He made his way through the crowds of travelers, and found a taxi which sped him along the airport road into the city. The Dulles Airport access road had been built to the distant airport through open country with funds specially allocated by Congress, so that its members would not have to wait in traffic on their way in and out of the city. Now this road was lined with office buildings of steel and glass, surrounded by expensively landscaped grounds and discreet signs tastefully announcing their occupants—THE AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, GENSYS, UUSA, ALLIED ELECTRONICS, THE ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS—to businessmen and political operatives speeding in and out of the city.
The trip to the George Washington Colonial Court Motor Hotel in Falls Church took twenty minutes and cost thirty-five dollars. Louis had remembered the hotel as a reasonable and convenient place to put out-of-town guests. He had dialed information from Saint Leon. Was the hotel still listed? “Hold for the number,” said the operator. An automated voice recited the number. He called and reserved a quiet room away from the street. “Are you a senior citizen, sir?” the clerk asked. A senior citizen. “We have a special weekly rate for seniors,” said the clerk brightly.
The motel looked much the same as Louis remembered it, with its sign depicting George Washington in silhouette, its broad lawn scattered with turquoise colored plastic chairs, its grandiose colonnaded porch, the vivid blue swimming pool, the two brick wings with their rows of white doors. He walked past the humming ice machine to his room. The air conditioner was set on high; the heavy, double vinyl curtains were closed against the light and the heat. He turned down the air conditioner but left the curtains closed.
Louis had been back to Washington only twice since he had left, both times when Jennifer had had medical emergencies. On those earlier visits, he had anticipated his arrival with an exaggerated sense of delicacy, with the expectation that he would need time to adjust to things. He had the same expectation now: that he would have to sit in his room or walk slowly around outside, touching things, naming them, as though he had just been born or released from prison, as though he were starting from scratch. Instead, he found himself wanting to get moving, to allow whatever changes had occurred in the place to catch up with him.
The Metro was filled with people going home from work. Despite the heat, the men wore suits; many of the women did too. Everyone read or looked into the space just in front of them. They seemed familiar to him, like the rattling, humming ice machine at the hotel. As he got off at Foggy Bottom, crowds of students and government workers squeezed past him through the doors into the cars. He rode the escalator up out of the Metro station and stopped to look around. He walked against the tide of people surging toward the station.
Inside the main entrance of the familiar granite building that housed the State Department, a security guard sat beside a metal detector through which everyone entering the building had to pass. Two other guards stood against the wall behind him, leaning toward one another as they talked in confidential tones. The seated guard looked at Louis expectantly but did not speak. Louis stepped to the side to look past the metal detector and the barrier that blocked the way. “May I help you, sir?” said the guard, intending perhaps by means of his impatient tone to remind Louis where he was and what he had to do. Louis continued to look at the great lobby with its tall windows and wooden paneled walls, its corridors leading off to the left and right, the three central marble stairs that led to staircases left and right, the tall flag standard in the center. “May I help you!” said the guard. The other two guards had stopped talking.
“Yes,” said Louis. “My name is Louis Morgon. I would like to see Secretary of State Bowes.”
The guard looked at him for a moment. The other two guards looked at one another and stood up straighter, in case Louis turned out to be one of those people who showed up wanting to give the secretary a piece of their mind.
“My name is Louis Morgon,” said Louis again in a voice that did not sound irate or, for that matter, even troublesome. “I know of course I cannot simply stop in and see the secretary. But if you could tell me how one goes about seeking an appointment, I would greatly appreciate it.” The guard could not remember that anyone had ever asked how to make an appointment with the secretary of state. Either you had an appointment, in which case your name was on the printed daily schedule distributed to all security guards each morning, and you arrived by limousine, usually through the underground garage entrance, or you didn’t have an appointment, and, as far as he knew, you couldn’t get one. The secretary’s days were planned weeks, even months, in advance. In fact, he was rarely in the building, spending most of his time, when he was in town at all, in his suite of offices at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. The guard studied the clipboard in front of him and said, without looking at Louis, “You have to call his office for an appointment.” He knew this answer was unsatisfactory, but he busied himself writing something and hoped Louis would just leave.
“Could you please give me his office number so that I can call for an appointment?” said Louis. One of the guards who had been watching stepped up to the table. He was older than the other two and wore the stripes of a sergeant on his blue uniform sleeve. “What did you say your name was, sir?” he said peering at Louis through his steel-rimmed glasses.
“Louis Morgon,” said Louis, and added, “I used to work here.”
“I thought you looked familiar, Mister Morgon. It was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
Louis looked back at the man but could not remember him. The man wrote a telephone number on a slip of paper and handed it to Louis. The number ended in three zeroes, so it was probably the State Department switchboard number. “Call this number, Mister Morgon, and they’ll be able to help you. It was nice to see you again after all this time.”
Louis left the building. He walked the several blocks to the Old Executive Office Building. The streets were filled with traffic. The broad sidewalks were full of people—government workers going home, as well as tourists. The tourists wore baggy shorts and bright T-shirts with the names of sports teams on them. They watched carefully as the government workers passed, searching for a recognizable face, someone they might have seen on the news.
