The Last Government Girl. Ellen Herbert

his mailbox.

      Alonso Crooms and Jessup Lindsay turned off Georgia onto V Street and went up an alley. Vernon watched from behind a smelly compost heap.

      The alley was lined with brick tenements where coloreds lived. Wealthy Negroes, doctors and lawyers, lived on what was called the Gold Coast, middle and upper 16th Street Northwest. Vernon had roofed one of their mansions. Bess couldn’t believe when he told her how these colored folks had colored servants of their own.

      Alonso and Jessup stopped beside a water pump between the shacks and washed some peaches. Alonso handed one to Jessup who took a big bite. Peach juice dribbled down his chin. With his handkerchief, Alonso wiped Jessup’s face. Most men wouldn’t appreciate another man wiping their face, but Jessup just nodded and continued to eat.

      Three barefoot colored boys stopped throwing a ball and ran to them. Alonso gave the boys peaches and made them wash the fruit before they ate.

      The men walked a little further down the alley and opened an iron gate that whined shut behind them. The boys went back to playing baseball, and Vernon crept from his hiding place to their gate. He was looking into the backyard with its huge garden when someone grabbed his arm and pulled it behind his back.

      “Why you following us?” a voice asked.

      The gate opened, and Vernon was pushed through. Jessup Lindsay opened a door beside the garage. Alonso Crooms forced Vernon up a narrow set of stairs, dark as night. “I’m right behind you, so don’t try anything.” Alonso let Vernon’s arm go. Vernon stumbled. Alonso helped him up. “Watch your step.”

      Vernon entered the room over the garage. A sweet odor filled the air, so sweet it made his stomach roil. The only light came from the small window facing the alley.

      “Don’t look around,” Alonso said.

      But Vernon already had. A huge photograph of Doris stared at him from the back wall. Her dead eyes bored into him. His knees gave way and he slumped to the floor.

      11

      Pausing on the stairs, Rachel turned back to Eddie. “I notice Captain Silver Spoon didn’t pick you up here, so don’t give my date the third degree, please.”

      “Silver Spoon’s too upper crusty to come to Georgia Avenue.” Eddie brought her index finger to the tip of her nose and pushed it up. “I met him and his Yale pals at a restaurant, where he acted more interested in his friends than in me.”

      Rachel rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Trundle even asked my date about his family in Mississippi.”

      Eddie flushed with fremdschamen, vicarious embarrassment. Aunt Viola acted as if their ancestors had come over on the Mayflower when they were really hardscrabble mountainfolk.

      “You said Bert knows this guy, right?” Eddie worried about Rachel going out with a man she met on the streetcar this afternoon. Of course, Eddie had met Silver Spoon on the train. Gone were the days when a woman and man needed a proper introduction.

      “Mr. Berman, Bert’s employer, is also Thad’s landlord.” Rachel held the parlor door for Eddie.

      A reedy young man with unruly sandy blond hair and black glasses got to his feet. “Hello, there.” His features swam into place, eyes dark as onyx, snub nose, easy smile, too easy. Thad Graham didn’t look unhappy trapped in Aunt Viola’s web, and Eddie found that odd.

      When Rachel introduced them, Eddie shook his hand and felt the writing callous on his middle finger and the roughness of his palm. Thad hadn’t always been an office worker.

      Eddie said, “I’m surprised a reporter isn’t still at work on such an auspicious day.”

      All day she’d longed to telephone her father to talk about D-Day. Beginning with that December when they listened to the news bulletin that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, they’d been on a journey. It wasn’t over yet, but maybe what had happened on those French beaches brought the end nearer.

      “Right you are, Eddie. The whole newsroom is buzzing with D-Day, but my beat’s local, what’s happening right here in Washington.” He had a sweet southern drawl.

      “You mean crime?” Eddie said.

      “Edwina, don’t you start. I forbid that kind of talk in my parlor.” Aunt Viola flapped a large paper fan Jones Funeral Home printed over a blazing sunset on one side, sunrise on the other, not a subtle metaphor. “Ya’ll sit and stop treating my parlor like Union Station.”

      “Beg pardon, Ma’am.” Thad sank into his cushioned armchair, while Rachel crouched in a nearby chair like a runner waiting for the start of her race.

      Palms folded on his lap, Thad said, “So how long has the G-man lived out back, Ma’am?”

      Bert spoke up from the sofa. “Mama, Jess doesn’t want us discussing them.”

      Aunt Viola shot Bert a look. Seldom did her son correct her. “I want Thad to know I’m doing my part for the war.”

      But Eddie’s alarm bells went off. After the big deal her aunt made about not introducing Jessup Lindsay to her and Rachel, Eddie had found and read the article about him in The Washington Herald, Thad’s employer.

      “You wrote the article about Special Agent Lindsay, didn’t you?” Eddie was guessing.

      “You’re pretty sharp, Eddie.” Thad showed nice white teeth. “Rachel tells me you’re a writer, too.”

      Thad was pretty sharp, too. “Not really.” Eddie wasn’t sure about him. Had his meeting Rachel really been by chance? Eddie imagined Rachel telling her to stop distrusting everyone. If people were more trustworthy, maybe she could.

      “Last winter Eddie won a poetry competition with a beautiful poem about Saltville. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly magazine.” Rachel traded a sideways glance with Thad, a look full of sparks.

      “Sure would like to read it, Eddie,” Thad said.

      “Of course.” Eddie couldn’t deny he was cute. And if he had an ulterior motive for meeting Rachel, maybe he didn’t any longer. Thad Graham appeared smitten.

      “I never heard of that magazine,” Aunt Viola said. “This here’s my favorite.” She reached into her magazine stand and pulled out Photoplay, a dark-haired young actress on the cover.

      Bert craned forward and snapped his fingers. “That’s who you look like, Rachel. Elizabeth Taylor.”

      They all agreed, except for Rachel, her face pink with delight. She thanked Bert. Eddie knew Rachel did her best to look like the actress.

      “That reminds me, Thad.” Rachel stood, purse wedged under her arm. “Hadn’t we better be going if we want to make the next showing of Suspicion? It’s almost six-thirty.”

      Thad sighed as if reluctant to leave.

      “Thank you so much for the candied pecans, Thad.” Aunt Viola patted the box beside her radio. “You’re so sweet to bring ‘em to me.”

      Thad took Aunt Viola’s hand as if she was royalty. “I do believe this is the coolest, most pleasant parlor in all Washington City, Ma’am. I hope I may visit you again.”

      He knew who had the loose lips in this house.

      “Please do, Thad. You’re always welcome. Too many young-uns don’t have your nice manners.”

      Rachel got Thad out the front door. Eddie and Bert followed. From the porch, they watched Thad walk Rachel toward a maroon-colored car. His hand edged up her back.

      “Is he trustworthy?” Eddie asked her cousin.

      “I reckon. He rents the Berman’s basement, but with them gone for the summer, he has the run of their whole house and the plant. Sometimes he borrows a truck if he’s low on gasoline, and he’s always showing up with laundry he wants done right away.”

      “So