by Ross Thomas
There was a practiced pause before he continued: “I knew and admired Hank Viar for more than twenty-five years as a patriot, a father, a husband and a shrewd judge of men. We served together twice, once in Vietnam and again in Central America. He was a man who deeply loved his country and dedicated his life to it. He was also one of those unsung anonymous heroes who helped win the Cold War and we should all be grateful for his untiring efforts. Henry Viar was one of this nation's great patriots and I’m proud to have served with him and to have been his friend.”
The General did a smart about-face, threw the casket a snappy salute, held it for a long beat, ended it, backed up exactlytwo paces and sat down without even looking. Shawnee Viar leaned over to whisper something in his ear before she rose and again turned to the mourners.
“My father may have been all the things the General said, but he was also a cruel, uncaring, spiteful man and I’m not in the least sorry he's dead.”
She turned and hurried through a side door. Patrokis rose and went after her, leaving behind a silence not of the stunned variety, but rather the kind that didn’t quite know how to end itself because the remaining mourners, except for Partain and Carver, were too far apartto lean over and whisper “May God forgive her” or perhaps “She sure nailed old Hank, didn’t she?”
Partain ended the silence when he rose, walked over to General Hudson, who had also risen, and said, “Great eulogy, General. A lot of truth in it, especially the part about Hank being a father and a husband.”
“What the fuck’re you doing here, Twodees?” “Paying my respects to a gallant Cold Warrior.” “The silly shit went and shot himself. Not much gallantry in that.” “What about your offer?” Partain said. “The one where you get me reinstated as a light-colonel.” “It stands—providing.” “Providing what?”
“Providing you say nothing, do nothing.” “For how long?” “Not long.”
“Sure you can swing it?”
“They reinstated MacArthur after they fired him for shacking up with that Eurasian mistress of his. So there's plenty of precedent, although you’re not exactly a MacArthur.”
“Don’t wait too long,” Partain said.
“Don’t get too eager.”
Partain returned to Jessica Carver, who was listening to the young CIA representative. He was telling her that the agency tried to be represented at the funerals or memorial services of most of its senior employees, even those who’d served long ago in the Office of Strategic Services during World War Two.
“Some of those old OSS guys, a few anyway, are way up in their nineties. I had to be at one service last week at this fancy estate out on the Eastern Shore—in Maryland? The deceased was a real old guy of about eighty. He had this funny-strange name, Minor Jackson, andthe only mourners were this ancient dwarf and the two pretty young French girls he’d brought. The girls said they’d all flown in from Paris on the Concorde. You should’ve seen the place this guy had. But nobody else came, no neighbors, no household help, no minister. Nobody. Just the two girls and the dwarf and me.”
“What was the dwarf's name?” Partain asked.
“Nick something.”
“Ploscaru?”
The young CIA man nodded. “Right. Ploscaru. He had to be ninety at least. You knew him?”
“I’d heard he was dead,” Partain said.
In the haphazardly furnished living room of the house on Volta Place in Georgetown, Patrokis had arranged for a caterer, not his uncle, to lay on some finger food and wine. The invitations had been verbal. Colonel Millwed hadn’t been invited but General Hudson had and had declined with regret. Partain had been asked to invite the young CIA man, who begged off because of another funeral he had to attend late that afternoon.
Partain loaded his plate with small crustless sandwiches, deviled eggs and Triscuits covered with melted cheese that he suspected was Velveeta. He then looked around for something to drink and was relieved to find twelve bottles of a sparkling California wine and two dozen glasses on a corner table.
Nick Patrokis sat with Shawnee Viar, who had nothing on her plate other than a half-eaten deviled egg. From the fingers of her right hand an empty wineglass dangled. Patrokis offered to get her more wine but she shook her head and said, “How awful was I?”
“Awful enough.”
“Good.”
“Why’d you invite him to speak?”
