“Can I mention just one other thing while I’m here, sir?”
“Yes, say whatever you want to, Andrews.” Tyson didn’t look up, just continued writing.
“Mrs. Casefikis is worried about her status in this country. She has no money, no job, and now no husband. She may well have given us a vital lead and she has certainly been as co-operative as possible. I think we might help.”
The Director pressed a button.
“Ask Sommerton from Fingerprints to come up immediately, and send Elliott in.”
Ah, thought Mark, the anonymous man has a name.
“I’ll do what I can. I’ll see you Monday at seven, Andrews. I’ll be home all weekend if you need me. Don’t stop working.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mark left. He stopped at the Riggs Bank and changed fifteen dollars into quarters. The teller looked at him curiously.
“Have your own pinball machine, do you?”
Mark smiled.
He spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon with a diminishing pile of quarters, calling the weekend-duty secretaries of the sixty-two senators who had been in Washington on 24 February. All of them were most gratified that their senator should be invited to an Environmental Conference; the Director was no fool. At the end of sixty-two phone calls, his ears were numb. Mark studied the results... thirty senators had eaten in the office or with constituents, fifteen had not told their secretaries where they were having lunch or had mentioned some vague “appointment,” and seventeen had attended luncheons hosted by groups as varied as the National Press Club, Common Cause, and the NAACP. One secretary even thought her boss had been at that particular Environmental Luncheon on 24 February. Mark hadn’t been able to think of a reply to that.
With the Director’s help he was now down to fifteen senators.
He returned to the Library of Congress, and once again made for the quiet reference room. The librarian did not seem the least bit suspicious of all his questions about particular senators and committees and procedure in the Senate; she was used to graduate students who were just as demanding and far less courteous.
Mark went back to the shelf that held the Congressional Record. It was easy to find 24 February: it was the only thumbed number in the pile of unbound latest issues. He checked through the fifteen remaining names. On that day, there had been one committee in session, the Foreign Relations Committee; three senators on his list of fifteen were members of that committee, and all three had spoken in committee that morning, according to the Record. The Senate itself had debated two issues that day: the allocation of funds in the Energy Department for solar-energy research, and the Gun Control bill. Some of the remaining twelve had spoken on one or both issues on the floor of the Senate: there was no way of eliminating any of the fifteen, damn it. He listed the fifteen names on fifteen sheets of paper, and read through the Congressional Record for every day from 24 February to 3 March. By each name he noted the senator’s presence or absence from the Senate on each working day. Painstakingly, he built up each senator’s schedule; there were many gaps. It was evident that senators do not spend all their time in the Senate.
The young librarian was at his elbow. Mark glanced at the clock: 7:30. Throwing-out time. Time to forget the senators and to see Elizabeth. He called her at home.
“Hello, lovely lady. I think it must be time to eat again. I haven’t had anything since breakfast. Will you take pity on my debilitated state, Doctor, and eat with me?”
“And do what with you, Mark? I’ve just washed my hair. I think I must have soap in my ears.”
“Eat with me, I said. That will do for the moment. I just might think of something else later.”
“I just might say no later,” she said sweetly. “How’s the breathing?”
“Coming on nicely, thank you, but if I go on thinking what I am thinking right now, I may break out in pimples.”
“What do you want me to do, pour cold water in the phone?”
“No, just eat with me. I’ll pick you up in half an hour, hair wet or dry.”
They found a small restaurant called Mr. Smith’s in Georgetown. Mark was more familiar with it in the summer, when one could sit at a table in the garden at the back. It was crowded with people in their twenties. The perfect place to sit for hours and talk.
“God,” said Elizabeth. “This is just like being back at college; I thought we had grown out of that.”
“I’m glad you appreciate it,” Mark smiled.
“It’s all so predictable. Folksy wooden floors, butcherblock tables, plants. Bach flute sonatas. Next time we’ll try McDonald’s.”
Mark couldn’t think of a reply, and was saved only by the appearance of a menu.
“Can you imagine, four years at Yale, and I still don’t know what ratatouille is,” said Elizabeth.
“I know what it is, but I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it.”
They both ordered chicken, baked potato, and salad.
“Look, Mark, there, that ghastly Senator Thornton with a girl young enough to be his daughter.”
“Perhaps she is his daughter.”
“No civilized man would bring his daughter here.” She smiled at him.
“He’s a friend of your father’s, isn’t he?”
“Yes, how do you know that?” asked Elizabeth.
“Common knowledge.” Mark already regretted his question.
“Well, I’d describe him as more of a business associate. He makes his money manufacturing guns. Not the most attractive occupation.”
“But your father owns part of a gun company.”
“Daddy? Yes, I don’t approve of that either, but he blames it on my grandfather who founded the firm. I used to argue with him about it when I was at school. Told him to sell his stock and invest it in something socially useful, saw myself as a sort Major Barbara.”
“How is your dinner?” a hovering waiter asked.
“Um, just great, thanks,” said Elizabeth looking up. “You know, Mark, I once called my father a war criminal.”
“But he was against the war, I thought.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about my father,” said Elizabeth looking at him suspiciously.
Not enough, thought Mark, and how much could you really tell me? If Elizabeth picked up any sign of his anxiety, she didn’t register it but simply continued.
“He voted to approve the MX missile, and I didn’t sit at the same table with him for almost a month. I don’t think he even noticed.”
“How about your mother?” asked Mark.
“She died when I was fourteen, which may be why I’m so close to my father,” Elizabeth said. She looked down at her hands in her lap, evidently wanting to drop the subject. Her dark hair shone as it fell across her forehead.
“You have very beautiful hair,” Mark said softly. “I wanted to touch it when I first saw you. I still do.”
She smiled. “I like curly hair better.” She leaned her chin on her cupped hands and looked at him mischievously. “You’ll look fantastic when you’re forty and fashionably gray at the temples. Provided you don’t lose it all first, of course. Did you know that men who lose their hair at the crown are sexy, those who lose it at the temples, think, and those who lose it all over, think they are sexy?”