Jim McGill 05 The Devil on the Doorstep

by Joseph Flynn

  Regular workouts with your accountant and banker were obligatory.

  By the time Tommy arrived, Gabbi sat on a stool, doodling on a Strathmore art pad with a Staedtler 3H sketching pencil. Her friend and former colleague raised his nose as he stepped off the elevator. His meal had been delivered only a minute earlier. It was still hot and —

  “My God, that smells great,” Tommy said.

  “Pull up a stool and eat,” Gabbi told him.

  The food had been placed on the worktable to Gabbi’s right. Tommy sat just around the corner of the table from her. He removed the dome from the serving plate, grabbed the burger and took a huge bite.

  Gabbi flipped the page of her pad and started to sketch the expression of bliss on Tommy’s face as he chewed. It was a tribute to the chef that he didn’t notice what she was doing until he swallowed the first bite. Then he asked, “You’re drawing me while I eat?”

  “Yes, I want to see how your face works. You asked for a portrait, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” He looked at the burger in his hand. Didn’t want to let it get cold. “Oh, go ahead.”

  Gabbi had to smile as she worked, doing her best to catch Tommy’s expressions as he made small murmurs of pleasure. Unbidden, the thought entered her mind that people probably displayed the same range of expressions while eating that they did when making love. Not that she’d want to do actual comparisons. Well, okay, maybe just once or twice.

  The burger disappeared in less than two minutes and the fries and beer followed quickly.

  Gabbi flipped the page so Tommy couldn’t see what she’d drawn and put the pad on the table. She popped the top of a small plastic cooler and took out a glass goblet of chocolate mousse. The kitchen, per her request, had provided two spoons. Gabbi handed one to Tommy.

  Being a gentleman, he gestured to her to take the first bite.

  She did, and said that was all she wanted. She told him to take the rest.

  The first touch of the chocolate on his tongue brought back Gabbi’s idea of erotic eating.

  Forcing her focus back to the task at hand, she asked, “You’ve got some news? You didn’t just stop by for a free feed and a place to crash, did you?”

  Tommy interrupted his gustatory delight to reach a hand into a pocket and toss her a laminated photo. A replica of a Navigo pass in the name of Duvessa Kinsale. Gabbi took it in and looked back at Tommy. Now, his smile was informed by more than his taste buds.

  “You got her,” Gabbi said.

  “Had to run around town, but, yeah. She went to the Musée d’Orsay on the night you thought she did. At least she got on the RER at the museum station that night.”

  Gabbi made a fist and said, “She was there, all right. This is a big first step.”

  “It takes more than that to run me ragged. I found René Simonet’s lair.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Tommy covered a huge yawn with his right hand. Noticing a dab of chocolate on a finger, he sucked it off and said, “I did.”

  “Where is it? Tell me where.”

  Tommy got to his feet. Did a big stretch. Blinked at Gabbi, regarding her through bloodshot eyes. “Maybe I should save that ‘til morning. Keep you in suspense.”

  Gabbi dropped her voice to a menacing register and asked, “Do I have to beat it out of you, Meeker?”

  “That might be fun,” Tommy told her, “but I’m too tired to put up much of a fight.”

  He reached back into the pocket that had held the Navigo pass and brought out a slip of paper with an address neatly printed on it.

  “Maison Simonet,” he said.

  Gabbi took in the information. Gave it a firm press into memory. Immediately had a second thought about what she’d seen.

  “What if this is just the place he lives? What if he keeps the art he stole somewhere else?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “Already thought of that. Checked to see if he owns or leases any other residence, storage facility or even somewhere else to park his car. Couldn’t find a thing. Looking through a million records are why my eyes are so bleary. You think about it, there’s also a perfectly logical reason why he wouldn’t stash the stolen masterpieces somewhere else.”

  Gabbi said, “He wants them close so he can enjoy them.”

  “Right. Now, I have to use the pissoir, and then I must sleep.”

  Gabbi showed him the way to the guest room. It had its own salle de bain.

  Once Tommy was tucked in, Gabbi had a choice to make.

