Echo House

by Ward Just

  "Billie wants you to speak at the service," Willy said.

  Of course the community was appalled and the newspapers understandably suspicious that the suicide came on the eve of hearings into the most recent Agency scandal. Ed's name still rang a bell. Everyone knew that he had been out of the intelligence business for years, but—did any of those people actually leave? Weren't they often called back into service, contract jobs in countries where they had special knowledge or friendships with figures in ruling circles? The answer was yes, but Ed was not one of these; no one wanted Ed Peralta back on the government payroll. He was worn out, ill, and bored beyond endurance. Axel said that his life was not worth the effort it took to live it, so he ended it; and Alec recalled that those were the exact words his father had used to describe his own condition at the end of the war.

  A memorial service was arranged at the Friends Meeting House on Florida Avenue on a blustery spring day, the date and time never publicly announced but passed quietly from friend to friend, owing to the general commotion and the identity of many of the mourners, Ed's former colleagues, old now and deskbound or retired or semiretired but still more or less clandestine and determined to remain so. All the same, the more aggressive members of the Washington press corps were expected, because memorial services were political events and the intelligence community a subculture as mysterious as any in the capital. Wilson Slyde and a friend from one of the newsmagazines were among the first photographed. Axel and Alec entered together through a side door and were not noticed. Harold Grendall and Lloyd Fisher were both present and André Przyborksi unaccountably absent, out of the country it was said, Vienna or Rome. Someone suggested that the service be held in the chapel at Langley, but Billie tartly refused; and if the American press or the KGB or the Mossad or the Deuxième Bureau or MI-5 wanted to send their gumshoes to snap pictures, good luck to them. Everyone knew the identities of the old farts, and it was only vanity that kept their fedoras low over their near-sighted eyes.

  Yet at the service Billie spoke touchingly of the love her husband had for intelligence work, its subtleties and crude hazards, its many demands and slender rewards in a world where secrecy defined success and publicity defined failure, as opposed to the political world, where things were the other way around. She concluded with an account of her husband's harrowing last days, when not even the prospect of a fine season from the Orioles was enough to give him hope. Of course this was the life he chose, and for the balance would have wanted no other. It was not for his family to disagree or make their own reckoning, or settle their own scores. She looked in the direction of her children, the son in tears and the daughter staring angrily out the window. They looked to be in their late forties, suburban people out of their element here. Billie waited for some sign that they would rise to say something about their father. When no sign came, she sighed and said she was glad her Ed did not live to see the present disarray and mismanagement of the agency he had loved and served for so long. The malfeasance. The misrule. The misprision. Billie was on her feet only briefly, blamed no one by name, and when she was finished, sat down.

  Axel and Alec both spoke. Axel in his boardroom voice; someone later said that he sounded as if he were making a report to the stockholders, a bad year all around, profits flat because of the unsettled economic conditions and depressed consumer confidence, despite the notable achievements of the past. The truth was, Axel had neither patience nor sympathy with suicide. He spoke warmly of Billie. reminding the gathering that they had known each other for fifty years; she was a gallant woman and he admired gallantry. Alec spoke at some length, a droning summation of a life in public service. Truly in some sense Ed Peralta was a casualty of war.

  Then from a bench in the rear of the room Sylvia rose and recited a poem, speaking in a lovely clear voice, conversational in tone. It took a moment for those present to realize they were listening to verse. The poem sought to capture Ed as he was as a young man, and Washington as it had been before and after the war, at the dawn of the modern world, and what the dawn forecast of the day to come. Sylvia made a number of obscure references, puns and wordplay that caused Lloyd and Harold to wince, look at each other, and listen hard. The witty parts made people smile, even Billie, though her children remained apart. Alec listened to his mother and thought that she would have made a great actress, her voice at perfect pitch and her manner commanding. But of course she had been giving readings for many years and knew how to lead an audience. Toward the end, her voice faltered, breaking, her hands trembling. She was reciting from memory and seemed to lose her way, but she gathered herself with difficulty and finished the poem, her voice barely a whisper in the vast gloom of the Meeting House. Gusts of wind rattled the windows.

