8

She took an afternoon flight to New Hampshire and the last picture Ernest Walgreen would remember of his wife was how she fumbled with her purse for her ticket, as she had fumbled with her purses since he had met her so very long ago when they were young together, as they had remained until that airport, young together, always.

At Secret Service headquarters in Washington, when Ernest Walgreen got through the lower functionaries to finally speak with a district man, he was greeted by:

"Well, here comes the big rich businessman. How ya' doing Ernie? Sorry you left us, huh?"

"Not when I buy a new car," Walgreen said and added softly, "I'm in trouble."

"Yeah. We know."

"How?"

"We keep track of our old people. We do guard the President, you know, and we like to know what our old friends do all the time."

"I didn't think it was still that tight."

"Since Kennedy, it stays that tight."

"That was a helluva shot that guy got from the window," Walgreen said. "Nobody can stop that kind of stuff."

"You know better than I do. When you're bodyguard to the President, nobody measures your success by how many assassination attempts fail."

"How much do you know about me?"

"We know you think you're in trouble. We know that if you stayed with us, you would have gone to the top. We know some local police are making noises and moves on your behalf that

9

you're supposed to be unaware of. How good are your locals, Ernie?"

"Locals," said Walgreen.

"Oh," said the district man. It was a gray-fur-nitured office with the antiseptic cubicity of those who have very specific jobs and need not be expansive to the public. Walgreen sat down. It was not the kind of office that even old friends offered each other a drink in. It was more a file cabinet drawer than an office as Walgreen knew it, and he was very glad he had left the Secret Service for carpets and drinks and golf dates and all the cozy amenities of American business.