  Did she call James J. McGill immediately?

  Or did she visit Simonet’s house first and see what he had hanging on his walls?

  FBI Offices — Richmond, Virginia

  McGill swung by the J. Edgar Hoover Building and picked up Deputy Director Byron DeWitt and a crew of his technically adept colleagues and headed south. The feds had arranged for a Virginia State Police unit to lead their little caravan. McGill’s black Chevy, with Leo and Deke in their customary places, followed the state cops. A black SUV filled with the FBI techies brought up the rear. The trip to Richmond lasted little more than an hour at the speed they traveled.

  Long enough for McGill to pose a question he’d long wondered about to DeWitt.

  “Why is it the FBI headquarters is still named after J. Edgar Hoover? The guy’s been dead over forty years and he was a crooked cop when he was alive. Harry Truman said Hoover transformed the Bureau into his private secret police force and blackmailed Congress.”

  DeWitt smiled and said, “Yeah, those were the good old days, all right. I was in diapers, of course, when Director Hoover kicked the bucket, but maybe they keep his name on the building in the hope of returning to the glory days.”

  DeWitt gave a wink to McGill. Let him know he was just kidding.

  The deputy director said, “Truth is, I don’t know why they keep Hoover’s name on the building. It has to suit someone’s political purpose. Maybe you should ask the president or Galia Mindel. They’d know more than I would.”

  McGill tucked the suggestion into a corner of his mind.

  Maybe the next time he and Galia were knocking back a few brews, he’d ask her.

  When they arrived at the FBI offices in Richmond, former NASA rocket scientist, Arlo Carsten, was waiting for them, handcuffed to a table in an interview room. He wished to register a complaint with DeWitt, as the deputy director and McGill seated themselves opposite him.

  “I haven’t been given access to a lawyer,” Arlo said.

  DeWitt told him, “Look on the bright side. You haven’t been waterboarded yet either.”

  The deputy director’s tone was jovial, but a man in Arlo’s position couldn’t disregard DeWitt’s use of the word yet. He turned to McGill, hoping to find someone who’d view his circumstances with greater sympathy. Then he realized who had come to see him.

  “Hey,” he told McGill, “you can’t be here. You’re just a private eye.”

  “Yeah, but I have friends in high places,” McGill said.

  Arlo shook his head, “This isn’t right. This is not right.”

  McGill looked at DeWitt and said, “Doesn’t it kill you when a creep like this, a guy who planned to murder you, gets irate when his rights get scuffed up a little? What would Chairman Mao do with this jerk?”

  “Chairman Mao?” Arlo had read enough world history in school to recognize the name. “Isn’t he dead?”

  DeWitt ignored Arlo’s question and answered McGill. “Put a bullet into the back of his head and make his family pay for the round.”

  “Jesus,” Arlo yelped.

  McGill looked at the bound man. “We don’t do things like that, but maybe in your case, and those of your friends, we could make exceptions. As short of money as the government is, maybe making condemned prisoners pay for their own executions would be a popular idea in Congress.”

  Having lost his job to federal budget trimming, Arlo didn’t see McGill’s idea as being outside the realm of possibility.


  “What do you want?” he asked McGill.

  “Let’s start with your recognition of who the aggrieved party is here.”

  Arlo hung his head. He wanted to say he was the one with the gripe. But he knew that wouldn’t play well. His eyes still downcast, he said, “You are.”

  “The president and my children and then me,” McGill told him.

  Arlo looked up. “Kids? I never threatened anybody’s kids. I wouldn’t have anything to do with something like that.”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t,” DeWitt said, “you only have sex with seventeen-year-old girls.”

  “I told you. She said she was legal and …” His voice trickled off to near inaudibility. “It had been a while for me.”

  “Yeah, well, enough about you,” McGill said. “Let’s talk about me some more. You say you wouldn’t threaten anyone’s kids, but what about Harlan Fisk? Would he really go that far? If he made a threat against my children, would he try to carry it out?”

  Arlo looked as if his stomach had just turned sour.

