WASHINGTON — I was an intern for a congressman when I was 17. Nothing lurid ever happened.

He was Jim Hanley, Democrat of New York, a funeral home director from Syracuse. I spent the summer in
the Cannon Office Building typing his letters to Moose lodges in Skaneateles (ZIP code 13152). And one day he
asked me to write a lead-in to something he was putting into The Congressional Record. It was my first published
paragraph, albeit under his name, and I thought I would burst with pride and patriotism.

Those were in the days, of course, before the words "Washington intern" became salacious and sinister.

The convulsions over the secret life of one intern from California with a mane of thick black hair, a curvy figure
and an infatuation with a married Democratic official had only just subsided when the capital became obsessed with another.
But Chandra Levy is not Monica Lewinsky. She won't show up in New York doing a line of handbags.
She may not show up at all.

Monica was a titillating soap opera. Chandra is a noir mystery that may turn ugly and evil.

Her parents returned to Washington late last night to meet with D.C. police and to fan media interest in their daughter's fate.
The 24-year-old vanished 50 days ago. "There appeared to be no signs of a struggle," Sgt. Joe Gentile, the D.C. police
spokesman, said yesterday. "Her bags were there, credit cards, driver's license, cash . . . and there was some jewelry."
Her cell phone was there, her keys missing.

She was last seen on April 30, when she went to cancel her membership at the gym near her Dupont Circle apartment.
The next morning her parents received an e-mail about her travel plans.  She had been headed home to Modesto after
completing a six-month internship with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to attend her graduation from the U.S.C. master's
program in public administration.

The Washington Post reported that Chandra had told one close relative that she was romantically involved with the
congressman who represents Modesto, Gary Condit. It is the oldest Washington story, one part romance, two parts
droit du seigneur: the powerful man who thrives on adoration and the adoring young woman he meets in his office.

Mr. Condit, 53, has a condo a short walk from where Chandra lived. His wife, Carolyn, 53, with whom he has
a grown son and daughter, is chronically ill and lives in California.

The congressman has refused to talk to the press for seven weeks about his friendship with Chandra.

His Colgate smile and styled hair have earned him the nickname "Mr. Blow-Dry" around the House.
The wall behind his chair in the Modesto office, according to The L.A. Times, is a shrine to himself,
with 8-by-12-inch portraits of himself posing by himself. He posed for the "Hunks on the Hill" calendar
and for Easyriders, a fleshy motorcycle magazine.

He has dodged questions about Chandra's cell phone calls to him and visits to his condo,
except to say the two were "good friends."  His San Francisco attorney, Joe Cotchett, said:
"I told him flatly, `You are a public figure, and have to respond accordingly to the press.'

"To ask me if they were having an affair is ridiculous,
  because it is not relevant to the inquiry of her disappearance."

(Sounds like the first denial on an episode of Law & Order)

Mr. Cotchett said his concern had always been for "this fabulous young lady," but said police were not as
aggressive as they should be about missing people, since "F.B.I. figures show 453 people have gone missing
in Washington D.C. since January first. It's a national disgrace."

Even if he knows nothing about her disappearance, it's sad that Mr. Condit, who voted to impeach Bill Clinton,
is now using Clintonian evasion. Why is he acting like a man with something to hide?
Why isn't he more actively and noisily helping to find his "good friend"?

"This young lady is missing five weeks," an associate of Mr. Condit says.
"You have to assume at this point she is dead, as even the police will say privately."

Women never leave behind their handbags and jewelry when they go on trips,
as Grace Kelly told Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window."

"Women," she said, "aren't that unpredictable."