“That’s not true.”
“Turn on the TV and see what’s on.”
“How did you know we were at the Watergate?”
“How did you know I took photos?”
“You left your camera.”
“Bright boys.” She stared at them for a moment. She felt very frightened because of their calmness, because of the chaos they had made in the apartment with such care. “Really bright,” she continued, her voice even. “I hope Uncle Sam pays you enough; you know so much about me and you don’t even know I’m a reporter.” She said “reporter” as though she hoped the word would frighten them.
“Of course we do.” The voice remained dull and calm.
“Then you shouldn’t have done this.”
“We went to World Information Syndicate on M Street, only we couldn’t find you there.” Just a trace of embarrassment entered the voice now. The one who said his name was Smith let his fingers tap his knee as though the fingers had a secret nervous life separate from the controlled body.
“M Street,” Rita said. “You went to M Street.” Slowly, she began to smile, wiping the tears harshly from her cheeks. “We moved from there a year ago. My government can’t even use an up-to-date phone book.”
The two men looked at each other. One said, “I didn’t look in the phone book.” The other said nothing.
Rita spoke with light sarcasm. “The White House phone number isn’t in the phone book either but I know what it is. You guys amaze me. Just when I think you’re smart, you’re stupid.”
She let herself laugh as the gray man stared sadly at her. George, sucking his palm, went to the black-and-white television set in the corner of the battered living room and turned it on. In a moment, the image of Tom Brokaw was on the screen. He turned the sound up just as the first picture of a startled Leo Tunney between two government agents appeared on camera.
George said, “She took a picture of Harry.”
“You really ought to be proud of yourself, Miss Macklin,” the gray man said. “You people are all alike. You’d sell the country down the river for a story. You really ought to be proud of yourself. You people will do anything for money, won’t you?”
“Like beat up women? No, I leave that to my government.”
“Christ, the A.D. is going to hit the fan,” said George.
They heard a scratchy rendition of Leo Tunney’s singsong voice on the set.
“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
“A lot smarter than you or I’d have to be on government welfare, too.” She felt good again and in control; they had really scared her; in those first moments, she thought they were going to kill her. Maybe they would have if it hadn’t been too late to stop the photographs from getting out. Kaiser was right, after all; never hold on to a story.
The gray man said, “We’re running a scanner on your income tax returns now. You better hope you’re clean.”
“I’m not a congressman. I’m too poor to cheat.”
“We are going to look into you, Miss Macklin. We’re going to go through your files from day one. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Who do you think you’re playing a game with? We are the government.”
“Booga, booga,” Rita Macklin said.
The gray man got up from his perch on the coffee table and turned. “Come on, George.”
“Aren’t you going to put the books back?”
“I wouldn’t say anything more. About this, about anything.”
“Fuck you.”
“I wouldn’t,” said the gray man. “This was a legal entry, a legal warrant. If you want to embarrass us further — your government further — then we just might have to do some things.”
“Beat me up again?”
“Indictments, for one thing. We would have to go to court with something. You might beat it, you might not, but we could tie you up for a couple of years. Lawyers, we could fix it up. You wouldn’t work anywhere for a while. You know we could do it, don’t you, Rita?”
He said it evenly, in a hissing tone, and she felt the words and shivered. Yes. They could do it; they could do anything.
The gray man stared at her for a moment longer and then joined George at the door. The two left without another word. The door clicked reassuringly behind them. She got up, half ran to the door, and pulled the bolt shut. But she didn’t feel safe; maybe she would never feel safe in the apartment again. She leaned against the door and shivered.
Bastards.
6
The doors of the unmarked police car opened simultaneously, front and back, and three burly men got out with guns drawn and approached the Saab sedan. The police car had forced the Saab to the curb in front of the St. Moritz hotel a moment before and already a sidewalk crowd was gathering to watch the little drama. A thrilling sense of impending violence rippled through the bystanders, as though they were waiting for the worst with eagerness. The third policeman, who wore a brown leather jacket, stopped at the opened door on the passenger side of the police car and kept his pistol half-pointed at the Saab. He used the car door as a shield.
In a moment the doors of the Saab were flung open. The driver was a kid, skinny and dazed. The two in the back seat who emerged were about the same age. The man was fat and had long greasy hair, and the girl wore a miniskirt that was as unfashionable as it was skimpy. It clung to her thin shanks like wet paper. Her arms were thin as though she had been ill a long time.
The three young people stood frozen while two cops searched the car and the third cop stood behind the open door with his pistol in hand. It was a ballet without music but all the participants understood their steps.
The audience at the metal tables of the St. Moritz sidewalk café watched the show as though they were critics.
Suddenly, a young man with long brown hair, a black beard flecked with gray, wearing a faded Army fatigue jacket, stumbled to the front of the walk and spoke: “Man, why can’t you pigs leave these people alone, I mean? You are the worse, the worse—”
“Beat it, Jack,” the cop behind the door hissed.
“You think this street is so fucking great? You think this city is worth saving? You think I did two years in Nam for this shit? Do you?”
None of the characters in the drama looked at him. The thin girl with glazed eyes — large, brown eyes that did not see — shivered and folded her arms.
“Nothing,” said the first cop, emerging from the Saab. The second cop shook his head as well. They went back to the unmarked police car and climbed inside without a word. The kids climbed in the Saab. Only the veteran was left, holding his arms outstretched. He was still crying: “Why do you let this happen to us, for Christ’s sake?”
He spoke to no one. The sidewalk crowds moved on.
“Nice to be home again,” said Devereaux, placing the glass of vodka back on the tablecloth.
“Sarcasm,” Hanley said, as though required to classify the remark.
They had been silent during the brief tableau. Now talk exploded around them at the other tables like wine poured from a bottle. “The guy with the beard has the right idea,” Devereaux said. His face was impassive, his gray eyes unrevealing, his voice low and cold and comfortless. “Perhaps all we can do is cry.”
Hanley had chosen the meeting place. As usual, it was bizarre and public. Hanley preferred a public place away from microphones and intentional eavesdroppers.
Hanley was a bit of a paranoid on the subject of security, which was not unusual, given his profession.
Devereaux felt tiredness like pain, like an open wound. He had expected leave when he got home — not another assignment. The flight back from Tehran had been a little dangerous and very complicated. First, there was the matter of becoming a Swiss businessman flying from Tehran to Zurich via Ankara. And then that identity was literally burned away in a small fire in a washbowl in the Zurich airport men’s room at midnight. The second identity took him as far as London, where he spent a long, dull morning in the monotonous confines of Heathrow, listening to the flat voice of a woman announcing flight departures to every city he had ever been to. Some of the names stirred painful memories, some merely hurt with the warmth of nostalgia. The third identity he assumed, his real one, Devereaux, took the Pan Am flight to New York. He rested in first class and tried to sleep; the plane was an hour late, bucking headwinds over the North Atlantic. He had been traveling for a little more than twenty-four hours when Hanley’s message greeted him at Kennedy Airport.