And we’ll talk about… what?
His hand detoured to the TV remote on the counter.
For a fractured moment, the story on Channel 9 rocked him back to another time: A helicopter crash in Vietnam-seven GIs killed? Not his war. Not this time. Days ago, not 1968. A few days ago, seven Americans died searching for remains of other Americans killed thirty-some years before. And so, in 2001, Americans continued to die in Vietnam.
Channel 7 dissected a report that Michael Jordan would return to the NBA to play for the Washington Wizards.
They used to be the Washington Bullets. Then D.C. earned the title of “America’s Murder Capital,” and sensitive souls changed the team name to Wizards, and they never had a season worth a damn after that.
Frank flicked over to Channel 4. A file clip of Chief Noah Day’s face filled the screen. Then the camera switched to Jim Vance. Barely concealing a smile, Vance reported a congressional investigation into obscene e- mails being sent among DCMPD patrol cars.
“Send in the clowns,” Frank whispered, keying the TV off. Without replying, Monty nosed his door open and disappeared.
Frank was reconsidering calling Kate when the microwave timer chimed.
He sat up in bed reading until after midnight. It was his second time through Martin Cruz Smith’s Havana Bay. The Russian detective, Arkady Renko, had just regained consciousness after having been beaten by a thug with a baseball bat.
Frank closed the book and turned out the light. “G’night, Arkady,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your guy.”
He lay staring at the ceiling through the darkness. Smith had told a good story. He’d put Renko behind the curve, kept the pressure on, bombarded the Russian detective with bits and pieces of stuff from every direction, stuff that could be something or nothing at all.
Arkady Renko understood: Connecting dots was easy… a two-dimensional problem. But try a puzzle where the pieces constantly change shape, no one piece remaining the same.
Monty had come in from the night, and he settled into his place on the pillow beside Frank, who drifted off into a turbulent sleep.
And the scrambled pieces swirled in the darkness.
… Renfro Calkins…
Robin Bouchard… Brian Atkins at FBI-you have a road map?
Chief Day, fiddling with un-PC e-mails among bored cops on the night shift while the cold cases rise up out of their file cabinet graves, angry and accusing and demanding… demanding… what?
FIFTEEN
Frank parked on Second Street, SE, then walked down C Street toward South Capitol. He passed the Cannon House Office Building, the first of the three House of Representatives office buildings. Cannon, completed in 1908, was his favorite. The grand old building’s Doric columns and rotunda shouted out its Beaux Arts lineage. The Longworth building was next, its neoclassical style a product of the restraint of the Depression era. Last, the huge Rayburn building, finished in 1965, an H-shaped monstrosity of pink granite and white marble, reflecting the Texan grandiosity of its namesake, Speaker Sam Rayburn.
Leon Janowitz stood at the corner of C and South Capitol, nose deep in The Wall Street Journal.
“Running with the bulls?”
The young detective looked up. “Long as they’re running. Trick’s to know when to jump out. Jose not coming?”
“His turn for paperwork. Where’s Susan?”
“Said she’d meet us at the top of the horseshoe.” Janowitz motioned up the block. He folded his paper and stuck it in a beat-up L. L. Bean canvas briefcase. “By the way,” he said, “thanks for asking for me.”
Frank nodded and waited for the follow-up that was in Janowitz’s voice.
“Question?” Janowitz asked.
“Yeah?”
“Why me? I mean, next month, I’m outta here.”
“Maybe we’ll get it done by then.”
Janowitz grinned. “And pigs’ll fly.”
Frank ignored him. “You’ve got a nose for digging. You can follow a paper trail.”
Janowitz shrugged. “Paper’s paper.”
“You did good on the Keegan case.”
Another shrug. “Tracking credit cards? Utility bills?”
The walking was uphill. The effort warmed Frank’s legs and lungs, and he wanted to keep going.
He looked at Janowitz. “Easy for you, hard for others. You’ve got intuition. Other people see a piece of paper or a computer file, you see connections.”
Janowitz lowered his eyes modestly, then looked back at Frank. “Long’s you know I’m outta here next month.”
“Question?” It was Frank’s turn. “Why’d a nice boy like you want to be a cop?”
“You mean, a nice Jewish boy?”
“Jew, schmoo. Why did Leon Janowitz want to be a cop?”
“Oh… I love cities.”
“Love cities.” Frank echoed.
“Yeah.” Janowitz had the intense look of someone thinking through a cosmic riddle. “I’m a city kid. My family, all the way back to Warsaw… city people. I love cities.”
“You love cities, you became a cop. Something in between?”
“I got fed up with what these schmucks have done to our cities. They fucked up our schools. They fucked up our streets. They fucked up everything.”
“Leon Janowitz, unfucker of America’s cities?”
“I just wanted to get my licks in.”
The two men turned to go up the horseshoe-shaped drive leading to the Rayburn Building.
“So you got your licks in, and now you’re getting out.”
“So I haven’t. And that’s why I’m getting out.”
“After this case,” Frank added.
“Next month,” Janowitz corrected. “No matter what.”
Frank sorted through the knot of people standing under the portico. “Where’s Susan?”
Practically all organizations in Washington with a phone number have go-betweens who know their way around Capitol Hill. Susan Liberman’s business card read “Legislative Counsel, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department,” a large title for the diminutive dark-haired woman whom Frank finally spotted.
“Big,” Janowitz said, looking up at the massive building.
“Two million, three hundred square feet of office space,” Liberman recited. “A gym, cafeterias, recording studio, its own subway system to the Capitol.”
“Real big,” Janowitz amended.
“And fireproof,” Liberman added.
“Too bad,” Frank said.
“Next life”-Janowitz motioned to Frank-“he wants to come back as a wrecking ball.”
They pushed through the tall glass-and-steel doors. Inside, the security checkpoint. Liberman shepherded the two detectives through the metal detector and a credentials check, and signed them in at the Capitol police desk.
Once out of the cavernous foyer, Rayburn shrank to human size. There were marble floors, but the hallways were plain, utilitarian, and filled with staff and visitors.
