فصل 71

Chapter 71

MORNING, AND the armored concrete cage of the Hoover Building brooding under a milky overcast.

In this era of the car bomb, the front entrance and the courtyard are closed most days, and the building is ringed by old Bureau automobiles as an improvised crash barrier.

The D.C. police follow a mindless policy, writing tickets on some of the barrier cars day after day, the sheaf building up under the wipers and tearing off in the wind to blow down the street.

A derelict warming himself over a grate in the sidewalk called to Starling and raised his hand as she passed. One side of his face was orange from some emergency room’s Betadine. He held out a Styrofoam cup, worn down at the edges.

Starling fished in her purse for a dollar, gave him two, leaning in to the warm stale air and the steam.

“Bless your heart,” he said.

“I need it,” said Starling. “Every little bit helps.”

Starling got a large coffee at Au Bon Pain on the Tenth Street side of the Hoover Building as she had done so many times over the years. She wanted the coffee after a ragged sleep, but she didn’t want to need to pee during the hearing. She decided to drink half of it.

She spotted Crawford through the window and caught up with him on the sidewalk. “You want to split this big coffee, Mr. Crawford? They’ll give me another cup.”

“Is it decaf?”

“No.”

“I better not, I’ll jump out of my skin.”

He looked peaked and old. A clear drop hung at the end of his nose. They stood out of the foot traffic streaming toward the side entrance of the FBI headquarters.

“I don’t know what this meeting is, Starling. Nobody else from the Feliciana shoot-out has been called, that I can find out. I’ll be with you.”

Starling passed him a Kleenex and they entered the steady stream of the arriving day shift.

Starling thought the clerical personnel looked unusually spiffy.

“Ninetieth anniversary of the FBI. Bush is coming to speak today,” Crawford reminded her.

There were four TV satellite uplink trucks on the side street.

A camera crew from WFUL-TV was set up on the sidewalk filming a young man with a razor haircut talking into a hand microphone. A production assistant stationed on top of the van saw Starling and Crawford coming in the crowd.

“That’s her, that’s her in the navy raincoat,” he called down.

“Here we go,” said Razor Cut. “Rolling.”

The crew made a swell in the stream of people to get the camera in Starling’s face.

“Special Agent Starling, can you comment on the investigation of the Feliciana Fish Market Massacre? Has the report been submitted? Are you the subject of charges in killing the five-“

Crawford took off his rain hat and, pretending to shield his eyes from the lights, managed to block the camera lens for a moment. Only the security door stopped the TV crew.

Sumbitches were tipped.

Once inside Security, they stopped in the hall. The mist outside had covered Starling and Crawford with tiny droplets. Crawford popped a Ginkgo Biloba tablet dry.

“Starling, I think they may have picked today because there’s all the stir over the impeachment and the anniversary. Whatever they want to do could slide by in the rush.”

“Why tip the press then?”

“Because not everybody in this hearing is singing off the same page. You’ve got ten minutes, want to powder your nose?”