LACKING VIRTUES

by Thomas Kirkwood

“Good, eh?” he said.

  “Very good.”

  “So, what was your idea?”

  “The same as yours, to start. I mean, the part about seeing each other here at your flat. Place Maubert is perfect. I’ve always come here to shop. Downstairs is a doctor’s office, a florist and a travel agency. I could walk in here at ten in the morning and the gossip columnists from France-Soir wouldn’t even take their noses out of their coffee.”

  She squirmed, snuggled closer. “But sitting together at the movie theater or the opera and pretending we don’t know each other isn’t going to work. They’d be whispering the first time, and the second time it would be like they’d caught us in bed. In this city we either come out of the closet or avoid all public contact. You saw what happened this evening with the photograph. That was just a kid, but it could have been a journalist or photographer for a big magazine. Since father got into the government, they follow me around off and on. Anyway, you get the idea.”

  “Only a matter of time,” mumbled Steven. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” They finished the wine. “But there is a place we can meet that’s conveniently located and private. Maybe if we saw each other there a couple times a week, we wouldn’t feel so . . . you know, cloistered.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Nicole took a deep breath. “My father inherited a great old manor out in the country near Fontainebleau. After mother died, he sent me there during school vacations. I spent the summers with Henri and Isabelle.”

  “Who the hell are they?”

  “The two old people who live there. I think they were born on the property. Françoise used to have more family than she does now, so father would give her summers off. Those were the happiest times of my life – until I met you.”

  Steven kissed her for a long time. “Henri and what’s-her-name are still there?”

  “Yes, and they adore me. They couldn’t have children, which was a big thing for them. They couldn’t believe it when father dumped me off at convent school a month after mother died. Anyway, when I was with them, I could do no wrong. I was thinking we could meet out there. I could tell Henri and Isabelle you’re my boyfriend, but that father’s trying to marry me off to some jerk. I’m sure they would understand and keep things quiet. How does it sound?”

  “Can they cook?”

  “Like Bocuse, only with more butter. They’re angels, and they’re deaf. That’s another lucky break. They won’t hear your accent. They wouldn’t have to know you’re not French.”

  “I have an accent?”

  “Slight but charming.”

  “What about your father? Did he just let the place go after he inherited it?”

  “Not at all. He’s poured a lot of money into it. You see, that’s where he goes to do his planning. He’s built up his whole political movement with his cronies out there. But they only meet Wednesday nights. Otherwise he’s here, in town.”

  “Tonight’s Wednesday,” Steven said.

  “Yes. He’s there, I’m here and Françoise is out in Meaux with her sister. So we could meet Wednesday nights here and some of the other times there. For variety, Steven. It will be fun. We just have to make sure that Henri and Isabelle approve of you. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t, but still – ”

  “I can’t imagine they would. Really, Nicole, it sounds to me like we’re going into the lion’s den.”

  “Scared?”

  “For me, not really. For you, I’d have to say yes. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Steven, I promise you it will be all right.”

  “Good, if you say so. You name the day and I’ll be there on my best behavior. If I’d known you had this hideaway, maybe I wouldn’t have attacked you in the café.”

  “I’m glad you did,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”

  ***

  Sergeant Stan Elliot, a 30-year veteran with the Seattle Police Department, took the ramp to the downtown freeway ten miles an hour over the speed limit.

  “You gonna tell me where we’re going?” Officer Billy King asked. “Seems like you’re in a hurry.”

  King was a rookie, so his partners either told him too much or too little, depending on who they were and what the situation demanded.

  “I’m not in a hurry,” Elliot said. “When I’m in a hurry, you hear rubber. It’s no big deal, a gravy morning. Just a little bit of questioning about this guy who seems to have disappeared. If you get bored, you can look forward to lunch. I know a good diner in the neighborhood, cop friendly, nice waitresses, one in particular. It’s Thursday. Means they’ve got peas and meatloaf like your mother used to make. Have another bear claw. It’ll help you keep that hand off your gun.”

  King had already eaten two. He could have handled a third, no problem. For a change he selected a glazed doughnut, unsticking it carefully from the box.

  He had lost 12 pounds in cop training, which he was very proud of. Trouble was, he had put back on 15 since he’d been cruising around on active duty. His uniform, which had looked so smart six months ago, was starting to remind him of the skin on a sausage.

  “Disappeared?” he said between bites. “That all you gonna tell me?”

  Elliot changed lanes, ignoring the speed limit. King thought, at least he wasn’t the kind of cop who got on a freeway where everything had been flowing nicely and caused a traffic jam by going 53 m.p.h. That used to drive him crazy before he joined the force.

  Elliot said, “Look, kid, someone in the department got a call a week or two ago about this carcass of a car that turned up in the Bronx. Back when I started out, they probably wouldn’t have bothered to trace it. But with all the computers they’ve got these days, it takes about two seconds to do a nation-wide search. Turns out the car belonged to this guy who seems to have disappeared.”

