
He knocked. Suppose she wasn’t there and he’d wasted this long drive? He should have called first. But suppose she didn’t want to see him? You could never tell; perhaps in the aftermath she’d thought the better of stirring up the old memories.
A muffled voice came from behind the wood.
“Who’s there, please?” A little fear? Did people worry out here in paradise too?
“Marion, it’s Paul Chardy.”
The door shot open.
“Paul, my God!”
“Marion, hi. I should have called. Something brought me out here and I thought, what the hell?”
“How did you find me? Nobody can find
“Lucky,” he said, sparing her the tale of his lost hours.
“Come in.”
He stepped into a hall and she took him down a step into the living room, which was cream-colored, filled with plants and light and spare, clean furniture.
“It’s very nice.”
“Sorry about the mess. My husband’s kids are with us this month.”
“Don’t worry about it. You ought to see
“Sit down, Paul. Can I get you some coffee?”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”
She went to the kitchen as he sat down on the sofa.
“Paul,” she called, “it’s so nice to see you.”
She came back with two cups.
“I remember that you drank it black.”
“I haven’t changed. Remember that night in Hong Kong? Frenchy and I were just in from Vietnam. You met us at the airport. ’sixty-six or ’sixty-seven?”
“Nineteen sixty-six.”
“’sixty-six, yeah. And how we celebrated that night? We went to that place out in Happy Valley. The Golden Window, I think it was. Right next to the furniture plant, and you could smell the lacquer and hear the buzz saw next door. Remember that place had all those fish, six tanks of them? They glowed? Jesus, and we got drunk. Frenchy and I did anyway. And we were supposed to check in with Cy Brasher the next day at oh-eight-thirty. And you had that taxi driver find a place that was open at about five. And you ordered coffee and made us drink it. Black coffee. And wouldn’t let us go back to the hotel. You really saved our tails that night, Marion. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I do, Paul.”