  “That’s exactly what he did, isn’t it? Because your feds caught Elvie and me.”

  McGill nodded.

  “I think he would,” Arlo said, “given the opportunity. He sort of looks at Elvie as his property more than his flesh and blood. But he values her all the same, and he believes in payback.”

  So do I, McGill thought, but kept the sentiment to himself.

  DeWitt stepped into the pause in the conversation.

  “Are your drones based on Harpy technology?”

  “They are Harpies. Bought black market out of South Africa.”

  “Do Fisk and his clowns have anyone besides you who can fly the drones?” DeWitt asked.

  Arlo nodded. “I trained two other guys. They’re not as good as me, but you spend what Fisk did for those drones, you’re not gonna leave them on the shelf.”

  McGill had something come to mind. The picture of Jean Morrissey running out of the VP’s house? The one they thought had been taken by a drone and caught Jean square in their crosshairs? That photo had been taken after Arlo was in custody. So the guys who’d done that had shown they weren’t half-bad at their jobs.

  McGill asked Arlo, “Don’t any of you fools remember what happened to Timothy McVeigh?”

  Arlo looked down again. “Things weren’t supposed to work out the way they have. A bunch of assholes from one of those Mideastern outfits were supposed to say they did it.”

  DeWitt asked, “How are they supposed to make their claim credible?”

  When Arlo looked up he wore a sly smile. “They’ve got a Harpy or two of their own. They think it’s hilarious, their having an Israeli weapon.”

  “You know specifically who these other people are?”

  Arlo shook his head. “Fisk might, I don’t.”

  McGill said, “Okay. Now, you’re going to tell us what ideas you might have for us to blind your drones and manipulate the way they respond to being tracked by radar. So we can make them shoot their missiles where we want them to go.”

  “What do I get for all my help?” Arlo asked.

  McGill leaned over the table, cupped a hand around the back of Arlo’s head and whispered directly into his ear.

  When he let go, Arlo jerked away from him, sitting back as far as he could.

  McGill sat back, too. Met Arlo’s eyes with a hard stare.

  “The navy,” Arlo said, his voice tight with fear, “I’ve heard the navy’s got a directed energy weapon, a laser gun, they can fire at drones and blind them.”

  DeWitt said “How do you —”

  McGill held up a hand, cutting off the deputy director’s question.

  He didn’t care right now who the source of Arlo’s information was.

  “That’s a start,” McGill said. “Now, tell us how to screw up the drone’s missiles.”

  Arlo told them everything he knew, including some ideas he came up with that very moment.

  The National Mall — Washington, DC

  Odo wanted to see the National Air and Space Museum.

  Not wishing to dwell on his own problems, and having spoken to the Louvels about seeing if any Hobart had visited Avignon in the recent past, Pruet decided to accompany his friend to the museum. The two of them took in many of the stunning displays illustrating humankind’s escape from the shackles of gravity.

  They started with the 1903 Wright Flyer, the first successful, powered, heavier-than-air flying machine. Moving along a historical time line brought them to the Enola Gay, the B-29 SuperFortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The two Frenchman contemplated the horror of that day for everyone who survived it, including the crew of the plane. They moved on from a world war to the Cold War and the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the fastest jet aircraft ever built. They concluded their tour by viewing the space shuttle Discovery.

  As they walked along the Mall back to their hotel, Odo told Pruet, “I would like to travel in outer space someday.”

  “Visit other planets?” Pruet asked.

  “No. I don’t think I will live long enough to do that. What I’d like to do is circle our own planet and possibly the moon. Behold all the beauty that surrounds us every day, marvel at what we miss because we are too close to it. Too much a part of it. See our natural wonders from a proper perspective and appreciate them as never before.”

  Hearing Odo’s words, Pruet felt a tingling in his mind.

  An idea was about to be born. He didn’t try to hurry it.

  Odo asked, “Would you like to do that, Yves?”

  The magistrate said, “I don’t have the courage. Sit atop a rocket the size of a tall building? Wait for an enormous engine to explode into life? Have gravity compress me to the delicacy of a crepe? The prospect does not intrigue me.”

