The Overton Window

“Good morning, Robert. Sorry if we got you out of bed.”

  “No trouble, no trouble at all, I will happily itemize my inconvenience on your tab.”

  “I’m sure you will. Robert, this is Molly. This is our first meal together, and I wanted to impress her.”

  The chef passed through his covered plates, carafes, and rolled silverware. “Well, Molly, if nothing else, your new friend at least has some excellent taste in soul food.”

  There was more eating than conversation as the car made its way south and east again. The chicken and waffles were always amazing, and Molly finished quite a while before he did.

  “What was your mom like?” she asked.

  “My dad met my mother in 1978, and I’ll tell you, I doubt if two people have ever been more different. Oh, this is interesting, my mom is actually in that documentary about Woodstock.”

  “Which part?”

  He waved a hand in front of his eyes. “I don’t know exactly, I can’t really watch it. She’s kind of making out with some hairy guy, and I’m not sure, I think she flashes the cameraman at one point—”

  “You’re not sure? That’s something I’d remember pretty clearly.”

  “Look, I’m blocking it out, it’s my mom, okay? So anyway, years later, late seventies, and she still had her causes that she marched for, but mostly she just loved life, you know? Never wanted much. She had a little apartment in upstate New York, and she was working as a waitress at a resort up there one summer.

  “And my father, the man who would become my father, had this huge place down on the lake near there, still owns it, and he saw her in the restaurant, asked her out, and that was it. Kind of a whirlwind romance. I think she was his fourth wife, or maybe his fifth. But he never married again after she was gone.”

  “So you all lived up there together?”

  “Oh, God no. She wouldn’t move to the city, and of course he was too big for that little town, so I hardly ever saw him except on holidays. We weren’t what you’d call a traditional family unit; hell, I thought he was my grandfather until I was about six. He’s quite a bit older than she is. Was.” He lost himself for a few moments, and had to take a long look at his hands in order to stop remembering. “Anyway, she died, lung cancer, and I guess Dad didn’t know what else to do with me, so he moved me down here.”

  It was quiet in the car for a minute or so.

  “Hey.” She tapped him on the knee, and he looked up. “Would you mind if I sat over there with you?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  The seats were meant for one occupant only but she moved across, put their plates aside, and situated herself easily, sidesaddle across his lap, one arm around his back, a hand resting on his chest, her head against his shoulder.

  “I think I’m going to like you,” Molly said.

  “You sound so surprised.”

  “I guess I am.”

  He gently put his arm around her, hesitant lest he disturb the moment, but he needn’t have worried. She touched his hand, and curled a little closer.

  “I think I like you, too,” he said. “But I’m warning you right now, if I let down all my defenses, and then you hurt me? Well, you saw what I did to those thugs tonight.”

  “Oh, no. You’ll hit me in the knee with your face?”

  “Just as hard as I can.”

  The ride continued on. Their conversation was easy, just quiet thoughts and topics drifting between the two of them. At Ninetieth Street the driver turned into Central Park and then deftly talked his way past a mounted policeman and a blue barricade at Engineers’ Gate. Motor vehicles were strictly forbidden at that time on that day, but it’s hard to say no to a car like that, especially when you can’t be sure who’s riding in the back of it. They took the route slowly, and not just to give the joggers and dog walkers their weekend right of way. For whatever reason the park drive at sunrise on a Saturday had never looked quite so rare, and there was no hurry to leave it behind.

  “Noah?”

  She stretched dreamily, arched against him as she did so, and sighed and looked up into his eyes. “Would you take me home now?”

  “Sure. Where did you say you lived, down by Tompkins Square Park?”

  “No. I mean to your home.”

  “Oh.” He blinked. “Okay.”

  “I just don’t feel safe yet, after last night.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And I’m not talking about anything sexual.”

  “I’m surprised you even mentioned that. Furthest thing from my mind.”

  “Really.”

  “No, not really, but it’s okay. So, like a sleepover, nothing sexual. That’s cool, I’ve got an extra room.” He touched the intercom and asked the driver to take them to his home at Seventy-ninth and Fifth for their last stop.

  “I know it’s awkward to talk about it,” Molly said, “I just want you to know I wouldn’t sleep with someone I just met—”

  “Sexually.”

  “Right. I just wanted to be up front about it. That isn’t something I do.”

  “Got it.”

  “And I’m not saying I never have. Or that I might not want to.” She straightened his collar, which had apparently been turned under the entire time, and nestled her head against him again. “I’ve just made some bad mistakes in my life, and I’ve decided not to repeat them.”

  “Okay, enough said. You don’t know what you’re missing in this case, but fine.”

