Suddenly, a taxi waiting in front of the restaurant pulled away from the sidewalk and began driving alongside us. A man with a grouchy face rolled down the driver’s window and yelled, “Hey, you kids! What’re you doing out here so late? Pull over!” Oh, no, I thought—we’re done for. Beatriz rose from her bike seat, standing on her pedals to speed away. We followed her lead, but the taxi driver cut in front of Beatriz, who stopped short with a scrunch of her tires, bumping into the side of the cab. We boys crashed into each other, one after the other, like dominoes. The taxi driver looked us up and down. “What are you boys up to? It can’t be anything good at this time of night.”
Beatriz coolly replied, “No, sir. We were in a school play tonight. These are our costumes. We’re on our way home.”
“Oh, yeah? Where is home?”
“Right down there,” I piped up, pointing to the Circle. “We’re spending the night at my dad’s house.”
After a moment, the man said, oddly friendly now, “Do you want a ride? I can pile your bikes in the trunk.” He smiled, but it was not a good smile.
Max spoke up. “That’s okay. We’re almost there.”
“Well, get on down there before the cops pick you up.” He rolled up his window and pulled away. We watched to be sure he was gone.
“Whew,” I said. “That was close.”
“Yeah,” Max said grimly. “Too close. That guy was creepy.”
At DuPont Circle there was a lot of seedy nightlife—people hanging out, making deals, laughing and drinking. Nobody paid us any attention. We rounded the Circle, then passed the Tiny Jewel Box—a lovely old brick house with a dome, where Brickie often bought Dimma birthday or Christmas presents, and then the Mayflower Hotel. At L Street we went by Duke Zeibert’s, one of my dad’s hangouts, and then Farragut Square, where Connecticut curved into Seventeenth Street. Passing Admiral Farragut’s statue, Max stupidly hollered out, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” At this point I really hoped that Beatriz knew what she was doing, because I no longer did, and I knew Ivan and Max didn’t, either. Passing the Renwick Gallery, Beatriz gave a thumbs-up. I felt even better when we passed a massive fortress, pompously ornate with its columns: an obvious government building and a sign that we were getting close. We zipped by the Corcoran, and the O.A.S. building, where I remembered that Elena often went to parties. There, the Mall opened before us, the Washington Monument rising up, gleaming like a giant sword. Beatriz signaled a left turn, and we cruised down Constitution, past more offices, arriving at Tenth Street, where, on our right, the National Museum loomed over us.
We pulled off into some trees, grinning at one another, chests heaving. We were silent for a moment, catching our breath. The Mall was very eerie and deserted; I’d never seen it when it wasn’t bustling with sightseers.
“It’s too quiet,” I said, a little spooked. “There aren’t even any crickets. Or lightning bugs. And no webs.”
Max said, “They’re all dead! I bet they dropped some of that Smear 62 junk to get rid of the spiders and vinegaroons.”
“It’s good that it’s quiet,” said Beatriz. “That’s what we want!”
Ivan, a hand clutching his crotch, whispered urgently, “I’ve got to pee!” He laid down his bike and peed with his back to us. Zipping up, he said, “Now we look for a back door. Walk our bikes.”
I asked Ivan, “The Zoology Hall is on the right, isn’t it?”
“It was when we came to see the new elephant with Elena,” he said.
We started around the right side of the museum. “Looks like there’s a light on back there,” I said. “Is that good or bad?” At the corner of the building was a large boxwood, and under its cover we peeked around to see light pouring out from a door propped open with a big trash can. A dark-green Ford pickup truck with a government logo on its door and an old maroon Plymouth were parked in the service drive. More trash cans stood by the truck. Max said, “There must be people inside!”
I whispered, “Duh!”
“But maybe they’re leaving,” Ivan said. Ivan and Max waited, then craned their necks around the corner to look again. Nobody.
“It’s gotta be the Hampton guy!” said Beatriz.
“Maybe,” Ivan said. “But there must be somebody else, too.”
“Should we wait and see, or try to go in now?” I whispered.
“Let’s wait a few minutes,” Ivan said.
“I say we try to get in now,” Max said. “Then we won’t have to try to pick the lock.”
“Max, if we go in now, we might run right into whoever’s in there. Let’s just see what’s happening,” Ivan responded.
Beatriz said, “I’m with Ivan—just wait a minute.”
Ivan directed us, “Leave our bikes here, behind the bush. Don’t use the kickstands, just turn them around and lean them against the wall so we can hop on fast when we go.” We did this as quietly as we could. We waited.
Nothing happened, and then nothing happened some more. All of a sudden there were crashing and scraping noises from the open door. My heart banged in my chest. Beatriz clutched my arm. A man in a suit came out, followed by a tall, dark-skinned man in a uniform dragging two trash cans. “Good night, Hampton,” the suit man said. “Hope you find some things you can use.” Setting the trash cans by the others, the uniformed man said, “ ’Night, Dr. Smith. I’m ’bout to finish up. See you tomorrow.”
“That’s him! That’s Hampton!” Beatriz squeezed my arm hard.
The suit guy got in his Plymouth, cranked it, and turned on the headlights.
“Get down!” Ivan hissed. We hit the pavement, hoping that the boxwood hid us. The car turned around in the service drive, its headlights swooping across the boxwood, and drove off.
Hampton reached into the open window of his truck and switched on the radio. Gospel music played loudly—a woman singing throatily about being on her way. “He’s gonna leave soon! Get ready!” Ivan whispered. We stood back up. But Hampton went back inside and after a few minutes returned with two more trash cans. He stopped and reached into his truck again, bringing out a paper sack and a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, sucked on it, and opened the bed of his truck. Then Hampton began sorting through the trash, bringing up glinting pieces of aluminum foil—sandwich wrappers, insides of cigarette packs, Wrigley’s gum papers—and sticking them in his sack. He stopped to draw on his smoke a couple more times, then tossed it. He began singing along to the song. Picking up one of the big cans, he shoved it in the truck bed, then leapt up after it, taking time to carefully situate it. Then he jumped down and picked up another can and did the same. There were several more trash cans.
Ivan whispered fiercely, “When he jumps up in the truck the next time, we go!” Hampton toted another can, and when he clambered up into the truck bed again, still singing along loudly to the radio, Ivan said, “Now!”
On tiptoes, we ran around the corner as fast and quietly as we could and were inside the open door in a split second. Another full can sat inside, and Ivan, leading, almost ran into it. We kept going: down a hall past an open cleaning closet, past a lot of other doors, and a bathroom, coming to a flight of stairs. “We must be in the basement—go up!” Ivan said. We scrambled up, ending up in the dark of the main rotunda, where arcades branched off, interspersed with swirly marble columns. There stood the wondrous new African elephant Elena had taken us to see. It was scary to us now, in the dark. Ivan pointed into the closest arcade and we skittered in and stopped, pressing our backs to the wall. I could hear our labored breathing. We waited silently, still able to hear the radio playing outside. Ivan said, “Keep still!” After a few minutes, we heard the loud slam of a door, and the radio stopped.