Irwin Shaw - Nightwork

“I’m coming from New York,” I said, “and I’m in Washington to ask you to do a little favor for me.”

“The government is at your disposal, lad. Ask and ye shall receive.”

“I need a passport.”

“You mean you never had a passport?”

“No.”

“You’ve never been out of the country?” Hale sounded amazed. Everybody he knew was out of the country most of the time.

“I’ve been in Canada,” I said. “That’s all. And you don’t need a passport for Canada.”

“You said you were in New York.” Hale looked puzzled. “Why didn’t you get it there? Not that I’m not delighted you finally had an excuse to visit me,” he added hastily. “But all you had to do was go to the office on Six thirty…”

“I know,” I said. “I just didn’t feel like waiting. I’m in a hurry and I thought I’d come to the fountainhead, from which all good things flow.”

“They are swamped there,” Hale said. “Where do you intend to go?”

“I thought Europe, first. I came into a little dough and I thought maybe it was time I ought to get a dose of Old World culture. Those postcards you used to send me from Paris and Athens gave me the itch.” Deception I found was coming easily.

“I think I can run the passport through for you in a day,” Hale said. “Just give me your birth certificate…” He stopped when he saw the frown on my face. “Don’t you have it with you?”

“I didn’t realize I needed it.”

“You sure do,” Hale said. “Where were you born – Scranton, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He made a face.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Pennsylvania’s a bore,” he said. “All the birth certificates are kept in Harrisburg, the state capital. You’d have to write there. It’d take at least two weeks. If you’re lucky.”

“Balls,” I said. I didn’t want to wait anywhere for two weeks.

“Didn’t you get your birth certificate when you applied for your first driver’s license?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where is it now? Have you any idea? Maybe somebody in your family. Stashed away in a trunk somewhere.”

“My brother Henry still lives in Scranton,” I said. I remembered that after my mother died he had taken all the accumulated family junk, old report cards, my high school diploma, my degree from college, old snapshot albums and stored them in his attic. “He might have it.”

“Why don’t you call him and have him look. If he finds it tell him to send it to you special delivery, registered.”

“Even better,” I said. “I’ll go down there myself. I haven’t seen Henry for years and it’s about time I put in an appearance, anyway.” I didn’t feel I had to explain to Hale that I preferred not to have Henry know where I was staying in Washington or anywhere else.

“Let’s see,” Hale said. “This is Thursday. There’s a weekend coming up. Even if you find it, you couldn’t get back in time to do anything until Monday.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Europe’s waited this long I guess it can wait another couple of days.”

“You’ll need some photographs, too.”

“I have them with me.” I fished the envelope out of a pocket.

He slid one out of the envelope and studied it. “You still look as though you’re just about to graduate from high school.” He shook his head. “How do you manage it?”

“A carefree life,” I said.

“I’m glad to hear they’re still available.” Hale said. “When I Took at pictures of myself these days, I seem to be old enough to be my own father. The magic of the cameraman’s art.” He put the photograph back in its envelope, as though the one glimpse of it would do him for a long, long time. “I’ll have the application ready for you to sign Monday morning. Just in case.”

“I’ll be here.”

“Why not come back and spend the weekend here?” Hale said. “Washington is at its best on the weekends. We have a poker game on Saturday night. You still play poker?”

“A little.”

“Good. One of our regulars is out of town and you can have his place. There’re a couple of eternal pigeons in the game who’ll donate their dough with a pathetic generosity.” He smiled. He hadn’t been a bad poker player himself in college. “It’ll be like old times. I’ll arrange everything.” . The phone rang and Hale went over to the desk, picked up the instrument, and listened for a moment. “I’ll be right over, sir,” he said and put the phone down. “I’m sorry, Doug, I have to go. The daily eleven A.M. crisis.”

I stood up. “Thanks for everything,” I said, as we walked toward the door.

“Nada,” Hale said. “What are friends for? Listen, there’s a cocktail party at my house tonight. You busy?”

“Nothing special,” I said.

“Seven o’clock.” We were in the outer office now. “I’ve got to run. Miss Schwartz will give you my address.” He was out of the door, moving fast, but still preserving a statesmanlike decorum.

Miss Schwartz wrote on a card and gave it to me, smiling radiantly, as though she were ennobling me. Her handwriting was as beautiful as she was.

I awoke slowly as the soft hand went lightly up my thigh. We had made love twice already, but the erection was immediate. The lady in bed with me was profiting from my years of abstinence.

“That’s better,” the lady murmured. “That’s much better. Don’t do anything for the moment. Just lie back. Don’t move.”

I lay back. The expert hands, the soft lips, and lascivious tongue made remaining motionless exquisite torture. The lady was very serious, ritualistic almost, in her pleasures, and was not to be hurried. When we had come into her bedroom at midnight, she had made me lie down and had undressed me slowly. The last woman who had undressed me had been my mother, when I was five, and I had the measles.

It was not the way I had expected the evening to end. The cocktail party in the nice Colonial house in Georgetown had been polite and sober. I had arrived early and had been taken upstairs to admire the Hale children. Before the other guests came, I had chatted desultorily with Hale’s wife, Vivian, whom I had never met. She was a pretty, blondish woman, with an overworked look about her. It turned out that through the years Hale had told her quite a bit about me. “After Washington,” Mrs. Hale had said, “Jerry said you were like a breath of fresh air. He said he loved skiing with you and your girl – Pat – am I right, was that her name?”

“Yes.”

“He said – and I hope you won’t think it’s condescending – he said that you, both of you were so transparently decent.”

“That’s not condescending.” I said.

“He was worried about you when he found out that you weren’t well – together – anymore. And that you’d just vanished.” Mrs. Hale’s eyes searched my face, looking for a reaction, an answer to her unspoken question.

“I knew where I was,” I said.

“If I hadn’t met Jerry,” Mrs. Hale said, candor making her seem suddenly youthful, “I’d have nothing. Nothing.” The doorbell rang. “Oh, dear,” she said, “here comes the herd. I do hope we’ll see a lot of you while you’re here…”

The rest of the party had been something of a blur, although not because of drink. I never drank much. But the names had been flung at me in such quick succession. Senator So-and-So, Congressman This, Congressman That, His Excellency, the Ambassador of What country, Mr. Blank, he works for The Washington Post, Mrs. Whoever, she’s ever so important at Justice, and the conversation had been about people who were powerful, famous, despicable, conniving, eloquent, on the way to Russia, introducing a bill that would make your hair stand on end.