Kitty stopped speaking, and smiled happily at her reunited family. Diana looked at her mother with such hate that Kitty mistook it for love. She took her daughter’s hand in hers and held it tight.

  Peter did his best to help out. “Aeneas is living in New York now and I don’t think he’ll be writing too much about politics. At the moment he prefers to butcher poets.”

  “He shall be missed,” said Burden lightly. “But now you are beginning to write. That was your first piece, wasn’t it?”

  Peter appeared embarrassed. He is shy, thought Burden, pursuing his quarry. “Are you going to do others?”

  “If there is any demand.” Peter looked to Diana as though expecting a negative.

  “Oh, there’ll be a demand. He’s very good, don’t you think, Father?”

  “Impressive, yes, and not shrill, unlike Mr. Duncan, whose habitual tone is one of moral outrage.”

  “This is an outrageous time,” said Peter mildly.

  “All times outrage.” Burden was flat. “But do you really feel we were wrong to use the atomic bomb on Japan?”

  “I’m not sure that I ‘feel’ it. But I do think it, yes. We should have merely demonstrated the bomb, blown the top off Fujiyama, something dramatic, and they would have surrendered. There was no reason to destroy two cities.”

  “I wonder.” Burden did wonder. Like everyone else, he had been bemused by the breaking of the atom. It was plain that the world would never be the same again, but whether or not this was a good thing depended on one’s temperament. Since his was pessimistic, he could imagine all too easily the mushroom clouds, the firewind, the radioactive ash, and, at the end, an empty planet glittering like a blind eye in the sun. Yet he asked, “What is the difference, morally, between one bomb doing the work of the thousand bombs which would have been dropped anyway?”

  “The difference is that with the invention and demonstration of that one bomb we had the means to end the war, which we did, but to please the military we destroyed two hundred thousand civilians, and that was wrong.”

  Burden knew all the arguments. What interested him was Peter’s unexpected passion. Gone was that air of detachment which had charmed as well as puzzled Burden. It was good to know that the young man could be serious about something but, on the other hand, it was distressing to think that his next son-in-law might be as given to furious partisanship as the first. “You obviously have a good deal to say,” Burden murmured.

  Peter laughed, to his relief. “I’m afraid I have very little to say, but a good deal to add.”

  “He added,” said Diana. “Oh, Peter will be formidable once he gets the proper range. He must write about politics in every issue.”

  “No one can stop him either,” observed the young Voltaire. “He is the publisher.”

  “And we’re a success. We break even. No deficit. Irene is so pleased.”

  Peter then described for Diana’s benefit the recent funeral of Samuel I. Bloch, who had died unexpectedly in Jersey City during a board meeting. “We should build him a monument,” said Peter, “and dedicate it to the Unknown Husband.”

  Burden recalled for them Irene’s behavior at the funeral. According to Irene, Mr. Bloch had always been an Episcopalian; horrified, his family had refused to attend the funeral, just as she had intended. Standing alone in black in a Gothic chapel of the National Cathedral, she had received condolences with a regal air. But when she saw Burden, she threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his. “What will become of me?” she had sobbed in his ear. Aware that all eyes were upon them, he had extricated himself as best he could with a promise to see her soon.

  “I suppose now you’ll marry Peter,” said Kitty, suddenly letting go Diana’s hand. “He’s got awfully fat, but then he’s rich and you’ll have security.”

  Diana fled the room, and Peter pulled in his stomach. Kitty turned to him. “I made a cake this morning, knowing you were coming. It’s the fudge pecan you like so much. Would you like some now?”

  “I am not hungry,” said Peter, voice trembling with irritation.

  “But he’s always hungry,” said Kitty for the inner record. “He must be sick, probably ate too much for lunch. I’d put him on a diet, if I were Diana. After the wedding, that is.”

  “No wedding is planned, Mrs. Day.” Peter broke the house rule of never commenting upon Kitty’s announcements.

  “Wedding?” She looked at him with surprise. “What wedding?”

  Burden did his best to soothe Peter and to silence Kitty. As he went about his diplomatic task, he knew that Peter was precisely the right husband for Diana who would indeed be penniless once he was gone, not that he had any plan for an immediate departure from the world, certainly not before he had got her settled and himself re-elected.

  III

  Harold opened the door. “Come in!” His voice was loud, commanding, as though he wanted to intimidate Clay, or impress others not seen. Inside the small foyer, Harold shut the door and bolted it. He whispered rapidly: “They’re inside. Both of them. I’m sorry I got you into this. I couldn’t think of anybody else to call.”

  “It’s all right.” Clay was soothing. “I’ll handle them.” Clay was careful to betray no nervousness as he followed Harold into the glass and steel living room with its view of Rock Creek Park; the building was new, one of the first to be put up after the war when the old city of red brick and New England marble was slowly engulfed by glass and concrete, a victory of fused sand over hewn rock. Even Clay, who usually liked the new, experienced a certain nostalgia for what had been.

  The two men got to their feet as he entered. One was short and stocky with a round face and button nose. The other was tall and thin except for a large stomach, obviously designed for a fat man and attached by mistake to a lean one.

