Murder in Georgetown

by Margaret Truman

  “He’s terrific, tip-top. And don’t say anything bad about my buddy. We’re like family, blood brothers.”

  “Oh, of course, I forgot. He’ll be best man at your next wedding. Speaking of that, Joseph, how goes it on the romantic front?”

  “Good. I’m in love.”

  “Anyone I know? A reporter?”

  “A plumber.”

  “A… ah, always the sense of humor. Well, I wish you and your bride every happiness.”

  “Thanks. You’ll be invited.”

  “I’ll send a photographer.” Goldson turned serious. “What’s new with the Frolich story, Joe?”

  “You stop reading?”

  “If the only thing new is in the house that Graham built, there’s nothing new.”

  “You got it, Marv. I’m off it.”

  “So I heard. George Alfred did it again to you, huh?”

  “Where the hell did you hear that?”

  “Right here, at the communications center. Sorry. What did you do this time, hide his favorite bow tie?”

  “Nothing that serious.” Potamos told him a little bit about the confrontation with Bowen.

  When he was through, Goldson ordered another beer, turned to Potamos, and said in hushed tones, “Joe, when the Eye comes out next week, the Post will consider getting into another business, like hot dogs or tourist souvenirs.”

  “Why?”

  Goldson was even more conspiratorial now. He glanced around the room, leaned closer, and said, “I was given a story yesterday by a student from Georgetown U. that’ll knock the socks off the Ben Bradlees and Katharine Grahams of this town.”

  “Yeah? What’s it about?” The minute Potamos asked it, he had the sinking, nauseous feeling that he knew the answer. Before he had a chance to confirm it, Goldson did it for him by saying, “The only reason I’m telling you, Joe, is that this kid says he knows you, has been working with you.”

  “Tony.”

  “That’s right,” Goldson said. “Tony Fiamma. At first I wondered about the kid, with all his tough-guy talk, but when he showed me what he had, I damn near fell over. He’s for real.”

  “Yeah?” His brain was filled with a Greek chorus of “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” that reverberated off every bone, every cell. Fiamma hadn’t given him the complete diary at breakfast at the Florida Avenue Grill, just a few more selected pages. Potamos had gotten angry at the table but decided to play along. Fiamma had told him that he still wanted proof that Potamos intended to ring him in on any by-lines, and Potamos promised him that was in the works. When he again asked for the rest of the diary, Fiamma had said, “Hey, man, this is a one-way street. Let’s make it two-way. I’ve got other things I can do with this thing.”

  Other things! The Georgetown Eye. Dummy!

  Potamos motioned for Jose to refill his glass and to buy Goldson a beer. When he’d managed to shake off his initial shock, he asked, “What’s the story about, Marv?”

  “Scandal, Joseph, my boy, big scandal in Scandaltown.”

  “Scandal? The Frolich case?”

  “No, but it does involve that bastion of moral decency, that warrior standing tall against the Communist threat, the Honorable John Frolich.”

  “It’s… not about his daughter’s murder?”

  “I wish it were. No, forget that. From a purely investigative standpoint, this is bigger stuff, Joe—spies and foreign governments and James Bond space-age spooks and the rest.”

  “Marv,” Potamos said.

  “What?”

  “Where would a college journalism student come up with that kind of material?”

  Goldson laughed. “You should know, Joe. You taught him.”

  “I didn’t teach him anything.”

  “He says you did, along with your close friend George Alfred. Fiamma says you’ve been showing him the ropes of investigative journalism. In fact, Joe, he said you were working together on the Frolich murder.”

  “He did? He’s a dumb kid with a big mouth.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it, Joe. Come on, share with Uncle Marv. I shared with you. What have you got on it?”

  “Nothing. Bowen pulled me from the story, remember?”

  “Big deal. You have the book.”

  Potamos looked around the bar as though to say to everyone, “Is nothing private here?” He said to Goldson, “I’m not doing a book.”

