Nightwork

Where is it now? Have you any idea? Maybe somebody in your family. Stashed away in a trunk somewhere.'

My brother Henry still lives in Scranton,' I said. I remembered that after my mother died he had taken all the accumulated family junk, old report cards, my high school diploma, my degree from college, old snapshot albums and stored them in his attic. 'He might have it.'

'Why don't you call him and have him look. If he finds it tell him to send it to you special delivery, registered.'

'Even better,' I said. 'I'll go down there myself. I haven't seen Henry for years and it's about time I put in an appearance, anyway.' I didn't feel I had to explain to Hale that I preferred not to have Henry know where I was staying in Washington or anywhere else.

Let's see,' Hale said. This is Thursday. There's a weekend coming up. Even if you find it, you couldn't get back in time to do anything until Monday.'

That's okay,' I said. 'Europe's waited this long I guess it can wait another couple of days.'

'You'll need some photographs, too.'

'I have them with me.' I fished the envelope out of a pocket.

He slid one out of the envelope and studied it. 'You still look as though you're just about to graduate from high school.' He shook his head. 'How do you manage it?'

A carefree life,' I said.

I'm glad to hear they're still available.' Hale said. 'When I Took at pictures of myself these days, I seem to be old enough to be my own father. The magic of the cameraman's art.' He put the photograph back in its envelope, as though the one glimpse of it would do him for a long, long time. 'I'll have the application ready for you to sign Monday morning. Just in case.'

I'll be here.'

'Why not come back and spend the weekend here?' Hale said. 'Washington is at its best on the weekends. We have a poker game on Saturday night. You still play poker?'

'A little.'

'Good. One of our regulars is out of town and you can have his place. There're a couple of eternal pigeons in the game who'll donate their dough with a pathetic generosity.' He smiled. He hadn't been a bad poker player himself in college. 'It'll be like old times. I'll arrange everything.' . The phone rang and Hale went over to the desk, picked up the instrument, and listened for a moment. 'I'll be right over, sir,' he said and put the phone down. 'I'm sorry, Doug, I have to go. The daily eleven am crisis.'

I stood up. 'Thanks for everything,' I said, as we walked toward the door.

'Nada,' Hale said. 'What are friends for? Listen, there's a cocktail party at my house tonight. You busy?'

'Nothing special,' I said.

'Seven o'clock.' We were in the outer office now. 'I've got to run. Miss Schwartz will give you my address.' He was out of the door, moving fast, but still preserving a statesmanlike decorum.

Miss Schwartz wrote on a card and gave it to me, smiling radiantly, as though she were ennobling me. Her handwriting was as beautiful as she was.

* * *

I awoke slowly as the soft hand went lightly up my thigh. We had made love twice already, but the erection was immediate. The lady in bed with me was profiting from my years of abstinence.

'That's better,' the lady murmured. 'That's much better. Don't do anything for the moment. Just lie back. Don't move.'

I lay back. The expert hands, the soft lips, and lascivious tongue made remaining motionless exquisite torture. The lady was very serious, ritualistic almost, in her pleasures, and was not to be hurried. When we had come into her bedroom at midnight, she had made me lie down and had undressed me slowly. The last woman who had undressed me had been my mother, when I was five, and I had the measles.

It was not the way I had expected the evening to end. The cocktail party in the nice Colonial house in Georgetown had been polite and sober. I had arrived early and had been taken upstairs to admire the Hale children. Before the other guests came, I had chatted desultorily with Hale's wife, Vivian, whom I had never met. She was a pretty, blondish woman, with an overworked look about her. It turned out that through the years Hale had told her quite a bit about me. 'After Washington,' Mrs. Hale had said, 'Jerry said you were like a breath of fresh air. He said he loved skiing with you and your girl - Pat - am I right, was that her name?'

'Yes.'

'He said - and I hope you won't think it's condescending -he said that you, both of you were so transparently decent.'

'That's not condescending.' I said.

'He was worried about you when he found out that you weren't well - together - anymore. And that you'd just vanished.' Mrs. Hale's eyes searched my face, looking for a reaction, an answer to her unspoken question.

'I knew where I was,' I said.

'If I hadn't met Jerry,' Mrs. Hale said, candor making her seem suddenly youthful, 'I'd have nothing. Nothing.' The doorbell rang. 'Oh, dear,' she said, 'here comes the herd. I do hope we'll see a lot of you while you're here....'

The rest of the party had been something of a blur, although not because of drink. I never drank much. But the names had been flung at me in such quick succession. Senator So-and-So, Congressman This, Congressman That, His Excellency, the Ambassador of What country, Mr. Blank, he works for The Washington Post, Mrs. Whoever, she's ever so important at Justice, and the conversation had been about people who were powerful, famous, despicable, conniving, eloquent, on the way to Russia, introducing a bill that would make your hair stand on end.

Even though I knew next to nothing about the social structure of the capital, I could tell that there was a lot of power assembled in the room. By Washington standards everybody there was more important than the host, who, while obviously on the way up, was still somewhere in the middle ranks of the Foreign Service, and who couldn't have afforded many parties like this on his salary. But Vivian Hale was the daughter of a man who had been a senator for two terms arid who owned a good part of North Carolina besides. My friend had married well. I wondered what I would have turned into if I had married a rich wife. Not that I ever had the offer.

I had merely stood around, wincing a little as the drinks began to take effect on the rising curve of conversation, a glass tactfully in my hand at all times, smiling manfully, like a small boy at dancing school. I wondered how Hale could bear it.

* * *

Mrs. Whoever, whose hand and lips were now caressing me, had turned out to be the lady who was ever so important at Justice. She looked thirty-five years old, but a very handsome thirty-five, full bodied, with glowing skin, large dark eyes, and soft dark blonde hair, almost the color of mine, that fell to her shoulders. We had found ourselves in a corner together and she had said, 'I've been watching you. Poor man, you look marooned. I take it you're not an inmate.'

'An inmate?' I had asked, puzzled. 'Of what?'

'Washington.'

I had grinned. 'Does it show that badly?'

'It does, man, it does. Don't worry about it. I leap at the opportunity to talk to someone who isn't in the government.' She had looked at her watch. 'Forty-five minutes. I have done my duty. Nobody can spread the rumor that I don't know how to behave in polite society. Time for chow. Grimes, are you busy for dinner?'

'No.' I was surprised that she had remembered my name.

'Shall we leave together or leave separately?'

I laughed. ‘That's up to you, Mrs. ...'

'Coates, Evelyn.' She had smiled widely. I decided she had a mouth for smiling. 'Together. I'm divorced. Do you consider me forward?'

'Yes ma'am.'

'Excellent man.' She had touched my arm lightly. 'I’ll wait for you in the front hall. Say good-bye to your hosts, like a good boy.'

I had watched her sweep through the crowded room, imperious and confident. I had never met a woman like that before. But even then I hadn't imagined for a moment that the evening would end up as it did. I had never in my life gone to bed with a woman the first time I had met her. What with my stutter and ridiculously youthful appearance, I had always been rather shy, not sure that I was particularly attractive, and had felt that I was clumsy with women. I was resigned to the fact that other men got the beauties. I had never gotten over wondering why Pat, who was exceptionally attractive, had had anything to do with me. Luckily for my ego, I had no taste for the ordinary kind of male conquest, and the remnants of my religious upbringing had kept me from promiscuity, even if I could have indulged in it.