The owners, Sidney and Bernice Greenstein, emerged from the back of the store to welcome Margaret as warmly as if she were a guest they’d been expecting for lunch. They’d aged considerably since the last photograph had been taken, Margaret could see, but they were lively and cheerful. She told them the purpose of her visit and about her upcoming trip to research the ponies, her need for a new pair of binoculars to replace the ones she’d dropped into the marsh on Nanticoke Island.
Sidney Greenstein led Margaret to a file cabinet in the corner of the store and, with painstaking precision, showed her the many options available. Margaret early on decided that a pair of Ross binoculars would suffice, but the old man seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to show off his expertise, so she patiently sat through the entire presentation. After its merciful conclusion, Bernice Greenstein reminded her husband that there was one box in the bottom drawer he hadn’t brought out. “Why don’t you show her that one as well, Sidney?” And so it was that Margaret emerged from the store with not only a new pair of Ross binoculars but also a short-lived product from RCA, night-vision binoculars, built using guided-missile technology but discontinued after consumers found them too expensive and too heavy. Eager to unload them, the Greensteins had offered Margaret a substantial discount, and Margaret was excited to show off the new toy to Gwinnett and the other researchers.
Under darkening, cloud-heavy skies, she made her way home through the rain, happily burdened by her new acquisitions, less happily by thoughts of Charlie; she knew he would not be pleased about this sudden trip. She would tell him as soon as possible, either in person, if he was still at the house nursing his hangover, or on the phone. As she walked, she prepared some rational counterarguments to any objections he might make.
But Charlie wasn’t home. Margaret phoned and found he was not yet at work. So she dashed off a quick note, collected her suitcase and coat, and called her ride to tell him that she was ready. As she waited, she fretted about Charlie. She didn’t know what was motivating him anymore. At first he’d seemed focused on stopping Goodstone, but now he seemed entirely preoccupied with other goals, ones he didn’t seem eager to share with her—likely because he knew she would disapprove. Who knew what backroom deals he was now part of?
The human soul isn’t sold once but rather slowly and methodically and piece by piece, she thought. They hadn’t even been in Washington for three months; how had things changed so quickly?
Margaret looked sternly at herself in the hallway mirror. She could almost hear her mother’s voice admonishing her to stiffen her spine and get on with things. Well, then, that’s what she was going to do. She heard the honking of a car horn, and she left the house, locking the door behind her.
Battling his raging hangover and the pouring rain, Charlie retrieved his car from the Mayflower and drove to Capitol Hill. Staring grimly out at the wet gray city, he fought the impulse to think about last night while also being unable to think of anything else. He’d felt remorse after Rodriguez was killed in France, but there were too many other villains—the Krauts, the Vichy French, Goodstone—for him to hold himself responsible in any real way. There were no alternative bad guys in the tale of his having killed a girl while driving in a drunken stupor. He chased away the remorse as best he could, focusing on all the unknowns and his inability to remember any of it, as if an alcoholic blackout provided some sort of cloak, a protection from sin.
For once, the alarming news on the radio served as a welcome distraction; more drama between the Eisenhower administration and McCarthy as the defense secretary called McCarthy’s charges that the U.S. Army was coddling Communists “just damn tommyrot.” But the administration had also just given McCarthy more ammunition; the latest tabulation of government employees who’d been fired or resigned after being deemed a “security risk” had just been updated, and the number now stood at 2,429, with 422 directly or indirectly tied to subversive activities. Moreover, in Caracas, Venezuela, Secretary of State Dulles warned his fellow foreign ministers that there wasn’t “a single country in this hemisphere which has not been penetrated by the apparatus of international communism acting under orders from Moscow.”
Charlie parked; an attendant with an umbrella walked him across the street. He felt outside of his own body, as if he were watching himself in a documentary about himself, he and the attendant in grainy black-and-white, filmed in secret from a third-floor window, the voice of Ed Murrow intoning, Watch the guilty man, fresh from his act of vehicular manslaughter, walking to work just hours later as if nothing had transpired at all…
Leopold was waiting for Charlie outside the door to his House office, an anxious look on her face and a to-do list in her hand.
“Miss Leopold, could you call Congressman Street? I’d like to get together—”
“Sir.” She cut him off firmly. “Mr. LaMontagne asked—”
“Davis called?” Charlie said, taking off his damp overcoat and handing it to Bernstein, who exchanged it for a cup of coffee, light and sweet; Miss Leopold had finally conceded that battle. He took the mug and walked into his personal office.
“No need for me to call,” said LaMontagne, who was draped comfortably on the couch, smoking a Chesterfield.
Charlie was distressed to see LaMontagne; his presence immediately destroyed whatever emotional wall Charlie had managed to build to protect himself.
“As always, Mr. LaMontagne made his way into your office without seeking permission first,” Leopold said.
“He’s like a cat burglar,” Bernstein said under her breath from the receptionist’s desk.
Charlie turned to Leopold. “Okay, thank you.” He shut the door.
“You look surprised to see me,” LaMontagne said.
“Not as surprised as I was earlier this morning,” Charlie said. He took a swig of his coffee and sat down behind his desk.
“You’re fortunate I was up so early. And driving by.”
“Am I going to consider myself fortunate that you’re here right now?” Charlie asked. His mouth was parched, his throat so dry it felt like cacti would sprout up. Images of the Rosenbergs heading to the electric chair sprang into his mind. He told himself he was being melodramatic, but he also knew LaMontagne held his future in his hands.
LaMontagne said nothing, just stretched out on the couch with a faint smile on his face. They looked at each other, the dead cocktail waitress an unspoken presence.
“It was the only option, Charlie,” LaMontagne finally said.
Charlie didn’t want to address it. He didn’t know if anyone was listening in and he didn’t want to think about her. He noticed a manila folder on his desk—a new copy of the Boschwitz file, Charlie presumed, to replace the version he’d lost during the House shootings.
“The latest version of the dossier,” LaMontagne said. “Just as well you lost the old one, since we now have some photos. So it’s all ready for you to turn over to Bob. Or Roy. Though it sounds like you and Roy didn’t exactly get along swimmingly last night.”
“No, we drowned,” Charlie agreed. He looked down at the Boschwitz dossier and opened it, finding inside various incriminating papers, photographs, and memos. He surprised himself by saying aloud what he was thinking: “What I still don’t get is why you haven’t just given this to them yourself. Why do you need me?”
LaMontagne’s grin conveyed annoyance more than humor. “There are so many responses I’m tempted to give,” he said. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table.
“Shoot.”
“The first and obvious one. What I don’t get is why you think after last night, you can respond with anything other than a mad dash to Bob Kennedy’s office, dossier in hand.”
Charlie nodded. “Fair,” he said. “What else you got?”
“You’re awfully flippant.”