Maybe I should write that down, I thought. Instead, I left.
McGuire was alone when I cracked open his door. He looked up with narrow eyes, as if surprised to see me. Then he remembered that he wanted to know what I was doing. So I told him about Sam Green, skipping my clash with Mary. McGuire cleared Green’s subpoena. Then I explained Gubner’s call. He propped his feet on the desk and folded his hands, listening.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, when I’d finished.
I felt defensive. “That’s what I told Marty. But I either go or I don’t go. I want to push this thing to see what I get.”
McGuire screwed his mouth to one side. “This business of sneaking around the Boston Common-,” he waved his arm in dismissal, letting the phrase speak for itself.
I felt the chance slipping away. “Gubner’s not an idiot. And if this is a waterhaul, all we’ve lost is one day of my time.”
“And the taxpayers’ money,” he retorted.
McGuire was reaching. “I didn’t know you were an advocate of thrift in government,” I said.
“We can’t be wasting the public’s money on things like this.”
“Jesus Christ, Joe, if you really cared about that, you’d pass out cyanide tablets to half the civil servants in town. How do you seriously justify not doing this?” My suspicions of McGuire shadowed the words.
“It’s not your ass if we look like fools.”
At least that was closer to home, I thought. “If it were my ass, Joe, I’d do it.”
McGuire clasped his hands again, then stared at them as if in prayer. He looked up. “OK. Let me know what you find.”
I waited for more, astonished at the concession. There wasn’t any more. I felt as if I had just won Wimbledon by default. It was as though McGuire had been playing along, having already decided that if I pushed hard enough, I won. As he had known I would. I couldn’t figure it out.
So I tried selling McGuire on a subpoena for Lasko’s financial records. The idea seemed to revive him. “That subpoena absolutely will not go out. There’s no justification for it.”
McGuire gave me his determined Newsweek look, from which there was no appeal. I was both frustrated and relieved. The refusal at least fit with my suspicions. I told myself I had a compulsion to impose order on events. So I dismissed it, and fished for a way around McGuire. The plan hit me on the way out the door.
I went back to the office and called Mary Carelli. She answered on the third ring.
“Mary,” I said, “this is Chris Paget. What kind of apology would you like?”
Seven
Mary Carelli lived in Georgetown. So I walked home about a quarter to six, showered, and put on corduroy slacks and a faded blue work shirt. Then I got in my car and drove too fast through the Ellipse toward the Kennedy Center, mashing the buttons on my radio until I hit an FM station playing a Peter Frampton album. Then I reached under the seat to check the small cellophane bag of grass. Still there.
The little ritual amused me; I was grasping at corners of my college identity like an old woman fondling a scrapbook. I wondered which of my friends were doing it too-leaving jobs at places they had scorned in college to put on blue jeans and blow some great Colombian dope they had cadged from the guy next door. Knowing that this shallow alchemy trivialized all the differences they had felt, the things they would do or never be, but seizing it to avoid the unpleasant truth: they were just like Mom and Dad. So I drove Mom and Dad up Waterside Drive and onto Massachusetts past the embassies. I turned up the radio and listened very hard to Peter Frampton all the way down Wisconsin. By the time I hit Georgetown, I was alone.
Mary rented the basement of an old white brick three-story on R Street. It was a good part of Georgetown, where you could still park, away from M Street’s weekend circus. The house itself was at least one hundred years old and sat amid quiet oaks a good bit older, giving off the subtle aroma of money and good taste. A lot of the money probably belonged to someone else. When people said that they were dying to live in Georgetown, they usually meant financially.
Mary was wearing white slacks, a green blouse, and a real smile. “I’m taking a chance-seeing you. You’re nicer on the telephone.”
“I know. It’s terminal smart-ass. Someday I’ll probably die from it.”
She looked amused. “I wouldn’t doubt it. Anyhow, dinner’s a good enough apology. I was a little officious myself.”
“Then let’s call it even and start over.”
We got in the car and headed for the deck at the Washington again. The city had few outdoor bars, and the night was cooled by a pleasant breeze. We ordered the same two gin and tonics and looked out at the city.
Mary smiled. “Here we are again,” she said, picking up her drink. But she was leaning back easily in the wicker chair. Her body had declared amnesty. She looked across at me. “You’re rather quiet tonight. Is this what happens when you run out of smart things to say?”
I grinned. “I spend my life concealing that I’m duller than hell. You’re sharp to catch it so soon.”
She gave me a glancing smile. “The commission seems to be filled with people who don’t know anything more about you than what they see.”
Her voice had a dash of challenge. I seemed to spend a lot of time explaining to women why I didn’t talk about the things that they thought were important. I didn’t enjoy it. So I threw back the ball. “Have you been checking up on me?” I tried to register genteel shock at the notion.
“A little. Between college and law school you were a reporter for two years, supposedly a good one. Why did you quit?”
“It was just a holding action. Anyhow, I did crime stuff-started out with muggings and ended up with murders. Pretty soon everyone I met was a corpse. I began to feel like a pathologist, and I wasn’t doing anyone any good.”
“Is that why you’re such a cynic?”
“Look around you,” I shrugged. “So what else did you learn?”
“That a lot of people think you’re the best lawyer McGuire has. That you’ve put some people in jail, though not enough to suit you. And that you go your own way. Nobody seems to know a lot about you-personally, that is.”
I had been listening to her talk. Her voice had a buried Mediterranean intensity, as if she had once lived with people who talked with feeling and then had trained her voice into upper-class politeness. The thought was interesting. So was she.
“What was your husband like?” I asked.
“Frank?”
“Your husband’s name was Frank?”
She sipped again, nodding with her drink. She looked up to see my eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry, Mary. I have this thing about names. I can’t see you married to someone named Frank.”
She gave a small smile. “It looks as if I couldn’t either.”
“What happened?”
She pulled the black hair from her face, then tossed it around her shoulders. “Don’t subjects like this just get us into trouble?”
I grinned. “We’ve been in trouble from the time you forgot my name.”
“You’re an arrogant bastard, aren’t you?” The flat voice was matter of fact, as if she were committed to finding out.
“A little. Sometimes a lot.” I tried to head her off. “But I’m not my own favorite subject.”
“Why not?”
How many reasons would you like, I thought. “Because self-analysis is a bore. Because most of what people tell you about themselves is bullshit, intentionally or otherwise. And because if someone really interests you, you’ll learn about them yourself.” I softened my voice. “So what was Frank like?”
