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time Vicky Chickering resnuggled into her seat, she squeezed
     me another few centimeters toward Justine, whose stuporously sweet perfume should have been buried in a canister in Nevada.
     After Schnitzler bit the dust, we were treated to idolatrous speeches about animals. Paula pinned a medal on the oldest actor’s
     lapels. Everyone applauded. Then the Marvels left.
    The lights came up. Vicky stood, breathless; she had been clapping herself silly for the last twenty minutes. “What a treat!”
     she preached, scribbling one last note to herself on the little pad hanging from her neck. We began shuffling toward the aisle.
     “You were so lucky to get a ticket!”
    Fishing? I’d nibble her line. “Someone sent it to my hotel.”
    “Is that so! And you just came here out of …
curiosity?
”
    I winked. “Wasn’t you, was it?”
    She stiffened. “You live dangerously.”
    Get off the soapbox, sister. I concentrated on Justine’s plummy rear end, wanting to get out of that theater, out of Washington,
     out of America. I wanted to be back in my studio in Berlin, playing Beethoven to my plants, slithering unnoticed into the
     night. I didn’t like Bobby Marvel and now he was part of the job. So was Chickering. So was this gremlin in front of me. God!
     What had Barnard been doing with them?
    Engulfed in bodies, I shuffled up the aisle. Then a tap on my shoulder: I faced an egg-shaped man in a flax suit. His fluorescent
     tie clashed nicely with the “Save the Ocelots” badge. Slicked-back gray-blond hair, around fifty with the round eyes of either
     a naïf or a hopeless degenerate. Smelled of heavy money. “Leslie Frost?” he asked with that annoying local familiarity. “What
     a pleasure. My name is Fausto Kiss. Your recording of the Sibelius concerto is the greatest.”
    I had never even listened to it: the performance had cost me two lovers. “Thank you.”
    “So sorry I missed you last night but I was out of town. Never mind. I detest concerts in the East Room.” The man confronted
     Chickering. “How’s that three-ring circus at the White House, dear?”
    For him, she smiled. “Getting by, Fausto.”
    Half hummingbird, half blimp, he whirred back to me. “How long will you be in Washington?”
    “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
    “Could you join me for a drink tonight?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “Breakfast then?” When I laughed in his face, Kiss tucked a business card into my hand. “Call any time. For any reason. I’m
     at your service.” With lubricious delicacy, his mouth brushed my fingertips. “Do take care of these.”
    Chickering’s indulgence evaporated as Fausto’s enormous yellow suit melded into the crowd at the rear of the theater. “Maybe
     he sent your ticket,” she snorted. “Fausto loves to play practical jokes.”
    I eventually reached the sidewalk. Halos of humidity sanctified the street lamps. Now that the Marvels had taken off, bums
     and taxis had been allowed back to work the throng on Tenth Street. I wanted to walk far and fast away from there, neutralize
     the acid burping through my system like a tank of bad gas. I needed a Harley, a cold shower. Too many people had seen me and
     I, dully relying on providence, had seen nothing in turn. I had made a huge mistake coming here unprepared to play poker with
     my life—and win. Now, out in the night, my feeble antennae sensed crosshairs on my back. I hunted in my purse, dropped coins
     onto a beggar’s blanket as my eyes flitted over the crowd. Took only a moment to find the shadow across the street. She stood
     in front of the house where Lincoln had died. A column of dark flesh amid a sea of legs, heads, hands: Maxine.
    We drifted to F Street. I waited on the corner as she crossed to my curb and without a sideward glance, continued toward Union
     Station. I gave her half a block then began to follow her past ever tawdrier storefronts and raunchier women. The Queen was
     dressed like a tart and her epidermis matched