He received Stoddard a few hours later in his study. It was an airy room with a view over salt water that danced and glittered and upbore white wings of sailboats. Autographed photos of himself in the company of famous persons did not cover the walls as they did those of his Washington office. Instead there were a few family portraits, a landscape painted by his daughter, a horsemanship trophy from prep school days, a case of books for reference and recreation rather than display. He looked up from the desk, greeted, “Hello. Sit down,” realized how brusque he had been. “Excuse me. I guess I’m more on edge than I knew.”
Stoddard took a swivel chair, leaned back, laid his briefcase across his lap. “Me too, Senator. Mind if I smoke?”
“No.” Moriarty sketched a rueful smile. “Wish I dared.”
“We’re alone.” Stoddard held the pack toward him.
Moriarty shook his head. “No, thanks. Quitting was too hard. I wonder what Churchill would have made of a society where you can’t take a puff any longer if you hope for national office.”
“Unless you’re from a tobacco state.” A match sen tied. “Otherwise, yes, what one does is vote price supports, subsidies, and export assistance for the tobacco industry, while calling for a war on dangerous addictive drugs.”
Damn the son of a bitch! Too bad he was so useful. Well, that jape had cost him the offer of a drink. “Let’s get cracking. How much detail do you have on this affair?”
“How much do you, sir?”
“I read the piece in the Times after you called. It wasn’t very informative.”
“No, I suppose not. Because on the surface, it isn’t much of a story. Another little shootout among the socially deprived of New York City.”
Glee exploded. “But it has a connection to Tannahill!”
“Maybe,” Stoddard cautioned. “All we’re sure of is that members of the Unity were involved, and Tannahill visited its head last month, and it’s a rather strange outfit. Not underground, but … reclusive? We’d have to spend quite a while digging for information, and it might well prove to be a wild goose chase. Tannahill could have seen the head-…” woman for some completely unrelated reason, like wanting ‘: to write an article. He was definitely at home during the incident. Still is, last I heard.”
Moriarty quelled the interior seething. Is this actually ridiculous? he wondered. Why am I turning the heavy artillery on a gadfly?
Because an instinct that my calling has honed tells me there is something big behind this, big, big. Uncovering it could do more than silence a noisy reactionary. It could lift me into orbit. Four years heUce, eight at most, I could be bringing that new dawn which Tannahill and his night-spooks dread.
He sat back into well-worn, accepting, creaky leather, and set a part of his mind to telling one muscle after the next that it should slack off. “Look,” he said, “you know I haven’t had time to stay abreast of your efforts. Brief me. Begin at the beginning. Never mind if you repeat this or that I’ve heard before. I want the facts arranged orderly for inspection.”
“Yes, sir.” Stoddard opened the case and took out a ma-nila folder. “Suppose I give you a quick summary, from the start, before we go into particulars.”
“Fine.”
Stoddard checked his notes. “I did tell you when Tannahill reappeared in New Hampshire, you remember. We’ve had a tail on him since then. As per your instructions, I notified the FBI of that. The agent I talked to was a little annoyed.”
“He considered me officious, no doubt.” Moriarty laughed. “Better that than seem furtive. And it has planted a bee in their bonnet. Go on.”
“Shortly after his return—do you want dates? Not yet?— shortly afterward, Tannahill went down to New York, took a hotel room, and met a plane from Copenhagen at Kennedy airport. A young woman, uh, flew to his arms when she’d cleared customs, and they were shacked up in that hotel for several days. It looked like a honeymoon situation, sightseeing, fancy restaurants, you know the bit. We checked back, of course. Her name is Olga Rasmussen, Danish citizen but actually from Russia, a refugee. Some puzzling things about her, but it’s hard to do detail work internationally, and expensive. You decide whether we should.