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By Root 573 0

but I figured maybe somebody from your embassy was supposed to be there tonight but didn’t show up and… Huh? A man, middle-aged, nicely dressed, wore a tie with little Canadian flags on it and… Huh? No? I just thought I’d give it a try. No, I don’t know his name. Yeah, thanks.” He tried to reach a contact in the coroner’s office in the hope of getting an ID on the deceased but was told he was away on vacation. He silently cursed Languth for not at least giving him a name, then filed the story, what little there was of it, and went to his condo in Rosslyn, where Jumper greeted him as though he were a raging success. He called Roseann at her apartment on Capitol Hill. Most nights, Potamos and the dog stayed there. But Potamos had kept the condo in Rosslyn as a gesture of independence, and as a refuge, especially when anger and frustration got the better of him, and Roseann, knowing how volatile he could be, never urged him to give it up. Smart girl, Ms. Blackburn. When he got in these moods, which she called his “vapors,” he wasn’t fit company for anyone, except the dog. It was the other times that had attracted Roseann to him, times when he could be tender and loving and funny and…

This was definitely a night full of vapors.

“I tried you earlier,” she said.

“Everybody was trying tonight, it’s a trying night out there,” he said. “I was on a story. A homicide.”

“Where?”

“That park in front of the Lombardy Hotel. How was your gig?”

“All right.” She worked Washington’s upscale rooms and private parties, with an occasional real gig when one came up. Jazz was her love; playing show tunes on the piano at fancy affairs was her income. “You okay, Joe?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t.

“No, I’m not okay, Roseann. Instead of covering a murder, I’d rather commit one. Pete Languth was there.”

“Your dear friend from law enforcement?”

“My fat cop friend.”

“You don’t want to kill a cop, Joe.”

“How about Bowen? Anybody knows him’d give me a medal.”

“You shouldn’t say such things on the phone. It might be tapped. This is Washington.”

“I hope it is. Tapped, I mean. Hey, anybody listening, I would like to kill George Alfred Bowen. Slowly.” He sighed, said to her, “Ah, you’ve heard all this before. Potamos, the original broken record. Oops, CD. Showing my age. Sorry I didn’t call before I went out. See you tomorrow?”

“If Jumper lets you.” She often said he liked the dog better than he liked her, which he had to admit was occasionally true; not just better than her, of course, better than the whole human world at large.

“I’ll talk to her about it. Look, Roseann, sorry that I’m down. Sometimes—well, sometimes it seems to pile up, you know? I’ll get over it, always do, huh?” He laughed. Roseann smiled on the other end of the phone, seeing his face, the crooked grin, healthy white teeth made whiter against his dusky complexion, knowing he was feeling sorry for himself and that he disliked people who felt sorry for themselves, and feeling a little foolish for whining and wishing he hadn’t.

“Joe, I understand. I really do. And excuse the comment about Jumper. Just kidding.”

“Yeah, I know you were. I’d come over but it’s late and—”

“Get a good night’s sleep, Joe. I love you.”

“And I’m glad you do. Good night, Roseann. See you tomorrow.”

Roseann hung up, sat back on the couch, and absently played with an errant strand of her lustrous hair. Her feelings at the moment were ambivalent; Joe was good at creating mixed emotions.

On the one hand, she’d settled into the reality that being in love with the changeable—that’s an understatement— reporter came with some baggage, his, and hers, too, of course. They’d met when Joe was a hotshot general assignment reporter for the Post, covering the murder in Georgetown of Valerie Frolich, the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator. It hadn’t been love at first sight. He was handsome enough to turn her head, but his quirky personality was readily apparent on their first date; he was skeptical of everything, bordering on cynical, opinionated, talkative in spurts, silent for long periods. Not an easy person.