  A slap on the back. “That’s what I love about you, Joe, your ingrained sense of modesty. A Greek trait? They brought you up good.”

  “Jesus.”

  “How about lunch? You buy and I’ll tell you more about next week’s blockbuster by your student.”

  “I got a better idea, Marv.”

  “Which is?”

  “You buy and tell me about next week’s blockbuster.”

  “Another Greek trait, bartering. Born traders.”

  “Big in diners, too. Come on, I’m hungry and panting to hear what my protégé, Mr. Anthony Fiamma, has come up with.”

  | Chapter Twenty |

  “I thought Monet was the father of Impressionism,” George Bowen said to Julia Amster as they stood before Edouard Manet’s controversial masterpiece Dejeuner sur l’Herbe, whose nude young woman among a group of well-clad men had caused a scandal in nineteenth-century France.

  “It depends on your interpretation,” Amster said, stepping back to gain a better perspective. “Spiritual leader, perhaps. That’s what the critics hung around his neck. Frankly, I think Manet was the father of the movement, although Pissarro, God knows, was the oldest and most outspoken. Or Degas. He dominated the round table at that café in the Grand Rue des Batignolles.”

  Bowen grunted and moved on to Monet’s vision of Le Havre: Impression—Sunset, from which the term impressionism derived. Amster joined him. “It’s lovely.”

  The French ambassador to the United States and his wife came to their side. “You like Monet, Mr. Bowen?” the ambassador asked.

  “Yes, very much,” Bowen replied. “Mrs. Ambassador,” he said, taking the French woman’s hand.

  They strolled together through more of the exhibition. They’d had cocktails among the soaring marble pillars of the gallery’s famed rotunda, and a selected number would move on to the newly completed French chancellery on Reservoir Road, where chefs were busy preparing a buffet of smoked French salmon, pâtés, quiches, lobster and crab in rich cream sauces, and multitiered displays of pastry that had arrived that afternoon from Paris on Air France.

  Bowen and Amster drifted in opposite directions. It wasn’t accidental; they’d driven to the National Gallery in Bowen’s new Mercedes, and along with the rich smell of leather, the car had contained a distinct odor of tension. It had started that afternoon when Amster called him at home from her gallery to confirm their plans for the evening. She knew the moment he came on the line that she’d called at an inopportune time. That was confirmed by a youthful female giggle in the background and by the defensiveness in Bowen’s voice. She’d hung up angrily.

  Later, when she mentioned the call on their way to the exhibition, he responded with characteristic arrogance and nastiness. They hadn’t said another word to each other until the paintings on the gallery walls prompted them.

  Amster chatted amiably with friends from the art world, but she couldn’t shake her feelings about what happened that afternoon. Usually such incidents didn’t matter—truly didn’t matter—to her. She was well aware of Bowen’s love life outside of their relationship, but because it seldom was played out overtly, it seemed far removed from what was important in her life. But then there were those moments, like today, when the reality of his making love with pretty young women slashed through her defenses, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of her stomach that often took days to heal. The giggle. Walking in unannounced another time to find him in bed with a waitress who’d served them the night before. Those were the times it hurt, like this night, the feelings covered by a scab of proper behavior but festering deep beneath the skin.<
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  She saw him across the room talking to a knot of people, one of whom was an attractive young woman with long red hair and a bright smile. She was flirting with Bowen, and he with her. Amster knew it as sure as if they’d hung signs on each other.

  “Julia.” Elsa Jenkins had come up beside her. “You look beautiful,” Jenkins said.

  “Thank you. You always do.”

  Jenkins didn’t argue. She said, “You’re going on to the embassy, I assume.”

  “Yes, we…” She saw Bowen crossing the room with the redhead. They paused to look at a painting, then disappeared behind a green marble column. “I’m not sure,” Amster said. “It’s been a busy week. I’m exhausted.”

