“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
