Washington Post. Then I called Susan at her hospital. I could feel tension buzz in my stomach while I dialed. Of course she was with a patient, and of course she couldn't be disturbed. I left word that I was at the Hay Adams if Ms. Silverman got a moment free from succoring the afflicted.
Then I stood for a while and drank my beer and looked out at the White House. A guard leaned against one of the columns on the front porch. The people with the signs had them propped up against the fence out front. On the lawn to the right a television crew was filming a stand-up with the White House in the background. The President was in there somewhere, and the First Lady. She was there too, with the President. She wasn't off someplace far studying to be a doctor.
I got tired of looking at the White House and sat down in one of the chairs and put my feet on the double bed and read the Post. By the time I finished the Post it was getting dark outside. I looked at the White House some more. I could go for a walk, but if I did, I might miss Susan if she called.
I turned on the TV and watched the early news and wondered why the early-news people in every city were wimps. Probably specified in the recruitment ads. Early-News Person Wanted. Must Be Wimp. Send resume and tapes to… I shut off the television and looked out the window some more. I could order up some Irish whiskey and get drunk. But if Susan did call… It was dark now and the White House gleamed in its spotlights. I thought about Ronni Alexander trying to be Yvonne De Carlo and the look on Alexander's face when he left me there to watch. I thought about the lucky people that Susan was treating. Her undivided attention for fifty minutes. Son of a bitch.
They were having a party at the White House. Limousines pulled up the circular drive and let people out. Some people didn't come in limousines. They simply walked up the driveway. Maybe they took a cab. I'd always wondered how you said that. Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, my good man, and don't spare the horses. The President and the First Lady were probably dressing. Or maybe they were necking. Or… Someone knocked at the door of my room. I went and opened it and there was Susan wearing a silver raccoon coat and carrying a bottle of champagne and smelling like Eden in springtime.
'Did you really say 'succor the afflicted' to the department secretary?' she said.
'Yeah,' I said. 'I think she was offended.'
I stepped aside and she came in and put the champagne on the bureau and turned and smiled. I stood and stared at her. There were times when I wanted to strangle her. But never when she was with me. Her presence overcame everything.
'Jesus Christ,' I said.
She opened her arms and I stepped in against her and hugged her. She raised her face and I kissed her. I felt liquid and dispersive, as if I might dissolve into the floor.
Susan was brisk and cheerful. 'Now you have a decision to make,' she said. 'Do you want to drink the champagne before or after you jump on my bones?'
That was easy.
Afterward we sat up in bed drinking the champagne from water glasses.
'See,' Susan said. 'I do succor the afflicted.'
'Yes,' I said. 'You give good succor.'
Susan drank some of the champagne.
'Was Paul with you on Thanksgiving?'
'Yes. We ate out. How about you?'
'Super. There were five or six of us from the program and John, our supervisor, had us all out to his home in Bethesda. There were twenty-five people in all, including some very big people in the profession.'
'Yeah, but how many of them can do a one-armed pushup?'
Susan smiled and drank more of her champagne. 'Tell me about what you're doing down here,' she said.
'Besides seeking succor?'
She nodded.
'I'm working for a congressman,' I said.
'You? That doesn't seem like you.'
'Maybe it was an excuse to get to Washington,' I said.
'I wouldn't think you'd need an excuse.'
I shrugged. 'Anyway,' I said, 'I'm working for a congressman named Meade Alexander.'
'Meade Alexander? Good God, what does he think of you?'
I poured the rest of the champagne evenly into our two glasses. 'He has not been fortunate in his marriage,' I said.
Susan settled back a little against her pillows and I told her about Meade and Ronni Alexander.
When I got through, Susan said, 'The poor woman.'
'I hadn't thought too much about that,' I said. 'I've been kind of identifying with Alexander, I suppose.'
Susan nodded. 'She must be very desperate.'
'Most people are,' I said.
Chapter 17
I dropped Susan off at 8:15 the next morning in front of the Medical Center on Michigan Avenue.
'When you come to work wearing the same clothes, won't people suspect you of shacking up?' I said.
'I hope so,' Susan said.
'Want me to pick you up after work?' I said.
She shook her head. 'I can't until late,' she said. 'There's a staff cocktail party. They have one every month on the assumption that morale will be uplifted.'
I nodded.
'I'll make a reservation for nine,' I said. 'Any suggestions? It's your city, not mine.'
She shook her head. 'No, I'd trust you with a restaurant reservation in Sri Lanka.'
'Everybody's good at something,' I said. 'I'll pick you up here.'
'Yes.' She kissed me good-bye carefully, so that her lipstick didn't smear, and then she was out and off to work leaving the smell of her perfume to gloss up the rented car.
I drove back intown on North Capitol Street and then rook M Street out to Georgetown.
Georgetown is nearly gorgeous. The buildings are elegant, the setting along the Potomac is graceful. You can run along the tow path of the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal and you can eat and shop and drink along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue with the heartening certainty that you're chic. Like L. A. and New York, the dining and drinking spots were ornamented with the possibility that you might see somebody famous. Even if it was a politician.
I parked the car in the lot of a Safeway on Wisconsin Avenue. Early winter in D.C. was around fifty and pleasant. I went across the street and bought a cup of coffee to go in a small food store that advertised empanadas in the window, but didn't have them made yet for the day. I strolled along Wisconsin Avenue and thought about a plan. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't have one. I could work on my restaurant selection for tomorrow evening. But that didn't do much for Meade and Ronni. Maybe there wasn't much to be done for Meade and Ronni. I stopped at the corner of Reservoir Avenue to sip on my coffee. Only the second cup of the day. Then I went on. I couldn't talk with Ronni. I couldn't even let on that she wasn't perfect. I had gotten all I was going to get from Vinnie, and Vinnie was the town crier compared to Joe Broz. The last communication I'd had from Joe Broz was some years back when he told me he was going to have me shot. Not many people follow up on a promise anymore. I knew that Broz had a copy of the videotape of Ronni's indiscretion. I didn't know how he'd gotten it. I finished my coffee and looked for a place to throw the cup.
Littering in Georgetown was probably a capital crime. Maybe if I reconstructed it. Broz had purchased Robert Browne some years back. This year Browne's position seemed threatened by Meade Alexander. By a means not yet apparent, Broz had some tapes of Mrs. Alexander and he sent a copy to Meade and told him to drop out. He had probably, though not certainly, been responsible for the death threats that had got me hired in the first place. And he was demonstrably responsible for the two hoods in Springfield who had roughed up the kids. I could look into
