The case of the missing intern and the man with the frozen smile

By ROGER FRANKLIN

NEW YORK - At some point in the future, United States Congressman Gary "Did He Kill Her?" Condit may be of great service to physiologists - the perfect subject to demonstrate just what happens to a human face that has been forced to wear two conflicting expressions for 10 long weeks and counting.

In Condit's case, one of those expressions appears to have led to an advanced and permanent rictus, a never-changing display of first-rate cosmetic dentistry that is framed by a weird, high-wattage grin. No matter how badly things have been going for Condit, nothing has dimmed the sunshine of that smile, not even the camera crews that dog his every step.

When he leaves his modest Washington apartment - the one where another of his many former lovers accused him of playing bondage games with Washington's latest amorous intern, the missing Chandra Levy - the mob is waiting, bristling with blood lust and boom microphones. Condit's answer to that clamour of incoherent questions is always the same: another serving of that frozen, "What? Me Worry" grin.

On Capitol Hill, the Califorian Congressman can use back passages and members-only corridors to dodge the press posse. But even there, at least a couple of times a day, he has no choice but to cross public ground - hostile territory, and the horde is always waiting. It is at those moments, when the safety of some oak-paneled door is just a few feet away, that Condit's bipolar face is at its discordant worst. Those are the times when he most resembles some badly assembled identikit picture, the sort it is all too easy to imagine that one of the senior bumblers on Washington's legendarily incompetent police force might have put together.

From the nose down, the smile rules. But the eyes? Well, they are a different matter. They are wide, round, baffled orbs, and only one word does them justice: terror. If you've ever stood on the brakes to avoid slamming into some large and startled animal, then you saw the same stupid look in the freeze-frame split-second before the thud. "Why," those eyes seem to be pleading, "are these terrible things happening to me?"

Why indeed? That is a question all America wants to know. It's not as if all is peace and harmony in the Land of the Free, or there is any shortage of other news - at least there wouldn't be if every last media organisation in the country wasn't using everybody but the janitor to unravel the details of Condit's energetic love life.

Not so long ago, the murder of actor Robert Blake's grifter wife held pride of place on the nation's front pages. Since the Condit scandal erupted, however, Blake has been left pretty much in peace. When Monica Lewinsky, the original amorous intern, announced that she would be selling that infamous blue dress, it played as a mere news-in-brief squib. Even O. J. Simpson earns no more than a passing glance these days, which was all the media gave him when he issued one of his irregular updates on the ceaseless quest to find "Nicole's real killers."

Sure, it's the summer silly season, but that isn't the sole reason for the din. Fact is, through one twist and another, the Condit affair has shown the sort of legs to make any tabloid hack whistle in grateful appreciation. It's a pity that a young woman, just 24 and way out of her depth, is missing and quite probably dead. But what's a scandal without a corpse? Better yet, a beautiful one?

Talk of the case is everywhere. At a recent Manhattan dinner party, the guests - two lawyers, an artist, a yoga instructor, a high-society cabinetmaker, and this reporter - played amateur detective from soup to nuts: Condit killed the jilted Levy to stop her revealing the sordid truth of their affair. She committed suicide on his door step and he hid the body in panic. His wife bludgeoned her to a pulp in a jealous rage. She is not really dead at all, just hiding out to punish Condit for ending their affair.

The facts of the case, the grist for the mill of water-cooler speculation, constitute an irresistible invitation to let the imagination run wild.

At the end of April, Levy was discharged from her job as an unpaid intern at the US Department of Prisons, a "summer experience" position of the sort that well-heeled campaign contributors like her oncologist father expect grateful congressmen to arrange for their children on demand. Her bags were packed and waiting by the door for the flight back to California, her ticket was on the table, as were her cellphone, driver's licence and wallet.

But of Levy, there was not a trace - nor has there been any further indication of her fate through the subsequent weeks of mounting media attention. When her parents grew worried after leaving five days of unanswered messages on her voice mail, they called Condit, whose first response, in the words of Levy's mother, "chilled me to the bone." Without prompting, he immediately promised to put up a $US10,000 reward for her whereabouts.

Why was he so quick with the money? What terrible secret was Condit hiding, the mother wondered? Since the DC police had shown little inclination to investigate, the Levys appear to have decided that the media was their only hope. While they and their paid spokesmen have refused to admit leaking hints of their daughter's fling with a 53-year-old legislator to the press, there is no doubt whatsoever that is exactly what they did.

