FIFTEEN

Back in Assistant Director Kevin Finnerty’s office at WMFO the next morning—closer to noon, actually—Lisa and I sat together on his big couch as the ADIC expressed his satisfaction with our work.

“What you came up with down in Brookston doesn’t look good for Judge Thompson,” he told us from behind his desk, “but that’s not our concern. The White House isn’t going to like what you’ve discovered, but the president will understand. After what happened with Josephine Grady, he’ll be especially grateful for what we’ve done on this case.”

He smiled briefly and I realized this was the part where we were supposed to thank him and return to our hut at the edge of the universe, but I just couldn’t make myself do that.

“We’re not finished, boss,” I said. “The Jasmine Granger connection is compelling, but it’s not enough, nowhere near the standard we’d need for evidence. It’s not likely Brenda and Jasmine are two different people, but I think we better find out for sure.”

“Can you produce something evidentiary? Good enough for a court of law?”

“No way to know until we try.”

I told him about Reverend Johnson, but he hit me with my own argument about reinterviewing the preacher.

“You’d have to tell him why you’re asking,” the ADIC said, “and you know better than that.”

Finnerty turned his head to the side. I followed his gaze to the mandatory portrait of J. Edgar Hoover, the black-and-white version showing the old bulldog in his heyday. Hoover’s eyes seemed to follow both of us as the assistant director turned back to me.

“You did your job,” he said. “We’ve done our job. The White House doesn’t care about proof. The president will call Thompson into the Oval Office and ask her. If she had an abortion she’s history, but either way we’re out of it.”

“What about the Abahd killing?” I decided it was time to bring up Robert Bennett and the diary, but before I could, Finnerty cut me off.

“We’re on that already. Legal just got a Prince George’s County subpoena for your testimony. We’ll work it out with them, let you know when you’ll be needed.”

“Work it out with them? I don’t think—”

“Relax, Monk. There’s a bigger picture here, a whole lot bigger than the death of another defense lawyer. Prepare your report, include everything up to and including the point where you went back to see the judge. Attach an administrative section detailing what happened at Jabalah Abahd’s home, along with what you discovered in Brookston and Williamsburg. Have it on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

I sent Lisa back to her desk to assemble the Thompson report, then called Gerard Ziff to confirm our regular afternoon meeting at the tennis club.

“I was just about to call you,” he said. “I can’t play tennis today. I’ve got to drop my embassy car off for new tires, but I’ve got a better deal for you than tennis. You pick me up at the gas station, I buy you lunch at La Maison.”

I smiled. A meal at the tres expensive French restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown was more than a good deal, it was a great deal.

“You got it, Gerard. Tell me where and when.”

“Twelve-fifteen. The 4200 block of Connecticut Avenue. Best Price, the place is called. I’ll be waiting out by the curb.”

“I’ll be the hungry man picking you up.”

“A bientôt,” he said, or that’s what it sounded like.

But he wasn’t at the curb when I got there an hour later. Gerard was still inside, I could see him through the plate glass window.

I pulled into the lot, past the huge inflatable display out front, a smiling ten-foot-tall balloon man with a tire under one arm and a sign on his cap that read Best Price—Everything for Less!

A minute later Gerard was in the car with me.

“You people get your tires here?” I asked him. “Surely you can do better than a gas station. And it can’t be for convenience, either. There’s got to be something closer to your embassy.”

“Tell me about it. Some empty suit in Paris cut a deal with Best Price for tires and batteries. The gas station chain buys the tires directly from Michelin in France, charge us for putting them on the cars.”

“You need special tires?”

“They’re not special at all. That’s the part I’ve never been able to understand. The only difference I can see is that they have a white code stenciled on them, to make sure they’re not resold to any other tire dealer in this country.”

I grinned. “So much for hiding your secret identity.”

“So much for empty suits in Paris.”

“Bureau did the same thing to us a few years ago, only it was gasoline, and the post office. We had to gas up at post office fuel depots or write a memo explaining why we didn’t. Moronic. Lasted six months. Saved about a hundred dollars.”

“You hungry?”

“La Maison’s on Wisconsin, right?”

He nodded and we were off.

At the restaurant, the maître d’ seated us in a dark-green leather booth toward the rear. I looked around the room and recognized more than one politician. It wasn’t surprising. La Maison was a favorite for all types of congressional members and the civil-service chiefs who served them.

We traded small talk until the waiter brought our food and left again. Gerard took a bite of his poached salmon, followed it with a spear of asparagus.

