LACKING VIRTUES

by Thomas Kirkwood

  “What cancelations?”

  “Engines for new Airbusses. The European Consortium has decided to switch manufacturers, even though this will result in delays and lawsuits.”

  “I see. This must be recent.”

  “Yesterday. I’m told the decision will cripple Connecticut’s economy. I don’t think I was fully aware of the magnitude of this disaster.”

  “You still aren’t. None of us are. We’re about to find out the hard way just how important the aircraft industry is to our country’s health. I assume you’ve been briefed on Osaka?”

  “Yes, Frank.”

  “All right. Let me get to the reason for my call. I don’t know if the Japanese are correct, and won’t for some time, but the component they suspect is the Autopilot, which is manufactured neither by Boeing nor by Pratt and Whitney but by the Bendix Corporation.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly. Listen, Bill, since you’re already into this thing up to your knees, I think it would be a good idea if you extended your investigation to Bendix.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Do what you’re trying to do in Atlanta. Look into the deaths occurring among Bendix employees in the last six months. See if you come up with anything suspect.”

  “We’ll get right on it, Frank. This thing has to be solved, and fast.”

  “Amen,” Warner said.

  When he hung up, he pulled back the curtain to see if Claire’s new red Toyota was still in his driveway.

  Incredibly, it was.

  ***

  Officer King, off-duty after a long, thankless day in the patrol car, didn’t feel like going directly home. He was tense and irritable. The kids would be screaming, the kitchen of their tiny apartment would look like it had been bombed, Mary would be yelling at him for not making enough money. He was an easy-going guy most of the time, but tonight he just didn’t need it.

  He undid the belt of his uniform to give his expanding stomach a little breathing room. So where should he go, what should he do? He could have a few beers somewhere, but he didn’t want to get into the habit. Maybe he would just cruise around until he felt better.

  He was driving through a run-down section of Wallingford when he remembered the bum in the alley. He hadn’t thought about him since he and Elliot had talked to him last week. He wondered if old Charles the Third had remembered the name of the cement company he had seen on the mixers that had filled Stein’s basement.

  Maybe Charles had phoned in, and the Department had given the case to someone else. He might as well find out while he was here in the area.

  He called dispatch on his radio, which the Department had been decent enough to install in his private car. “Hi, Eloise, this is King.”

  “Who?”

  “Officer Bill King, one four seven nine, the rookie.”

  “Oh, yes. What’s up, Officer?”

  “Well, I’m off duty, on my way home. Just remembered some questioning Sergeant Elliot and I did somewhere around here last week. A man was supposed to call in with the name of a cement company, a guy named Charles. Don’t have the last name with me. It relates to the Stein case. I need to know if someone has made the call. If not, I’ll pay Charles a visit.”

  “Just a minute. I’ll have to check upstairs.”

  King parked his ’91 Bonneville and waited. The gals upstairs could be slow, especially this time of day. No use having to turn around and drive back, given the price of gas.

  He stared out the window at the passing pedestrians. He was in uniform, and everyone seemed to notice. They avoided his eyes, they crossed the street or veered away from his car. Sergeant Elliot was right, King thought: in this neighborhood, everyone was guilty of something. You could probably help the D.A. with his conviction stats by making random arrests from dawn to dusk.

  “Officer King?”

  “Got something, Eloise?”

  “Not what you want to hear. I talked to Betty. Nothing new in that Stein file. I guess your man didn’t call in.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  King started his engine and cruised down the alley behind Stein’s shop. The grass was a little longer, the windows dirtier, the dandelions healthier. Stein obviously hadn’t come back from his extended vacation.

  He parked, got out and made his way through the hedges on the other side of the alley.

  Charles was seated on a beat-up aluminum lawn chair in front of his clapboard shack. He was either meditating or praying, thought King. Or maybe he was just drunk.

  Charles was none of these things. “Good evening, Officer,” he said, not bothering to open his eyes. “I would gladly offer you a seat if I had one.”

  “Thanks, Charles. It’s supposed to rain tonight. You gonna be okay in that thing?”

  “Me? I’m always okay. You don’t like my house? Why not? I got tar shingles under the clapboard, I got a heater that burns anything from coal to paper, and most of all I got my peace. Bet you can’t say the same for yourself.”

  “Why would you think that, Charles?”

  “You married? Got kids?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wife work?”

  “No.”

  “Take bribes?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then let me say it again: you got no peace when you go home.”

  “Well, sometimes that’s true,” King conceded.

  Charles seemed a lot more with it than the criminologists from the university who came to lecture at the Department. Maybe he really did have a Masters, King thought.

  He said, “I might not have any peace, Charles, but I do have something to eat when I go home. How about you?”

