charge, which I suppose wouldn’t do his navy career much good.”
“It wouldn’t. What if I ran him off?”
“Would you? Here’s the address.” Camacho gave it, said good- bye, then hung up.
Callie looked at Jake with raised eyebrows. “Would you ladies like to go for a ride before bedtime? Maybe get some frozen yo- gurt?”
After five minutes of furious activity, the females were ready. Jake drove through the heart of monumental Washington and ended up on the Suitland Parkway. Callie gave him directions with the aid of a map. They got lost once but eventually found the right street.
Although it was after 9 P.M., it had been totally dark less than half an hour. Heat still rose from the streets and children still ran through yards. Here and there stickball games were being con- ducted under streetlights. “This is the best time of the day,” Jake told CalBe as they sat at a stoplight listening to pop music pouring from the open windows of a car full of teenagers.
Six blocks later Callie said, “That’s the building, I think, up there on the left.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for Toad,” Jake advised Amy. “He’s sitting in one of these cars.”
“Why?” Amy asked.
“You’ll have to ask him. Now look.”
His car was parked a half block beyond the apartment building. Only the top of his head was visible as Jake drove by with Amy squealing and pointing. Jake turned around again and this time double-parked just past his car. With the engine running and the transmission in park, he got out and walked back.
Toad’s window was down. He stared blankly up at Jake’s face.
“We’re going out for a frozen yogurt. Wanta come?”
“How’d you—“
“Lock your car and climb in with us.”
“Jesus, CAG, I—“
Jake opened the driver’s door and held it. “Come on. That’s an order.”
Toad rolled up the windows and locked the car. “You can ride in back.” Toad obediently slipped in beside Amy. She greeted him like a long-lost friend. “How’s Rita?” she demanded.
“Doing okay,” Toad said. “And how are you, Mrs. Grafton?”
“Just fine. Toad. What kind of frozen yogurt do you like?”
“Any kind,” Tarkington said, still bewildered.
“Why were you parked out here?” Amy asked, hanging her arms around Toad’s neck. “You don’t live here, do you?”
“Waiting on a man. He hasn’t shown up.”
“Oh.” Amy thought about it. “When can we see Rita?”
“Anytime you want.”
“Well, it’s only nine o’clock,” Jake said to Callie. “No school tomorrow for you aristocrats. What say we drive over to Bethesda and see if Rita’s still awake? That okay with you. Toad?”
“Sure, Captain, sure.”
They stopped at a mall near the beltway entrance and bought cones of frozen yogurt. Everyone got one. As Amy skipped back toward the car and the adults followed, Toad asked Jake. “How’d you know where I was?”
“FBI called me. They don’t want you there.”
The younger man bristled. “It’s a public street. And I didn’t see them lurking around waiting on anybody.”
“Oh, they’re there. They saw you, got your license number, ran the plate and called me. They really didn’t want to arrest you on a felony weapons charge.”
Toad’s shoulders sagged.
“You must get on with your life,” Callie said gently, “yours and Rita’s, for you are part of her.”
“Let’s go see her.” Jake suggested, and led the way toward the car.
Tarkington rode silently as Amy chattered between licks on her cone. He put his tongue in motion in the hospital reception room after the woman at the desk said, “It’s after visiting hours, Lieuten- ant.”
“I know, but I’m her husband. These are my folks, just in from the Coast. We’ll be quiet and not stay long.” Toad winked at her and gave her his most sincere lying smile.
“I don’t suppose a short visit after hours will do any real harm. For such close relatives.”
“Toad,” Amy asked in the elevator, “why did you tell that lady a lie?”
“I didn’t really lie,” Toad explained. “See, I winked at her and she knew you weren’t my relatives, that I was just giving her a good reason to bend the rules a tiny bit. If I tell you a story about fairies and frogs and passionate princesses, you know it isn’t true and so it isn’t a lie, is it? It’s a story.”
“Well…” Amy said as she scrunched up her brows and tried to follow Toad’s logic.
“I knew you’d understand, sis,” Toad said as the elevator door opened. He led them off and along the corridor toward Rita’s room.
Rita was asleep when they tiptoed into the room. “Maybe we should let her sleep,” Callie suggested.
Toad bent over and whispered her name. Her eyes fluttered. Then he kissed her cheek. “You’ve got company, dearest”
“Oh, Calllie! Amy! Captain Grafton. What a pleasant surprise. How nice of you to come by.”
‘Toad brought us,” Amy said. “He lied to the lady downstairs- Said we were his family.” She winked hugely while Callie rolled her eyes.
Thirty minutes later Jake insisted they had to go. He led his family down the corridor while Toad said a private goodbye to Rita. Amy was tiring and talking too loud, so Callie tried to hush her, which made her whine. Jake picked her up and carried her.
In the car Callie chided Toad. “You sitting in that car in Morn- ingside while your in-laws are at your house. You should be ashamed.”
“Well…”
“When Rita gets out of the hospital, you must bring her over to the beach some weekend.”
“Sure. You bet, Mrs. Grafton. I will.”
Back in Momingside, Jake double-parked across the street and walked with Toad over to his car. Jake waited until Tarkington had the car unlocked, then said, “You have a beautiful wife, a good job, and all of life before you. Don’t fuck it up by sitting here waiting to kill a man.”
“You saw what he did to Rita.”
“Yeah. And if you get lucky and get a bullet into him, the stuff that will happen to you afterwards will hurt her a lot worse than the airplane crash did. You’ll be the one who twisted the knife. Don’t do that to her.”
“Yessir.” Toad shook Jake’s hand, then climbed into the car and cranked the window down.
“Thanks, CAG…”
“It’s a good life, kid. Don’t throw it away,”
“… for the frozen yogurt.” Tarkington started his car and snapped on the headlights.
“Night, Toad.”
“Good night, sir.”
As soon as Jake got his car rolling, Amy stretched out in the backseat. In a few minutes he checked that she was asleep, then said to Callie, “Admiral Henry had a notebook.” He told her what he had learned from Camacho, that CaUie’s psychologist was tell- ing Henry what she said in her therapy sessions.
“Oh, Jake.” She bit her lip. “I’ve half a mind to write a letter to the Medical Board.”
“He was just trying to help Henry.”
“Damn him.” He looked at her. She was rigid, with both fists clenched.
He began to talk. He told her about X, about Smoke Judy and Luis Camacho and the Russian spy. Crossing the Anacostia River, going north on South Capitol Street, creeping through the cooling evening along Independence Avenue by the Air and Space Museum, he told her everything he knew.
She listened carefully. They were parked facing the Lincoln Me- morial on Twenty-third Street and watching the crowd still going to and from the Wall when she said, “Camacho told the spy about Judy?”
“That Judy was corrupt? Yes. So he says.”
“He wanted something to happen.”