  “Sorry,” said Jenkins. “I’ll be there. Marshall is in New York for the weekend on business. He’ll be back Sunday morning. We leave for Rome Sunday night.”

  “How nice.”

  “Just six days. Well, good to see you.”

  “Yes, Elsa, good to see you.”

  Amster went to an area in which smoking was permitted and lit a cigarette. It was quiet there. She needed quiet, thought of a song she’d heard on the radio that had the line “Turn up the quiet.” It suddenly occurred to her that if she didn’t act quickly, she would cry, and that would be intolerable. She snubbed out the cigarette in a sand-filled urn, drew a series of deep breaths, and returned to the exhibition. Bowen was now talking with TV newsman Peter Jennings. Bowen saw her, quickly said goodbye to Jennings, and came to her. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “I had a cigarette.”

  “Bad for your health.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Ready to go? I’m hungry.”

  “You’ve had a strenuous day. Are we leaving together?”

  He started to say something hard, smiled and said, “Can you ever remember a time when we didn’t?”

  He was right. With all his peccadilloes, he’d never failed to escort her home from an event or party they’d attended together. “I’m ready,” she said.

  The atmosphere at the French Embassy’s party was considerably more festive, and Amster’s hurt and anger were gradually replaced by good food and stimulating conversation with Washington’s upper echelons of the arts, politics, and business. The redhead arrived and Bowen greeted her casually, but later Amster saw her hand him a slip of paper, which he put in his pocket.

  They left the party at ten. “Coming in for a nightcap, George?” Amster asked as they pulled into her driveway.

  “I don’t think so, Julia.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Maybe just for a few minutes.”

  Bowen settled himself in a large first-floor study that contained as many pre-Columbian artifacts as Amster’s gallery. “Coffee?” she asked.

  “No, maybe a drink, brandy?”

  “Help yourself. I want to get comfortable.”

  Bowen poured his drink at a small bar in the study while Amster disappeared upstairs. He placed the glass on a white marble table next to a large blue leather wing chair, removed his jacket, and carefully placed it over a straight-backed chair behind a desk. He sat and ran his fingers over the blue leather arms, sighed, and sipped his brandy. Moments later Amster reappeared wearing a pale pink silk dressing gown loosely sashed. Bowen knew she was naked underneath it and a warm, tingling response traveled his body.

  “Make me something,” she said, sitting down in a matching chair and crossing her legs, a bare foot dangling free, the robe falling open.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes on her. “Brandy?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  He handed her the drink, leaned over, and kissed her copper hair that picked up light from a lamp, causing it to shimmer like the amber liquid in her glass. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  She looked into his eyes and held up her glass. “To mature beauty, George. To its advantages.”

  He smiled, took the glass from her hand and put it on a table, grasped her hands and said, “Come.”

  She said nothing, simply allowed him to pull her from the chair and lead her to her bedroom on the second floor, where he slowly disrobed, hanging each piece of clothing with great care on an oak valet she kept there for him. He joined her in bed and ran his knuckle over her cheek, her nose, down and around her chin. She was motionless as he continued stroking her, her body immobilized by two conflicting and offsetting emotions: the physical joy of his manipulations and an intense anger welling up in her again, more intense than earlier in the evening. Downstairs she’d wanted only the pleasure of making love. Now, fury threatened to override it, and she was powerless to will it away, to save it for later after the pleasure had been experienced.

  “What’s the matter?” he said into her ear.

  “Nothing, I…”

  “You wanted this.”

  “I… I’m not sure what I want—from you.”

  “Right now you are,” he said, laughing.

  She twisted from beneath him.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “I detest you.”

  He sat up and leaned against the headboard.

  “Can’t you understand how I feel?” she said, joining him there. She knew she’d lost control. There was no backing off. She’d desperately wanted to avoid confronting him with her feelings. It was so demeaning to have to admit he’d hurt her, hurt her again. It was what he wanted. He enjoyed it, the hold he had on her because of what she needed, and what he could provide because of his position and influence.

