“And maybe Brian will get some sleep tonight.”
“Unless Gladys decides to make trouble. Did he let you have what you wanted?”
Pittman held up a sheet of paper. “I learned from the mistake we made with the guy from the alumni association. Don’t let anybody know our next move. Brian showed me how to get unlisted phone numbers and addresses. But he doesn’t know whose or what city.”
“Washington.”
Pittman nodded.
“The grand counselors.”
Pittman nodded again.
“Long drive.”
“We can’t fly. You’d have to use a check or a credit card to buy our tickets. Your name would get in the computer. The police will be looking for it. We’ve got to keep driving.”
“You really know how to show a girl a good time. I think I’ll pull a blanket over my head and assume a fetal position.”
“Good idea. Get some more rest.”
“You, too. We’ll need it if we’re going to try to get close to the grand counselors.”
“Not just yet.”
“But I thought you said we were going to Washington.”
“Right. But I need to see somebody else there.”
“Who?”
“A man I interviewed a long time ago.”
9
It was after dark when they reached Washington’s Beltway, headed south on I-95, then west on 50 to Massachusetts Avenue. Despite his exhaustion, Pittman managed to drive skillfully through the dense traffic.
“You seem to know your way around the city,” Jill said.
“When I was working on the national affairs desk, I spent a lot of time down here.” Pittman rounded Dupont Circle and took P Street west into Georgetown.
“Reminds me of Beacon Hill,” Jill said.
“I suppose.” Pittman glanced at the narrow wooded street. The paving was cobblestone. Ahead, it changed to red brick. Federal and Victorian mansions were squeezed next to one another. “Never been here?”
“Never been to
“Georgetown’s the oldest and wealthiest district in the city.”
“The remaining grand counselors live here?”
Pittman shook his head. “This is too ordinary for them. They live on estates in Virginia.”
“Then who did you come here to see?”
“A man who hates them.” Pittman headed south on Wisconsin Avenue. Headlights and streetlights made him squint. “The guy I’ve been trying to phone every time we stopped along the road. Bradford Denning. He’s elderly now, but in his prime, he was a career diplomat. A mover and shaker in the State Department during the Truman administration. According to him, he would eventually have become secretary of state.”
“What happened that he didn’t?”
“The grand counselors. They didn’t like him being in competition with them, so they got him out of their way.”
“How on earth did they manage that?”
“To hear Denning tell it-this was during the McCarthy witch-hunt era-they spread persistent rumors that Denning was soft on communism.”
“In the early fifties, that would have ruined a diplomat.”
“It certainly ruined Denning. He found it impossible to undo the damage, was given less and less responsibility in the State Department, and finally had to resign. He claims that his isn’t the only career the grand counselors ruined by claiming that somebody was a Communist sympathizer. The grand counselors then ingratiated themselves with the incoming Eisenhower administration, replaced the diplomats they’d attacked, and went on to control the highest diplomatic offices. That lasted until 1960 when the Democrats regained the White House with Kennedy. Kennedy wanted to work with friends and family rather than career diplomats. For three years, the grand counselors stood on the sidelines. But after Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson, who had disliked Kennedy, was eager to assert himself by getting Kennedy’s people out of the State Department and the White House staff. He welcomed the grand counselors back into diplomatic power. For the second time in their careers, they had managed the trick of being accepted by different political parties. In fact, by then they seemed to transcend the two-party system, so that when Nixon and the Republicans came back into power at the end of the sixties, the grand counselors had no difficulty in continuing to maintain their influence. So it went. In periods of intense international strain, various later Presidents continued to ask for their advice.”
“And Denning?”
“Had what to most people would have seemed a productive life. He taught college. Wrote for political journals. Contributed editorial columns to the
“Is that how you know about him? Because of the book?”
“No. The book was never published. Near the end of his research, his house caught fire. All his notes were destroyed. After that, he was a defeated man. Seven years ago, when I was preparing to write a story about Millgate, one of the few people who agreed to talk to me told me about Denning. I came down here to Washington to see him. But he’d been drinking, and what he had to say was all innuendo-he’d once had proof, he insisted, but it went up in the fire-and I finally realized I couldn’t quote him. I never wrote the story, anyhow. After I was arrested and my jaw was broken by those two prisoners in jail, my editor assigned me to something else.”
Driving, Pittman brooded. Thinking of his reassignment had reminded him of Burt Forsyth, not only his editor but his closest friend. The fight in the construction area off Twenty-sixth Street was brutally vivid in Pittman’s memory, Burt stepping back as the gunman came into the shadows, the gunman shooting at Pittman, then at Burt.
Grief felt like arms around his chest, squeezing him breathless. They didn’t need to kill Burt, he thought. The bastards.
“You look awfully angry,” Jill said.
“Don’t you think I’ve got reason to be?”
“Without a doubt. But it’s surprising.”
“How so?”
“When you came to my apartment Sunday, the emotion you communicated was desperation. Your motive was passive-a reaction to being threatened. But anger’s an active emotion. It’s… Let me ask you a question. If somehow a truce could be arranged and the police wouldn’t be after you and the grand counselors would leave you alone, would you walk away?”
“After everything those bastards have put me through? No way.”
Jill studied him. “Yes, you’ve definitely changed.”
“You have no idea how much. This is Wednesday. Remember, a week ago tonight, I was ready to kill myself.”
Jill didn’t react, just kept staring at him.
“Say something.”
“I keep forgetting how deeply upset you were,” Jill said.
“Still am. None of this changes my grief for Jeremy.”
“Yes. You’ll continue to grieve for the rest of your life.”
