Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [104]
Potamos said nothing.
“There’ll probably be a book, too, Joe, with a big advance,” Gardello said. “Do a tour, talk shows, book signings.”
Potamos saw that Roseann was standing in the bedroom doorway, a quizzical look on her face.
“And,” Gardello said, his voice emphasizing that what he was about to say next was especially important, “George Alfred Bowen is already grousing about you having this story. Follow up on it with me and you’ll hurt him a lot worse than a punch in the nose.”
“Do it, Joe,” Roseann said.
“Yeah, I’ll do it.” To Gardello he said, “But I do it my way, on my schedule.”
“Of course, Joe. That’s the way it’ll be.”
“Great.” He turned to the bedroom. “Hey, Rosie, you’re goin’ to miss me on Larry King.”
“Program the VCR.”
Potamos looked at Gardello and grinned. “ ‘Program the VCR.’ You know how to do that?”
“No, you?”
“No.”
“You can get a tape from the show,” Roseann said, emerging from the bedroom dressed in a black cocktail dress and carrying a small carry-on bag. “How do I look?”
“Sensational,” Gardello said, meaning it.
Potamos explained where she was going and turned on the TV set. His interview with CNN was being replayed. Potamos turned in his director’s chair and asked, “Do you think I should wear a blue shirt tonight, maybe get a haircut, a trim, before the King show?”
Her answer was to lean over the back of the chair, hug him, and say, “You look perfect the way you are, my handsome Greek.” She straightened up. “Have to run. I’ll be back by midnight. Nice to see you again, Gil.”
“Same here. Play good.”
“I’ll try.”
And she was gone.
Chapter 39
That Same Day
Washington, DC
“Max?” Jessica Mumford said into the intercom in response to someone buzzing from the lobby.
“Max?” the male voice said. “No. It’s Skip.”
Hearing his name and voice startled her. She managed, “What are you doing here?”
A laugh preceded his response. “I’m here to see you. Anything sinister about that?”
“No, of course not. I—”
“Hey, Jess, I may be your former husband but that doesn’t mean I can’t stop by to say hello to my ex-wife.”
“Do you want to come up?”
“Unless you want to come down to the lobby.”
She pushed a button releasing the downstairs inner door to the elevators. A minute later he knocked and she was face-to-face with him.
“Well, well,” he said, “you’re more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”
“Really?” She didn’t return the compliment. The man standing in the hallway was not the man she remembered from when they’d conducted their whirlwind courtship and ran off to cement their folly. Dissipation ruled his once boyish face. His hair had begun to recede and had become curly, corkscrews growing haphazardly on top, shaggy and untended at his temples and over the back of his neck. He wore a lightweight yellow-and-brown plaid shirt, khaki pants in need of pressing, brown hiking boots, and a lightweight gray windbreaker.
He walked past her into the living room and took it in. “Very nice, Jess. Looks like you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it reflects you, the furnishings, the decorations, everything in its place. Perfect order, like birds in flight.”
He went to a wall covered with framed eight-by-ten color photographs. “Ah hah,” he said, “still tracking down our little feathered friends.”
“Yes. The Bureau is trying to locate you. A Special Agent Wingate called.”
“The Elephant Man.”
“The—?”
“He has unusually big ears.”
“Oh.”
“Serving drinks, or should we go to a bar?”
“What would you like?”
“Still partial to bone-dry martinis, straight up?”
“Would you like a beer?”
“Sure, anything but a light,” he said, sitting on the couch.
She went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator, where a lonely bottle