  Axel breathed heavily as he watched her, closely attending to each word. So far as Alec knew, this was the first time his father and mother had been in the same room since their divorce. It was possible that this was the first time they had seen each other in all that time. Axel's jaw muscles began to work when she mentioned the hydraulics of Washington and the brass cigarette lighter with its familiar initials, and the fist her hand made at something said, then unsaid, then enhanced, repeated, revised, and explained once again. You know how things go here in our capital city. You know who we are, the seer seen, the church fallen, bare ruined men Axel snorted when he heard that. But he nodded in appreciation when she ended, bowing her head slowly and disappearing into her seat at the rear of the room. Alec turned to search out Billie Peralta, and when he turned back, Axel was already out of his chair and limping to the side door.

  When Alec stepped outside his father was gone. Many of the older men had hurried away, though there were no photographers; the service had gone on for so long that they had wearied of the assignment, and there were other ceremonies that day. Alec remained on the sidewalk for a few moments, talking to Billie and her children. The son offered a limp hand and the daughter stared through him, eyes flashing in contempt. He did not know whether she was angry at something he had said, or only at who he was. Alec turned to find his mother at his elbow. When he congratulated her she looked at him strangely, shrugged, and walked sadly away, arm in arm with Willy. Then Wilson Slyde asked if he wanted to go across the street to the restaurant; he was lunching with Virginia Spears, the newsmagazine reporter much in the news. She was one of those who had become as famous as her subjects. Alec declined; he had appointments at his office. Billie and her children climbed into Ed's old Mercedes. Soon the sidewalk was empty except for Alec, Wilson, and Virginia Spears.

  "We'll walk with you a ways," Wilson said. "We've decided to go to Melody's for the steak tartare."

  The rain was blowing hard now. Bits of rain stung their faces.

  "I liked your eulogy," Virginia said to Alec. He nodded, distracted, still back at the Meeting House, his mother reciting her poem and Billie sitting with her head bowed. Billie had shown no emotion when he spoke, but of course she held him responsible for Ed's forced resignation, illness, and death. There was plenty of responsibility to go around, but he hated it when Ed's daughter had looked so coldly at him, as if he had put the Beretta in her father's hand and commanded him to pull the trigger. It was all so long ago, the details forgotten by everyone except Ed and Ed's family. No one was proud of his role in the affair, but you had to put that behind you.

  "The White House didn't send anybody," Wilson said.

  "There was that one boy," Virginia said. "The deputy assistant something-or-other."

  "No one official," Wilson said. "No one conspicuous. No one to show the flag."

  Alec picked up the pace, eager to get back to his office. He had a conference call at four and a meeting with Billie and her children at five. He was executor of Ed's will and had to refresh his memory on its provisions. An awkward occasion all around, though the will was straightforward enough.

  Wilson cleared his throat and said, "Virginia wants to have a word with you, Alec."

  Alec looked at her, a
slender woman, thirtyish, a blue silk scarf at her throat, alert brown eyes behind aviator glasses. She had the demeanor of an academic, her voice soft and well-bred, ironic around the edges. He did not know her well but he liked doing legal work for journalists, knowing about their wills and broken marriages. You built up a relationship, first of trust, then of friendship. You climbed the tree together. They told you things in the privacy of your office. And you told them things about cases you were working on and what you heard here and there. If your own name came up in connection with a political matter, they let you know about it; and if they had to write something they wrote it gently, with a wink. Alec made it a point to halve his usual fee, because journalists were such valuable friends. Wasn't it Wilson himself who had said that in Washington they were the pi in any discussion of circumference?

  "I've proposed a story about you," Virginia said.

  "I don't spend much time with the press," Alec said carefully. So it wasn't a will or a divorce after all.

  She smiled. Yes, of course.

