Distraction

Nakamura winced.

Oscar bored in. “But that’s not my decision. And it’s certainly not my responsibility. If my report today gets leaked, and something breaks loose, I don’t want any spin from this committee suggesting that I myself have some kind of personal agenda. Or that Senator Bambakias has any untoward intentions in this matter. I’ve made a good-faith, objective effort here. I consider it my job to layout the facts for the committee. But if something breaks loose, I don’t want to be hung out to dry.”

Oscar raised one forestalling hand, palm out. “Not that I’m sug-gesting any malice on the part of my fellow staffers! I’m just remarking on an obvious organizational truism — that it’s always easiest to hang the new boy.”

“Yes, it is,” Nakamura told him. “You’ve read the situation very well. But in point of fact, you’re not the only new boy on this com-mittee.”

“No?”

“No. There are three new Senators on the Science Committee, and they’ve all brought in krewepeople. And the two other new boys have yet to show up physically for one single goddamn conferral. They’re logging in from the penthouse decks in Arlington, where they’re busy kissing ass.”

Oscar frowned. “That is not professional behavior.”

“They’re not professionals. You can’t depend on them. You can depend on me, and you can depend on Mulnier. Well, Mulnier’s not the man he was ten years ago — but if you’re straight with me, and if you mean well, and if you’re giving a hundred percent for this com-mittee, well, you’re covered. You are covered, and you have my word on that.”

“That’s all I ask.” Oscar half stepped back. “I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.”

Nakamura glanced at his watch. “And before we get started today — I want you to know, Oscar, your personal background problem is not at issue here. As long as I’m chairing this committee, I will not have that matter brought up.”

The Bambakias town house was on New Jersey Avenue, just south of Capitol Hill. Oscar arrived just as a media krewe was leaving. New Jersey Avenue was a very well monitored area. Civil disturbances were rare in this neighborhood, and its urban infrastructure was still sound. The house itself was a historic structure, well over two hundred years old. The house was too small for the Bambakias couple and their extensive krewe, but Lorena Bambakias was an interior designer in a crowded world. She had set herself to make allowances.

As a campaign professional, Oscar made it a firm principle never to cross the person who slept with the candidate. The candidate’s spouse was by necessity a major campaign player. Lorena was a player to the bone, but she was manageable, usually. She was manageable as long as her advice was always heeded with unfeigned attention and a straight face, and as long as she knew that she held big cards. Anyone who knew about Oscar’s personal background problem always as-sumed that they possessed a killer trump against him. This was all right. He had never placed Lorena in any situation where she would feel the need to play killer trumps.

The hunger strike had made Lorena’s eyes luminous, and her olive skin was so tight and smooth that it seemed almost laminated. Lorena was not an aristocrat — she was, in point of fact, the daughter of a Cambridge health-food chain-store executive — but the gauntness, and the expert video makeup, gave her the heightened, otherworldly glow of a Gainsborough portrait.

Weak with fasting, she was lounging on a scroll-armed couch of yellow silk.

“It’s good of you to take the time to visit me, Oscar,” Lorena told him, stirring languidly. “We rarely have the chance to really talk, you and I.”

“This place looks marvelous,” Oscar told her. “I can’t wait to see it when you’re done.”

“Oh, it’s just my work,” Lorena told him. “I wish I could say that this was exciting — but it’s just another damn design gig. I really miss the campaign.”

“Do you? That’s sweet of you.”

“It was so exciting to be with the people. At least we ate well then. Now… well, now, we plan to entertain. We’ll be the Sena-tor and Madam Senator, and we’ll be living in this sorry dump for six long years, and we plan to cut a swath through high society.” She gazed about her drawing room, gazing at her newly peach-colored walls with the pensive look of an auto mechanic. “My own tastes run toward Transcendental Contemporary, but I’m doing this place en-tirely in Federal Period. A lot of Hepplewhite… black wal-nut… secretary bookcases, and shield back side chairs… There was some good material in that period, if you stay away from all that tacky neoclassical.”

“Very good choice.”

“I need a feeling here that’s responsible, and yet fully responsive. Very restrained, very American Republic, but nothing kitschy or co-lonial. Very Boston, you see? — but not too Boston. Not all identity politics, not all Paul Revere. With an ensemble like this, something has to give. You have to make sacrifices. You can’t have everything at once. Elegance is restraint.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m going to have to give up my binturong.”

“Oh no,” Oscar said, “not Stickley the binturong.”

“I know you took a lot of trouble to obtain Stickley for me, and he really is a lovely conversation piece. But I just don’t have room to showcase a rare animal here in Washington. An openwork terrarium, that would have been lovely, and I had such nice ideas for the schema. But an animal clone just clashes. He does. He’s not in period. He’s a distraction.”

“Well, that’s doable,” Oscar said judiciously. “I don’t think anyone has ever returned an animal to the Collaboratory. That would be a nice gesture.”

“I might do a small clone. A bat, or a mole, or such… Not that I don’t enjoy Stickley. He’s very well behaved. But you know? There’s something weird about him.”

“It’s that neural implant they give them at the Collaboratory,” Oscar said. “It’s all about aggression, eating, and defecation. If you control those three behaviors, you can live in peace with wild animals. Luckily, that deep neural structure is very similar across a wide range of mammals.”

“Including humans, I imagine.”

“Well, of course.” Oscar’s phone rang. He politely turned it off without answering it.

“The neural control of eating certainly has advanced a lot,” Lorena said. “I’m on appetite controllants right now. They’re very neural. ”

“Neural is a hot technology now.”

“Yes. Neural sounds very attractive.”

She was telling him that she knew about Greta. Well, of course Lorena would know about Greta. Except that Lorena had also known all about Clare. Because Clare had given Lorena Bambakias some very nice press coverage. So Lorena was rather in Clare’s corner. But surely Lorena must see sense there. After all, Clare had left him…

Lorena’s own phone rang. She answered it at once. “Yes? What? Oh dear. Oh dear. And how is Alcott taking the news? Oh, poor dear. Oh, this is very sad. You’re quite sure? Really? All right. Thank you very much.” Lorena paused. “Would you like to talk to Oscar Valpa-raiso about this? He happens to be here for tea. No? Very well, then.” She hung up.

“That was Leon Sosik, our chief of staff,” she a

“Oh?”

“It’s the air base. A fire has broken out. There’s some kind of toxic spill there. They’re having the whole base evacuated.”

Oscar sat up in his lyre-backed mahogany chair. “ ‘Evacuated,’ is that the story?”

“The federal troops are leaving. They’re ru