  “This is Congressman Overbury,” said Harold. The men looked at one another; they seemed not to know what to do when Clay held out his hand, the politician’s usual reflex. Swiftly Clay withdrew the hand.

  “I understand there’s been some trouble.” Clay stood at the center of the room, ready to begin whatever offensive was necessary.

  “That’s right, sir.” It was the short one who answered, his manner deceptively gentle. Clay knew the type and prepared for the worst. “Your friend Mr. Griffiths here has committed a serious offense which is known under the District Code as a Section 22-1112A.”

  “Identification.” Clay was abrupt. He must keep them on the defensive.

  “Identification?” The lean-fat man repeated the word as though it were somehow an insult.

  Clay snapped his fingers at the short man who was closest to him. “Identification,” he repeated coldly.

  “Yes, sir.” The short one was polite and not in the least flustered. He withdrew his wallet, and showed Clay his identification; the other one did the same. Clay took a notebook from his own pocket and slowly wrote down the names and serial numbers of the two members of the District vice squad.

  “I suppose you’d like to see my identification,” he began but the small one said, “No, I recognize you, Congressman, from your pictures.”

  “Yes.” Clay was flat. He looked at Harold who hovered nervously behind a sofa, as though ready to take cover at an instant’s notice should the enemy open fire. On one side of his face a scarlet discoloration of the skin was beginning to turn blue. “Was it necessary,” asked Clay, “to beat him up?”

  “He tried to resist arrest, sir.” The tall one spoke tonelessly for the record.

  “Put up a fight, did he? Well, Harold has a lot of guts. He’s just the type to take on two policemen twice his size in a…it was a public place, wasn’t it?”

  “The men’s room of the Capitol Theatre, yes, sir. At 1:47 P.M.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Just us, Congressman.” The short one permitted himself a small smile.

  “So after the offense was committed…”

  “A 22-1112.”

  “Exactly. You beat him up.”

  “When he tried to resist arrest we was…we were forced to restrain him.” The lean-fat man was official historian as well as principal witness to the offense against his companion’s decency.

  “Then instead of booking him, you came here. Is that right?”

  “We felt,” said the short man in his gentle slightly effeminate voice, “that since Mr. Griffiths was such a well-known writer for the papers that we probably ought to be able to straighten this out some way or another, which is why we let him call you.”

  “Harold, did you approach this man, or did he approach you?”

  “He spoke to me first. He followed me into…the place where it happened.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that he made the advances?”

  “Yes.” Harold cleared his throat repeatedly. “Yes, he did.”

  “That is not what happened, sir, as my colleague will testify. Mr. Griffiths made the advance to me, asking first if I had a light for his cigarette which I gave him of course and then when I went into the rest room in question, he followed me and committed a 22-1112, as was duly witnessed.”

  “What were you doing loitering in the Capitol Theatre?”

  “We do not loiter, sir. We were on duty. We had been asked to look in by the management of the theatre who were worried about that certain element. You see, small schoolchildren go there, on the weekend especially.”

  “Mr. Griffiths has just said that you made the advance. If so, that is entrapment, which is against the law.”

  “It is his word against ours, sir.” The short man was quietly pleased; they were safe.

  “In the last year how many times have you been propositioned?”

  “About seventy times, sir.”

  “And you never made the first advance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Seventy times strange men wanted to have sex with you. Would you say this was due to your handsome appearance?”

  The short man scowled inadvertently. “It’s all due to the fact that I am ordered to keep an eye on places where that sort of thing might happen, that’s all.”

  “And it always does, particularly to you.”

  “I have my job, sir.”

  “Now, Mr. Onslow,” Clay had carefully filed the other’s name for future use. “The fact that you did not book Mr. Griffiths but chose to bring him home and allow him to telephone a friend suggests to me that neither of you wants any trouble with the newspapers, not to mention Mr. Sanford, and so you have decided that this whole business might, under the proper circumstances, be forgotten.”

  The two men exchanged a look. It was the lean-fat man who answered. “Naturally nothing can be forgotten that happened between him and us…between him and we…which was against the law. The law is what we must uphold and obey all of us, as you’ll agree, Congressman. But it did seem that a man of Mr. Griffith’s prominence…and connections,” a gesture at Clay, “ought not to have a thing like this on his record, a permanent black mark, you might say, which could prove embarrassing to his employer…and to his friends, especially they…those…who are in the public eye.”

  “The price?” Clay was blunt. Behind the sofa, Harold, who had been kneading his face, dropped both hands and came to military attention.

  “Two thousand dollars,” said the short man.

  Clay picked up the receiver of the telephone and dialed for the operator. When she answered, he said, “Police.”

  The lean-fat man moved toward him, ready for violence. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Reporting blackmail, extortion, shakedown.”

  From Harold a cry: “Clay, don’t!”

  “It’s your word against ours,” said the short man but the menace he intended was undone by the sudden dropping of his voice on the word “ours.”

  “You will find that between your word and mine, you will not be believed, Mr. Onslow. Nor will you, Mr. Gover.” A voice in the receiver said, “Police Department,” and Clay said, “Vice squad, please.”

