Robert Parker - The Widening Gyre

The office was a reception and work area. Three young women were in it. Two wore white blouses with Peter Pan collars. The other wore an open-necked man-tailored pink shirt with a buttondown collar. Over it she wore a cable-stitched green cardigan sweater. You usually don't see a cardigan sweater except at golf matches and rescue missions. Maybe they weren't cardigans when worn by women. On the walls were pictures of Browne and several presidents.

"The congressman in?" my host said. He spoke briskly too.

"Yes, Barry. He said for you and… He said go right in."

We went into the inner office. And there he was. Silver-haired, long-faced, and tanned. He stood when we came in and he was a good two inches taller than I was. Six three at least. His hands were long and narrow and his fingers looked as if they'd do intricate work well. He had on a double-breasted gray flannel suit, pink shirt, red tie, and pink show hankie.

"Morning, Barry," he said. "It seems you were successful."

Barry nodded me toward a chair.

"And good morning to you, Mr."-his eyes flicked down at his desk and back up at me-"Spenser. Thank you very much for coming by so promptly."

I sat in the chair Barry had indicated.

"Barry," Browne said, "I don't think I'll be needing you just now. Thanks very much. Check in with me later perhaps."

Barry nodded and said he would and walked briskly out. Nobody in D.C. was spinning his wheels. There was probably a boon to be doggled and Barry was anxious to get to it.

When he left and the door was closed Browne sat back down in his chair and let it tip back and put his feet up on the desk and clasped his hands behind his head.

We looked at each other like that for a while. His chair was on a swivel. Mine wasn't. I wanted to out-casual him, but tipping over backward in a straight chair would probably hurt more than help. I sat straight but comfortable, folded my hands in my lap, and smiled at him winningly. Browne nodded his head slightly, smiling a small smile of his own.

The office was paneled in mahogany and behind Browne's desk was an American flag and one bearing the insignia of the commonwealth. The mahogany wasn't real, it was plywood, grooved and colored. Probably why he wanted to run for the Senate. A senator probably got real mahogany. Between the flags on the wall hung a picture of Franklin Roosevelt.

"I guess the best approach to this, Mr. Spenser, is to be straight. You have been going around asking questions about a young man whose family is from my district. The questions are rather incriminating. You have also been impersonating a federal, ah, person."

I nodded. My smile got more winning. I leaned forward a little so I could gaze more fully and openly into Browne's pale blue eyes.

"Naturally we looked into you."

"Of course," I said.

"Some of my people back in the district gave me quite a full report on you, on your occupation, your reputation"-he waved a hand vaguely-"all of that."

"Yes," I said.

Browne pursed his lips and nodded his head some more. The picture of Roosevelt must have been taken before the war. He looked full-faced and clear-eyed.

Brown ran his tongue over his upper teeth without opening his mouth. "Well," he said, "I didn't get here by being afraid to speak out. Do you have proof to substantiate your charges against Gerry Broz?"

"Proof is something you decide in court, Congressperson. What you mean is evidence."

Browne looked a little less relaxed. But the art of the possible was his line. "I stand corrected," he said. "Do you have evidence?"

I said, "Um-hmm."

He pursed his lips again and moved his tongue around behind them. "What have you?" he said.

"The goods. The smoking pistol. Take your choice."

"Don't be evasive."

I smiled sincerely. "I will if I want to," I said.

Browne took his hands from where they were clasped behind his head and folded them across his chest.

"All right," he said. "Enough. I am a U.S. congressman and I've been here a long time and I've got one hell of a big clout around here. You are about to get yourself in trouble that's deep, wide, and permanent."

"If the walls were real mahogany," I said, "I'd probably buckle. But…" I spread my hands.

Browne was getting mad, and trying not to let it show, and not succeeding. "Do you, by any chance, know who that young man's father is?"

I nodded.

"Then perhaps you have some idea of the kind of pressure he can bring to bear, in case mine is not enough."

"There's no in-case to it, Congressperson. Yours is not enough."

"I am not going to argue with you, Spenser. I want you to stay away from Gerry Broz. You've been warned. If you persist, let it be on your head."

"Does Joe know about Gerry?" I said.

"Know what? How would I know what Gerry Broz's father knows? What kind of a question is that?"

"One I think I can answer," I said. "If Joe knew, then Gerry would have gone to him, not you, and some people that might be able to do damage would have showed up, not those two computer salesmen you sent."

Browne was deciding to stonewall it. He stared at me with his face empty. Probably his only genuine look.

I shook my head. "Joe doesn't know," I said.

Browne kept looking at me. Behind the empty look was fear. This wasn't how he'd wanted it to go.

"Who called this meeting anyway?" I said.

"Enough," he said. "It is over. Good day, sir."

I stood. "Good day, Congressperson," I said.

He stood up suddenly. "I am not a goddamned congressperson," he said. His voice was raspy. "I am a congressman, goddamn it, congressman."

I stopped at his door and halfway out leaned back in.

"We are all God's persons," I said.

Susan and I spent all day Saturday at the National Gallery. We looked at the special Rodin exhibit and we cruised through the various galleries, looking at the French impressionists and, briefly, cubists and whatever the hell Jackson Pollock was; but I spent the most time, as I always did, in among the low-country painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer and Frans Hals. Saturday night we drove up to Baltimore and ate crab cakes in Harbor Place. And Sunday we stayed mostly in bed and read newspapers and tested room service.

I left her at work Monday morning. She kissed me goodbye and we both had a sense, I think, of incompleteness, of something left out. As if we stepped to the tune of different drummers. Jesus Christ. I shook my head angrily, alone in the car, and stepped to the tune of mine out to National Airport.

I ditched the rental car and took an Eastern flight back to Boston. At quarter of two I was pulling up in front of an office building on State Street. Before I went into the office building I looked up to the top of State Street where the old South Meeting House stood, soft red brick with, on the second floor, the lion and the unicorn carved and gleaming in gold leaf adorning the building as they had when the Declaration of Independence was read from its balcony and, before it, the street where Crispus Attucks had been shot. It was a little like cleansing the palate. Washington 's federal grandeur faded.

I took the elevator to the eleventh floor and walked down the marble wainscotted corridor to the far end, where a frosted glass door had CONTINENTAL CONSULTING CO. lettered on it in gold leaf that had begun to flake. I went in. The same Utrillo prints were on the walls. A perky-looking receptionist with a plaid skirt and a green sweater smiled at me and said, "May I help you?"

"Joe Broz please."

"May I say who's calling?"

I told her. She spoke into the phone. Then she turned to me. Her face serious. Her nose, I noticed, turned up slightly at the end. Her brown hair was cut short and very neatly groomed. Her nail polish was fresh and dark, almost brown.