“Perversity. Or wishful thinking. I thought that if I asked him to speak and he didn’t show up, it’d prove he killed Hank. But he showed up.”
Patrokis smiled. “So he's no longer a suspect.”
She shook her head. “Now I suspect he's just a lot smarter than I thought he was.”
Across the room Jessica Carver had finished a pair of deviled eggs and was biting cautiously into one of the crustless sandwiches when Partain said, “How do you read her—Shawnee?”
She put the sandwich back on her plate, studied Shawnee Viar across the room for a moment or two, then said, “Probably a chronic mood-swinger and I like her.”
“Why?”
“Because she probably feels just the way I do when I wake up each morning. But I’ve learned to shovel out the bullshit and by ten, noon at the latest, I’m more or less functional.”
“Think she could kill her father?”
“Sure,” she said, “if sufficiently provoked. But she’d think about it for a long, long time. The pleasure’d be in the planning.” “How d’you know?” “Because that's how I’d do it.”
Partain removed the Kevlar vest before trying on a topcoat at the men's store just north of the Mayflower Hotel. He chose an eggshell-white single-breasted coat with a plaid zip-out lining, ignoring the recommendation from Jessica Carver and Vernon Winfield that the belted double-breasted model offered more swagger.
“When I need swagger, I’ll buy a stick,” Partain said. “A scarf would be nice,” the General suggested. “I strongly recommend a scarf.”
“The only thing easier to lose than a scarf is an umbrella,” Partain said.
At another men's store on Connecticut, purchases were made just as quickly. Partain chose two suits, one a plain dark blue, the other gray with a faint stripe. Shirts were next. Partain picked out six identical white ones, specifying no button-down collars or French cuffs. While choosing the shirts, he asked Jessica Carver to choose two ties. When she showed him her choices, he said, “They need a box.”
She then insisted he buy a jacket and they agreed on a lightweight brown herringbone. They also agreed on two pairs of slacks, one chocolate gabardine, the other tan whipcord. A dozen pairs of Jockey shorts with 32-inch waistbands completed the shopping and everything was billed to General Winfield's gold American Express card.
Three minutes later the clerk who had sold Partain the clothing returned, wearing an embarrassed somber face. After reaching General Winfield, he said, “I’m awfully sorry, General, but your Amex card's been canceled.”
The General was stunned. “That's impossible,” he said. “I used it no more than thirty minutes ago.”
“It could be an inadvertent cancellation,” the salesman said. “I’m terribly sorry but—”
Jessica Carver didn’t let him finish. She whipped out her VISA card and thrust it at the salesman. “Put it all on this.”
The salesman accepted the VISA card, checked its expiration date, returned the Amex card to the General, made more apologetic sounds and hurried away.
“I don’t understand it,” the General said. “And I’m terribly embarrassed.”
“Maybe you just forgot to pay your bill,” she said. “I never forget.”
Jessica Carver turned to Partain. “What about shoes? Millie wanted you to buy some new shoes.”
“I’ll buy my own shoes,” Partain said.
After the trio broke up, Partain stopped at the first shoe store he came to and bought a pair of plain cordovan oxfords and a pair of brown Weejuns. For another $10 the clerk promised to drop them off himself at the May
flower's front desk.
Partain then asked to use the store's telephone book. The clerk led him into the rear storeroom and left him alone. Partain looked under “Attorneys” in the Yellow Pages until he came to one whose display advertisement read:
BANKRUPTCY?
Business Reorganization?
Specialist In Liquidation & Chapter 11's Also
Debtors & Creditors
The attorney's office was in a building on the northwest corner of 14th and K and Partain decided to walk. Twenty minutes later he was seated in front of the gray metal desk of Ransom Leeds, who seemed to be two parts bonhomie and one part bile.
“You want me to run a credit check on this guy, right?”
Partain nodded.
“Why not have your company do it?”
“Because I don’t have a company,” Partain said. “Yet.”
