At the corner of Thirty-fifth and M, I loitered near the package store, checking my reflection in the window. Actually the cowboy hat Susan had bought me was one of those high-crowned ten-gallon things with a big feather in band, like Willie Stargell wears. When I had tried it on I hadn't looked like Willie Stargell. I had looked like the Frito Bandito, so we took it back and bought the more modest Gunclub Stetson, with an understated little feather a trout fly in the band. Susan was after me to get cowboy boots too, but I wasn't ready for them yet. When I got further upscale. Then I could get some, and maybe crossed ammunition belts in the same tone.

As I stood and considered my image a Ford van pulled up in front of Broz's building. It said canal glass on the side. Two guys got out and removed a large glass sheet from the back and carried the glass into the building. In a couple of minutes I could see them at work on the broken glass door to Broz's balcony. There were no police cars around. I'd bet Broz didn't report it. A kid of Joe Broz's would not be likely to call the cops. He'd either ignore it or turn it over to his father's organization. On the whole I'd prefer he ignored it.

It took the glass-repair crew maybe an hour to take out the old glass and put in the new. In that time nothing else stirred at the apartment. The snow, occasionally mixed with rain, came down, most of it melting, a little bit collecting. Cars coming off Key Bridge were making a continuous high whine as they spun their wheels. The two workmen came down carrying the broken glass panel, slid it into the back of the truck, got in, and skidded away. Above in Broz's apartment all was secure. As I looked the lights went on in the bedroom, stayed on for maybe three minutes, and went off. About a minute later someone emerged from the apartment building. It was a young man with dark hair. He looked about six feet tall and appeared to weigh a soft 190 pounds. He also looked like the male partner in Ronni Alexander's stag film.

It didn't have to be Gerry Broz. There were two other apartments in there, and probably each one housed more than one person. It could be someone else. But it could be him. Paragraph six applied. He headed up Thirty-fifth Street. I followed him.

Where it slants up from the river Thirty-fifth Street is San Franciscan in its ascent. The snow and rain slick that had covered it didn't help matters any. Broz ahead and me behind expended a lot of energy getting up there. We turned left on Prospect, walked two blocks, and there was Georgetown University. Broz went straight to the library and got a stack of bound periodicals out of the stacks and sat in the reading room thumbing through them and taking notes. I couldn't see from where I was what periodicals they were. I nosed about here and there in the reading room and adjacent places. Except at the checkout area, which looked like the security at an airport, there was no one to pay me any attention. Many coeds went about their activities, heedless of my presence. I was not pleased by that.

One of them did pay attention to my subject however. She came in wearing tight jeans and a green vest over a white cable-knit sweater. She sat down opposite my subject and said, "How'd ya do in the poli-sci final, Gerry?"

"I think I aced it," Gerry said. "How about you?"

"I think I knew the stuff, but that bastard Ekkberg hates me."

Gerry shrugged. "Ekky hates everybody, especially girls."

She nodded. They did some more small talk and then the girl got up and left. Unless the fates were snickering up their sleeve, the kid was Gerry Broz. He even looked like his father, or like his father had. There was a kind of theatricality to him. He sat as if he were being viewed from all sides. But he was softer-looking than his father, not so much overweight as undersinewed, as if he'd walked slowly everywhere he went. He had taken off the tan parka with the dark blue lining he had worn to the library. He was wearing a blue oxford cloth shirt with a buttondown collar and chino pants over Frye boots. His belt was blue with a red stripe running through it and his hair was short and carefully cut. The more I looked at him, the more I was sure it was he in the videotape, and that he was Gerry Broz.

At 6:30 Gerry got up and put on his parka and stowed his notebook in a green book bag and left the library. He allowed them to check the book bag on the way out, and with me discreetly distant he went out into the darkness and walked back to his apartment and went in. I left him there. It was time to get ready for Susan.

I was dressed to the teeth, dark blue suit and vest with a faint white pinstripe, white silk show hankie, dark red tie with tiny white dots. White broadcloth shirt with a pin collar and French cuffs. My cordovan loafers were shined, I was close shaven, my teeth sparkled. Had the weather been better I'd have worn white flannel trousers and walked upon the beach. Instead I sat beside Susan on a banquette in Rive Gauche and ordered beer.

Susan said "Dewar's and water" to the waiter. Off to our right there was a family group, obviously mother and father with son and daughter-in-law. The old man was explaining to the son and daughter-in-law what a really world class big deal he was. Occasionally the mother chimed in that yes, he really was a big deal. The son and his wife listened in glum silence, the daughter-in-law forcing a bright smile through it all. Obviously the parents were paying.

There were few other people in the room. The howling storm had paralyzed Washington as drifts of nearly an inch and a half had piled up along some major arteries.

The waiter brought our drinks. Dewar's and water," I said.

"Yes. I don't care really, but everyone at work says if you don't order by name they give you bar whiskey."

I drank a little beer. Molson. Rive Gauche didn't have Rolling Rock Extra Pale either. The All World Big Deal at the next table was telling his kid about how tough you had to be to prevail in business and giving a number of examples of how tough he'd recently been.

"Lonely at the top," I said to Susan.

"But not quiet," Susan said.

"How about I threaten to kill him if he doesn't shut up."

"It would probably work, but the rest of the evening might be a bit strained."

"I know. The world is never simple, is it?"

Susan shrugged. "He's excited by his success. He wants to pass along to his son some of what he knows. He's showing off a little. I'm not sure it's a capital offense."

"He's showing off for the daughter-in-law," I said.

Susan shrugged again, and smiled. "He's male."

The waiter appeared to take our order. I ordered pigeon stuffed with cabbage. Susan ordered sole Veronique. I asked for a wine list. The Big Deal listed some people he'd recently fired. I studied the wine list. Control. If I concentrated on Susan and dinner and wine, I could block the guy out. It was simply a matter of control. The wine steward came by. I ordered Gewurtztramminer. He smiled approvingly, as they always do, took the wine list, and departed.

The Big Deal explained to his son some of the ways the son could improve professionally. I could feel the muscles bunch a bit behind my shoulders. Susan noticed my shrug to loosen them.

"Getting to you, is he?" she said.

"Takes his work seriously," I said.

"Don't you?"

"Not as seriously as I take you," I said.

The food arrived, and the wine. We were quiet while it was served.

When the servants had departed, Susan said, "Is there an implied criticism there?"

I didn't answer.

"Do you think I take my work more seriously than I take you?"

"At the risk of oversimplification," I said, "yes."

"Because my work has taken me away?"