Mickie sat over his second whisky-on-the-rocks in a little bar next to the funeral parlor on Pennsylvania Avenue. Al's Little Cafe was small, dark, narrow, and filled with the mingled scent of beer, tobacco smoke, and Italian cooking. Hanging over the bar was an oil painting of a nude Al had accepted from a student at the Corcoran Gallery who needed to eat and drink and was broke. The nude was small and black-haired and elfin, and was called ``Eloise.''

This was one place where Moonan could go for a drink in a back booth without anyone noticing him, or at least coming up and hanging around and wanting to know all the low-down. The other patrons were taxi drivers and art students and small shopkeepers. The reporters had not yet discovered that this was his hideaway.

His friend Jane was with him. She was wise enough to realize a man could be good company even if he did weigh too much and didn't own the mint. She was the widow of a writer who had died in an airplane crash, and Mickie had found her a job as head of the historical section of the Treasury. This meant sorting out press clippings and the like.

Jane sat receptive and interested. Mickie had a pleasant glow as he said, ``You see, both of them, I mean the President and Jeff Lawrence, are romantics. A romantic is one who thinks the world is divinely inspired and all he has to do is find the right key, and then divine justice and altruism will appear. It's like focusing a camera; the distant ship isn't there until you get the focus. You know what I'm talking about. I'm sure all girls feel this way about men until they live with them.