  "A long story," she said.

  "Listen to Virginia, Alec," Wilson said.

  "I think it will be a cover story," she said.

  Alec said nothing to that.

  "Not the ordinary story at all; something different, something unique for the magazine. Of course the material has to be there. The material has to be good. In fact, the material has to be superb. You can't imagine the competition; they find some cannibal in the heartland and they go apeshit. They can't get enough of body parts up in New York, and if it's not body parts it's some nasty little war south of the border. So the material has to be really good. It has to get their attention right away. And it has to be exclusive. It has to bring the news, Alec. In other words, I need access to your nearest and dearest."

  "If you mean my father, forget it."

  "He's part of the remarkable story."

  "He's never given an interview in his life."

  "Wrong," she said. "There was an interview in a British paper about the time of Desert One."

  "Taken from a speech he gave, private speech, but the hack had somehow gotten himself invited. Printed the speech as if it were an interview. Axel spoke to someone and the little bastard was out of work before close of business next day. That's off the record."

  Virginia sighed. They were stopped at a traffic light, wet leaves flying here and there. She was hoping for some help from Wilson, but Wilson was giving none, staring straight ahead and humming some dirge. She said, "It's so difficult when things are off the record. The chats we'd have, some of them can be on background only. I'm flexible on that point. But it's tragic when important material, anecdotes and quotes, are off the record. It makes my job impossible. I do take your point about Axel. Not that I won't make an attempt."

  Alec was irritated by her voice, a schoolmarm's bray as irony had turned to sarcasm. She was almost as tall as he was and walked in a kind of lope, blinking behind her aviator glasses. When she gestured, Alec noticed that her fingernails were bitten to the quick.

  "I'd like to start very soon, try to seize the march on the cannibals and the commissars. You see, we're bringing a new kind of coverage to Washington. We're interested in texture and nuance. We're interested in the faces behind the masks. We're interested in where the power really is as opposed to where it's supposed to be, and that's why we're interested in Alec Behl."

  Wilson suddenly raised his hand to wave at someone across the street.

  "Who's that?" Virginia Spears demanded.

  "Biggs," Wilson said.

  "Who's Biggs?"

  "New man at the National Security Council."

  "Never heard of him," Virginia said.

  "You'd like him," Wilson said. "He's full of nuance."

  "So," Alec said. "Give me an idea of the texture of the piece you want to write about me, your cover story."

  She described two lines in the air as she spoke. "Attorney Alec Behl. The Man to See in Washington."

  "The man to see about what?" Alec asked.

  "Dey comes to you," Wilson said, jiving now on the sidewalk. "Dey comes to you wit de words, Nobody knows de trouble I's seen."

  "Shut up, Wilson," Virginia said. "This is serious."

  "An ole Alec, he lays on de hands, gives dem his blessing an washes dey feet, an sends dem away wiser an poorer."

  Alec began to laugh. "I think you're ahead of things, Virginia."

  "We are. That's the point, you see. We're ahead of the news."

  "I'm not the man to see," Alec said. He named three lawyers, Visibles, looking all the while at the reporter and trying to discover where she was headed and what she wanted really, and how much she knew as opposed to what she would pretend to know.

  "True enough," she said. "They're fine lawyers. They've been around this town for many years and they've had distinguished clients. They've rendered service to their country, when called. And they're old news, Alec. They're old frontier. They're on the downside of their careers while you're still marching toward the summit. And when they're gone, there'll only be you. You're asking about texture. That's the texture."

  Alec looked sideways at Wilson, who now laid his forefinger on his right nostril.

  "It's a new day," she went on, "and I'm not certain they understand the new day the way you do. Those many years ago, when Peralta landed in the deep shit, could they have handled Red Lambardo the way you did? No way. That was the key that unlocked the door for you, wasn't it?"

  So she had done some homework.

