“I will never understand that boy,” Marienthal said. “I will never understand any of his generation.”

“Well, Frank,” said Mac, “I suppose they’ll never understand us, either. Look, I suggest you grab a flight back home and catch up with Rich there. In the meantime, Kathryn will decide what to do with the tapes. That’s the way it should be.”

Kathryn Jalick entered the apartment she shared with Rich Marienthal. She changed into shorts and a Library of Congress T-shirt. She poured a glass of wine and put a Buck Hill CD on the stereo. She sat on the couch, the bag of tapes at her feet, leaned back, closed her eyes, and thought of him, of what they’d been through since he started the book. Was it all behind them now? She hoped so. She wanted things to be the way they were when they first met, easy and loving, finding the time to draw upon that love. She was deep in that reverie when the phone on the table next to the couch rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Hi. Where are you?”

“On the train. You’ll never believe what happened. We were pulling into the Baltimore station. I had this sudden urge to go to the bathroom and went. I left my shoulder bag on my seat. When I came back, it was gone.”

“Somebody stole it?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it?”

“What was in it?”

“Socks, shorts, a toothbrush, my overnight kit. Why would anybody want to steal stuff like that is beyond me. How are you?”

“Fine. I saw Mac and Annabel.”

“And?”

“Mac said the tapes belong to you and that you’ll have to make the decision about what to do with them.”

“After what I’ve put you through, Kate, they belong to us. Like I told you before I left, if Mac didn’t have any definite ideas about what to do with them, I leave it up to you. Yours is a good, clean, clear mind.”

“That’s a heavy burden. I know how hard you worked to get them.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. Have you heard from Geoff?”

“Oh, yes, I certainly did.” She told him of the confrontation at Union Station and what occurred after that.

Marienthal laughed. “He was sitting in a cab with you right next to the tapes and never knew it.”

“The irony wasn’t lost on me. You’re breaking up.”

“Batteries are low. I’ll call you from Mom’s.”

As she twisted on the couch after hanging up, her foot caught the shopping bag, tipping it over and spilling its contents on the rug. She picked up one of the plastic bags and removed tapes from it. Rich had written on them in ink: Russo, where the interview took place, the date, and a few words to describe the contents. “Assassination” appeared on some of them.

She got up, turned the air-conditioning control on the window unit to its coolest setting, grabbed old newspapers from the kitchen, balled them up and placed them on the floor of the fireplace. She added kindling and logs left over from the previous winter that were stacked next to the fireplace, and lighted the paper. The orange flames were comforting; she and Rich had spent many nights together with the fire going, discussing their dreams-and each other.

One by one, she fed the tapes and Rich’s handwritten notes into the flames. When the last tape had been consumed, she returned to the couch, raised her wineglass, and said with a satisfied smile on her lips, “To you, Louis Russo. May you finally rest in peace-wherever.”

FOUR MONTHS LATER

I have an announcement to make,” Mackensie Smith said to the thirty guests gathered in his apartment. A blue spruce Christmas tree festooned with colorful decorations from their single days, augmented by more recent joint purchases, took up a corner of the living room. Other judiciously selected and placed representations of the Christmas season that was only a week away added to the party’s festive spirit. Annabel had arranged an array of food on the dining room table.

“I don’t have permission to make this announcement, but somehow I don’t think the subjects of it will mind,” Mac said. He raised his champagne glass: “To Rich and Kathryn, who informed me only today that they’ve decided to tie the knot, tie one to the other for life. Here’s to them and to many blissful years together-close together.”

There was applause and “Here! Here!” and a few inevitable but funny comments about the perils of married life. A man raised his glass and said, “I have a toast to propose, too. To another four years with President Adam Parmele.”

Smith said, “I know this is Washington, but there’ll be no politics spoken in this house, not at this time of year.”

“What else is there to talk about in Washington?” someone quipped.

“The Redskins, the new season at the Washington Opera and Kennedy Center, anything but politics,” Annabel proclaimed with enough force to indicate she meant it.

Rich and Kathryn were the last to leave.

“A wonderful party,” Kathryn said. “I feel as though it was to celebrate us.”

“It was,” said Smith. “You deserve it. Set a date yet?”

“The spring,” Rich said. “In Kansas. I called Mom and Dad this morning to break the news. Actually, I put Kathryn on the phone and she made the announcement.”

“His mom cried,” Kathryn said, shedding her own tears. “She sounded really happy.”

“And your dad?” Mac asked.

“He congratulated me and said they’d come out to Kansas for the wedding. For him to volunteer to go to Kansas is the coup of the year.”

“As it should be,” said Annabel.

“How’s the new job?” Mac asked Marienthal.

“Good. I mean, grinding out press releases for the Department of Agriculture doesn’t represent my life’s goal, but it’ll do until I finish the new book I’m working on and it gets published. By the way, it is a novel.”

The call to fill a position in the agriculture department’s public information office had come out of the blue from one of the president’s appointees. Had destroying tapes that might have thwarted the president’s quest for a second term played a role in the job offer? Follow-up articles about Rich’s book mentioned that he’d destroyed the tapes because, as he’d been quoted, “I seriously question whether what Louis Russo claimed in my book actually happened. That’s why the tapes are gone.” He added with a chuckle, “But I still think it makes for a good read.”

Unfortunately, the negative publicity surrounding the book seriously eroded its sales. Of the 30,000 copies in the initial printing, more than half would be returned to Hobbes House for full credit or end up on remainder tables at the sale price of a dollar.

“Whatever happened to your buddy, Mr. Lowe?” Smith asked as the young couple prepared to leave.

“Last I heard, he left Senator Widmer’s staff and was going to work for some Texas congressman.”

“His choice to leave?” Annabel asked, “or was he asked to leave?”

“We don’t know,” Kathryn said. “His girlfriend, Ellen Kelly, broke up with him and left town. I’ve lost touch with her. And with Senator Widmer announcing his retirement after canceling the hearings, there wouldn’t be a job for Geoff anyway.”

“As shrewd as old Senator Widmer is, he put too much faith in Lowe where the tapes were concerned,” Smith said, helping Kathryn on with her coat. “If the subcommittee had subpoenaed the tapes, putting a torch to them like you did would have landed you in some legal hot water.”

“That’s all in your past,” Annabel offered, kissing them on the cheek as they went through the door, a paper plate of Christmas cookies nestled in Marienthal’s arms. “It’s all future for you now.”