  “I assumed you felt an urge for sex,” he said.

  “I… I did, and I do, but sometimes you go too far. I’ve never minded it before. Oh, yes, of course I have, but I know I have no right to treat you as if you were mine.” She leaned over him and said in a voice that was on the verge of cracking, “But, George, tonight I—”

  He pushed her away and got up. “You’re sick, Julia. You need help.”

  “Please don’t say that. It isn’t sick to not want to share someone you love on the same day.”

  “Love? You haven’t the capacity for it, Julia.” He slipped into his shorts.

  She started to cry. “I do have that capacity, George.” The tears stopped and her voice suddenly became loud and strong. “You talk about being sick. You’re the sick one, George. You’re nasty and uncaring and cruel.”

  “Go to sleep, Julia. I think you’re drunk, too.”

  She got up and came to where he was putting on his pants. “Not too drunk to see you and the redhead. Going to the country this weekend with Marshall Jenkins? He’s in New York.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Yes it is. I put up with so much, but I’m human, George. You have no right to hurt me like this, like this afternoon, like you’ve done so many times.”

  He continued dressing, checking himself in a full-length mirror.

  “What is it, George, the need to prove your fragile, aging manhood?”

  He laughed.

  “You need so many, two a day, three? Was I the third today? Maybe the fourth. And always so young, mindless, vapid—”

  “And pretty, and firm,” he said.

  “You’re disgusting,” she said. “Even your students, for God’s sake, even Valerie Frolich.”

  The name stopped everything in the room. It had been poised on her tongue ever since the visit from Languth, waiting to be hurled at him at a time like this.

  “Do you realize what you’ve just said?” he snarled, leaning toward her so that his face was inches from hers.

  It was something else she wished she hadn’t succumbed to. It… everything should have been left unsaid, as it was most times. But it hadn’t been. It was now there, in the room, surrounding them like a physical presence.

  “I said you slept with Valerie Frolich, your student and your best friend’s daughter.”

  “You are—”

  “Was she young and firm and dumb like the others? Did she giggle a lot and make you feel young?”

>   There were tremors in his body and he’d raised his right hand as though to strike her. She looked at his hand defiantly, then at him, and said in a level voice, “Did you hit her, too, George, because she laughed at an old fool?”

  His hand turned into a fist, poised close to her face, his breath coming hard. Then he lowered it, and the rigidity in his body seemed to melt away. He smiled, said, “Yes, Julia, she was young and firm and she giggled a lot. She was good in bed, Julia. She pleased me very much.”

  Nothing he might have said could have taken her so offguard. She reached for words, found none.

  “Take the weekend and go away,” he said. “You’re very tense. You’ll have a breakdown if you don’t get away. Please don’t bother coming downstairs. I’ve been through this door before.”

  He was gone. Watching through the curtains, she saw him get into his car, start the engine, back slowly and carefully into the street, and drive away.

  She stood there for a very long time before going downstairs and drinking her brandy. Then she filled the snifter again, and once more, until the effects of alcohol and fatigue sent her into a deep and troubled sleep on the couch.

  | Chapter Twenty-one |

  “You’ve still got the best freckles in the business,” Potamos said to his first wife, Patty, as they stood in the foyer of her home. Their two children had spent the day cruising around the area with their father, stopping to eat, then a matinee at the local movie theater, more to eat, the final stop before returning home an ice cream parlor where they all feasted on multiscoop sundaes.

  “They miss you, Joe,” she said.

  “Yeah, I miss them.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “You should’a married again.”

  She laughed. “You did and look what happened.”

  “Come on, Patty, she turned out to be an aberration.”

  She giggled. “Don’t tell that to the lesbian organization.” She stopped smiling. “Joe, can I ask you a serious, personal question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you happy?”

  He smacked his lips and looked at the ceiling. “A state of mind.”