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whatever the hell that means. Exactly how could any of those four agents guarding the President that morning have compromised his security?”
    “Good question, Emma, and I don’t know. They certainly protected him when the shooting started, and the dates and location of the trip were hardly state secrets. And if the FBI had found some major hole in the Service’s security procedures, that would have been all over the news by now. So far no one is blaming the Secret Service for misconduct, dereliction of duty, or anything else. Not yet, anyway.”
    “Well,” Emma said, gathering up her purse, “this is all very interesting, Joe, but as I said earlier, I have a lovely friend waiting for me. Is there anything else you wanted?”
    “Yeah. How ’bout asking your buddies to do a records check on Mattis? See if he knew Harold Edwards. Check out his finances, his history, that sorta thing.”
    “He’s a Secret Service agent, sweetie. I doubt the databases will be revealing.”
    “We gotta look.”
    “We?”
    DeMarco shook his head in despair. “Why in the hell would Mahoney want me fooling around with something like this, Emma? I mean, Jesus. If he wants to cause Donnelly a problem all he has to do is leak this shit to the Post .”
    “Honey, I think the Speaker is playing a zillion-to-one long shot. I don’t think he believes there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Mattis or anyone else in the Secret Service was involved in the assassination attempt. But he hopes they were. And if they were, he can destroy Patrick Donnelly—not just annoy him with some unflattering press.”
    “That damn Mahoney,” DeMarco said.
    “Come on, Joe, quit whinin’ and let’s get crackin’. You have to take me someplace where they sell fresh strawberries.”

7
    DeMarco passed under the Capitol’s Grand Rotunda without an upward glance. To reach the stairway leading to his office he had to excuse his way through a cluster of tourists, their sunburned necks straining skyward as they gazed reverently at the painted ceiling above them. The tourists irritated him. He was in a bad mood already because of this nonsense with Banks, but it bugged him, every day when he went to work, these rubberneckers in their baggy shorts blocking the way.
    He descended two flights of stairs. Marble floors changed to linoleum. Art on the ceiling was replaced by water stains on acoustic tile. The working folk dwelled on DeMarco’s floor. Here clattered the machines of the congressional printing office and directly across from his office was the emergency diesel generator room. The diesels would periodically roar to life when they tested them, scaring the bejesus out of DeMarco every time they did. And just down the hall from him were shops occupied by the Capitol’s maintenance personnel. Considering what DeMarco did some days, being located near the janitors seemed appropriate.
    The faded gilt lettering on the frosted glass of DeMarco’s office door read COUNSEL PRO TEM FOR LIAISON AFFAIRS, J. DEMARCO. The title was Mahoney’s invention and completely meaningless. DeMarco entered his office, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and checked the thermostat to make sure it was set on low. Adjusting the thermostat was something he did from force of habit, for his psychological well-being; he knew from experience that twisting the little knurled knob had absolutely no effect on the temperature in the room. He could call his neighbors, the janitors, to complain but knew he would rank low on their priority list. Who was he kidding? A guy with an office in the subbasement didn’t make the list.
    In his office squatted an ancient wooden desk from the Carter era and two mismatched chairs, one behind his desk and one in front of it for his rare visitor. A metal file cabinet stood against one wall, the cabinet empty except for phone books and an emergency bottle of Hennessy. DeMarco didn’t believe in keeping written, subpoenable records. On his desk was