The Old Executive Office Building is a gray Victorian mansion, a forest of pillars and gables and windows, chimneys and mansard roofs. “My name is Louis Morgon,” said Louis to the guard on duty in the small guardhouse just outside the building, “and I would like to see the secretary of state.” The effect here was the same as it had been at the State Department. That is, the guard not knowing what else to do, gave Louis the number of the State Department switchboard. He watched as Louis walked away and then wrote down the time—17:15—and his name—he spelled it Morgan—in the daily log: “Man says name Louis Morgan wants to see secy, of state.”
There had been several recent breaches of security at the White House, including a tourist who had somehow entered the grounds with a crowd of visiting dignitaries and had been found wandering the corridors of the West Wing. He was caught far from the president’s quarters and seemed to have no other purpose than to see the inside of the building. Still, the apparent ease of this “penetration,” as it was called, was particularly worrisome to the Secret Service and the FBI, and as a result, security guards at all government office buildings had been reminded to note any and all unusual activity in their daily logs, along with details.
At the end of the day, the shift commanders reviewed the logs and entered any incidents of note into the computer. So it happened that on this particular day Louis’s name found its way into the computer twice, once misspelled, and after a few moments was matched with the extensive FBI file that already existed under his name. The guard at the State Department, the one who had remembered Louis—Leroy Burwell was his name—was the shift commander there, and so he was the one to enter Louis’s name, correctly spelled, into the computer there. An abbreviated version of the FBI file came up on Burwell’s s
creen. Then he remembered exactly who Louis was. There were those officials who spoke to the guards when they entered the building and those who didn’t. Louis Morgon had been one who did. Leroy had watched that day as Louis was escorted from the building. The guards had all talked about it. Louis seemed all right to them. They wondered to each other what he had done. But nobody ever told them anything.
The complete file, which was available only to the highest officials, gave Louis’s date and place of birth, his social security number, army identification number, blood type, and other vital statistics. It also included information about his former wife, his children, and their whereabouts. It included fingerprints and an old photograph from when he had first joined the government. And it included a summary history of his dismissal from government service and the lifting of his security clearance, along with references to the correspondence between the officials involved. Any official able to access this correspondence found that it was complete, except for any record of who had initially filed the charges leading to Louis’s dismissal. Recent updates to the file included Louis’s address and telephone number in Saint Leon sur Deeme—spelled wrong—a recent photograph, and the number of the French passport under which he currently traveled.
The file had been flagged by a secret account within the State Department so that any amendments to it were automatically forwarded to that account holder’s electronic mailbox. An amendment had already been forwarded to that mailbox earlier in the day as a result of an entry made by the Office of Immigration and Naturalization: “Entered U.S. using French Passport number 154656, Dulles International Airport, August 6, 14:40.”
After Louis had first settled in Saint Leon, he had exchanged occasional letters with some of his old friends in Washington. He had written them about buying the house in Saint Leon. He had written about taking up painting, how it had then come rushing into his life, and how it seemed to fill some part of himself that he hadn’t even known was there. They wrote back about their work, about their children growing up, getting braces, going off to boarding school, wrecking Dad’s car. But because of the distance between Louis and his friends, and because of their divergent lives, their connection to one another had grown tenuous over the years. And after a while neither Louis nor his friends had any real sense any longer of whom they were writing.
In his first years in Saint Leon, the Steinbergs and then the Mullers had visited him, the Steinbergs after a barge tour in Burgundy, and the Mullers while they were traveling through Europe. They wrote: “When are you coming back to D.C.? Whenever it is, you know you are welcome to stay with us. It would be a pleasure for us to have the time together.” But they knew he was not coming back.
Now Louis sat on the edge of the motel bed with the heavy Virginia telephone directory on his lap. He found the Mullers, Arnold J. The Steinbergs were unlisted. He still had their old number. He found Milton Hamsher’s number. He searched for and found the names of people he had no intention of calling: former neighbors he barely knew, an editor he had once worked with, friends who had stopped calling when he got divorced, a woman he had been involved with for a while, the lawyer who had helped him settle things when he moved to France. He found Sarah Morgon. He found Michael Morgon. He found J. Morgon. Jennifer. He touched the pages of the telephone book as one might touch the names engraved on gravestones in a cemetery.
Louis had not told anyone he was coming. He dialed the Steinbergs’ old number. Arlene answered. She was out of breath. “Hello?”
“Arlene?” he said.
“Louis,” she answered. Then again: “Louis.”
“How did you know it was me?” he said, immediately feeling foolish for asking. “After all this time?”
“I recognize your voice,” she laughed. “How else? Even with your French accent. Where are you? Are you in Washington? When did you get in?”
“Yes. I just got in.”
“For how long? Where are you staying?”
He mentioned the hotel. He told her he was staying for several days, that he was there on business, that he would love to see them.