Suddenly Condit, a moderate who once demanded that former President Bill Clinton "come clean" about the Lewinsky affair, was being peppered with questions about his own illicit love life. The papers, even serious ones like the Washington Post, were reporting that he had dallied with as many as 20 other mistresses. That was when the silence started and the goofy, transfixed grin first appeared, when he began hiring PR spinners and high-priced criminal lawyers to do his denying for him.

No, the mouthpieces at first insisted, Condit had not been sleeping with the intern. Except that he had been, which he finally admitted only last weekend. Yes, he was helping the DC police in their inquiries, the same flaks insisted. Except that the he was doing nothing of the kind. Detectives were obliged to question him on two separate occasions before he would admit to anything more than a "professional relationship" with Levy. More disturbing to the Levys was the fact that he gave them one date as the last time he had seen their daughter, and the police another. No, Condit's troubleshooters continued, the Congressman was not asking aides, staffers and friends to lie on his behalf, nor was he attempting to cover up what was sneeringly dismissed as this "nonexistent affair."

Except that he was. That much became clear when an airline stewardess called Anne Smith, a woman who appears to have celebrated her 39th birthday at least 10 times, told Fox News that the Congressman's PR operatives had asked her to sign an affidavit attesting to his virtue and marital fidelity. Even worse for Condit, she accused him of ordering her to lie to investigators, which is why the US Justice Department is now investigating him for suborning perjury.

His devoted constituents back in Modesto, California, began to learn of Condit's many other hidden lives. The Democrat, who once made an uncredited appearance in the 1988 cult classic film Return of the Killer Tomatoes, is a home town favourite. He won 70 per cent of the district's congressional votes in November. But he has emerged as anything but the devoted family man his staffers were so eager to depict.

To the folks in the home district, he was a revered "Blue Dog," political shorthand for a Democrat who often sides with Republicans. In Condit's case, that means voting on Monday to protect a woman's right to choose, and on Tuesday, denying federal funding to the family planning clinics where abortions are actually performed. In America, this sort of political cross-dressing is seen as "balance" and often regarded as the hallmark of a statesman.

In other areas of his life, however, that same spilt personality has a sinister edge. Take, for instance, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle he sometimes rode in Modesto's annual Fourth of July parade. Until Levy vanished, it was just one more prop, like the fashionably baggy Armani suits and the spikey cock's comb haircut - something that testified to a sense of manly fun and style. Now, however, the bike has emerged in a very different light.

According to a former chauffeur, Condit would don his leathers and slip away to beer-and-broads orgies with the local chapter of the Hell's Angels. Not only was he on intimate terms with the outlaw bikers, he is said to have flown back from Washington to attend a birthday party for a grizzled veteran of the gang who had just served a long sentence for killing a cop. Then there is Smith, the shopworn stewardess. She has dished another round of salacious, sensational tidbits about Condit's taste for kink.

Heavens above, she gasped, the last time she visited his apartment, she was appalled to find long brown hairs on the rumpled sheets, a bottle of massage oil, and neckties looped around the bed posts. Somebody (shudder and grimace) was into bondage and other sicko stuff. Smith had always considered her married lover to be a straight-arrow philanderer. Now she had deep regrets for having helped such a disgusting deviant cheat on his wife! If the O. J. circus sets any precedents, Smith's willingness to discuss things in graphic detail the very things that turn her tender stomach may earn her a windfall of appearance fees, perhaps even a book contract or a job as talk-back sex counsellor. Others in the case have motives beyond mere money.

Take Chandra Levy's aunt, Linda Zamsky. Just when Condit appeared to be winning the stonewall campaign, even having his lawyers threaten the Washington Post with libel suits for reporting on the "fictitious romance," Zamsky issued a statement in which she said her niece had confirmed that Condit was her lover.

More tantalising still was Zamsky's paraphrasing of a message the young woman had left on her answering machine. She had great, life-changing news, the aunt recalled, and was bursting to share it. Could Chandra have been pregnant? The speculation about Condit tumbled forward once again: Golly, do you think he killed her when the mother-to-be threatened to expose him?

Once again, the Levy family had used the media to its advantage. Involving the press succeeded in prodding the DC cops into action. "The Levy family has played the media with intelligence and virtuoso grace," said law professor David Yellan. "Condit has the legal guns, they have the smart strategy."

Condit is now suspect No. 1 in all but name. As Yellan explained: "Any time someone disappears and the police discover that they've been involved in an extra-marital affair with someone, that other person will be a suspect, whether they call them that or not."

Better ration those smiles, Mr Condit. This case is not going to go away anytime soon.