Shall We Tell the President? (16 page)

The young librarian was at his elbow. Mark
glanced at the clock: 7:30. Throwing-out time. Time to forget the senators and
to see
Elizabeth
.
He called her at home.

‘Hello, lovely lady. I think it must be
time to eat again. I haven’t had anything since breakfast. Will you take pity
on my debilitated state, Doctor, and eat with me?’

‘And do what with you, Mark? I’ve just
washed my hair. I think I must have soap in my ears.’

‘Eat with me, I said. That will do for the
moment. I just might think of something else later.’

‘I just might say no later,’ she said sweetly.
‘How’s the breathing?’

‘Coming on nicely, thank you, but if I go
on thinking what I am thinking right now, I may break out in pimples.’

‘What do you want me to do, pour cold water
in the phone?’

‘No, just eat with me. I’ll pick you up in
half an hour, hair wet or dry.’

They found a small restaurant called Mr
Smith’s in
Georgetown
.
Mark was more familiar with it in the summer, when one could sit at a table in
the garden at the back. It was crowded with people in their twenties. The
perfect place to sit for hours and talk.

‘God,’ said
Elizabeth
. ‘This is just like being back at
college; I thought we had grown out of that.’

‘I’m glad you appreciate it,’ Mark smiled.

‘It’s all so predictable. Folksy wooden
floors, butcher-block tables, plants. Bach flute sonatas. Next time we’ll try
McDonald’s.’

Mark couldn’t think of a reply, and was
saved only by the appearance of a menu.

‘Can you imagine, four years at Yale, and I
still don’t know what ratatouille is,’ said
Elizabeth
.

‘I know what it is, but I wasn’t sure how
to pronounce it.’

They both ordered chicken, baked potato,
and salad.

‘Look, Mark, there, that ghastly Senator
Thornton with a girl young enough to be his daughter.’

‘Perhaps she is his daughter.’

‘No civilised man would bring his daughter
here.’ She smiled at him.

‘He’s a friend of your father’s, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, how do you know that?’ asked
Elizabeth
.

‘Common knowledge.’ Mark already regretted
his question.

‘Well, I’d describe him as more of a
business associate. He makes his money manufacturing gun. Not the most
attractive occupation.’

‘But your father owns part of a gun
company.’

‘Daddy? Yes, I don’t approve of that
either, but he blames it on my grandfather who founded the firm. I used to
argue with him about it when I was at school. Told him to sell his stock and
invest it in something socially useful, saw myself as a sort Major Barbara.’

‘How is your dinner?’ a hovering waiter
asked.

‘Um, just great, thanks,’ said
Elizabeth
looking up.
‘You know, Mark, I once called my father a war criminal.’

‘But he was against the war, I thought.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about my
father,’ said
Elizabeth
looking at him suspiciously.

Not enough, thought Mark, and how much
could you really tell me? If
Elizabeth
picked up any sign of his anxiety, she didn’t register it but simply continued.

‘He voted to approve the MX missile, and I
didn’t sit at the same table with him for almost a month. I don’t think he even
noticed.’

‘How about your mother?’ asked Mark.

‘She died when I was fourteen, which may be
why I’m so close to my father,’
Elizabeth
said. She looked down at her hands in her lap, evidently wanting to drop the
subject. Her dark hair shone as it fell across her forehead.

‘You have very beautiful hair,’ Mark said
softly. ‘I wanted to touch it when I first saw you. I still do.’

She smiled. ‘I like curly hair better.’ She
leaned her chin on her cupped hands and looked at him mischievously. ‘You’ll
look fantastic when you’re forty and fashionably grey at the temples. Provided
you don’t lose it all first, of course. Did you know that men who lose their
hair at the crown are sexy, those who lose it at the temples, think, and those
who lose it all over, think they are sexy?’

‘If I go bald at the crown, will you accept
that as a declaration of intent?’

‘I’m willing to wait but not that long.’

On the way back to her house he stopped,
put his arm around her and kissed her, hesitantly at first, unsure of how she
would respond.

‘You know, my knees are feeling weak,
Elizabeth
,’ he murmured
into her soft, warm hair. ‘What are you going to do with your latest victim?’

She walked on without speaking for a little
way.

‘Get you some knee pads,’ she said.

They walked on hand in hand, silently,
happily, slowly. Three not very romantic men were following them.

In the pretty living-room, on the
cream-coloured sofa, he kissed her again.

The three unromantic men waited in the
shadows.

She sat alone in the Oval Office going over
the clauses in the bill one by one, searching for any line that still might
trip her up when the bill was voted on tomorrow.

She looked up suddenly startled to see her
husband standing in front of her, a mug of steaming cocoa in his hand.

‘An early night won’t harm your chances of
influencing that lot,’ he said, pointing towards the Capitol.

She smiled. ‘Darling Edward, where would I
be without your common sense?’

9:00 am Mark spent Sunday morning putting
the finishing touches to his report for the Director. He began by tidying his
desk; he could never think clearly unless everything was in place. Mark
gathered all his notes together and put them in a logical sequence. He
completed the task by two o’clock, without noticing that he had missed lunch.
Slowly he wrote down the names of the fifteen senators who were left, six under
the heading Foreign Relations Committee, nine under Gun Control bill -Judiciary
Committee. He stared at the lists, hoping for inspiration but none came. One of
these men was a killer and there were only four days left to find out which
one. He put the papers into his briefcase, which he locked in his desk.

