Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [30]
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant. Steak. I’m in the mood.”
“Morton’s?”
“I’m beginning to like you—Max.”
That was eight months ago. There had been plenty of dinners, and an occasional weekend away in the country when she wasn’t chasing the elusive prize bird with her friends, whom Max considered flaky but nice enough. He’d declined invitations to join the club. His bird was his Cessna 172, which he flew most weekends, even enticing Jessica to go up with him a few times.
“Your pleasure?” he asked after they’d gone through the motions of examining Primi Piatti’s menu.
“Red snapper,” she told the waiter, “grilled thoroughly.”
“Ossobuco,” Pauling said.
“So, where are you going?” she asked after they’d chosen a wine.
“Moscow.”
Her naturally arched eyebrows went up even higher. “The planes today?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Why am I going to Moscow? Colonel Barton told me to.”
“Because the missiles were probably Russian.”
He smiled. “You have sources.”
“Of course. Barton told my boss.”
“Loose lips sink ships.”
“Ashmead is speaking tonight.”
“I know. He had a meeting at six. The secretary was going to it.”
“What will you do in Moscow, Max?”
“Try to find out who handed over the missiles and in whose hands they ended up, provided they really were Russian. Actually, Barton told me to just be there in case I’m needed.”
She fell silent.
“Hear anything from your ex?” Pauling asked as their salad dishes were cleared.
“Skip? Scope?”
“ ‘Scope’?”
“That’s a code name Skip used years ago when he was working undercover.” She laughed gently. “Better than ‘Meathead,’ which I sometimes called him. Have I heard from him lately? No. He’s probably in disguise, working underground somewhere.” Her former husband, Donald, or “Skip,” Traxler, was an FBI special agent who’d spent most of his career with the Bureau working in a special covert operations unit.
Pauling laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Something you said shortly after we met. You said the problem with the marriage was that Skip worked under too many of the wrong covers.”
“Did I say that? It’s true. Of course, there was more to it than uncovering other women. His machoness—is there such a word? There should be—I wasn’t a willing contributor to his machoness.”
“You were too strong a woman.”
“I was not a subservient woman.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Besides, we weren’t cut from the James Carville–Mary Matalin mold. Skip’s a raving right-wing conservative. Maybe you’ve also noticed I’m more of a knee-jerk-liberal model.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m surprised the marriage lasted as long as it did, almost two years. Out of that time we were together, maybe, two months. It could have ended on our wedding night. When are you leaving?”
“A few days, but I’ll be out of town before I head for Moscow.”
“Oh? Where?”
His answer was to ignore the question, no surprise to Jessica. It was always that way with the men in her life—mysterious trips, questions ignored, living in the shadows.
“How’s your ex-spouse?” she asked.
“Fine. The boys are getting older, almost young men now. Doris is dating a nice accountant. Coffee? Dessert?”
“There’s no accounting for taste. Probably a good idea. Let’s go back and have a going-away party for you, but not too late. I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a busy one.”
“I’ll set my wrist alarm.”
“Have I bruised your machoness?”
“Bruise me anywhere you want, Ms. Mumford.”
Later that night, after he’d left her apartment, she lay awake in bed for a long time smelling him, feeling the cool dampness of the sheets where their sweat had pooled, enjoying the slight soreness between her thighs.
But her thoughts weren’t unmixed.
She’d fallen in love with Skip Traxler, the handsome, young FBI special agent who lived his penumbral life on the edge, always in the shadows, always away on some assignment he couldn’t discuss with her, and probably wouldn’t have even if he could. She never knew who would walk through the door when he returned from an undercover assignment: the idealistic special agent, or “one of them,” a man acting and thinking