  King had another doughnut, the coconut-coated kind that made his uniform look like a dirty tablecloth. “So how’d they know the guy disappeared?”

  “Coincidence. Someone sued him last month for an order he’d paid a deposit on and didn’t get filled.”

  “An order for what?”

  “Who gives a fuck? Dies, tools, shit like that. You gotta learn to focus on the important stuff. Anyway, the D.A.’s office sends someone out to serve this guy and there’s a sign in his shop window saying he’s on vacation. So everything gets more or less forgotten until we get this motor vehicle I.D. from New York. We do the computer search and find out this Stein guy, the guy being sued, the disappearee, is the owner of the car that showed up in pieces on the other coast. That’s where we come in. Got it now?”

  “Got it. Thanks. Believe it or not, it can help to know what you’re working on.”

  “Give it a few years, kid, and you won’t give a shit. In case you haven’t noticed, this world’s falling apart. Sticking a finger in the dike here and there isn’t going to help. You don’t work to save the world. You work for a paycheck, benefits and the day you retire. Get that map out, would you? I think this is our exit coming up.”

  ***

  The vacation sign was still in the window. No response to their knocks, and the grass on the tiny patch of lawn out front was badly overgrown. They questioned the neighbors, not real friendly people. A gun dealer, a pawn shop owner, the local Salvation Army drop-off mute. The only one left to question was the guy across the street who owned the Polish bakery.

  Elliot had gone over to the diner at eleven for his peas and meatloaf, but King was so stuffed with doughnuts he couldn’t handle the idea of lunch. He was alone at the bakery when he hit the bell on the counter.

  Jaworski came out of the back wiping his hands on his apron. He was in his seventies, maybe eighties, old, bald, stout as a tree trunk. The smell of fresh rye came steaming in behind him, tinged with a whiff of his perspiration. He said, “So, what it will be, Mr. Police?”

  King felt nervous. This was the first questioning he had done on his own. Hell, he didn’t like rejection a
ny more than the next guy. “Sir, we’re looking for Gerhardt George Stein, the owner of the tool and die shop across the street. We wondered if you knew him.”

  “Stein? Yeah, I know Stein. From the old world. A Kraut. Hates Poles, hates Jews. I’m both. Give you an idea how he feels about me? But he says all the time, ‘Can’t get good bread in this fucking country. How you gonna live without good bread?’ So he comes over here every day and buys his bread.”

  “Has he been in lately?”

  “What?”

  “Has he come in here to buy bread lately?”

  “Stein? Hell no. You seen the sign in his window. I seen you over there snooping. He’s been gone since a couple of months.”

  “Does he go away often, Mr. Jaworski?” King asked, feeling a little more like a cop, and enjoying it.

  “Yeah, he go away often. Every year or two, he take a month or so, put a sign up and go away. You know how long since I take a vacation. Twenty-one goddamn years. And that was for the funeral of my wife.”

  “I’m sorry about that. Do you know where Mr. Stein goes for these vacations?”

  “He got a cabin somewhere up in Canada. Goes up there to be alone, he tells me. Hates all these people. You can believe that? He is alone here all the time, so he goes all the way up there to be alone.”

  “Does he tell you when he’s going?”

  “Yeah, he tells me. Comes in and buys bread for the whole time he goes. Says you can’t get no fucking bread in Canada, just like the States. He takes it up there in those big freezers you put fish in. You know the things I mean?”

  King felt his heart speed up. Here he was about to pop the question that would provide the clue. Not bad for his very first try at this sort of thing. He said, “Yes, Mr. Jaworski, I use those big freezers myself. For fish, not bread. Now, did Mr. Stein come in and buy bread for this trip that he left on a couple months ago?”

  Jaworski scratched his bald head. “That son of a bitch,” he said. “That son of bitch must have found some other baker. Can you believe that, Mr. Police? Thirty years he buys his bread from me, then he decides to go somewhere else. You know why that is, Mr. Police?”

  “No,” said King, trying not to smile. “Why is that?”

  “Because he’s a fucking Kraut and you can’t trust the fucking Krauts. You better watch out, you Americans. You think the war is over. I tell you, you fuck up letting those people get their country back together. You think the last Hitler was bad, you wait till the next one.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Jaworski,” King said. “We’ll be more careful this time.” He hurried to the diner just in time to catch Elliot scraping up the last of his lemon meringue pie.

  ***

  “Okay, okay, stop acting like Perry Mason,” Elliot said. “You found out he didn’t buy bread before he disappeared. That doesn’t mean he was murdered.”

  “But – ”

  “Where was his car found, hotshot?”

  “You said, New York.”

  “That’s right, King, New York. You think they got any Pollack bakeries in New York?”