He went into the kitchen and made himself a
sandwich. He looked at his watch. What could he do that would be useful for the
rest of the day?
Elizabeth
was on duty at the hospital. He picked up the phone and dialled the number. She
could only spare a minute, due in the operating theatre at three o’clock.

‘Okay, Doctor, this won’t take long and it
shouldn’t hurt. I can’t call you every day just to tell you that you are lovely
and intelligent and that you drive me crazy, so listen carefully.’

‘I’m listening, Mark.’

‘Okay. You are beautiful and bright and I’m
crazy about you . . . What, no reply?’

‘Oh, I thought there might be more. I’ll
say something nice in return when I’m three inches away from you, not three miles.’

‘Better make it soon, or I am going to
crack up. Off you go, and cut out someone else’s heart.’

She laughed. ‘It’s an ingrown toenail
actually . . .’

She hung up. Mark roamed about the room,
his mind jumping from fifteen senators, to
Elizabeth
, back to one Senator. Wasn’t it
going just a little too well with
Elizabeth
?
Was one Senator looking for him, rather than the other way around? He cursed
and poured himself a Michelob. His mind switched to Barry Calvert; on Sunday
afternoons they usually played squash. Then to Nick
Stames
,
Stames
who had unknowingly taken his place. If
Stames
were alive now, what would he do? ... A remark that
Stames
had made at the office party last Christmas came
flashing across Mark’s mind: ‘If I’m not available, the second best crime man
in this goddamn country is George
Stampouzis
of
The
New York Times’
– another Greek, naturally. ‘He must know more about the
Mafia and the CIA than almost anyone on either side of the law.’

Mark dialled Information in
New York
, and asked for the
number, not quite sure where it was leading him. The operator gave it to him.
‘Thank you.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

He dialled it.

‘Crime desk, George
Stampouzis
,
please.’ They put him through.

‘
Stampouzis
,’
said a voice. They don’t waste words on
The New York Times.

‘Good afternoon. My name is Mark Andrews.
I’m calling from
Washington
.
I was a friend of Nick
Stames
; in fact, he was my
boss.’

The voice changed. ‘Yes, I heard about the
terrible accident, if it was an accident. What can I do for you?’

‘I need some inside information. Can I fly
up and see you immediately?’

‘Does it concern Nick?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then yes. Meet me at eight o’clock,
north-east corner of Twenty-first and
Park
Avenue South
?’

‘I’ll be there,’ said Mark, looking at his
watch.

‘And I’ll be waiting for you.’

The Eastern Airlines shuttle flight arrived
a few minutes after seven. Mark made his way through the crowd milling around
the baggage pickup and headed for the taxi stand. A potbellied, middle-aged,
unshaven New Yorker with an unlit
cigar stub bobbing up and down in his mouth drove him towards
Manhattan
. He never stopped talking the whole
way, a monologue that required few replies. Mark could have used the time to
compose his thoughts.

‘This country’s full of shit,’ said the
bobbing cigar.

‘Yes,’ said Mark.

‘And this city is nothing more than a
garbage hole.’

‘Yes,’ said Mark.

‘And that daughter of a bitch Kane’s to
blame. They ought to string her up.’

Mark froze. It was probably said a thousand
times a day; someone in
Washington
was saying it and meaning it.

The cab driver pulled up to the curb.

‘Eighteen dollars even,’ said the bobbing
cigar.

Mark put a ten and two fives into the
little plastic drawer in the protective screen that divided driver from
passenger, and climbed out. A heavy-set man in his mid-fifties and wearing a
tweed overcoat headed towards him. Mark shivered. He had forgotten how cold
New York
could be in
March.

‘Andrews?’

‘Yes. Good guess.’

‘When you spend your life studying
criminals, you begin to think like them.’ He was taking in Mark’s suit. ‘G-men
are certainly dressing better than they did in my day.’

Mark looked embarrassed.
Stampouzis
must know that an FBI agent was paid almost
double the salary of a
New York
cop.

‘You like Italian food?’ He didn’t wait for
Mark’s reply. ‘I’ll take you to one of Nick’s old favourites.’ He was already
on the move. They walked the long block in silence, Mark’s step hesitating as
he passed each restaurant entrance. Suddenly,
Stampouzis
disappear-
ed
into a doorway. Mark followed him
through a
run-down bar full of men who were leaning on the counter and
drinking heavily. Men who had no wives to go home to, or if they did, didn’t
want to.

Once through the bar, they entered a
pleasant,
brickwalled
dining area. A tall, thin
Italian guided them to a corner table: obviously
Stampouzis
was a favoured customer.
Stampouzis
didn’t bother
with the menu.

‘I recommend the shrimp marinara. After
that, you’re on your own.’

Mark took his advice and added a
piccata
al
limone
and
half a carafe of Chianti.
Stampouzis
drank Colt 45.
They talked of trivia while they ate. Mark knew the residual Mediterranean
creed after two years with Nick
Stames
- never let
business interfere with the enjoyment of good food. In any case,
Stampouzis
was still sizing him up, and Mark needed his
confidence.

When
Stampouzis
had finished an enormous portion of zabaglione and settled down to a double
espresso with
sambuca
on the side, he looked up at
Mark and spoke in a different tone.

‘You worked
for a great man, a rare lawman. If
one tenth of the FBI
were as conscientious and intelligent as Nick
Stames
,
you would have something to be pleased about in that brick coliseum of yours.’