“Come for dinner tomorrow. No, come tonight. Or are you too tired from the flight? Wally will pick you up at seven. I’ll call him at the office. God, Louis, it’s fine to hear your voice.” The “fine” sounded wrong. It didn’t matter. She had taken a chance by saying something friendly so early in their conversation. They all would have to find their way back across the great distance which had grown between them.
When Wallace Steinberg turned into the drive of the George Washington Colonial Court, Louis was sitting under an umbrella on one of the turquoise chairs. Louis allowed him to get out of the car and enter the motel office. He saw the clerk rise and point in his direction, saw Wally turn and toss his head back in recognition and then stride his way. Wally was tall with a squarish body that had only gotten a bit thicker. He still had a boyish face, but his hair now consisted mainly of a white fringe above his ears.
“Louis!” he said, and again, “Louis! . . . Louis!” marking the closing space between them with periodic exclamations of “Louis!” until they met, and Wally took Louis’s hand in his own huge hand and pumped it happily, clapping his shoulder with his other hand and saying “Louis!” yet again.
The Steinbergs lived in a large house across the river in Potomac, Maryland. When Louis and Wally arrived, Arlene came out to greet them, followed closely by Arnold and Joanne Muller, whom Arlene had called and invited to come see their old friend Louis Morgon. “He’s here?” said Arnie on the phone to Arlene. “Unbelievable.” Louis shook hands and embraced everyone, and they all exclaimed how none of them had changed in . . . how many years had it been?
“Too long,” said Wally, and again, “too long.” He spread his long arms and herded everyone into the house.
Wally and Arlene were attorneys. He had always been in private practice, doing deals that rarely had anything to do with the government. Arlene had been at the State Department years ago, but she had left about the time of Louis’s departure, to enter a private firm devoted to public relations and government access. The Steinbergs had two grown children who were both out of medical school and doing their residencies in New York. In fact, the Steinbergs had two new grandchildren.
Wally and Arlene had both recently retired. “We’re thinking of getting a place in New York to be near the kids,” said Wally. “Of course we’d keep this place. This is home.”
“Here are the grandchildren,” said Arlene, producing photos. “Samantha is Joe’s . . .”
“Joe and Susan’s,” said Wally. “Joe and Susan’s.”
“. . . and Noah is Jennifer’s, Jennifer and Tom’s.”
The Mullers had seen the pictures before. And they had grandchildren of their own, so they watched magnanimously as the Steinbergs passed photo after photo to Louis. He looked at them helplessly, stacking them precariously on his knee. People who had been young when Louis had last seen them now had grandchildren. He did not have grandchildren. He did not want grandchildren. He wished sometimes that the Morgon family line had ended with him.
Louis asked about Milton Hamsher who had once been his best friend. Milton had gotten divorced from Susan, had married again, a much younger woman—was her name Tierney?—and had gotten divorced again. Milton’s career had derailed. He no longer answered his phone or returned calls. They thought he was a freelance journalist now, but no one knew whom he worked for. No one had seen him in years.
Arlene announced that she had made a bouillabaisse. She invited everyone to the table. “Since you left, Washington has finally grown up. It’s a big city now, with good restaurants, bakeries that offer good bread, good seafood shops.”
“French wine!” said Arnie brandishing the bottles of Saint Emilion he had brought. “In your honor, Louis,” he said.
“Tell us what your life is like in that lovely French village,” said Joanne Muller. She and Arnie remembered their visit fondly. They had spent three nights at the Hotel
de France, and Louis had shown them the local sights—the Chateau at Amboise, the one at Azay, the gardens at Villandry, Vendome, the village of Lavardin. “How is that sweet man that runs the hotel? Monsieur. . .?”
“Monsieur Chalfont. He is not very well, I’m afraid,” said Louis.
“My life there is really quite simple and quite wonderful,” said Louis. “I spend a lot of time painting.” He spoke a little about his recent painting experiments.
“You said you’re here on business,” said Arlene.
“It’s personal business, Arlene,” said Louis. “Nothing that would interest anyone. Something from long ago that I have to wrap up. Some loose ends I have to tie up.” He liked finding his way back into the American idiom, the sense of speaking without effort, of not being heard immediately to be a stranger, someone from somewhere else. But of course he sounded just like a stranger. He was not entirely at home in any language any more.
“If there’s anything we can do,” Arlene said, “any way we can help?”
“Thank you. But I don’t think so,” said Louis. “What I really need to do is talk to Hugh Bowes.” He tried to make it sound less serious: “Have a word with Hugh Bowes.”
Arlene’s eyes narrowed momentarily, and then she spoke softly. “That’s probably not going to be easy.”
“Nobody sees Hugh very much anymore,” said Wally. “Since he became the secretary, of course.”
“He travels in different circles now.” This was Joanne. “Has for the last few years, actually.”
Finally, after a long pause, she added, “I take it you don’t know that Ruth died.” Louis felt his heart stop. He clasped his hands together under the table and stared at Joanne.
A French Country Murder Page 11
