“What do you want from me, Alex?” It was a mistake to engage the passive-aggressive Porfle, but Klay was tired, and the smell of the priest and his sadistic crimes still lingered in his nostrils.

“I want you to follow procedure,” Porfle said. “I want you to discuss story ideas with me in advance! I want you to write up the formal proposals we’ve agreed on and submit them for consideration at our pitch meetings—with projected word counts and budgets included. I want you to get your expense reports in.”

Klay pictured his editor sitting pencil-straight in a home-office desk chair, eyes watering, hand trembling as he gripped the phone. “Our essential Brit,” Eady would say, followed by a caution: “We need him in place, Tom.” Klay understood Eady’s desire to have a malleable and obedient deputy, but it didn’t make working for Porfle any easier.

“When you get back, I want your expenses turned in promptly,” Porfle continued, his voice rising. “The next day.”

Klay didn’t have the heart to tell Porfle he was already home. Eady had been clear: “You are to endure Porfle. It took me years to find him . . .”

Klay gritted his teeth. “Of course. I apologize, Alex. It came up suddenly. I’ll get them to Accounting right away.”

“You’re not the only wildlife crime investigator in this city, you know.”

“Tell that to Vance,” Klay said, and instantly regretted it.

“Uncle Vance won’t be around here to protect you forever. You should keep that in mind.”

“You know something I don’t?”

“Humph,” Porfle said, and hung up.

“Everything okay?” Billy asked, wiping down the bar.

Klay shook his head. “Just the usual, Bill.” He munched another chip, unwrapped his sandwich, and thought about his peculiar double life.

•   •   •

He had been with the magazine five years when one bright February afternoon Sally had phoned from upstairs to say that Vance and Ruth Eady had an extra ticket to the Kennedy Center. Schubert’s Trout Quintet. Would he like to join them? A dinner party invitation followed a week later at the couple’s Watergate apartment. “Bring a date if you like.” Klay was with Erin at the time, against office policy, so he went alone. A few weeks after the Eadys’ dinner party, Vance appeared in his doorway. “Do you fly-fish, Tom?”