Dog Bites Man Read Free Page B

conscience. Together they closely followed the burgeoning civil rights movement, including the Supreme Court's monumental desegregation decision, handed down the year they graduated. They did so abstractly, since in the Princeton of their day there was nary a black to talk to and argue with about the subject; the only concrete arguments came from the good ole boys too much in evidence among their contemporaries, who assured them of the invincible truths that "nigrahs" were inherently inferior and, unless wrongly egged on by Red agitators, perfectly content with their lot. Eldon and Leaky's shared interest led them to spend a year together in the South after graduation, demonstrating, marching and persuading blacks to register and vote.
    Intellectual and political compatibilities to one side, their other shared interest was mild carousing. Not at the expense of their studies, but as a self-giving reward for hard academic work. Eldon, no stranger to robust drinking (mostly beer) back in Minnesota, had his taste refined by Leaky, who introduced him to the glories of a properly prepared martini.
    In their routine, Thursday night was for relaxing, sometimes in their room, more often at whatever local bar was willing to wink at the 21-year-old minimum drinking age; they anticipated by almost half a century the urban careerist yuppies' routine of blasting off on Thursday night, then coasting and resting through Friday in anticipation of the weekend. By the time they were juniors, they had learned to arrange their schedules so that they did not have Friday classes.
    Leaky and Eldon went their separate ways after Princeton and their year in the South, Eldon to his academic career, Leaky to a life as a "private investor," husbanding the family money and reading and rereading the classics. But they stayed in contact, with a wet evening here and there in Cambridge when Eldon was studying for his Ph.D at Harvard, or later in the Twin Cities, and then in New York.
    Eldon had earlier determined that Leaky was free that night. His wife, Carol, was in the Hamptons to confer with her gardener so they had agreed to meet at Leaky's apartment.
    The day's bombardment of pettiness was getting to the mayor and he looked forward to meeting his old roommate. By the timeof his last appointment for the day, receiving a delegation of Bangladesh nuns in town to learn about the newest vaccination techniques, his tongue was figuratively if not literally hanging out as he anticipated his first double shot of Dewar's. It was going to be a good evening.

THREE
    E ldon Hoagland emerged from 818 Fifth Avenue, the apartment house where Leaky Swansea lived, at 11:45 p.m. Their get-together had been a rambunctious success and the mayor, not to put too fine a point on it, was plastered. His principal bodyguard, Gene Fasco, a head shorter than Eldon, did his best to hold his charge on a steady course.
    Fortunately the late-night doorman was not to be seen. Just as well, as the tall figure being helped through the lobby toward the door would not have inspired civic pride or reinforced faith in the democratic selection process.
    Eugenio Fasco had been part of the Hoagland security detail during the campaign. Eldon had liked the policeman and, after the election, had requested that he and his partner, Thomas Nolan Braddock, be permanently assigned. A career officer ending his years in the department as a plainclothesman, Sergeant Fasco was happy with his new post and the not infrequent brushes with glamour that it entailed. Had he not shaken hands with, and been impulsively kissed by, Cameron Diaz? (He had not been quite certain of her identity, but his teenage son certainly was, adding that his aspirations were much more licentious than a mere buss by Ms. Diaz.) Or shaken hands, and even exchanged a few words in the mother tongue, with the president of Italy?
    Fasco had a reputation as a dutiful but nonetheless scrappy officer. It was true that if positions in the