reporting will make me famous. Maybe I'll win a prize. But this marriage,' I said, 'this relationship, is the greatest accomplishment I will ever have, and I plan to guard it and nurture it and always be more grateful for this than anything else in my life. I am in love,' I said in a bit of uncharacteristic openness, 'and this love is greater than I could ever have imagined.'
Katherine, when I sat down, had tears in her eyes. So did my mother, but I think that's because the nice general manager, subtle as he was about it, had just delivered the bill. The room was silent, then filled with applause. Later, a group of friends headed to the bar at the Tennis and Racquet Club, where I was also a member in good standing. I remember Frank Sinatra singing 'Get Me to the Church on Time' as I ran into Katherine in the hallway to the rest rooms. I suggested to her that we follow tradition, that on this night we sleep apart, two remade virgins awaiting their big day. She put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled my lips down toward hers, kissing me hard. She pulled her mouth away ever so slightly, still holding my face close. 'Not a chance in the world,' she said. Okay.
Back to our wedding reception. Roger being Roger, and, well, the roof deck being his, he got up midway through the evening and gave a toast of his own. He raised the issue of his vast portfolio, as he sometimes tends to do-a fortune that extends into the tens of millions of dollars, all money made in timely investments in some Route 128
software and Internet startup companies. 'For all my material wealth, for all I'm financially worth, I have nowhere near the happiness that these two have,' he said. 'Look at them. Look at what they have.
They have a joy that no amount of money can ever buy. They are wealthier than I ever hope to be, and on this night, I'm not ashamed to proclaim my jealousy.'
That was nice. I think I saw one of my sisters wipe a tear off her cheek. Later, I handed the pesky wedding photographer a twenty-dollar bill and told him to go buy himself a couple of Scotch whiskies around the corner at Joe's American Bar and Grille, and take that Polaroid with him. Katherine sidled up to me along the railing of the deck.
The Hancock Building and Prudential Center were on one side of us, the Charles River on the other. She put her hand on my cheek in the only moment of privacy we had had all night. 'You're the only thing I've ever wanted in my entire life,' she said. She stared up at me, her eyes glistening and growing wet. After a minute, she stood on her toes and kissed me warmly on my ear, whispering, 'I will love you, Jack Flynn, every minute of every hour until the day I die.' That's when I felt a flashbulb go off again, and I thought to myself, My God, I love this woman, and boy, can that photographer toss back twenty bucks worth of Johnnie Walker fast.
'But it was Bernstein who had all the personality. People wanted to help him. People told him things they wouldn't tell Woodward.' That was Havlicek, still engrossed in one of the more inane conversations that I had ever had the misfortune of hearing.
'Boys, boys,' I said. 'Why don't we sit at a table and start over on something that might actually matter to somebody.'
My mood had quickly declined. But we sat down, and they shut up, and that seemed to make things a little better. A minute later our waiter stopped by the table with a basket of onion rings, some smoked salmon, and a couple of hamburgers. In the three minutes it had taken me to make my call, these guys had ordered the left side of the menu and put it on my tab. I started to say something, then figured, why bother.
Havlicek's mouth was already filled. Martin was cutting up several onion rings with a fork and knife.
'Carlos, could you bring me over a swordfish sandwich?' I said.
Havlicek looked up from his plate, alarmed. 'They have swordfish sandwiches? I didn't see any swordfish sandwiches on the menu.'
'Not on the menu,' I said, immaturely restaking my claim to a club that I felt sliding away. 'They make them up for me, special.'
There was a pause, then Martin asked, 'What time are you heading north in the morning?'
I said, 'I figured I'd grab the six A.m. flight, get me in around seven-thirty. I'll be on the ground reporting by nine. This voice seemed to think that we didn't have a whole lot of time to waste on this thing.'
'How we supposed to know?' Havlicek added, accidentally spitting a caper next to my fork, which I found more than unappetizing.
'We don't. We trust,' I said.
They seemed to be thinking about that for a while, as if trust, to newspaper people, anyway, was such a novel idea. They ate. My swordfish arrived. Martin eventually asked, expansively, 'So who is this guy and why does he want to help us so bad?'
We didn't answer, so Martin asked, 'He some conspiracy theorist with a few good hunches? He someone in the White House, one of Cole's old loyalists trying to kick up trouble? Is it some agent of Stanny Nichols, like these guys Graham and Wilkerson, trying to leak out their opposition research, and if so, why be so covert?'
Havlicek looked down at his plate, I assumed in thought, but I realized it was because he was sopping up the last drops of burger juice and mustard with the remnants of a roll. 'Don't know,' he said. 'But maybe we're working this puzzle backward. Maybe we ought to be trying to figure out what he has, and see if what he has holds up, before we worry about who he is. His identity could be the least of our issues, provided his information is any good.'
Havlicek meant this in a friendly way, three guys sitting around a table with a few beers and some red meat discussing a good story. But Martin took it as a slight challenge to his intellect, as editors tend to do. When you're not on the street working a story, when you're not writing for the paper or producing anything of great consequence, you tend to get territorial and defensive about the power and value of your ideas, mostly because that's all you have.
'Look, I know what matters,' Martin said. 'I'm just figuring maybe we can shortcut this thing. And more than that, I'm just curious over who's spending so much time and money trying to help us out.'
'So am I,' I said, interjecting in my role as diplomat. 'I'm curious as to who this guy is and what he's got. Keep in mind, it's me he's following around. It's me who was shot at over at the Newseum.'
Carlos came over dangling dessert menus, asking if we were interested, prompting Havlicek to just about jump out of his chair at him. Frank was singing 'Hello Dolly' by now, and very well, I might add. Waiters were carrying plates of prime rib and shrimp. The room was filled with the gentle clink of china, the hum of conversation, staccato bursts of laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught an unusual sight-unusual, at least, for this particular club: a beautiful woman coming through the doorway, alone, and taking a place at a corner table. I turned to look, and my heart almost came through my chest.
That was no beautiful woman, it was Samantha Stevens, special agent with the FBI, smiling at me from across the room as she slid her chair in, crossed her long legs in front of her, and gently placed her purse on the floor.
If you think it's tough to get Steve Havlicek out of a dining room when a free dessert is still on the line, think again. It's not just tough, it's impossible, a feat I wouldn't even try with a John Deere tractor and a pair of field oxen.
So with the last bits of their chocolate mousse cake gone, the boys finally took leave. I made my way across the room to Stevens's table, flashed her my attempt at a Frank Sinatra smile, and said, 'Didn't realize you were a member here.'
She was drinking red wine on a tab I had carefully and quietly established for her with the waiter, and reading the Wall Street Journal-the Money and Investing section, to be exact. 'I've always wanted to go to a bar where they pump testosterone in through the heating vents,' she said, not exactly answering my question. 'Let me ask you, has anyone ever gored themselves on the moose antlers?'
'Not that I know of,' I said. 'Actually, the women members here, and yes, we do have women members, they all seem to really like the moose.
I'm not sure if that says more about the aesthetics of the moose or the quality of our women membership.'
She gave me an exaggerated frown, comfortable enough, it seemed, that she didn't have to laugh at every joke that ever so slightly missed the mark. With another clever introduction out of the way, I took a seat at the table and said, 'This is an unexpected surprise.'