  CHAPTER 15

  They got out at the corner, and as Noah signed off with the driver, he saw Molly standing there on the sidewalk, looking all around as if she’d just stepped off the last bus from Poughkeepsie, taking in the ritzy sights of the Upper East Side.

  “Is that where you live?” she asked, pointing.

  “No, not there. See those flags? That’s the French Embassy.” He took her hand and walked her to the intersection. “And down the street there, that’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which we can walk through sometime if you ever want to get totally blown away. And that’s Central Park over there, which you’ve already seen.” He turned her around and pointed up the tower of dark masonry and glass that had been behind her. “And way up there on the twenty-third floor, that’s where I live.”

  They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.

  The doors hissed closed again, leaving the two of them alone.

  “Was that who I think it was?” Molly asked.

  “Eliot Spitzer.”

  “The governor. Of New York.”

  “Former governor. And maybe you noticed just then, if you hadn’t already read about him in the papers, that he’s also a total horndog.”

  “I did notice.”

  “Yeah. With great power comes great friskiness. They’ve all got a lust for something.”

  “He lives here?”

  “That’s not all. This five-million-dollar co-op apartment that we’re going to stay in tonight? My father owns that. Spitzer’s father owns the whole building.”

  “Gosh.”

  “Yup.”

  “He resigned, right?” Molly asked. “What was it that brought him down again?”

  “The short answer is, he was caught on a federal wiretap hiring a hooker who makes more in one day than your buddies in the mailroom take home in a year.”

  “Wow … And he fell pretty fast.”

  “He’ll be back in politics before long, don’t wo
rry. The public memory is pretty shallow, and like I said at the bar, up at the top in this world, it’s just a big club.”

  “And we’re not in it,” she said. “At least, I know I’m not.”

  The elevator dinged and the doors parted, revealing his apartment’s elegant entryway.

  “Maybe not,” Noah said, “but you really shouldn’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

  The instant he’d keyed them inside, Molly took off to explore, marveling at the panoramic floor-to-ceiling view, running from room to room like a toy-starved moppet cut loose in FAO Schwarz.

  “How big is this place?” he heard her call from somewhere in back.

  “It’s just half the floor. If you’re impressed by this you should see the penthouse sometime.”

  “And it cost how much again?”

  “Five million, plus about sixty thousand a year for maintenance.”

  She emerged from the guest suite, pointing back behind her. “The shower in that bathroom is bigger than my bedroom back home.”

  “Speaking of which,” Noah said, “I’m going to get cleaned up and turn in. I feel like I’ve still got jail funk all over me.”

  “Oh, I do, too.”

  “Go ahead, then. Everything you need should be in there, and go through the drawers in the dresser, you’ll find something to sleep in.”

  “Okay.” She smiled at him then, and it was the one he’d been waiting all these hours to see.

  “Okay,” he said. “I realize it’s seven-thirty in the morning, but good night.”

  Squeaky-clean at last and dressed for bed, blinds pulled closed, Noah chose a novel from the night table and reclined against a stack of pillows to try to read himself to sleep, within a pale circle of light from his bedside lamp.

  In the middle of chapter two he heard a soft knock from the hallway, looked over, then sat up a little straighter when he saw her peeking in.

  “Me again,” Molly said.

  “Hi.” He laid his book beside him, holding his page.

  “I used your phone. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine, anything you want.”

  “I was calling about Danny. Remember him? Danny Bailey, from the bar?”

  “Yeah. I wish I didn’t, but yeah.”

  “Nobody remembers seeing him after the raid, and he wasn’t with the rest of us at the police station. I called around to see if anyone had heard from him.”

  “And they hadn’t, I gather.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Noah said. “God knows he’s old enough to take care of himself. Go ahead, try to get some rest. We can check again later on.”

  “Okay,” Molly said. But she made no move from the doorway.

  “Do you need another blanket or something?”

  “Could I come in?”

  “Sure,” he said, and she did. “Hey, you found my lacrosse shirt. Ten years I’ve been looking for that thing.”

  “You played lacrosse in school?” The faded jersey was much too big, of course, and she’d gathered the slack and tied it up, leaving a spellbinding glimpse of a taut, smooth waist above the northern border of a lucky pair of his own navy boxers.

  “Rode the bench mostly,” he said. Her hair was down, towel-dry and glistening, dark and curly and caressing her shoulders as she walked. “It’s funny, that shirt looks a lot better now than I remember it.”

  When she reached the edge of the bed she crawled up onto the far end of the tall king-size mattress, walked its length on her knees, and then flopped down next to him with an easy sigh, sharing his pillows. “What are you reading?” she asked.

  He showed her the title briefly, and then put the book back down. “I thought you were going to sleep in the other room.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No, not a bit. It’s just like that time my aunt Beth took me to the candy store and then wouldn’t let me eat anything. I didn’t mind that, either.”