  “I do tonight, Officer. They’re serving roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy over at the diner. Also, free refills on coffee. I was going to call you but your colleague’s quarter managed to get away from me. I was hoping you would come by.”

  “You mean, you remembered the name?”

  “Ten seconds after I spent the quarter. Shall we dine?”

  King smiled. This was by far his most gratifying encounter of the day. “Roast beef and mashed potatoes sounds pretty good.”

  Charles, who was in his sixties, maybe older, sprang easily to his feet. “You’re all right, Officer, know that? For a man who’s got no peace, you’re all right.”

  ***

  Driving home after dark, King no longer cared if his kids screamed, his wife yelled or his apartment was a mess. He had done another damned good piece of detective work. He had talent after all, and it was talent for stuff he enjoyed. When he reported to his supervisor in the morning, he would ask permission to go out by himself and talk to these people at DiStefano Sand and Gravel. Or with Sergeant Elliot.

  That would be okay, too, just as long as they didn’t take the investigation away from him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Have a seat, Monsieur,” Isabelle said. She dried her hands on her apron and gestured to the long wooden table in her kitchen. It had been readied for the traditional mid-morning snack of bread, cheeses, sausage and coffee.

  Henri, whom Steven had met when he and Nicole first arrived, clumped into the old stone cottage and put down a bowl of fresh grapes. “From the vineyard,” he said. “A shame to waste them by eating them prematurely. If permitted, they would become good wine. But what can I do, Monsieur? My wife insists, so that’s that. Have a seat, won’t you?”

  “Merci,” Steven said. He pulled out a chair, trying not to be too polite or smile too much. He felt ridiculous. During their car trip from Paris, Nicole had drilled him on how a Frenchman of his age and social standing would conduct himself in the presence of his girlfriend’s father’s caretakers.

  He was having trouble with his act. He reminded himself of that insufferable tennis pro, Philippe. Besides, he liked these salt-of-the-earth farm people. It was hard for him to pretend he thought of himself as superior.

  Yet, to borrow a line from Henri, what could he do? Nicole had insist
ed, and he had promised. So he swallowed his urge to chat, suppressed a smile and tried not to pay too much attention to the feast spread out in front of him.

  Isabelle poured the coffee and hot milk into big café au lait bowls. He started to thank her but didn’t. Nicole was watching him like a hawk. She gave him a tiny nod of approval.

  “Where are you from, Monsieur?” Henri asked. His overalls and shirt were homespun, his hands large and calloused, his skin like leather from a lifetime of outdoor work.

  “Paris,” Steven said.

  Henri read his lips and laughed. “No, no, not where are you from now. Everyone is from Paris now. I mean your family – your ancestors.”

  “The north,” Steven mumbled. He buried his mouth in his huge bowl of café au lait.

  Henri said, “Excuse me, Monsieur, I didn’t quite get that.”

  Steven felt a stab of panic. Had Nicole already told these peasants where he was from but forgotten to tell him that she had told them? Or had she told him? Had he forgotten? It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Nicole came quickly to his rescue. “The North,” she said with exaggerated lip movement. “The Province of the North. Steven, you must not forget that Henri and Isabelle do not hear well. You must make more of an effort to talk with your lips.”

  “Sorry,” Steven said. “My family is from the North.”

  “Ah, Le Nord, Henri said. “Le Nord.”

  Steven nodded coolly. This was hell. He took comfort in the thought that he wouldn’t have to keep up the front much longer. Nicole had told him Henri and Isabelle didn’t have time to sit around all day, that they were in the middle of harvesting their wine grapes. They had a vineyard they cultivated for their own consumption, large because of Henri’s gargantuan thirst.

  The vendage, the harvesting of the grapes, was a precise operation. You didn’t move it a day or two this way or that to make it fit your schedule. When the grapes were ready, which they were, you had to be there or you risked losing your vintage for the entire year. Or so Nicole had said.

  “Have some of this cheese, Monsieur,” Isabelle said, pointing with her knife. “It’s our very own goat cheese. We made it here on the property.”

  “Merci,” Steven said. Things were going all right, he felt, so he ignored Nicole’s warning not to eat like a pig. He took a slice of freshly baked bread and heaped on the cheese.

  “That friend of yours is all right, Nicole,” Henri blurted out, slapping Steven on the arm. “You know how the young people from the city are these days, Isabelle?”

  “Yes, they don’t eat,” she said, reading his lips with ease.

  “That’s right, they don’t eat. They won’t touch anything that isn’t ‘healthy.’ What do they think’s so unhealthy about food like this? I tell you, there’s no sense in what they’re doing.”

  Steven crammed another gigantic bite of bread and goat cheese into his mouth, skewered a sausage and nodded his assent.

