I said, 'I'll leave this room exactly when I decide to. It will take more than three file clerks to keep me somewhere I don't want to be.'
'Big talk.'
I said, 'Sansom's name is already way out there, anyway. I heard it from four private investigators in New York City.'
'Who were they?'
'Four guys in suits with a phony business card.'
'Is that the best you can do? That's a pretty thin story. I think you heard it from Susan Mark herself.'
'Why do you even care? What could an HRC clerk know that would hurt a guy like Sansom?'
Nobody spoke, but the silence was very strange. It seemed to carry in it an unstated answer that spiralled and ballooned crazily upward and out ward, like: It's not just Sansom we're worried about, it's the army, it's the military, it's the past, it's the future, it's the government, it's the country, it's the whole wide world, it's the entire damn universe.
I asked, 'Who are you guys?' No answer.
I said, 'What the hell did Sansom do back then?'
'Back when?'
'During his seventeen years.'
'What do you think he did?'
'Four secret missions.' The room went quiet.
The lead agent asked, 'How do you know about Sansom's missions?'
I said, 'I read his book.'
'They're not in his book.'
'But his promotions and his medals are. With no clear explanation of where else they came from.'
Nobody spoke.
I said, 'Susan Mark didn't know anything. She can't have. It's just not possible. She could have turned HRC upside down for a year without finding the slightest mention.'
'But someone asked her.'
'So what? No harm, no foul.'
'We want to know who it was, that's all. We like to keep track of things like that.'
'I don't know who it was.'
'But clearly you want to know. Otherwise why would you be here?'
'I saw her shoot herself. It wasn't pretty.'
'It never is. But that's no reason to get sentimental. Or in trouble.'
'You worried about me?' No one answered.
'Or are you worried I'll find something out?'
The third guy said, 'What makes you think the two worries are different? Maybe they're the same thing. You find something out, you'll be locked up for life. Or caught in the crossfire.'
I sadi nothing. The room went quiet again.
The lead agent said, 'Last chance. Stick to being a witness. Did the woman mention Sansom's name or not?'
'No,' I said. 'She didn't.'
'But his name is out there anyway.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It is.'
'And you don't know who's asking.'
'No,' I said. 'I don't.'
'OK,' the guy said. 'Now forget all about us and move on. We have no desire to complicate your life.'
'But?'
'We will if we have to. Remember the trouble you could make for people, back in the 110th? It's much worse now. A hundred times worse. So do the smart thing. If you want to play, stick to the senior circuit. Stay away from this. The game has changed.'
They let me go. I went down in the elevator and walked past the guy at the door and stood on a broad paved area and looked at the river flowing slowly by. Reflected lights moved with the current. I thought about Elspeth Sansom. She impressed me. Don't come dressed like that, or you won't get in. Perfect misdirection. She had suckered me completely. I had bought a shirt I didn't need or want.
Not soft.
That was for damn sure.
The night was warm. The air was heavy and full of waterborne smells. I headed back towards Dupont Circle. A mile and a quarter, I figured. Twenty minutes on foot, maybe less.
TWENTY-FOUR
RESTAURANT MEALS IN D.C. RARELY RUN SHORTER THAN AN hour or longer than two. That had been my experience. So I expected to find Sansom finishing up his entree or ordering his dessert. Maybe already drinking coffee and thinking about a cigar.
Back at the restaurant about half the courtyard tables had turned over their clientele. There were new boys in suits, and new girls in skirts. More pairs now than threesomes or quartets, and more romance than work. More bright chatter designed to impress, and less scanning of electronic devices. I walked past the hostess station and the woman there called after me and I said, 'I'm with the Congressman.' I pushed through the wooden door and scanned the inside room. It was a low rectangular space full of dim light and spicy smells and loud conversation and occasional laughter.
Sansom wasn't in it.
No sign of him, no sign of his wife, no sign of the guy who had called himself Browning, no pack of eager staffers or campaign volunteers.
I backed out again and the woman at the hostess station looked at me quizzically and asked, 'Who were you joining?'
I said, 'John Sansom.'
'He isn't here.'
'Evidently.'
A kid at a table next to my elbow said, 'North Carolina Fourteenth? He left town. He's got a fundraiser breakfast tomorrow in Greensboro. Banking and insurance, no tobacco. I heard him tell my guy all about it.' His last sentence was directed at the girl opposite him, not at me. Maybe the whole speech was, My guy. Clearly the kid was a hell of an important player, or wanted to be.
I stepped back to the sidewalk and stood still for a second and then set out for Greensboro, North Carolina.
I got there on a late bus that was scheduled to stop first in Richmond, Virginia, and then in Raleigh, and then in Durham, and then in Burlington. I didn't notice the itinerary. I slept all the way. We arrived in Greensboro close to four o'clock in the morning. I walked past bail bond offices and shuttered pawn shops and ignored a couple of greasy spoon eateries until I found the kind of diner I wanted. I wasn't choosing on the basis of food. All diner food tastes the same to me. I was looking for phone books and racks of free local newspapers and it took a long walk to find them. The place I picked was just opening for business. A guy in an undershirt was greasing a griddle. Coffee was dripping into a flask. I hauled the Yellow Pages to a booth and checked it for hotels. Greensboro had plenty. It was a decent-sized place. Maybe a quarter-million people.
I figured a fundraising breakfast would take place in a fairly upscale location. Donors are rich, and they don't go to the Red Roof Inn for five hundred dollars a plate. Not if they work in banking and insurance. I guessed the Hyatt or the Sheraton. Greensboro had both. Fifty-fifty. I closed the Yellow Pages and started leafing through the free papers, looking for confirmation. Free papers carry all kinds of local coverage.
I found a story about the breakfast in the second paper I opened. But I was wrong about the hotels. Not the Hyatt, not the Sheraton. Instead Sansom was fixed up at a place called the O. Henry Hotel, which I guessed was named for the famous North Carolina writer. There was an address given. The event was planned to start at seven in the morning. I tore out the story and folded it small and put it in my pocket. The guy behind the counter finished his preparations and brought me a mug of coffee without asking. I took a sip. Nothing better than a fresh brew in the first minute of its life. Then I ordered the biggest combo on the menu and sat back and watched the guy cook it.
I took a cab to the O. Henry Hotel. I could have walked, and it took longer to find the cab than to make the drive, but I wanted to arrive in style. I got there at a quarter after six. The hotel was a modern facsimile of a stylish old place. It looked like an independent establishment, but probably wasn't. Few hotels are. The lobby was rich and dim and full of clubby leather armchairs. I walked past them to the reception desk with as much panache and confidence as was possible for a guy in a creased nineteen-dollar shirt. There was a young woman on duty behind the counter. She looked tentative, as if she had just come in and wasn't settled yet. She looked up at me and I said, 'I'm here for the Sansom breakfast.'