DC By the Book

Excerpt: Promise and Leo's fixer-upper barely inside the D.C. line had been a compromise between the suburbs and the ungentrified downtown neighborhoods. No matter the project, every estimate was a few thousand dollars; their nonprofit careers allowed for a limited number of budgeted repairs. She would concede that their zip code hiked up the price and that an entire house could be built in Haiti for the cost of refinishing their floors.... She unlooped her purse from around her neck and dropped her keys in the key bowl next to a framed clipping from the 1916 Sears, Roebuck catalog advertising their abode. The entry featured a line drawing of the house, which had been built from a kit of lumber, hardware, and "clear instructions." Delivered to a local depot for a sensible $4,000.... Promise wished she could order up a boxcar of replacement parts and upgrades for the historic mess.

Excerpt: When the dust settled, there was only dust, and the Chinese bowl rested in pieces at the bottom of the museum steps. Experts had admired the bowl's radiant white exterior as much as the decoration within, an elaborate scene of magpies lighting on plum branches in full flower. Unfortunately, the distinction between interior and exterior grew fainter with each step the vessel bounced. This morning's tumble threw the magpies from their perches and reduced the plum branches to so much mulch, which was too bad, because only thirty minutes earlier, a dozen staff and dignitaries had gathered to welcome the porcelain in to the museum's permanent collection.

Excerpt: A summer-camp group of black children headed into African Art, and the two black families he saw were both walking toward that museum. African Americans came to African Art for all kinds of events; they were feisty-proud of their roots. Joseph had expected the same of Asian Americans at his museum, but the visitor count did not support him. His son Sanjay had told him that the Asian kids who came to the museum were the ones adopted by white families.

Excerpt: Leo was alone at the Urgent Action Desk, where daily he dwelled on the most dastardly acts people and their governments visited upon one another. Working at Amnesty International was like fulfilling his childhood dreams of being a fireman and, though he never admitted it, a cop and a priest. Mostly a fireman. Sit around shooting the shit, knowing that when disaster strikes, everyone will scatter, their hearts moving from their sleeves into their mouths. Sometimes the alert was the cat-in-a-tree call, like a dumbshit college kid getting banned in a foreign country trying to buy hash. Most other times, it was beyond gruesome.

Excerpt: Talbot's hovel turned out to be in Market Square, just a skip and a jump from Chinatown. The entry hall of his condominium led into a large living room, where an enormous Italian leather couch faced a floor-to-ceiling window looking out on the Old Post Office. Near the couch was a gray felt chair and a low-slung coffee table set with a vase that held a single stalk of bamboo..... Across the living room, a long metal stairway like a fire escape led presumably to the bedroom. Arthur couldn't decide if Talbot's ascetic look was stylish or noncommittal.