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Spain running guns for the anti-Franco guerillas, and Walls had wanted to believe this noble, dramatic version of his family history, though he wasn’t sure if he should.) Those had seemed happy days to Walls, who must have been about seven years old—his father home at last, and not at risk of being sent off to Europe or the Pacific, on account of the limp, returning to Greenwich every night for dinner on the 6:15. Now he knew it hadn’t been a happy time. His father had hated sitting at a desk, and had used it mainly as a surface upon which to fuck his secretary (this according to Walls’s mother who, it must be said, possessed a vivid imagination). That went on for some months until Walls’s father absconded with what remained of his wife’s trust fund, squandered it magnificently on a month-long spree in Atlantic City, and returned mainly to demand a swift divorce. He no longerimbibed grain alcohol, which for better or worse made him a far superior gambler—he hadn’t worked in years—but Walls still preferred the version of him in the hat.
    There was no choice but to go back in.
    With a wince he turned toward the apartment where the girl in the teal skirt lived. He took five grudging steps away from the elevator, braced himself, and raised his fist. But the door drew back before he had the chance to knock. Several panicked seconds passed before he realized that he was not facing Michelle (there was her name!), but a different girl. A roommate, perhaps. She wore a powder-blue nightgown, and her hair was in curlers; he saw she was less pretty than Michelle, and felt oddly grateful to her for it.
    “I guess you’re Doug.” As she spoke she lifted the grayish olive homburg, which rested on her open palms, as though offering him a tray of canapés.
    “How did you know that was my name?”
    “Michelle kept saying it last night.” The corners of her mouth flickered mischievously. “The walls are thin here.”
    “Oh.” He took the hat and put it on his head.
    “I’m Gloria,” she told him.
    They both sensed the stirring in the next room, and glanced in that direction. Then Gloria looked back at Walls—she was still smiling, but more faintly now. She nudged the space between them with her chin, indicating the stairwell at the end of the hall.
    Thank you , Walls mouthed.
    Gloria held his gaze a moment, gave a nod of understanding, and closed the door to him.
    As he maneuvered his black Cadillac Eldorado—a low, lumbering shark of a car, previously owned by Uncle Edward—through the lettered streets he thought how he had always liked the name Gloria. He liked, too, the idea of living in the capital, its quaintness and intentional backwardness. Theredbrick façades of Georgetown (which he imagined full of crackling fireplaces and children who still believed their mothers were the most beautiful women in the world) seemed, to Walls, moral and reassuring, especially at this hour, when only the servants were awake.
    He wondered, as he had before on such mornings, if driving through Washington at dawn wasn’t a little like waking up dead: the big gray obelisks, the reflecting pools, the weak blue sky, all quiet and peaceful, and there you were, speeding along a parkway, whistling to yourself, occasionally passing a fellow traveler entombed in his own hulking metal box, as you moved in an ominously tranquil circle.
    He stopped at the diner he liked on D Street, bought the Post from the box outside, ate two fried eggs and four pieces of bacon and drank as much coffee as the waitress could pour in the time it took to read the headlines. When he got back in the car, he removed his holster from the glove compartment and slipped it over his shoulders. Then he put his jacket back in place, checked his face for sufficient seriousness in the rearview mirror (he knew how much it set him back with the other special agents every time he showed the boyish smile), and drove to headquarters. It had become his habit to begin