‘You can let us out here,’ I said to the driver.
He slammed on the brakes again and swerved near the curb.
‘Shit,’ Marino said as the blue cab raced away. ‘You think there’s any Americans in this town?’
‘If it wasn’t for non-Americans in towns like this, you and I wouldn’t be here,’ I reminded him.
‘Being Italian’s different.’
‘Really? Different from what?’ I asked at the two thousand block of P Street, where we entered the D.C. Cafe.
‘From them,’ he said. ‘For one thing, when our people got off the boat on Ellis Island, they learned to speak English. And they didn’t drive taxi cabs without knowing where the hell they was going. Hey, this place looks pretty good.’
The café was open twenty-four hours a day, and the air was heavy with sautéing onions and beef. On the walls were posters of gyros, green teas, and Lebanese beer, and a framed newspaper article boasted that the Rolling Stones had once eaten here. A woman was slowly sweeping as if it were her mission in life. She paid us no mind.
‘You relax,’ I said to Marino. ‘This shouldn’t take but a minute.’
He found a table to smoke while I went up to the counter and studied the yellow lit-up menu over the grill.
‘Yes,’ said the cook as he pressed sizzling beef and slapped and cut and tossed browning chopped onions.
‘One Greek salad,’ I said. ‘And a chicken gyro in pita and, let me see.’ I perused. ‘I guess a Kefte Kabob Sandwesh. I guess that’s how you say it.’
‘To go?’
‘Yes.’
‘I call you,’ he said as the woman swept.
I sat down with Marino. There was a TV, and he was watching Star Trek through a swarm of loud static.
‘It’s not going to be the same when she’s in Philly,’ he said.
‘It won’t be.’
I stared numbly at the fuzzy form of Captain Kirk as he pointed his phaser at a Klingon or something.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, resting his chin in his hand as he blew out smoke. ‘Somehow it just don’t seem right, Doc. She had everything all figured out and had worked hard to get it that way. I don’t care what she says about her transferring, I don’t think she wants to go. She just doesn’t believe she’s got a choice.’
‘I’m not sure she does if she wants to stay on the track she’s chosen.’
‘Hell, I believe you always got a choice. You see an ashtray anywhere?’
I spotted one on the counter and carried it over.
‘I guess now I’m an accomplice,’ I said.
‘You just nag me because it gives you something to do.’
‘Actually, I’d like you to hang around for a while, if that’s all right with you,’ I said. ‘It seems I spend half my time trying to keep you alive.’
‘That’s kind of an irony considering how you spend the rest of your time, Doc.’
‘Your order!’ the cook called out.
‘How ’bout getting me a couple of those baklava things. The one with pistachios.’
‘No,’ I said.
9
LUCY AND JANET lived in a ten-story apartment building called The Westpark that was in the two thousand block of P Street, a few minutes’ walk away. It was tan brick with a dry cleaner downstairs and the Embassy Mobile station next door. Bicycles were parked on small balconies, and young tenants were sitting out enjoying the balmy night, drinking and smoking, while someone practiced scales on a flute. A shirtless man reached out to shut his window. I buzzed apartment 503.
‘Who goes there?’ Lucy’s voice came over the intercom.
‘It’s us,’ I said.
‘Who’s us?’
‘The us with your dinner. It’s getting cold,’ I said.
The lock clicked free to let us into the lobby, and we took the elevator up.
‘She could probably have a penthouse in Richmond for what she pays to live here,’ Marino commented.
‘About fifteen hundred a month for a two-bedroom.’
‘Holy shit. How’s Janet going to make it alone? The Bureau can’t be paying her more than forty grand.’
‘Her family has money,’ I said. ‘Other than that, I don’t know.’