twilight years of his directorate.
An FBI security detail at the Plaza had reported that the protest was growing loud and that the party guests, as they entered, were being cursed in rhyming couplets, exposed to obscene signs and gestures, spat upon at close range and forced to duck an occasional flying object.
It did not make sense to Clyde to allow the Director to enter a situation, and Edgar finally agreed, in which the dignity of the Bureau might be compromised.
So it was midnight when the two men rolled through the deserted midtown streets in their bulletproof black Cadillac. They'd had a leisurely dinner, bantering with the wine steward and then enjoying a brandy at the bar with old acquaintances because there were old acquaintances wherever J. Edgar Hoover went, some who were loyal supporters, others residing in the files, a few who were enemies-for-life but didn't know it yet, and Edgar and Clyde were in a mellow enough mood, despite reports from the site, seated in the plush rear seat in black tie of course and wearing their masks, like a suave and jaunty crime fighter out of the Sunday comics, a master bureaucrat by day who becomes dashing Maskman at night, cruising the streets in formal dress with his trusted right-hand man.
The driver activated the intercom to report that a car was tailing them.
Clyde turned to look while the Director slumped in his seat, getting his head below the window line.
'Little Volkswagen bug,' Clyde said. 'Painted top to bottom in very bright colors. Psychedelic. Big bright swirls and streaks. Can't make out the driver's face.'
The Cadillac coasted slowly past the Plaza. The klieg lights were gone, the media pack was gone, there was no trace of the crush of curious onlookers drawn by news of the event. There were still a few demonstrators, listless now, young people in their grimy tie-dyes, and city cops as well, idler still, showing the eternal laden strain of a big meal hustled down the gullet, where it sits for hours earning overtime.
The great dark car circled the block, equipped with an Arpege atomizer that contained room freshener, and Clyde checked the other entrances.
The north steps were empty and he tapped on the glass and the driver pulled up and the two men exited and suddenly there was the
All wore masks, the faces of Asian kids, some blood-spattered, others with eyes seamed shut, and they commenced their shouting as Hoover and Tolson moved up the stairs.
The first man was clumsy and slow and the second took his arm to assist and they made their plodding way toward the entrance.
They heard, 'Society scum!'
They heard, 'A dead Asian baby for every Gucci loafer!'
Clyde wasn't sure whether the protesters knew who they were. Was Edgar's mask sufficient cover for his gnarled old media mug?
They heard mottoes, slurs and technical terms.
And they labored upward, step by step, eyes front, outer arms stroking, and the protesters jangled and hissed.
' Vietnam! Love it or leave it!'
'White killers in black tie!'
A young woman stood at the entrance wearing the mask of a child's shattered face and she said somewhat softly to Edgar, blocking his way and speaking evenly, whispering in fact, 'We'll never disappear, old man, until you're in a landfill with your trash.'
Clyde said, 'Coming through,' like a waiter with a heavy tray, and a couple of minutes later, after a stop in the men's room to collect themselves, the Director and his aide were ready to party.
But first Edgar said, 'Who were those jaspers?'
'I have an idea or two. I'll put someone on it.'
'Did you hear what she said? I think they're connected to the garbage guerrillas.'
'Straighten your mask,' Clyde said.
'I'd like to see them maimed in the slowest possible manner. Over weeks and months, with voice tapes made.'
They walked down the hall to the grand ballroom. They'd walked down five hundred halls on their way to some ceremonial event, some testimonial dinner, one or another ritual salute to Edgar's decades in the Bureau, but they'd never heard a sound such as this.
A subdued roar, a sort of rumble-buzz, with a chandelier jingle in the mix and the dreamy sway of dance music and a vocal note of self-delight-the lure, the enticement of a life defined by its remoteness from the daily drudge of world complaint.
'Tapes of cries and moans,' Edgar said, 'which I would play to help me sleep.'
They moved through the ballroom, they circulated, seeing prominent people everywhere. The room was high and white and primrose gold, flanked by Greek columns that caught the lickety amber light of a thousand candles.
Swan-necked women in textured satin gowns. Masks by Halston, Adolfo and Saint Laurent. The mother and sister of one American president and the daughter of another. Crisp little men aswagger with assets. Titled jet- setters, a maharajah and maharani, a baroness somebody in a beaded mask. Famous and raging alcoholic poets. Tough smart stylish women who ran fashion books and designed clothes. Hair by Kenneth-teased, swirled, backcombed and ringleted.
'Did you see?'
'The old dowager,' Edgar said.
'In the dime-store mask.'
'Decorated with pearls.'
They shook hands here and there, daintily, and dropped a flattering remark to this or that person, and Clyde knew how the Director felt, mixing with people of the rarest social levels, the anointed and predestined, aura'd like Inca kings, but also the talented and original and self-made and born beautiful and ego-driven and hard- bargaining, all bearing signs of astral radiance, and the ruthless and brutish as well.
Yes, Edgar was damp with excitement.
He stopped to chat with Frank Sinatra and his young actress wife, a nymph in a boy's haircut and a butterfly mask.
'Jedgar, you old warhorse. Haven't seen you since.'
'Yes, I know.'
'Tempus fugits, don't it, pal?'
'Yes, it does,' Edgar said. 'Introduce me to your lovely.'
Sinatra was in the files now. Many people in the room were in the files as well. Not a single one of them, Clyde imagined, more accomplished in his occupational strokes than Edgar himself. But Edgar did not carry the glow. Edgar worked in the semidark, manipulating and bringing ruin. He carried the small wan grudging glory of the civil servant. Not the open and confident show, the wide-striding boom of some of these cosmic bravos.
On the stage, under the furled curtain, two bands took turns. A white society band and a black soul group. All musicians masked.
People loved Edgar's leather mask. They told him so. A woman in ostrich feathers ran her tongue over the handlebars. Another woman called him Biker Boy. A gay playwright rolled his eyes.
They found their table and settled in for a spell, sipping champagne and nibbling on buffet tidbits. Clyde uttered the names of people dancing past and Edgar commented on their lives and careers and personal predilections. Whatever anecdotal lore he failed to recall, Clyde was quick to provide.
Andy Warhol walked by wearing a mask that was a photograph of his own face.
A woman asked Edgar to dance and he flushed and lit a cigarette.
Lord and Lady somebody held their masks on sticks.
A woman wore a sexy nun's wimple.
A man wore an executioner's hood.
Edgar spoke rapidly in his old staccato voice, like a radio reporter doing a series of punchy news items. It
