Houston lowered his voice: 'And I want a complete report on your meeting this afternoon with Senator Fall. Remember, Littlemore, you're my man in Washington, not his.'
On his way to the Senate Office Building that afternoon, Littlemore treated himself to a look at the Washington Monument. Adjacent to that great and solemn obelisk, he found to his surprise that the city had installed its Public Baths. From there Littlemore continued on the Mall — a straight, grassy, wide-open promenade dotted with important, majestic structures — toward the Capitol. He imagined lords and ladies strolling at a leisurely pace, with small dogs on leashes trotting behind them; in fact the Mall was empty.
At the corner of First and B Street — the address of the Senate Office Building — Littlemore saw only a small nondescript hotel at the weedy edges of the Capitol grounds. The detective was untroubled. He knew that in Washington's paradoxical cartography, there would be four different intersections where First Street meets B Street — each on a different side of the Capitol. Littlemore turned south and presently came to another corner of First and B. Here he found only a row of tumbledown wooden-frame houses, one attached to the next, with a dirt road in front of them. Garbage filled the road; flies attacked the garbage, and a whiff of unprocessed sewage sang in the nostrils. Negroes sat on the house porches. Not one white man, other than Littlemore, was to be seen. Mosquitoes abounded. Littlemore clapped one of the pests dead, near his face. When he separated his palms, he had framed between his hands the grand dome of the United States Capitol.
It was a good thing Littlemore had left the Treasury at three o'clock. He finally entered the rotunda of the Senate Office Building — which was three stories high, ringed by Corinthian columns, every wall gleaming with white marble and limestone, suffused with natural light from the glazed oculus at the apex of the richly coffered dome — at two minutes to four, just on time.
Albert B. Fall, United States Senator from New Mexico, was a hale man of sixty, tall and hard-drinking, with a drooping Western mustache white with age. Outdoors, he liked to sport a big-rimmed Western hat, mismatching his three-piece Eastern bow-tied suit. His chambers were lavish. When Littlemore was shown in, the Senator was working on his putting stroke, aiming golf balls at an empty milk bottle at least thirty feet away. The Senator's shots were missing badly.
'Special Agent James Littlemore,' declared Senator Fall without interrupting his practice. He had a large voice — the kind that could carry from an open-air rostrum or fill a legislative chamber. 'Glad to meet you, son. Heard a lot about you. What do you make of Washington?'
'Big offices, sir.'
'Big men get big offices. That's how it works. What's on your mind, boy?'
Littlemore was about to mention that the Senator had asked to see him, not the reverse, but the question turned out to be rhetorical.
'I'll tell you what's on your mind,' said Senator Fall. 'You're thinking why does this senator in this big office want to see me.'
'That's about right.'
'I'll tell you why. I want you to keep me posted on your investigation.'
Littlemore opened his mouth to answer.
'Don't you say anything, son,' interrupted Fall. 'I ain't put a question yet. I know what you'd say anyway. You'd say, 'I'm sorry, Mr Senator, hut the investigation is confidential. You'll have to take that up with Secretary Milksop — I mean Houston.''
There was silence in the room as Senator Fall lined up another putting stroke.
'Ain't I right?' said Fall.
'Am I supposed to answer now?' asked Littlemore.
'I'm right,' said Fall, slapping his golf ball a foot past the milk bottle into a bookcase. 'Damnation. That's it. I've had enough of this fool game. I don't play golf. Harding plays golf, so I figured I ought to give it a go. Well, he'll just have to play by himself. Mrs Cross? Get your pretty self in here.'
A door at the far end of the room opened. A tall blonde woman entered — the same attractive woman who had met Littlemore at Union Station the day before.
'Take this damn thing,' said the Senator, handing the woman his putter. 'And fix us a couple of drinks.'
'Yes, Mr Senator,' said Mrs Cross without a glance at Littlemore.
'So how's it feel 'to be a special agent, Special Agent Littlemore?' asked Fall, taking a seat behind his desk. 'Must feel pretty special.'
Littlemore wasn't sure how ironical this remark was intended to be. 'It's all right,' he said.
'Shouldn't be all right.' Fall leaned back in his reclining leather chair. 'Man of your age and your abilities shouldn't be content to be an agent. Got to think big. Look at that jackass Flynn. You're just as good as he is. Why shouldn't you be the director of the Bureau?'
'Whiskey, Mr Littlemore?' asked Mrs Cross.
'No, thank you, ma'am.'
Fall raised his eyebrows: 'You ain't dry?'
'No, sir.'
'Glad to hear it. Mrs Cross, give the man some whiskey. I got to tell you, Littlemore, becoming a Treasury Agent ain't the way to investigate an act of war.'
'I don't believe the bombing was an act of war, Mr Senator.'
Fall shook his head. 'Maybe it's because you back down, Littlemore. Maybe that's why you haven't made more of yourself. Men who back down don't rise up. Simple rule. Never fails. You were the only one to tell the truth about this bombing. You told Tom Lamont that the Morgan Bank was the terrorists' target. He didn't want to hear it, but you told him. Lamont was impressed; told me all about it. And Lamont ain't impressed by most. But all of a sudden you got religion. You dropped Lamont and hitched yourself up to Secretary Milksop instead. I wonder what made you change your tune.'
Mrs Cross handed a tumbler of whiskey to Senator Fall and offered another to Littlemore on a silver tray. He didn't take it. Into the Senator's glass of whiskey she poured a dollop of milk straight from a bottle.
'For the stomach,' explained Senator Fall. 'One thing I hate to see is a good man back down. Knuckle under to the people at the top. Been fighting it my whole life. Take a seat, for Christ's sake.'
Littlemore remained standing. 'Does every senator keep a firearm in his office, Mr Fall?'
'What's that?'
'You've got a pistol in your second drawer.'
Fall crossed his arms, then smiled broadly. 'Now how'd you know that? Mrs Cross, did you tell Agent Littlemore about my gun?'
'Would I do something like that, Mr Senator?' asked Mrs Cross.
'You surely would.'
'Well, I didn't.'
'How'd you know that, son?'
'You got shell packing paper next to your wastebasket, Senator Fall, which tells me you were recently loading a weapon. On your right thumb is an oil stain, from cleaning it. You're not carrying, so it's somewhere in your office. Desk's the most likely place. Second drawer's slightly open.'
'If I'm not Sam Hill's mother,' said Senator Fall. 'That's damn good, Littlemore. What else do you know?'
'I know I'm not crazy about politicians telling the rest of the country we can't drink while they got brand-new bottles of the stuff on their shelves. And I know I don't back down. I'll take that whiskey, ma'am, thank you.'
Littlemore drained the tumbler and returned it to her.
'Well, well, well,' said Fall. 'Looks like we got a man here after all, Mrs Cross. All right, Agent Littlemore, let me put my cards on the table. Houston's got you convinced you're dealing with a robbery. Ain't I right?'
Littlemore said nothing.
'Oh, I know all about the gold,' Fall went on. 'General Palmer told me about it. So let me see if I have this straight. The bombing was a robbery, so the nation's not at war. That it? I'll tell you what — we Western folks must be too plain, because I don't follow that Washington logic. There was a raid on the nation's treasure, on top of an attack on our biggest bank, on top of a massacre of the American people — and that means we're not at war?'
'The robbery looks like an inside job, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore. 'So no, it doesn't look like we're at war.'
'Let me tell you something, Agent Littlemore,' said Fall. 'The one thing, the one good thing, that Washington
