Title Page

For Steven and Barry

Epigraph

“You spin it and it’s over.”

—Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., a prominent Washington lobbyist, on how to handle political scandal

1 - Washington, D.C. June 20

1

Washington, D.C. June 20

He paused at the top of the moving stairs and looked down to where it was dark. That was the way home. Maybe tonight, if he arrived at a decent hour, it would be different. No arguments. No shouting about where he had been, about why he never was around, about the money for this, the money for that, about her loneliness, her disappointment. And none of the silence that followed, during which they realized there was nothing else to shout, say, or whisper.

Other commuters pushed past as he considered. He watched the steps appear out of nowhere. Do it, a voice said—a voice from an earlier day. Break the pattern. Put one foot forward. Descend to the train. Stride through the townhouse door sooner than expected, carrying flowers, wine—do it, he thought. Everything might change. He pictured her at home, fixed in anger, blaming him for all of it. Waiting for the moment when he crosses the threshold and becomes the available target.

He stared down the escalator. Tomorrow, he said to himself.

He opened his umbrella, walked up Connecticut Avenue in the sticky rain, entered the Mayflower Hotel, and headed straight to the bar.

The thick-necked bartender with a boxer’s nose greeted him with a nod. The same bar, once again. Shit, last week, he had been quoted in a newspaper profile about the bartender—the guy had won some contest—and the story described him as a five-nights-a-week regular.

This was a spot to be left alone. But three nights ago a heavy-bearded fellow insisted on buying him drinks to celebrate some unspecified triumph and spent an hour trying to find a common link with him. Someone he knew who knew someone who knew someone who knew him. No such person was found.

The place was not crowded. Probably the rain, he thought. He took off his suit jacket, sat at the bar, and ordered a vodka and tonic.