His White House pager sounded. People at adjoining tables looked toward him. Addis reached into his coat pocket and shut it off. He assumed it was Kelly.

“So where do we take the facts and speculation?” Lancette asked.

“Palmer? He’s on the commission. He said he might be willing to raise questions if we had hard evidence.”

“And he takes dives.”

Addis could not tell if that was a question or a declaration.

“It has to be someone,” he said. “Who do you trust? Not Wenner. How do we know who’s on the ride and who’s off?”

“We’re definitely off … . A reporter?” she asked.

“And wait for them to figure it all out—and then screw it up? I don’t know. We’ll be damn exposed in the meantime.” There was a trace of beer beneath her lips. He wanted to wipe it gently with his hand. “And I’m worrying more about our safety with each day.”

“Clarence?” she asked.

“I checked before I left the White House. He’s still in bad shape. Can’t talk. They’re letting only the family in. And they’re really tight after the disturbance today. Some kid got into the room and then took off in a stolen ambulance. He didn’t do anything to Clarence. No one knows what he was up to.”

“A black guy?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just curious.”

The drinks arrived. Without saying anything, they downed the shots and chased the whiskey with Mexican beer.

“How many more do you intend to order?” she asked.

“No more than necessary.”

Lancette tapped her beer bottle lightly against the table. She started to speak and stopped. She jerked her head toward the far end of the bar. A man was standing by himself. He was wearing khakis, a black T-shirt, and a long tan raincoat. “Would you call that boney?” she asked.

The man scanned the room, but he did not look directly at Addis and Lancette. He then left the bar. Lancette realized she was sitting by a window that overlooked an alley. She took back the ICEMAN memo and placed it in her bag with the composition books.

“I think we should go,” she said. “We’re very well lit here.”

“To where?”

“Now. Get up and move out of this position.”

She stood and stepped toward the bar. She wedged herself between two groups of young women at the bar. He squeezed next to her.

“And the reason I became a travel agent,” a woman with bright red hair was telling a woman in a short fake leopard-skin dress, “was that I just hate the fucking airlines. I’d do anything to screw them. It’s like—”

“A crusade?” the woman in the leopard-skin dress said.

“Yeah. On the nose.”

“Is there another way out,” Lancette whispered to him, “other than the front?”

“Probably a basement door that goes to the alley.”