Yes, but how in the hell did that sort of thinking mesh with his well-known liberalism? How could he believe in the reasonable world his Boston family and teachers had told him about — and still believe in meeting violence with violence?
He quickly finished the last of his bourbon.
“Bad day, was it?”
McAlister looked up and saw Fredericks, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, standing in front of his table.
“I thought you were pretty much a teetotaler,” Bill Fredericks said.
“Used to be.”
“You ought to get out of the CIA.”
“And come over to Justice?”
“Sure. We whittle away hours on anti-trust suits. And even when we've got a hot case, we aren't rushed. The wheels of justice grind slowly. One martini a night eases the tension.”
Smiling, McAlister shook his head and said, “Well, if you've got it so damned easy over there, I wish you'd make an effort to help take the pressure off me when you get the chance.”
Fredericks blinked. “What'd I do?”
“It's what you didn't do.”
“What didn't I do?'
McAlister reminded him of how long he'd taken to send that list of federal marshals to Andrew Rice.
“But that's not true,” Fredericks said. “Rice's secretary called and asked for the list. No explanations. Very snotty. Wanted to have it sooner than immediately. National security. Fate of the nation at stake. Future of the free world in the balance. Danger to the republic. That sort of thing. I couldn't get hold of a messenger fast enough, so I sent my own secretary to deliver it. She left it with Rice's secretary.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “I know she was back in my office no later than four o'clock.”
McAlister frowned. “But why would Rice lie to me?”
“You'll have to ask him.”
“I guess I will.”
“If you're dining alone,” Fredericks said, “why don't you join us?” He motioned to a table where two other lawyers from Justice were ordering drinks.
“Bernie Kirkwood is supposed to join me before long,” McAlister said. “Besides, I wouldn't be very good company tonight.”
“In that case, maybe I better join you, Bill,” Kirk-wood said as he arrived at McAlister's table.
Kirkwood was in his early thirties, a thin, bushy-headed, narrow-faced man who looked as if he'd just been struck by lightning and was still crackling with a residue of electricity. His large eyes were made even larger by thick gold-framed glasses. His smile revealed a lot of crooked white teeth.
“Well,” Fredericks said, “I can't let any newsmen see me with both of you crusaders. That would start all sorts of rumors about big new investigations, prosecutions, heads rolling in high places. My telephone would never stop ringing. How could I ever find the time I need to nail some poor bastard to the wall for income-tax evasion?”
Kirkwood said, “I didn't know that you guys at Justice ever nailed anyone for anything.”
“Oh, sure. It happens.”
“When was the last time?”
“Six years ago this December, I think. Or was it seven years last June?”
“Income-tax evader?”
“No, I think it was some heinous bastard who was carrying a placard back and forth in front of the White House, protesting the war. Or something.”
“But you got him,” Kirkwood said.
“Put him away for life.”
“We can sleep nights.”
“Oh, yes! The streets are safe!” Grinning, Fredericks turned to McAlister and said, “You'll check that out — about the list? I'm not lying to you.”
“I'll check it out,” McAlister said. “And I believe you, Bill.”
Fredericks returned to his own table; as he was leaving, the waiter brought menus for McAlister and Kirkwood, took their orders for drinks, fetched one bourbon and one Scotch, and said how nice it was to see them.
When they were alone again, Kirkwood said, “We found Dr. Hunter's car in a supermarket parking lot a little over a mile from his home in Bethesda.”
Dr. Leroy Hunter, McAlister knew, was another biochemist who had connections with the late Dr. Olin Wilson. He had also been on friendly terms with Potter Cofield, their only other lead, the man who had been stabbed to death in his own home yesterday. He said, “No sign of Hunter, I suppose.”
Kirkwood shook his woolly head: no. “A neighbor says she saw him putting two suitcases in the trunk of the car before he drove away yesterday afternoon. They're still there, both of them, full of toilet articles and clean clothes.”
Sipping bourbon, leaning back in his chair, McAlister said, “Know what I think?”
“Sure,” Kirkwood said, folding his bony hands around his glass of Scotch. “Dr. Hunter has joined Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cofield in that great research laboratory in the sky.”
“That's about it.”
“Sooner or later we'll find the good doctor floating face-down in the Potomac River — a faulty electric toaster clasped in both hands and a burglar's knife stuck in his throat.” Kirkwood grinned humorlessly.
“Anything on those two dead men we found in David Canning's apartment?”
“They were each other's best friend. We can't tie either of them to anyone else in the agency.”
“Then we're right back to square one.”
Kirkwood said, “I called the office at six o'clock. They'd just received a telephone call from Tokyo. Canning and Tanaka took off in that Frenchman's jet at five p.m. Friday, Washington time — which is nine o'clock tomorrow morning in Tokyo.”
McAlister handed him a section of the Washington Post. “Let's make a pact: no more talk about Dragonfly until after dinner. The world's full of other interesting crises and tragedies. I would advise, however, that you skip all that negative stuff and look for the harmless human-interest stories.”
Nodding, Kirkwood said, “You mean like 'Hundred-Year-Old Man Tells Secret of Long Life.'”
“That's exactly it.”
“Or maybe, 'Iowa Man Grows World's Largest Potato.' ”
“Even better.”
The waiter returned, interrupting their reading long enough to take two orders for hearts of artichokes in vinaigrette, cheese-filled ravioli, and a half-bottle of good red wine.
Just before the artichokes arrived, McAlister was reading about a famous Christian evangelist's ideas for the rehabilitation of the thousands of men in American prisons. The evangelist wanted to surgically implant a transponder in each prisoner's brain so that the man could be monitored by a computer. The computer would not only keep track of the ex-prisoner but it would listen in to his conversations wherever he might be — and give him an electric shock if he used obscene language or tried to break the terms of his parole. The minister thought that, indeed, such a device could benefit a great many Americans who had never been to prison but who had engaged in hundreds of minor violations of the law all their lives. The evangelist also felt — and said that he was certain God agreed with him — that the punishment for various crimes should be brought into line with the nature of the original transgression. For example, a rapist should be castrated. A thief should have some of his fingers chopped off. A pornographer should have one eye poked out because it had offended God. A prostitute—
“What in the hell?” Kirkwood's voice was uncharacteristically breathless, quiet.
McAlister looked up from his section of the newspaper. “It can't be as bad as what I'm reading.”
After he'd taken a moment to reread a paragraph, Kirkwood said, “Last night, right near here, a prostitute was badly beaten by one of her Johns.”