  Pruet’s description reminded Odo a great deal of making love to his wife.

  He thought he would have to find a new woman for Yves when they got home.

  Without getting specific, Odo said, “But think of the joy. Think of the marvelous view.”

  That stopped Pruet in his tracks. He said, “Voila!”

  Which, in French, used as an interjection, means, “That’s it!”

  Odo thought Pruet was pointing out a nearby threat. His hand darted under his coat for the pistol McGill had lent him, thoughtfully not asking for its return. Pruet put a hand on Odo’s shoulder, putting him at ease.

  “I spoke figuratively, old friend. You gave me a brilliant idea.”

  “How kind of me,” Odo said, relaxing. “Would you care to tell me what it is?”

  “It is a way to have my revenge upon Laurent Fortier without killing him.”

  “Would the Louvels approve?” Odo asked.

  Pruet shared his idea. Odo smiled, in the manner of a Corsican seeing justice meted out.

  “Bon,” Odo said. “Très bon.”

  The two men continued their walk, taking in the Washington Monument, so much like the Luxor Obelisk in La Place de la Concorde in Paris. Only in the American fashion of bigger being better, the Washington Monument was more than seven times taller. Even so, Pruet thought, grandiosity could have its place in a public space.

  Getting back to matters at hand, he told Odo of the threats made against McGill’s children and the anticipated attack on Inspiration Hall. Pruet had given McGill his word that he’d hold these issues in confidence. He did not consider telling Odo a violation of that pledge. As regarded professional concerns, neither of them withheld information from the other.

  He was sure McGill operated in the same fashion with Margaret Sweeney.

  “What would you do if someone threatened your children, my friend?” Pruet asked.

  The mere thought was enough to give Odo’s harsh features an even more brutal cast.

  “I would be the last thing that villain would ever see, and no one else would find what little remained of him.”

  “I thought as much, and I do not see M’sieur McGill’s response as being much
different.”

  “Nor do I,” Odo said.

  “So he has the devil on his doorstep.”

  Odo told Pruet, “I do not think so. I will place my wager that God, the Father, would both understand and approve of any measure a man might take in defense of his family.”

  Perhaps Odo was right, Pruet thought.

  In any case, it was not a point to argue with a Corsican.

  “What about the attack on Inspiration Hall?” Pruet asked. “Do you think that will happen?”

  Odo considered the matter. “If, as you say, the building holds personal significance for Madam la Présidente, then, yes, I think an attempt will be made.”

  “So you think Patricia Grant should stay away?”

  “Oui.”

  “And M’sieur McGill?”

  “That is up to him, of course.”

  Odo’s concept of sexual equality was strictly situational.

  “Any other thoughts on the matter?” Pruet asked.

  Odo stopped to think. They’d reached the Vietnam War Memorial by now. They were close enough to read individual names on the wall. Both men shook their heads in sadness. Life was so much easier when you learned from the mistakes of others. France’s loss in Vietnam might have been a lesson learned for America.

  Odo looked at Pruet and then back to the wall.

  He said, “Those tiny Communist bastards accomplished so much with so little. If I were M’sieur McGill, I would not overlook the chance that these terrorists he faces might not use their new drones and their missiles at all. They might rely on something far simpler. Something unexpected.”

  Pruet made a mental note to pass Odo’s words of wisdom on to McGill.

  Calder Lane — McLean, Virginia

  Representative Philip Brock drove up the curving flagstone driveway and stopped in front of the lovely pale yellow house with the powder blue shutters. Pretty, Brock thought, but the place had more of a feminine look than a masculine one. But then he’d heard that Senator Howard Hurlbert’s wife, Bettina, wore the pants in the family.

  A thought occurred to Brock just then: best to be careful.

  He put the car, a gray rental Ford with mud smeared artfully on the Vermont license plates, back in gear and idled forward to the far end of the house. There was a turnoff leading to a four-car garage out back. Above the garage was an apartment used by the married couple who served as Hurlbert’s domestic help.