  “Look at me,” Henri said. “I’ll be seventy-five next month; my father lived to be ninety-seven. He drank wine, plenty of it, ate butter and cheese, and a hundred grams of paté de foie gras on Sundays. He enjoyed life, a whole century of it – ”

  Henri was seventy-five? thought Steven, sampling the Camembert. Remarkable. The man didn’t look a day over sixty. A couple of years from now he could see himself sitting down with the old codger, opening a bottle of this year’s vintage and interviewing him on the secrets of life.

  “So here’s what I’m saying to you, Nicole,” Henri continued in his gruff but warm voice, “You’ve got yourself a friend who knows the important things. That’s good. We should drink to that.”

  “Not me,” Nicole said. “It’s too early.”

  Isabelle waived her husband off but Steven made no attempt to refuse.

  Henri poured two glasses of marc and shoved one across the table in his direction.

  He tipped his glass and nodded at Henri, still careful not to smile. He was feeling better. He hadn’t blown it, his instincts hadn’t given him away. But he hadn’t offended these great country folks, either. As long as he could express his genuine emotions through a display of grateful gluttony, he supposed he could keep up the nastier aspects of his facade.

  Steven finished his third sausage and drank another shot of marc.

  Henri stood and fastened his suspenders. He pointed a thumb at the door. “Isabelle,” he said, “to work.”

  He looked at Steven and Nicole. “Ah, yes, and mes enfants, you have a good time today. You remember where the keys to your father’s house are, don’t you, Nicole?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, be sure to go over there. Isabelle has prepared you a picnic lunch. She left it in the kitchen refrigerator, no room for it here.”

  “Thank you, Isabelle,” Nicole said.

  “It’s not much,” Isabelle said, stacking the dirty plates. “Oh, by the way, Monsieur, I’ve been meaning to ask you. What do you do for a living?”

  This one had been part of the drill.

  “Commerce,” Steven said. “My father has purchased an American firm, Plastiques de New England. Opportunities are good.”

  “Bon dieu. Did I understand him right, Nicole? His father has purchased an American company?”

  Nicole smiled. “That’s right.”

  “Well, my dear, I think your fears are not necessary. I am sure Monsieur Michelet will approve of Monsieur LeConte. He is helping France defend Herself against the foreigners. Isn’t that what your father wants all of us to do?”

  “I’m not sure what he wants,” Nicole said. “Perhaps you are right, and father will accept Monsieur LeConte – when the time is right. But the right time is not now. Promise you won’t forget, Isabelle.”

  The old peasant woman held a finger to her lips. She had a twinkle in her eye. Steven hoped Nicole knew what she was doing.

  ***

  They kissed for a long time in the foyer of the old manor. “Let’s do it in grandfather’s bedroom,” Nicole whispered. “We’ll make him roll over in his grave. He deserves it. He was even more rigid and unfeeling than father.”

  “How about that wine cellar you were telling me about?” Steven said. “I’ve always had a fantasy of taking you in the wine cellar of some old French country home.”

  “How about both?” Nicole said.

  “I think you’ve solved our dilemma.”

  They had just taken a leisurely tour of the manor. Steven had noted the location of three rooms: the library, the dining room and the drawing room. He was certain that the Wednesday night meetings would be held in one of them.

  Fortunately, all three rooms were in the forward half of the house. Nicole had said that the wine cellar was in the basement, and he needed an excuse for checking it out. He believed he was moving in the right direction.

  “I have not solved the dilemma,” Nicole said. “At least not fully. The question remains, where first?”

  “I say, the wine cellar. While we’re down there we select a good bottle for lunch, then we take Isabelle’s picnic basket out to where they’re harvesting the grapes. We have a walk, maybe a little nap in the sun, then we come back and start your grandfather rolling.”

  She kissed him again, hotly. “Grandfather’s room is a lot closer. Come on.”

  He picked her up, swung her around, and kissed her some more. “Listen, woman, I can’t always let you get your way. Where’s the wine cellar?”

  “Outside and around. But my legs are too weak. I might not even make it to grandfather’s room. Steven, know what? You could take me right here. I mean, standing up. You told me it was possible.”

  He slipped his hand under her light summer dress, ran his fingers around the edge of her panties. She sighed. She wasn’t joking. She was ready.

  Right here sounded good, but he held himself back. “A compromise,” he said. “We do it standing in the wine cellar.”

  “And you carry me the whole way.”

  “Dea
l.” He slung her over his shoulder and carried her out the door. “Which way?”

  “Left, around the side of the house. You’ll see it. Do you have the keys?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “Hurry. I’m dying for you. Don’t trip.”

  They both started laughing. He came to a row of hedges that grew alongside the manor. He tried to take a shortcut by hugging the wall. There might have been enough room to slip through if he bent down below the fattest part of the hedges, but with Nicole on his back he couldn’t do it.