  “I’ll go if you want.”

  “No, stay, stay. I’m kidding. Kind of. Just try not to do anything sexy.”

  “Thanks.” She ran her hands through her hair and stretched again, wriggled herself under the covers, and rolled onto her side with one arm across him, the long, cool silkiness of her bare legs against his skin.

  “Now see?” Noah said. “That’s what I just asked you not to do.”

  “I’m only getting comfortable.” Her voice was already sleepy, and she shivered a bit. “My feet are cold.”

  “Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.”

  “Okay, I’ll be good.” She pulled herself up by the collar of his T-shirt, as if with the last ounce of strength remaining after her long day, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  “Good night,” she whispered.

  “Good night, Molly.”

  Noah picked up his paperback and tried his best to rejoin the story there, but when he found he’d read the same paragraph at least twenty times over, he gave it up and put the book aside. In that author’s defense no arrangement of ink on a page could possibly hold a candle to the twists his actual day had taken, nor could any fiction likely lure his mind from this strange, beautiful character lying beside him, right there in real life. He was more than satisfied to simply listen to her quiet, steady breathing and watch her settle into a peaceful, deepening slumber. Before too long he’d joined her wherever she was traveling, having begun to dream quite a while before he finally drifted away.

  PART TWO

  “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies … is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

  —PROFESSOR CARROLL QUIGLEY, AUTHOR OF Tragedy & Hope

  “The popular will cannot be taken for granted, it must be created.”

  —HERBERT CROLY, AUTHOR OF The Promise of American Life

  CHAPTER 16

  Stuart Kearns flipped his black ID folder closed when it seemed his credentials had been sufficiently absorbed by the desk sergeant. The man’s face was a classic deadpan, but when he looked up a faint glimmer of engagement had finally dawned there.

  Kearns passed across a manila envelope that carried authorization forms for the interview and a conditional catch-and-release waiver for the prisoner in question. The papers were curtly received and slid into the queue with all the care and attention of a career man on the assembly line. Then, as he was directed with a wordless tic of the head, Agent Kearns took a short walk to a seat in a small side office to wait his turn, just like everybody else.

  It was just another privilege of the badge, he supposed. Civilians have to go all the way to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get this kind of white-glove treatment.

  It was a power thing, really, petty but always in-your-face in every bureaucratic exchange. A yardstick of rank and importance gets held up to a person, a pecking order is established with each interaction, and in this case the FBI is taken down a peg or two by a mere drone from the NYPD. To be fair, maybe it wasn’t the whole Bureau that had received the brunt of the disrespect, just this one road-worn and burnt-out representative.

  The fact that such people and their passive-aggressive infighting were a big part of his professional life bothered him less than it used to. After thirty-one years of beating his head against the wall in law enforcement, a man shouldn’t be surprised to find his brains bashed in and the wall still standing. But you can know a thing like that and go on acting like you don’t. His first wife had said it best, on her way out the door. It’s not other people, it
’s not your boss or your enemies or the kid at the supermarket. It’s you. You ask for it, Stuart, and all they do is give it to you.

  Thanks again, Sunshine, for all your support. You were the best of your breed; spouse number two didn’t even bother to leave a note.

  The little space where he’d been seated was broom-clean but musty, windowless and bare, roller-painted a dreary shade of leftover beige, its furniture decades old, stained and mismatched. The scarred wooden desk might well have dated from the days when Herman Melville had written of this jail before the Civil War. Whatever range of guest accommodations might exist in the huge expanse of the Manhattan Detention Complex, this waiting room must have rated somewhere near the bottom of the scale.

  A picture frame stood on the desk, still displaying the yellowing promotional family photo inserted at the factory. Overlaid on that warm, staged scene of rural togetherness was the dim reflection of an unexpectedly older man, jowly and gray, looking back at him from the surface of the glass. The years do go by.

  The sergeant from the triage desk knocked and entered, then passed him his carbonless copy of the necessary forms, all signed and authorized. “They’re getting your man now,” he said. “Be out in a minute.”

  “Fine.”

  “You should have told me,” the sergeant added, suddenly a great deal more civil than he’d been before.

  Stuart Kearns straightened his glasses but didn’t look up from the papers in his hands.

  “Either that,” he said, “or you should have asked.”

  The sergeant correctly sensed he’d been dismissed, and left the room.

  The man’s sudden snap to attention was no doubt due to the source of Kearns’s assignment, which, to be honest, would have become evident only after a look through the sealed paperwork he’d provided. A desk cop with a bad attitude might get a chuckle out of sending the average federal agent to cool his heels for half a morning just because he can, but when the orders come down from the D.C. headquarters of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, well, nobody at that low level wants to be fingered as a bottleneck in the War on Terror.