  “Sure but – ”

  “Just be quiet. He might have gone on vacation to New York, sold his car before it was stolen, decided to move back to Germany, what the hell do we know? You might have come up with a lead, you might have come up with rubbish. Speaking of rubbish, did you see that bum in the garbage bin?”

  “The guy who took off when we walked into the alley?”

  “Yeah, him. Go catch him and bring him back here. I’m gonna sit here for a few minutes and digest my lunch.”

  “But – ”

  “Get going, King. You’re putting on weight.”

  The bum was a mean, defensive son of bitch who treated King like he was the garbage scrounger. King first had to threaten him with a vagrancy charge, then put an arm around his filthy shoulder, to convince him all they wanted was some information on the guy who owned the tool and die shop.

  “What’s your name?” Elliot said, when King returned with the bum. The veteran cop was sitting on Stein’s back step.

  “Charles the Third,” the bum said.

  “So tell me something, Charlie. You know the guy who owned this place?”

  The bum’s mouth froze. King said, “Let me talk to him, okay? We get along.”

  Elliot said, “Hey, anyone who wants to take a load off my back, be my guest.”

  King patted the bum on the shoulder again, encouraging him. “We’re worried about Mr. Stein, Charles, that’s all. Like I said, this has nothing to do with you. We got nothing on you and nothing against you. Stein put up a vacation sign quite a while ago. His car was found in New York, stolen. So we’re asking questions of all the people around here to see if we can find out if anything has happened to him.”

  “I saw him leave,” the bum muttered. “And don’t patronize.”

  “What?” said Elliot, coming out of his post-lunch stupor.

  “You saw him leave?”

  King said, “What do you mean, you saw him leave, Charles?”

  “I saw his car drive off one morning last summer. He hasn’t been back since.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t been back?” King asked gently.

  “No rye crusts in the bin.”

  “No shit,” Elliot said. “Good work, Charlie.”

  “Charles, please. Before he left – early, around eight in the morning – there was a line of cement trucks here in the alley.”

  He pointed to a row of hedges. “I was sleeping back there, first time I’d had a good sleep in a while. They woke me up, those goddamned trucks. Sounded like the Exxon station on the corner was blowing up.”

  King said, “This is very helpful, Charles. We appreciate your cooperation.”

  “You want me to finish or not?”

  “Yes, of course. Go ahead.”

  “A little later I saw Stein’s car pull out of that metal door over there and drive off down the alley. The goddamn trucks stayed half the day, making racket and pouring cement into the shop’s coal chute.”

  “Interesting,” Elliot said. “Would you care to show us where that chute is, Charles?”

  The bum led them to a big wrought iron plate that looked like a sewer cover. King tried to lift it, then saw the lock. “Should I shoot the thing off?”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Elliot said. “We’ll need a warrant to do anything like that. You go blasting away at that lock and you’ll lose your badge before you get used to wearing it. Can you read, Charles?”

  “What do you mean, can I read? I have a Masters Degree in English lit.”

  King could see Elliot strangling a wise crack. “Did you happen to notice a company name or any other form of identification on those trucks, anything like that?”

  “Yeah, I noticed but I can’t remember.”

  King said, “Do you live around here, Charles?”

  “Around here? No, I live here.”

  He pointed toward the hedges. King could just make out the corner of a clapboard shack, illegal but what the hell.

  “Good. We might need to talk to you again. Can we find you here.?”

  “Unless you’re blind. Maybe you could think about buying me a meal.”

  “We ain’t rich,” Elliot said. “It’d be cheaper to arrest your ass.”

  “My partner’s just kidding,” King said. “I’m good for a meal. If you come up with that name, you can order anything on the menu. In fact, Charles, we could go over there right now.”

  “Peas and meatloaf today,” Elliot said. “Come on, Charlie, think real hard. I’m a tight son of a bitch, but you give us the name on those trucks and I’ll spring for seconds if you’re still hungry.”

  “I’d still be hungry, but I told you. I can’t remember the name. I can almost see it, just can’t remember it.”

  “Tell you what,” King said. “Give us a call if you do. The meal ticket’s good until we get another lead.”

  Elliot handed the bum his card and a quart
er. “That’s for the phone, buddy. Don’t spend it on coffee. I’ll be back for it if your memory doesn’t improve soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  In the days following the Chicago crash, the administration’s search for someone to blame for the escalating air safety crisis had coalesced around Frank Warner. Whether or not he should be relieved of his duties at the NTSB had become an open topic of discussion among Washington’s powerful and in the national press.

  Warner wasn’t a political animal, but he believed he had an obligation to the American flying public to fight his dismissal any way he could. Jackson Penn, a classmate of the President’s at law school who knew a lot about politics and little about aviation, had been mentioned in a Washington Post editorial as a good choice to succeed Warner. So had Marlin Watson, a DEA investigator who couldn’t tell a flap from an aileron.