  "Of course I understand the sanctity of the attorney-client relationship. There are places I can't go. I appreciate that. A story of this kind, it's a partnership. I think you'll agree, it's got tremendous potential. By the way, you'd be dealing with me alone. This isn't a team effort. This is my idea and my story and if it's the kind of success I intend it to be, then there'll be others like it and those will be mine, too. You see, I'm part of this new day as well. The sun shines on us both, doesn't it?" Alec was listening hard now as she went through her multiplication tables. "I suppose in a certain sense you're my Ed Peralta. And my readers, why, they're Red Lambardo and the senators who snoozed through the hearing until they heard the texture of things. And then they sat up straight didn't they? Ramrods in their sorry spines because they were interested, isn't that so? They were interested in a well-prepared and subtle brief. And with interest comes conviction."

  "Faith," Wilson amended.

  They were hurrying now in the rain, traffic stalled on Connecticut Avenue, exhaust fumes caught in the heavy air. This part of the city always seemed to Alec like the main street of a state capital, Springfield or Indianapolis, with its small bookstores and boutiques, the buildings low and unconvincing. Then suddenly you came upon a general on horseback, but he was a municipal general, his horse rearing against the background of a travel agency and a jewelry store. This part of Washington was without aspiration or focus. For that you had to walk to Lafayette Park, the White House and the Treasury, the Washington Monument in the distance.

  "Virginia thinks you're misunderstood, Alec." Wilson smiled winningly.

  "Everyone needs a translator," Virginia said. "I want to be yours."

  Wilson had paused to give money to a panhandler rattling his tin cup.

  "Hard for me to know how I come out in all this," Alec said. "The wrong kind of story could be very damaging. We operate on trust and the perception of trust. If the facts are misinterpreted. If errors creep in. Well, then, your cover story could be a calamity."

  Virginia Spears sighed heavily. Alec had misunderstood, as civilians had a way of doing, even worldly civilians who supposedly knew the score. So she tried again, speaking now in her reasonable corporate voice, the one she used with her editors in New York. She said, We inhabit a world of facts. At best the reporter has a supervisory role. You had supervision over the facts. They were in your care and you could release some and detain others. You could polish the shoes of this fact and comb the hair of tha
t one and slash the throat of yet another. But you could not create them. They were conceived elsewhere and put in your charge, like children enrolled in a nursery. You had them on loan and when you released them they were gone; any mischief they created was their own responsibility. It was true that ancestry was often an issue, the source of understandable confusion and resentment. Not every fact came with a family tree. Some were aristocrats, others mongrels. Still others were orphans, parents and place of birth unknown. You were always careful with the orphans; some of them had unstable personalities leading to violent tendencies. They were unreliable, yet they too were often victims and deserving of sympathy. On certain specific occasions the reporter was encouraged to give approval or to withhold it, forcing the children to take responsibility for their own actions. So it was a question of the gene pool.

  "Provenance," Virginia concluded.

  Alec stared into the window of the travel agency while he listened to the reporter's fandango. He remembered that her father had been something in the Ford administration. Arms control or Angola, one of those two.

  "A dirty business," Wilson said, clucking and shaking his head. "You have to change their diapers, too. Wipe the snot from their noses. Listen to their excuses such as the dog ate the homework. Give them baths and tuck them in at night and read them a nice nursery rhyme—"

  "Be quiet, Wilson," she said.

  "Call me next week," Alec said. "I'll think about it."

  "I'll call tomorrow." Virginia hesitated, her hand resting lightly on Alec's arm. "I could give you the usual la-di-da, how I'll do the story whether you cooperate or not. But I'm not interested in that kind of outside-in story. I'm interested in the inside-out story, the one that can only come from you. Your story in your own words." She turned Alec's wrist to look at his watch, frowning, hastily shaking hands, explaining that she had to get back to the office, a conference call concerning the week's cover story, the destruction of the ozone layer and the catastrophic consequences of global warming. Our subscribers won't be disappointed, she said. We're going to scare the shit out of them, outside-in. She waved goodbye and loped away up M Street.