  “You may think you’re a big shot, Mr. Congressman,” began the lean-fat man.

  “I am a big shot, Mr. Gover, as you’re about to find out.” A voice said, “Vice squad,” and Clay said, “This is Congressman…” With a swift gesture Gover broke the connection. He stood so close to Clay that he could smell stale talcum powder on the man’s face and beer upon his breath.

  Acknowledging their physical closeness, Clay chose a quiet small voice. “Do you want to be killed?”

  “You’re the one who’s off base, Mac, not me.”

  Clay took the man suddenly by the shoulders, and with one swift movement swung him from right to left, as if he were a door. Then he got past him into the center of the room where the short man stood, arms ready to grapple.

  Behind Clay’s back the lean-fat man said, “There’s nothing to stop us saying you was picked up, too, Mr. Big Shot.” As the harsh voice continued to threaten, Clay turned to the weaker of the two.

  “Mr. Onslow, you’re an intelligent man. You saw a chance to make some money out of Mr. Griffiths’s error and I don’t blame you. I don’t grudge you the money. I’m sure Mr. Griffiths doesn’t either but unfortunately there is no guarantee that once he starts to pay, you will ever stop asking for more. Oh, I know you may not think you’ll ever put the squeeze on again but when Christmas rolls around and you’re a bit short of cash, you’ll say to yourself well, why not pay a visit to Mr. Griffiths?” Clay spoke rapidly but clearly, aware that the bright-eyed detective was totally absorbed in what he was saying. “Now for Harold’s sake I can’t permit that. For yours, too. After all, blackmail is a dangerous business, particularly if somebody other than those involved knows about it. And somebody does know. I know. And that means you’re in as much trouble as Harold because one word from me to the police department and you two gentlemen will be permanently unemployable in this city, and don’t think I won’t say the word just because Harold might get some bad publicity in the process. He can survive it. But you can’t. Now I suggest, Mr. Onslow…Mr. Gover, that we forget that any of this ever happened.”

  “But suppose we don’t. Suppose we…”

  With a gesture Clay silenced the lean-fat man. “If you don’t get out of here right now, I will telephone…” Clay had saved to the last his ultimate weapon. Before arriving at Harold’s he had found out not only the name of the head of the vice squad but he had also learned the man’s nickname, and several other relevant details. He used them now, pretending intimacy. As he did, he moved back to the telephone, eyes on the short man, the weak link which snapped. “Well,” he said, in a thin voice. “Well…” He stopped.

  Politely, Clay waited, hand on the telephone receiver, delighting in battle. But the war was over. The lean-fat man picked up his coat and hat and without a word left the room, followed by the agent provocateur, who smiled meaninglessly as he hurried to join his colleague.

  With the shutting of the front door, Harold sank onto the sofa, close to tears.

  “You damned idiot!” Clay’s distaste for the whole affair erupted. He denounced Harold who received the abuse with head bowed.

  When Clay had finally stopped, he said, “I should never have got you mixed up in this. I’m sorry. But when I couldn’t find Blaise, you were the only person I could think of, who was tough enough…”

  “You might have called a lawyer.”

  “How could I tell a lawyer I hardly know, something like this?”

  “Yet you could tell me?” Clay’s anger began again.

  “I didn’t think you…well, of course you’d mind but…”

  “But you felt that maybe I suspected all along?”

  “Something like that. But anyway I did do you a good turn out there. I mean writing what I did…”

  “I don’t need instruction. I know my loyalties.” Clay was sharp. Politics was largely a matter of keeping track of debts, and Clay was an excellent bookkeeper. As of today, Harold was forever in his debt. Thinking of this, he allowed good humor to replace righteous anger.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to know anything about your private life, ever. So forget about it. Only,” Clay could not resist adding, “don’t forget you’re living in one of the dirtiest towns in the country, where everybody, officially and unofficially, is watching everybody else, building a case, for future use.”

  “I was stupid,” said Harold.

  “Yes, you were.” Clay was not unkind.

  Harold reverted suddenly to his usual manner. “ You never get caught, with those damned girls of yours.”

  “They’re over twenty-one and I draw the shades and lock the door and practice birth control.”

  “While their husbands…”

  “I know only widows.”

  “And Elizabeth Watress.”

  * * *

  —

  She was waiting for him in the lobby of the Shoreham Hotel, among placards and banners rejoicing in the election of the thirty-third American President. As Clay crossed the lobby, Elizabeth got quickly to her feet and he noticed, as he always did when he had not seen her for some time, the brilliant concentration of the smiling face in which the eyes, curiously enough, reflected nothing, despite their splendid darkness. He kissed her cheek rapidly and chastely. He was, after all, a married man, and the lobby was filled with people who knew him.

  “He’s here!” Elizabeth was ecstatic. “The President just came in! It was so exciting, the way everybody cheered. I didn’t know whether to curtsey or not. I felt like it. He’s in the ballroom. Why were you late?”

  “Business. What else?” He took her arm and together they moved toward the ballroom where a Midwestern governor was entertaining with Democratic exuberance yet Republican extravagance the soon-to-be-inaugurated President.