Lacey
stepped
out
of
the
Jeep
and
wrapped
Aunt
Mimi’s
coat
around
her
against
the
sudden
chill.
It
was
unthinkable
that
any
one
at
The
Eye
could
be
the
mysterious
Santa
Dude.
Wasn’t
it?
The lights of the National Press Club gleamed
over
Fourteenth
Street Northwest, across the street from the historic Willard Hotel. Just a short
walk
from the White House and the muse ums on the National Mall, or a short
drive
from Congress, the Press Club
was
surrounded by theatres and shops and restau rants.
Lacey
knew
they
ranged from moderately priced (where reporters paid for their
own
meals) to
excessively
overpriced
(where reporters might dine with sources on the
company’s
tab, if
they
were
lucky).
Tonight’s
entertainment
was
on the
news
paper’s
tab.
The annual Christmasslashholiday party
was
as glittering an
event
as
many
of the
paper’s
employees
ever
saw.
The Press
Club
wore
an
air
of
understated
elegance,
its
dark
woodpaneled
entrance and deep blue carpets studded with designs of gold medallions.
Flanked
by the flags of the
fifty
states, an impres
sive
Christmas tree stood near the brassrailed
stairway
up to the
upperlevel
lounge. Glittering lights,
evergreen
bows,
and poinsettias in red and pink and white were
everywhere.
It
was
a chance for the
regular
reporters to mingle in a place where
they
felt
they
belonged, by right of their profession,
but
they didn’t,
by right of the hefty membership dues. At
The
Eye
it seemed that only editors and managers were members of the Press
Club.
Lacey
wasn’t
a
member,
but
she had been there a
few
times for the occasional media
briefing.
She
always
loved
to visit the place. It made her feel
like
a
legitimate
reporter,
not merely a
fashion
reporter.
The
walls
were
covered
with photos of
famous
journalists,
from
the
ubiquitous
Helen
Thomas,
the
reportorial
bane
of
presidents, to Margaret BourkeWhite, the glamorous
photo
journalist who made her name in the 1930s and ’40s and ’50s.
All
the
usual
famous
male
journalists
were
present
and
ac
counted for too,
but
Lacey’s
attention focused on her role mod els, the
women
of the
Fourth
Estate. Missing, of course, were her
fictitious
role models, the ones closest to her heart, great
dames
like
Hildy
Johnson,
played
by
the
fabulous
Rosalind
Russell
in
His
Girl
Friday,
and
the
irresistible
and
intrepid
flametressed Brenda Starr from the comics.
Lacey
checked
her mouton
jacket.
She and
Vic
took a quick
turn
through
the
party
before
moving
through
the
receiving
line.
With
its warren of cozy interconnected rooms, the
Na
tional
Press
Club
was
the
perfect
place
for
a
large
party
to
spread
out
and
still
feel
like
an
intimate
gathering.
The
buffet
line
was
set in one room, with a prime rib station in the corner
and
open
bars
strategically
placed.
Many
of
the
partygoers
would
round
off
the
evening
with a sherry or liqueur upstairs in the
club’s
Reliable Source
Bar,
a
Washington
journalists’ hang out
overlooking
Fourteenth
Street and the
Willard
Hotel.
A
middleoftheroad
rhythm
and
blues
band
was
playing
in
another room and the more musical members of the
staff
were already dancing. The corner room
was
the most popular: the pastry room, featuring a dazzling array of pastries, chocolate cakes, pies, ice cream, and a cappuccino
bar.
Atop one
long
table, a marzipan
yellow
brick road
flanked
by
rows
of candy canes led
dessertlovers
to a
large
decorated gingerbread house.
Lacey
half
expected
to see a
tiny
gingerbread replica of Felic
ity
Pickles,
the
newsroom’s
Gingerbread
Witch,
luring
little
gingerbread
Hansels
and
Gretels
to
their
sugary
doom.
She
would
no doubt soon be along in the flesh, and in an amazing Christmas
outfit,
as foretold by
LaToya.
But
Lacey’s
attention
was
captured by the candy canes, giant
novelty
candy canes nearly as big around as her
fist
and almost
two
feet long. Giant candy canes! She thought of Cassandra in the
alley
and what a preposterous attemptedmurder weapon a candy cane would
make.
But she
was
amazed at
how
big these were.
Lacey
and
Vic
looped back through the maze of party rooms to
find
the formal
receiving
line. She
looked
down
an impres
sive
row
of redandwhite Santa caps, a dozen or more of them, their white
puffball
tails bobbing merrily atop the heads of
The
Eye
’s
managers, both male and female.
Was
the
assailant
some
one
here,
she wondered,
or
was
this
just
a
weird
Christmas
party
coincidence?
Was
blacktieandSantacap
the
party
fad
this
year?
Their
publisher,
Claudia
Darnell,
had
recruited
a
mostly
goodnatured
crew
of Santas,
but
Lacey’s
editor Mac, his Santa
cap
pulled
down
over
his
bushy
eyebrows
like
a
thug’s
stocking
cap,
looked
like
the Christmas elf
voted
Least
Jolly.
Lacey
took another look to
make
sure all the
newspaper’s
managers were wearing their
festive
headgear,
shaking her head at the charmingly ridiculous sight of
grown
men and
women,
serious journalists all, in
tuxedos
and formals—and Santa caps. Claudia
looked
elegant
in a red silk sheath dress that dis played her toned arms. Her blue
eyes
were set
off
nicely by her deep
buttery
tan and her sleek ice blond hair
was
styled in a French twist. The Santa cap edict
didn’t
seem to apply to Clau dia; after all, it
was
her
newspaper,
and her
party.
Claudia
was
a
woman
of a certain age,
fiftysomething,
but
she had a killer
figure
and a
proven
magnetism for male attention.
Even
Vic
had
appreciative
eyes
for
her.
Lacey
elbowed
him gently in the ribs. Men
flocked
around Claudia
now,
worker
bees adoring their queen, and not just
The
Eye
’s
staff,
but
also her invitees, K Street
lawyers,
lobbyists, politicians, liberal and
conservative.
They
all
had
a
healthy
respect
for
the
power
of
the
press,
even
The
Eye
,
particularly
in
Claudia’s
attractive
hands.
They
wouldn’t
dream of snubbing her annual Christmas
party.
As soon as
Lacey
approached, Claudia pulled her aside. The
jungle
drums
of
the
newsroom
gossip
machine
had
already
reached
her.
“It’s
true then? Cassandra
Wentworth
was
attacked
in our
own
alley?”
Claudia
asked.
Lacey
nodded. “Oh my God.
How
is she?”
“Alive
but
unconscious.
They
took her to
George
Washing
ton
University
Hospital.”
Lacey
could see Mac edging near them with a troubled look.
Even
with
his
brows
knitted
crossly,
the
Santa
cap
cocked
crookedly on
his
head
gave
him
a
comical
look.
“Now
what,
Smithsonian?”
He
growled
in
that
editorial
voice
she
knew
so well.
Surprised he hadn’t heard, Lacey quickly explained
what
she
saw
in the
alley.
“Someone’s
attacked
The
Eye
?”
Mac’s
eyebrows
rose in his
familiar
scowling
arch.
“Whoever
it
was
left
her
wearing
a
Christmas
sweater,”
Lacey
said.
“A
little
Sweatergate
message?”