“You say he's a retired Army brigadier general. How long was he in?”
“Twenty years.”
“What do they retire on—half pay?” “I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Let's be cautious and say half.” Leeds reached into a desk drawer, brought out a well-thumbed copy of The World Almanac andturnedto page 702. “Okay. It says here a brigadier general with twenty years drags down $6,052.50 a month. Half of that’d be three thousand and change. A little over thirty-six thousand a year and not bad, considering all the perks those guys get.” He studied Partain for a moment before asking, “What is it you don’t like about this deal—whatever the deal is?”
“That he can’t carry his end.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixty-seven, I think.”
“Address?”
Partain recited the address on Kalorama Circle and Leeds whistled. “He may be busted now, but he sure was flush once.” “A wife left it to him. The house.” “How much is involved in your deal—roughly?” “One-point-two million.” “Half and half?” Partain nodded.
“It’ll cost you five hundred bucks—cash.”
Partain removed five $100 bills from his wallet, placed them on the desk and covered them with his palm. “First, the report.”
Leeds shrugged, picked up his phone, punched one button and, after it was immediately answered, said, “Betsy. Gimme the onceover-lightly on a retired Army brigadier general, Vernon NMI Winfield who lives on Kalorama Circle with the rest of the unhappy rich.”
While waiting for Betsy's computer to reveal General Winfield's financial situation, Leeds whistled “Mi chiamano Mimi” and was a third of the way through it when Betsy came back on the line.
“Shoot,” Leeds said, picked up a ballpoint pen and poised it over a yellow legal pad.
He listened and made notes for several minutes in a kind of private shorthand. Partain tried to read the shorthand upside down but quickly gave up. A few minutes later, Leeds thanked Betsy, hung up and stared at Partain. “You don’t want to do a deal with this guy,” he said.
“Why?”
“His sole income's his pension, as far as I can tell. His VISA card's filthy, so's his MasterCard, and Amex just cut him off completely. His checking account at Riggs is one thousand and change. His BMW's leased and he's two months behind on his payments. And two months ago he re-fied that Kalorama Circle house of his to the max.”
“How much?” Partain said.
“Did he borrow? One-point-two million. That means his equity's now about two or three hundred K.”
“What’d he do with the one-point-two million?” Partain said.
“Better ask him,” Leeds said, “because there's no record of his depositing the check in Washington, Virginia or Maryland. Maybe he's using it as a bookmark. Maybe it's on hold in Vegas or Atlantic City. Maybe he drank it up.”
“Drinking's not his problem,” Partain said, removed his hand from the five $100 bills, rose, nodded good-bye and left.
CHAPTER 35
At dusk that same day, General Walker Hudson stood at a sixth-floor window of the Marriott Hotel just across Key Bridge from Georgetown. He stood, cigar in one hand, a drink in the other, staring across the Potomac as Washington's lights came on in what was to him their usual illogical pattern.
The General now wore a dark gray tweed suit, white shirt and a tie striped with crimson and yellow. In his left hand was a drink of Wild Turkey, chilled and diluted by a single ice cube. In his right hand was a cigar that boasted three-quarters of an inch of firm ash.
Seated in a chair behind him, staring at the room's taupe carpet, was Colonel Ralph Millwed—elbows on spread knees, both hands clutching a glass that was empty save for two ice cubes. The Colonel now wore a gray worsted suit, blue shirt and a blue and crimson tie.
Without looking up, Millwed said, “Go on.”
“Where was I?” the General asked.
“Sneaking down the alley.”
“Right. I’d parked two blocks away—but I told you that, didn’t I?” “Right.”
“The alley was fenced on both sides and when I came to the gate I opened it and found myself in the garden, which was an absolute mess.”
“What’d you wear?”
“Coveralls. The green ones with ‘L&D Restorations’ across the back. Pity about the garden, though. All dead grass and leaves. Then I opened the screen door and tried the kitchen door knob. It turned as expected and I was inside by eleven-seventeen—”
“Looked at your watch, did you?”
