"You bitch," I heard myself say aloud in the quiet, ornate room. My voice sounded more sad than angry. Her partner became part of the scene now, a soft-faced young man with a mustache, maybe a few years older than Paul Giacomin. He stretched out on the bed and let her undress him. I could hear scraps of their dialogue. What I could hear made me wish for "Night Train." I was glad the mike had been badly placed.

When they were both naked they had sex. They did more than that. They put on a clinic. Ronni's dance had been artless, but her sex was expert. She did things I had rarely contemplated, though nothing I objected to. And she made a good deal of noise while she did it. Her partner clearly enjoyed himself, but he was also careful to arrange her full face to the camera as often as possible. He wore sunglasses during the entire performance.

When the tape ended it simply ended, there was no dramatic resolution, it merely stopped in medias res. I rewound the tape and played it again. This time around I noticed that the room was brilliantly lit by sunlight and at one brief shot saw an uncurtained window wall off camera right. Most of the action seemed to take place on a double bed with a pale blue comforter on it. The champagne was on a bureau. In the background on a bedside table was a clock radio, with a digital display. The time seemed to be 2:08. With the sun shining in like it was early afternoon it meant the windows faced west or southwest depending on the time of year. From their clothing I couldn't tell the time of year.

The camera must have been concealed behind the mirror over the bureau. It covered the whole room from there, though its focus was on the human activity. In another shot there was a desk, apparently on the window side of the bed. I ran the tape back and forward over the desk several times. There were books on the desk, but the spines were turned away and I couldn't make out a title. There were pens and pencils in a beer mug. There was also a Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter. I rewound and ran the tape again. There was an emblem and lettering on the beer mug. I couldn't make it out. I found a magnifying glass in the drawer of a rolltop desk and tried again to read the mug as it drifted by on the screen. But I couldn't. The glass merely reduced the picture to its component dots. The best I could do was see that it looked like one of those mugs they sell in college bookstores with the college or fraternity emblem on them.

I ran the tape three more times, but there was nothing else to get from it. Ronnie seemed drunk. She postured in some childish fantasy of Salome; she was skillful in all of her sexual activity, but a little self-conscious about it, and her companion patronized a very good barber and wore sunglasses while screwing. The action looked to be in someone's bedroom, not a motel, and the bedroom had a western exposure, probably not at ground level or they would not have left the shades open, even for camera light. Unless Ronni was even more unusual than I thought.

I rewound the tape one more time, left it in the machine, shut everything off, closed and locked the door to the den, and let myself out Alexander's front door.

I knew why he'd left me there alone. I was glad he had.

My rental car was parked on O Street. I got in and drove a short block to Wisconsin, turned left, and headed in-town. I hadn't learned much, and I'd embarrassed my client and myself. I was getting used to that.

I had taken a room at the Hay Adams. When I was alone I was a Holiday Inn man. But I was hoping for some time with Susan while I was here, and Susan was worth the Hay Adams. My room overlooked Lafayette Park and beyond it the White House. I hung up my clothes and had room service deliver a couple of beers and The Washington Post. Then I called Susan at her hospital. I could feel tension buzz in my stomach while I dialed. Of course she was with a patient, and of course she couldn't be disturbed. I left word that I was at the Hay Adams if Ms. Silverman got a moment free from succoring the afflicted.

Then I stood for a while and drank my beer and looked out at the White House. A guard leaned against one of the columns on the front porch. The people with the signs had them propped up against the fence out front. On the lawn to the right a television crew was filming a stand-up with the White House in the background. The President was in there somewhere, and the First Lady. She was there too, with the President. She wasn't off someplace far studying to be a doctor.

I got tired of looking at the White House and sat down in one of the chairs and put my feet on the double bed and read the Post. By the time I finished the Post it was getting dark outside. I looked at the White House some more. I could go for a walk, but if I did, I might miss Susan if she called.

I turned on the TV and watched the early news and wondered why the early-news people in every city were wimps. Probably specified in the recruitment ads. Early-News Person Wanted. Must Be Wimp. Send resume and tapes to… I shut off the television and looked out the window some more. I could order up some Irish whiskey and get drunk. But if Susan did call… It was dark now and the White House gleamed in its spotlights. I thought about Ronni Alexander trying to be Yvonne De Carlo and the look on Alexander's face when he left me there to watch. I thought about the lucky people that Susan was treating. Her undivided attention for fifty minutes. Son of a bitch.

They were having a party at the White House. Limousines pulled up the circular drive and let people out. Some people didn't come in limousines. They simply walked up the driveway. Maybe they took a cab. I'd always wondered how you said that. Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, my good man, and don't spare the horses. The President and the First Lady were probably dressing. Or maybe they were necking. Or… Someone knocked at the door of my room. I went and opened it and there was Susan wearing a silver raccoon coat and carrying a bottle of champagne and smelling like Eden in springtime.

"Did you really say 'succor the afflicted' to the department secretary?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. "I think she was offended."

I stepped aside and she came in and put the champagne on the bureau and turned and smiled. I stood and stared at her. There were times when I wanted to strangle her. But never when she was with me. Her presence overcame everything.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

She opened her arms and I stepped in against her and hugged her. She raised her face and I kissed her. I felt liquid and dispersive, as if I might dissolve into the floor.

Susan was brisk and cheerful. "Now you have a decision to make," she said. "Do you want to drink the champagne before or after you jump on my bones?"

That was easy.

Afterward we sat up in bed drinking the champagne from water glasses.

"See," Susan said. "I do succor the afflicted."

"Yes," I said. "You give good succor."

Susan drank some of the champagne.

"Was Paul with you on Thanksgiving?"

"Yes. We ate out. How about you?"

"Super. There were five or six of us from the program and John, our supervisor, had us all out to his home in Bethesda. There were twenty-five people in all, including some very big people in the profession."

"Yeah, but how many of them can do a one-armed pushup?"

Susan smiled and drank more of her champagne. "Tell me about what you're doing down here," she said.

"Besides seeking succor?"

She nodded.

"I'm working for a congressman," I said.

"You? That doesn't seem like you."

"Maybe it was an excuse to get to Washington," I said.

"I wouldn't think you'd need an excuse."

I shrugged. "Anyway," I said, "I'm working for a congressman named Meade Alexander."