"And foremothers."
"… and foremothers of old Virginia set up their Jacuzzis first thing, right after the slave-whipping post. The Jacuzzi was actually invented by Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry or one of those guys."
"Mmm, Patrick Henry. Give me lavatory or give me bath. Oh, God, don't get me started again, I'm starving; I need food, not more of that."
Karp obligingly shifted his ablutions to a less critical area. "Breakfast is included," he said. "I doubt there'll be bagels, but it's included."
"Good. Which reminds me: how are we affording all this luxury? Did you take a bribe?"
"No, I put it on the card."
Marlene stared at him. "The card? Would that be the MasterCard I fought with you for a month to take out and you agreed only if we both swore that it would only be used for the most extreme emergencies, like, I believe you said, a bone-marrow transplant for Lucy. That card?"
Karp shrugged, only slightly embarrassed. "I thought it was a medical emergency. Emotional deprivation can lead to serious physical problems, you know."
"You just wanted to get laid."
"No, I wanted to provide you with a more suitable venue for hooting than our shitty thin-walled apartment. A little more polish on that knee?"
The phone rang. They both froze, as if about to be discovered in an illicit act.
"Who the hell is that?" asked Marlene. "Did you tell the office where you were?"
"Are you nuts? Nobody knows we're here. I didn't know myself until I called this joint about an hour before we left. It's probably the desk, they want to know if we want one egg or two. Or else our car's in the wrong place."
Karp got out of the bath, put on one of the thick white terry cloth robes supplied by the inn, and went to answer the phone.
It was not the desk calling, but Blake Harrison, the columnist. Karp felt a pang in his vitals. He had to clear his throat heavily before responding to Harrison's greeting, after which Harrison wasted no time on small talk.
"Butch, you'll recall our conversation at Dobbs's house? Well, now's the time. Crane will be fired on Monday."
"Don't be so sure," Karp replied. "The word is the committee is fairly pissed at the way Flores has been behaving. They might not let him."
"What happens to Flores doesn't signify, for God's sake," snapped Harrison impatiently. "Flores may be finished too, but that doesn't mean Crane can stay. Trust me on this. So, what's your answer? Are you going to take the job?"
"I'll make that decision when it's presented to me," said Karp.
"Oh, stop being a prig!" Harrison shouted. "You think they're going to put an equal-opportunity ad in the Post? You'll be offered the job; my advice to you is to take it. You handle it properly, it can definitely lead to big things." There was a pause. "Karp? Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here. I was just thinking about whether I'm ready for big things. Good-bye, Mr. Harrison." Karp put down the receiver. He could hear Harrison sputtering until the moment the connection was cut.
"Not the desk, huh?" said Marlene when Karp came back to the bathroom.
"No, it was Blake Harrison."
"The newspaper guy? How did he find out you were here?"
Karp sat down on the rim of the tub. "Well, either somebody followed us here or somebody heard me making these reservations. Since I doubt whether anyone could've followed us over those mountain roads last night without us noticing, they probably either have a tap on our phone or a bug in the apartment."
"I don't want this to be happening," Marlene said, and then put her hands over her ears and sank backward until the surface of the foamy water closed over her head.
Still, they managed to have a nice weekend, in the fashion of people for whom things cannot get much worse. They drove to the national park and Marlene walked out on a rock in the South Fork of the Shenandoah and sang all six verses of "Oh, Shenandoah," with feeling. Karp walked out to join her and fell in, immersing himself to the waist. They had a couple of good meals at the inn and spent a lot of time in bed. At intervals, Marlene told Karp about the Dobbs affair, and what she had learned in the attic.
"You don't think I'm a rat for reading that stuff, do you?" she asked after she'd finished her tale.
"Semi-ratty," answered Karp. "I think it's why you're a great investigator and not that great of a prosecutor."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped, bridling.
"Just that if somebody lets you loose on a case, they better be sure they want everything to come out, and forget the niceties. What you want is truth and justice, no holds barred, and you forget the rules of evidence. You even forget the law. It's going to get you in a shit-load of trouble some day."
"Yeah, yeah, so you're always telling me." Marlene propped herself up on one elbow so she could look at him as he lay next to her. "I happen to be the best rape prosecutor they ever had up there."
"It's a weak league, Marlene."
She socked him a couple of times with her pillow and then asked, "So, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Smarty-Pants, if you're not interested in truth and justice, why are you still on this bullshit Kennedy thing? You still think you're going to make a case?"
"Oh, no," said Karp blandly. "Now I'm in it for truth and justice. I'm just like you now."
Marlene laughed and snuggled closer to him. "Oh, goody. At last, something to bring us closer together, even if it's chicanery." He was silent for a while and she caught a familiar, distant expression on his face. "What're you thinking?" she asked.
"Hmm? Oh, nothing, just one of the names you mentioned-this Gaiilov. It rang some kind of bell. I'm trying to think from where."
"From me, probably. I must've mentioned the great Gaiilov hunt. Or maybe Harry did. Or I murmured it in my fevered dreams."
"Um, I don't think so. For some strange reason, I think I heard it at the office. It'll come to me later." He ran his arm under her body and pulled her close. "Speaking of which…," he said.
Back at Federal Gardens on Sunday night, Karp made a quick search for bugs, and found one almost immediately, a small transmitter screwed into the mouthpiece of the telephone. He left it in place.
"Why did you leave it there?" asked Marlene when Karp had ushered her outside to the parking lot.
"Because if I take it out they'll just put in another one that's harder to find. Anyway, I think the main thing they wanted was telephone calls, and a bug like that is a lot simpler than a tap."
Marlene shuddered and moved closer to him "Yecch! It makes me feel slimy. Do you think they bugged our bedroom too?"
"I hope so," said Karp with a quick grin. "Let them know what they're missing." He hugged her and she looked up at his face and said, "This is going to be over soon, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah," said Karp. "Real soon."
A little past nine-thirty on Monday, a hand-delivered letter arrived at Bert Crane's office. It was from Flores and it said that Crane was fired and had to be out of his office by 5:00 p.m. that afternoon.
"What's the plan?" asked Karp when Crane told him.
"Committee meeting today. Hank thinks they can get this reversed. I'd like you to attend it."
Karp did so, and in the late afternoon reported back to his boss.
"I think Flores has become unhinged," Karp concluded. "He was behaving like a kid in a sandbox when some other kid grabs his toy truck, like this committee was his personal property. He bluntly accused Morgan of trying to steal the committee from him and become chairman. He was flinging insults at Hank too. The upshot was they reversed the firing letter. After they finally adjourned, Flores talked to a bunch of press people. He called you a rattlesnake."
Crane chuckled. "That's what they call 'colorful' on the Hill. It's a synonym for deranged."
"Bert, why is he doing this? I don't get it."