Karp had been in Washington only twice before, once during a high school class trip and again to give a speech on homicide prosecution to a seminar at an annual meeting of prosecutors. He recalled steamy heat, bland food, large groups of people endlessly walking. The old tag came into his mind, "A city of southern efficiency and northern charm," and then with a little jolt he remembered that John Kennedy had said that, and here he was in that city to study the man's death. It made him feel mildly light-headed.
He stepped into a cab at the hack stand and gave the driver the address Crane had given him. Looking out the window as the dripping scene whirled by, he tried to orient himself. It was not easy, even with reference to the little map of the District, encased in plastic and affixed to the back of the driver's seat, which all Washington cabs must carry to show the fare zones. Orientation in Manhattan makes few demands on the intellect; it is like living on a ruler: uptown, downtown, East Side, West Side. The absence of this in other metropolises often produces a form of vertigo in longtime New York residents, that and not being able to find a decent loaf of rye bread.
So it was now with Karp. Over a bridge, across some parkland studded with monuments glowing dimly through the drizzle, through some meaningless streets, and to the door of an unprepossessing office building on Fourth Street off D: the old FBI Annex.
He took the elevator to the sixth floor and entered a scene of noisy disorder. The hallway was redolent with fresh paint, and workmen were moving desks and chairs along on dollies, stacking them in a great jumble at one end of the hallway. Karp eased around the mess, stepping carefully over the spattered drop cloths until he came to a door that bore a neat hand-lettered sign:
HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS
CHIEF COUNSEL
This gave on a large room full of cartons and desks and chairs scattered at useless angles. Several women dressed in jeans and casual tops were unloading cartons into steel file cabinets. A telephone technician was up on a ladder poking into a hole where a ceiling panel had been removed.
"You must be Karp," said a clear, high voice behind him.
Karp turned and saw a thin middle-aged woman in jeans and a T-shirt, her white-blond hair done up in a neat bun. She wore large round glasses and had a pleasantly bony face.
Extending her hand, she said, "I'm Bea Sondergard. Bert's waiting for you."
Karp shook the hand and followed her down a short hallway.
She said, "What a mess, huh? Bert wanted to get started in D.C. as soon as possible. The federal government is not used to starting operations in a week. Or a year."
She knocked briefly and threw open a door. Bert Crane, dressed in chinos and a worn blue Brooks Brothers shirt, was sitting on a secretary's chair in the center of a large corner office, using a stack of cartons as a desk.
He looked up expectantly. "Phones?"
Sondergard shook her head. "Definitely by Thanksgiving-no, really, the guy said pretty soon. Look who's here."
Crane rose and greeted Karp. "Welcome to Washington. I wish I could have received you in more splendor. The furniture's on order; God knows when it'll get here. We have no phones, and I'm not sure we're being paid."
"Aside from that…," said Sondergard.
Crane grinned. "Yeah, aside from that. This is what's known as hitting the ground running. Look, here's the plan. I have to make some calls, assuming the phone starts working. Bea will get you started on the paperwork to get you on board. Then we're due over at the Rayburn Building for a meeting with the chairman, show him you can walk and talk and don't drool. Then I've got a lunch with some media people, and you're free until, let's say, two; get back here, and we'll talk. You should be able to catch the four o'clock shuttle."
"Sounds good," said Karp.
Bea Sondergard ushered him out and into her own cramped office next door, where, Karp was not surprised to see, all was in order: a desk, several chairs, a brass lamp with a shade, a typing table on which was a Lexitron word processor, and on one wall, several sheets of white chart paper displaying carefully printed lists of things to do, and flowcharts showing the order in which they were to be accomplished. The woman quickly found a manila file and handed it to him. In it were the forms without which the government would not recognize the existence of its servants. On each of the forms there was a little typed note explaining which forms were most important and offering pithy advice on what to put where.
"Very thorough," said Karp, again not surprised. He realized, of course, that Bea Sondergard was one of the anonymous, self-effacing, and ruthlessly efficient people, almost always women, almost always in their middle years, who hold the fabric of modern civilization together by sheer force of will. There must be at least one in every organization, and in order to have any sensible interaction with a bureaucracy, the first step is to find out who she is. Bea Sondergard was the one in Crane's outfit.
"Thank you," said Sondergard. "I trust you won't have any trouble with all that. We're exempt from civil service because we work for Congress-obviously Congress isn't going to burden itself with the nonsense they make the rest of the government go through-but it's twisted enough as it is. Getting purchase orders and stuff through the comptroller-God knows when you'll be able to get furniture."
Karp looked up from "Mother's Maiden Name." "What's wrong with the stuff in the hallway?"
"Oh, that! It's just garbage the previous tenants declared surplus. It's going out to Maryland for storage or disposal tomorrow."
"I'll take it."
"Seriously? It's tacky in the extreme."
"No problem."
"Well, well. You must have flunked bureaucrats school. I thought you looked like class," she said, beaming a smile that showed large teeth and a significant spread of pale pink gum. "I bet you do find out who killed Kennedy."
Later, on the short walk up the slope to the Rayburn, Crane, now in a slick gray suit, said, "Let me fill you in on George Flores. Six-term rep from the Twentieth District. That's Dallas, by the way, and probably not by accident. Flores was not a big enthusiast for starting this committee, but once it got the go-ahead from the House leadership, he moved in fast. Why? Who knows? It may just be that he doesn't want anyone stirring up his patch without being able to look over their shoulder.
"As far as the rest of the committee goes, they'll be inclined to let Flores take the lead. Frank Morgan's a solid guy, he's a black caucus leader, but he's mainly interested in the MLK side. On your side, I'd have to say the main guy would be Hank Dobbs."
"Who is…?"
"Representative from the Second District in Connecticut. He's Richard Ewing Dobbs's kid, by the way." Karp gave him a blank look. Crane shook his head in amazement. "How soon they forget! Richard Ewing Dobbs? Doesn't ring a bell? How about Alger Hiss? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?"
"Them I know. His father was a spy?"
"Accused spy. One of the great liberal cause celebres of the bad old fifties. We don't discuss it with Hank, incidentally. He's a little raw on the subject. Anyway, of the committee as a whole, he's probably the strongest supporter of the way we want to do things."
"A friend, in other words," Karp ventured.
Crane sniffed, "I wouldn't go quite that far. You know the saying-if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. But an ally, at least-and I think you and he will get along."
They reached the undistinguished sugar-white pile with the acromegalic statues flanking the entrance and went in. Walking down the broad corridors toward Flores's office, Karp was gratified to see actual lobbyists plying their trade, speaking in small confidential groups to one another or surrounding a striding representative in a slowly moving pack, like hyenas tugging at a dying wildebeest.