The prodigal spy

“So there’s nothing to worry about. Just my soul.” She stretched her neck and kissed him. “Here’s an idea. Let’s smoke a joint and make love. All night.” She nodded to the ceiling. “No microphones.”

“I liked the microphones,” he said, smiling. “Where’d you get the stuff?”

“Well, I did see Richie. There’s no end to his talents.”

He kissed her. “Was he a good kisser?”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t get past the Clearasil. Anyway, I don’t kiss just anybody.”

“No?”

“No. Consider yourself lucky.”

“I do,” he said into her ear, a murmur. “But let’s skip the joint. We have to get up early.”

“We do? Why?”

“Our friends down there left after I got in,” he said, still whispering, back at the Alcron. “So they’re probably on a shift, not working all night. I figure they won’t get here before seven, so if we leave early, they won’t even know we’re gone.”

She pulled back, surprised, as if someone had turned on the news. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“I have help. You’re the one who got the letter.”

“Maybe you should take it up. What are you going to do when this is all over?”

“Go work for Jeff,” he said.

“I work for Jeff,” she said, kissing him.

Chapter 17

They took a taxi at dawn and waited, groggy, at the Eastern terminal for the first shuttle. New Jersey was a nap, and then they were circling Washington, Nick at the window feeling he’d entered a time machine, twenty years compressed into minutes. The monuments lined up as they always had along the Mall, changeless. His house somewhere to the left of the Capitol. But on the ground everything was different, whole streets of boxy new office buildings beyond the White House, bland and faceless, a discount Bauhaus, like a rebuilt city in Germany. They checked in at the Madison, its ornate ballroom still littered with last night’s wedding, then went for a walk. A few of the trees were still in flower. Everyone carried briefcases.

“Where are we going?” Molly said.

“The Mayflower. I want to see it.”

And of course it looked smaller, the awning he remembered near the car in the picture just an awning, the public spaces inside a little tired, no longer waiting for Truman’s car. He stood in the lobby for a few minutes, creating lines of sight between the reception desk and the elevators and the big room where the United Charities ball must have been, then gave it up. He’d imagined it a hundred times, the forbidden place of his childhood, but it was just a hotel.

They rented a car, a plain Buick, and started going down the list, driving out toward the grand houses on Embassy Row, only to discover that the first address was the Russian embassy itself.

“Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?” Molly said. “Maybe it’s like the Americans in Prague. They have to live in the compound.”

“No, there wouldn’t be room. They have too many people. Besides, I’ll bet they like to live out. It’s probably one of the attaches. They’d be in residence. It would help if we had the real names.” He put the car back in gear. “Anyway, I don’t want the Russians.”

“Somebody will.” She looked down at the paper in her hand. “Valuable little list, isn’t it?”

“Yes, they killed him for it.”

“Did they know he had it?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

She looked up.

“This isn’t going to be easy. I thought once we had it-” He remembered that feeling, a jolt of triumph, when his hand had felt it under the woodpile.

“Five names,” Molly said calmly. “They can’t all be Russian.”

The next address was a quiet row house north of Dupont Circle, on a leafy block not far from the Phillips Collection.

“God, you’d never think,” Molly said. “So what do we do, just sit here?”

“Let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll come out.”

When the door opened half an hour later, it wasn’t a man but a white-haired woman, who bent over to water one of the potted plants on the stoop, then idly looked up and down the street-an old woman with all the time in the world.

“This can’t be right,” he said impatiently. There was no one in the street but a mailman making his way down the row. The woman put the watering can inside, then came back on the stoop to wait; evidently the mail was one of the events of her day. She talked to the mailman for a few minutes, her mouth moving rapidly with words inaudible across the street, even with the car window rolled down.

“Look,” Molly said. “She’s getting a lot of mail, I mean a lot. Maybe it’s not just her in the house. You know, maybe she rents out.”

“She acts like it’s hers,” Nick said, watching her flip through the envelopes, absorbed.

“She’s just nosy.”

“Okay, I’ll find out,” Nick said, opening the door.

“What are you going to say?”

“I’m not sure.”

But it was remarkably easy, an unsuspicious world away from Prague. He had only to identify himself as someone from the Government-the Washington password — checking on her boarders, and she leaped at the diversion.