“Sir, I can only say, I have no opinion on the photo, and I have no recollection of ever traveling to Columbia, South Carolina. I didn’t do it.”
The director sighed.
“Okay, Nick,” he said, “then I have no choice but to-Nick, I have to say, you seem to be enjoying this. That’s what I don’t quite understand. I see, well, not quite a smirk, but a kind of look. Ace up the sleeve, I know something you don’t know, nonny-nonny-boo-boo, my class wins the Bible, that kind of look. A shoe waiting to drop look. Am I wrong?”
“No sir,” said Nick and then he couldn’t hold it anymore and started to laugh. The more he laughed, the more he had to laugh, until the laugh became a fit, almost a seizure.
The director adopted a look of benign condescension, let Nick go on and on.
“Okay,” he finally said, “you’ve enjoyed your joke at my expense, and I’ve heard you are a very funny fellow. But it’s time for the punch line. I’m due at a press conference very shortly and I’ve got to tell them more than ‘Special Agent Memphis is upstairs having a good yuk.’ ”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Go ahead.”
Nick thought.
“I just don’t see how I can be suspended for a picture of me at the FN USA shooting range in 2006 with a rifle that doesn’t exist.”
“I don’t know what-”
“It’s not even an FN rifle. It’s from their arch competitor, Remington. But not only is it a Remington rifle in my hand, it’s a
Remington rifle that didn’t exist until 2008.”
“I don’t-”
“That rifle hadn’t even been designed in 2006. It’s in their current catalog, but in 2006, it wasn’t even a dream in an engineer’s eye. So the picture’s a fake. It’s manifestly, self-evidently a fraud. I don’t know who did it, or why, or how. But not only that, whoever did it understood exactly what the Times knew nothing about and he took advantage of their congenital weakness, and the upshot is, he got them to publish a photo that twenty million people will instantly know is phony!”
The director looked at the picture.
“Well,” he said, “it looks like the joke’s on them, doesn’t it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do they know yet?”
“If they don’t, they will soon enough.”
“Boy, would I like to see that.”
43
David Banjax decided to award himself the morning off. He knew no one would mind. He was the hero. He wanted to savor it. So instead of going to the bureau, he slept later, just wandered a bit on the streets of Washington, past the Post on Fifteenth and the garage where he’d gotten the original pack of documents, down K, past McCormick & Schmick’s, which had become a lunchtime favorite, down to Connecticut, then up it, past the square, past the Mayflower, past Burberry’s, up still further to Dupont Circle, then a deviation down embassy row on Massachusetts, all the great old houses from the gilded age converted to little bits of sacred ground of other nations, behind walls and hedges and largely Mediterranean architecture, giving this arcade in the capital city a Roman Way look to it.
I am Spartacus, thought David with a bit of a grin.
He felt as he always did of late when he’d landed the big one, the talker. He felt painfully self-conscious, aware that everybody was aware of him, that his few fans admired his success, that his competitors in the bureau resented it, as they hated it when someone stepped away from the pack and became an individual, a star, and got on TV and had calls from editors at S & S and Knopf and Chris at MSNBC and Bill at Fox and Larry at CNN and Scott at NPR and Charlie at PBS, even Jon at Comedy Central. He wanted to stretch it out, settle himself down, enjoy the day and the exquisite anticipation.
It was chilly but bright. The brisk wind blew his raincoat against his sports coat, fluffed his hair, blew tears into his eyes. Everywhere people looked hearty and happy, absorbed in the narcissism of their time and place, consumed by scandal, a soon-due report, an upcoming meeting, a conference, a screening, an opening, a reception, a recital. It was a town of meetings. Everyone except David seemed to have one that morning; his wouldn’t arrive until four, and as he planned it, he’d wander casually into the office about, say, hmm, 3:43, just enough time to deal with any invitations, take the begrudging congrats of peers and admirers, nod at those who weren’t moved to offer their congrats, and make a quick run-through of his e-mail to see if the congrats from his liberal friends outnumbered-they usually did, these days-the hate mail from his conservative enemies. He figured, I bet I set a new record today. I bet I get over a hundred e-mails.
He had a solitary lunch, late, after the lunch crowd had left, across from the Motion Picture Association of America on I street at BLT Steak, a quiet, sleek new beef house in town. He chose it because it was out of the way, a good seven blocks from the bureau and from the Post, and nine blocks in another direction from the National Press Building, so it was unlikely he’d run into any journos there. And he was right: nobody he knew entered, and he spent the time sipping a nice midrange merlot while eating his steak salad and reading his own paper, the Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Boston Globe, to assure himself that nobody else had anything, that he was out front, that the scoop was his. Tomorrow they’d catch up, and he knew right now that in various newsrooms around town, the scramble was on.
He paid, left the papers, ambled out and down the street toward his shop, enjoying every second, every atom, every nanophenomenon, every twitch of unmeasurable black energy that comprised the wonder of his life until at last he reached the lobby of his own building.
“There’s the champ!”
It was that hoary old legend Jack Sims, looking like he’d just stepped out of a confab with FDR himself, all tweeds and oxford cloth, with that square, ruddy, Washington face. Jack, on his way out for the late lunch or an early martini, still wore a belted, buckled Burberry trenchcoat foreign correspondent style, and with a fedora low over his eyes looked like Mitchum in a film noir, but he had the gravitas to bring it off and seemed authentic in the role, not affected.
“You know,” he said in his booming voice, “at my age, my only pleasure is watching one of you young kids kick ass and take no goddamn prisoners. Congrats, Dave. You ought to be so goddamn proud!”
“Thank you, Mr. Sims,” he said modestly, not even bothering to correct the old guy for calling him Dave, which he hated. It was his ambition to be admired by all the players in the office, no matter the generation, not just his immediate peers.
“Go get ’em, Tiger,” said the old legend, eyes twinkling, with a last clap on the shoulder.
David rode the elevator in silence, aware that everyone in it realized from the Sims greeting that he was somebody special.
Yet when he got to the office, there was a different vibe ahum in the air than the one he expected. He hung his coat, slid down the aisles between the desks, and was aware of just some kind of… difference. Usually he felt love, hatred, admiration, begrudging respect, a whole palette of emotions. Today it was, hmm, what? Embarrassment? Shame? Hostility, even anger? What was this all about? It seemed that people squirmed not to make eye contact, that his appearance carried with it the power of silence. All the office chitchat dried up; the place went silent.
What could that-Was it-Why was-All very strange. He looked, and backlit against his window, Mel the bureau chief was huddled in conference with some others, and they spoke tensely, even urgently. His secretary was even in there with him.
David didn’t like the feeling.
He got to his desk, sat down.