“The Brenda Thompson thing,” he said. “Her confirmation hearings start a week from Monday, I see in the papers. Your investigation went well, I presume.”

He was back at work already, I realized. The casual question, the almost bored disinterest in the answer. Washington political chat, nothing more.

“Without a hitch,” I lied. “Smooth as silk.”

“But didn’t you tell me you had a problem with her early on? The day you asked me to call Paris about her?”

I’d told him no such thing and he knew it. “Not really. Just touching all the bases. You know the bureau.” I gave it a full beat before I asked a real question, careful to keep my voice just as bored as his. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just keeping the conversation going.”

He ate more salmon, I continued with my poulet en croûte. Despite his nosiness I was determined to enjoy my lunch.

“And the phone records,” he said after a while. “Was the Telserve information useful?”

“Very useful. Thanks again for doing it so quickly.”

“So what’s next for her? Thompson, I mean.”

“Just the Senate confirmation hearings. Then on to glory.”

He glanced at me, and I couldn’t help thinking he knew better already, that he was just trying to get me to confirm what he’d already been told. He lifted his wineglass. I held up my glass of water.

“To glory for Brenda Thompson,” he said. “Nothing would please me more.”

As usual Lisa had outdone herself, I saw when I got back to my office and examined the Thompson report she’d assembled and put on my desk for my signature. Once again, I saw that I’d been justified in assigning the case to her despite her lack of seniority, and in going to Finnerty to get authorization for doing so.

A report of the size required for a Supreme Court nominee is a massive undertaking. No one agent could write the whole thing in the few weeks we get to finish the investigation. Hundreds of already written pages come in from agents all over the country, sometimes all over the world as well. The case agent in the field office where the nominee lives—Lisa Sands in the Thompson case—must assemble the pages and prepare the administrative cover pages, the index, and a synopsis of the important findings of the investigation.

What Lisa had provided me was a 392-page document in praise of Judge Brenda Thompson, along with the four skinny administrative pages Finnerty had ordered to summarize what had happened in Abahd’s house in Cheverly and what we’d discovered in Brookston. Four pages designed to go no further than the director’s office at the Hoover Building, where it would be detached before the report went on to the Oval Office, its contents relayed by mouth and in person to the president himself.

It was standard operating procedure—the administrative section—a way for the field agents to explain to the Hoover Building why this or that had or hadn’t been done, why questions had been brought up in the report’s body then left unanswered. But that wasn’t the only reason for its existence. It also kept certain information deep inside the bureau’s files, where it couldn’t be seen by outsiders without a Freedom of Information request—a request the bureau could stall until the seeker gave up and went away.

After the president heard about Brookston, he would call Brenda Thompson into the West Wing, demand an explanation for embarrassing him, then throw her out the back door and into the real savagery that would follow. Washington being Washington, the details would get leaked to the media and that’s when things would turn really ugly. The press would rip her to shreds. After they finished she wouldn’t even be able to go back to the job she had before, would disappear into the vast pantheon of American losers, would resurface only as the answer to an obscure question on future college tests.

I thought about that for a moment, about justice and the often peculiar ways it could be found. Thompson had lied, at the very least, and the murder of Jabalah Abahd still had to be accounted for. It was distinctly possible that the judge’s public humiliation would be the least of her problems.

I grabbed a pen and initialed the cover page of the report, authorizing it to go upstairs to the ADIC. Then I called Lisa’s desk in the bullpen.

“I owe you a dinner,” I told her. “A real one, I mean. Somewhere without pictures on the menu. We can leave from here after work, go someplace close.”

“God, Puller, I don’t think I can stand another meal in a restaurant this week.” I felt a distinct sag of disappointment, but before I could argue, she continued. “Tell you what. You buy the groceries, I’ll do the cooking. How’s that sound?”

“Are you sure?” I crossed my fingers. “Are you sure you’d rather do that?”

“I’d love to stay in and cook. And after the week we’ve had, I don’t care about healthy. Bring me red wine and some kind of dead animal, something that had parents until very recently. Maybe a couple of potatoes I can bake.”

“Dessert?”

“On top of steak and potatoes?” She hesitated. “Oh, hell, can we have cherry pie?” She paused again. “What are you trying to do to me?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her, but thank God she interrupted before I could.

“I need some time, though,” she said. “A couple of hours to turn into something you won’t mind dining with.”

“How about seven?”

“Great. My address in Alexandria is on the office roster. You’re a pretty good agent. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding me.”