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profession was giving convincing speeches. Maybe he had even given this one before, like Flores with his hoe routine. Maybe it was even true. In any case, it was at least possible that Dobbs was prepared to support a serious investigation. Karp found himself liking the man, despite what Crane had said about Washington and dogs. Karp was himself a connoisseur of fine speeches, and lies, and his instinct told him that Dobbs at least believed what he was saying. Also, the contrast between the patronizing, overbearing Flores and the frankness of Dobbs, a man only two or three years Karp’s senior, was gratifying. A congressman, after all.
    The food came and they began eating and resumed talking, the subject having been changed by unspoken agreement to fields less fraught with passion and consequence.
    Karp walked back down the Hill to the office on Fourth Street. When he entered, Bea Sondergard was sitting on the floor amid a chaos of file boxes, moving papers among file folders of various colors. She looked up at him over the rims of her spectacles.
    “How was lunch? I heard you dined with Congress.”
    “I had the chicken,” said Karp.
    “That’s the first step. Chicken, then sirloin, then bribes and fancy girls. He’s in his office. Oh, and I had some furniture moved into your place. I took the liberty of deciding on a color scheme.”
    “Gosh, I had my heart set on something in rusting gray metal.”
    She flashed teeth. “Then you’ll be pleased.”
    Bert Crane was on the phone when Karp walked in. The office had been tidied some and Crane now sat in a high leather chair behind a handsome new mahogany desk. And the phones obviously worked. Karp sat down on a new-smelling black leather couch, and waited.
    When Crane got off the phone and turned to him, Karp observed, “You guys work fast.”
    “Yeah, it’s great, if we stay out of jail. Bea sometimes cuts the corners in procurement. I think she paid for all this stuff with an account that’s not quite authorized yet. How was your lunch?”
    “I had the chicken. How was yours?”
    “As I said, I ate with the press. We just went out on the veldt and they found a dead zebra. But, really—how did you make out with Dobbs?”
    “Pretty good, I think. He seems like a straight shooter.”
    “I agree. For a politician, anyway. What did you talk about?”
    “He filled me in on Flores, similar to what you said. And we exchanged boyish confidences. He told me a story about why he’s serious about doing the Kennedy investigation right.”
    “The one about JFK and his dad?”
    “Just hinted at it. I gathered they were political allies of the Kennedys in some way.”
    “More than that. Richard Dobbs was with Kennedy in the Pacific during the war. He was some kind of operations or intelligence officer with Kennedy’s PT boat squadron. They’d been at Harvard together, although Dobbs was a little older, and I think they were pretty close. He finished the war as a lieutenant commander and then went right into the Navy Department. When the shit hit the fan in the fifties, JFK was the only politician of any stature who stood by him. An unusual profile in courage for Kennedy, I might add. He was not prone to gestures that might have hurt him politically, and defending Richard Ewing Dobbs was sure as hell in that class.”
    “Well, none of that got mentioned. He also talked about how bad it was for the country, the doubts about Warren and all. He sounded sincere.”
    “No doubt. Sounding sincere is in his job description.”
    “Is being cynical in mine?”
    Crane laughed enthusiastically. “Yes it is, the sine qua non, in fact. But seriously, Dobbs is solid on this investigation, and on most other things too. I didn’t mean to denigrate the man. If things get sticky, and they will, I think we can count on him. All you have to remember with Dobbs is, his daddy didn’t do it.”

FOUR
    “I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Karp to the ceiling. He was in his office