“Right. Where were you then?”
“Where I was supposed to be,” Millwed said, not looking up from his inspection of the carpet. “At the Safeway on Wisconsin, putting a move on the woman.”
The General nodded, studied the lights across the river again and said, “He was in the living room. Sitting in a chair—his favorite, I suspect. He was a little hunched over, studying the floor, holding a glass and having himself a morning drink. Not, I think, the first of the day.”
“What’d he do?” the Colonel said to the floor.
“You mean was he surprised, shocked, any of that?”
“Yes.”
“He heard me, looked up, saw my weapon and said, ‘What the fuck d’you want?’ So I told him.” “What’d he say then?”
The General drank some whiskey, admired the ash on the cigar, drew in some smoke, blew it out and said, “That he needed to piss.” “You let him?”
“Why not? The bathroom was upstairs anyway. So upstairs we went. He pissed. I watched. And after that he handed them over.” “Just like that?” “He had no choice, Ralph.” “It was loaded—his piece?”
“Fully loaded.”
“And the other stuff?”
“They were nicely hidden, but all there. The photograph of the four of us. And the thirty-two red spiral notebooks. By that I mean their covers were red.”
“Where’d he hide ‘em?”
“The weapon wasn’t really hidden. It was in the drawer of a bedside table. The notebooks and the photo were behind the baseboard behind a bed. We had to move the bed out a couple of feet to get to it.”
“You helped him, huh?”
“The bed's legs were on casters.”
“Funny kind of bed.”
“It was more of a studio couch really. After he handed it all over I got down and took a look just to make sure he hadn’t squirreled away something else. After the bed was back in place, I told him to lie facedown on it with his hands behind him. He called me some names, then did what I said.”
“You read them then? The nasty parts?”
“Every word.”
“It all there?”
“Every last detail. You. Me. The Atlacatl battalion. Names. The money. The Mickey Mouse seal. And Twodees. All of it.” “What about Twodees's wife?” “That, too. In detail.”
“Shit. He wasn’t supposed to know about that.”
“He was a spy, for God's sake,” the General said. “And a competent one when he got around to it. He wrote it all in black ink with a real fountain pen and no cross-outs. His penmanship was pure P
almer method, which they still must’ve taught when he was in grade school.”
“And after you read it?” Millwed asked.
“We went back downstairs. He sat down in the same chair. Pouredhimself a drink but didn’t offer me one. Lit a Pall Mall. Had a big gulp of booze. Put the glass down and took a drag on his cigarette and I shot him right after he blew the smoke out.”
“With his own weapon,” Millwed said.
The General nodded.
“And left it on the floor near his right hand like I told you.” “Precisely as you told me.”
The Colonel finally looked up. “Somebody moved it. The weapon.”
“Yes,” the General said, still staring out into the Washington night. “Somebody did.”
“Patrokis probably,” the Colonel said. “They had him on some shit detail in Vietnam, investigating suicides. He probably moved the piece to Viar's lap or to the floor between his legs or wherever it was that made ‘em rule it suicide.” Colonel Millwed grunted. “I wasn’t expecting that fucking Patrokis.”
The General turned from the window, went over to an ashtray, tapped off his inch and a quarter of ash and examined the Colonel. “Just as I wasn’t expecting the woman to con you out of that tape.”
“She knew who I was, for Christ sake,” Millwed said. “She wasn’t supposed to know that.”
“Forget the tape,” the General said.
“Forget it?”
“Certainly. Now that Viar's killed himself, what does it prove? That an unmarried colonel on extended temporary duty took time off to bed the attractive daughter of an old friend and, being the soul of discretion, used an out-of-the-way motel. If the tape should surface somewhere, I might have to place a naughty-naughty letter in your file. But what the hell, they’ll say. At least it wasn’t some fifteen-year-old boy.”