WGMS was playing the 1812 Overture. It was too early in the day for booming cannons, so Frank switched to WOL and Joe Madison. Concentrating on the Pennsylvania Avenue traffic, he paid little attention until he realized that Madison was talking about Skeeter Hodges. He turned up the volume.

Madison was refereeing a bare-knuckle brawl between Oliver North and Sarah Brady. North, the former Marine, was arguing against gun control, while Brady, the gun control activist, was arguing for. The two counterpunched with the now familiar prefabricated sound bites-Second Amendment rights, Founding Fathers’ intent, the definition of an organized militia.

All the old answers. Any new questions?

Madison cut in.

“We got a call from a listener, Mrs. Frances Morrow. Mrs. Morrow, you’re on.”

“Mis-tuh Madison-” An assertive chocolate-brown voice. Frank tugged at a memory, then gave up.

“Where you from, Mrs. Morrow?”

A pause. Then, crossly, “Eads Street.” As though laying down a challenge, she added, “Forty-five-oh-four Eads Street.”

Again the voice sounded oddly familiar, and Frank recognized the address. Two blocks from Bayless Place.

“Go ahead, Mrs. Morrow. You got words for Mr. North and Mrs. Brady?”

“I do, Black Eagle,” she said, using Madison’s nickname. “Where you folks live?”

Dead air.

Frank imagined North and Brady, sensing a trap, exchanging wary glances.

“Well?” Morrow demanded.

“Ah”-North cleared his throat-“Great Falls. Great Falls, Virginia.”

“Potomac,” Brady answered, her voice tentative.

“Unh-hunh! Yeah,” Morrow replied, a sneer in her voice. “An’ how many a your whitebread friends in Puh-toe-muck or Great Falls ever had to chase drug dealers off their front porches?”

More dead air. It hung there, embarrassing, like a bad smell.