Ah, Treachery!

by Ross Thomas

  “I don’t want any letter,” Millwed said.

  “Forget the letter. It hasn’t happened, it probably won’t and we have something else to decide.”

  “Twodees,” the Colonel said. “Twodees,” the General agreed.

  Millwed turned to reach for the bottle of Wild Turkey and poured an inch of whiskey into his glass. He raised the bottle questioningly at the General, who shook his head. The Colonel replaced the bottle, tasted his drink and said, “You know what I really want?”

  “Sure, Ralph. You want your own personal copies of Hank Viar's little red notebooks.”

  “Yes, sir. Exactly, sir.”

  “You’ll get copies.”

  “When?”

  “After Kite does Twodees.”

  “I want them now, General,” Millwed said, not quite making it an order.

  The General nodded patiently, as if dealing with a fool. “I didn’t quite finish, Colonel.” “Then finish.”

  “You’ll have your very own Xeroxed copies of Viar's journals as soon as Kite does Twodees—and you do Kite.”

  The Colonel leaned back in his chair, nodding contentedly. “I wouldn’t mind doing Kite. With him and Twodees both gone, that’d leave who?”

  “Nobody.”

  “What about the Altford woman, Patrokis and General Winfield?” “They weren’t in El Salvador.” “Neither was Kite.”

  “We’ll just have to pretend he was,” General Hudson said.

  CHAPTER 36

  The four of them ate a late dinner at the Kudzu Cafe on upper 14th Street in northwest Washington. The cafe featured what some call soul food and others southern cooking. Everything was served family style in large dishes and bowls that offered fried chicken, country ham, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, redeye gravy, corn bread, biscuits, turnip greens, okra fried and boiled, sliced tomatoes, black-eyed peas and, for dessert, a choice of pecan or lemon meringue pie or both.

  Shawnee Viar ate little. Jessica Carver ate a little of almost everything, passing on what she called the “slime okra.” Partain sampled nearly everything and Patrokis ate large quantities of everything, especially the fried chicken, then leaned back in his chair and announced, “God, I love stuff cooked in lard.”

  The bill came with the coffee. Partain paid it, added a 20 percent tip and wrote the total into his expense notebook. Shawnee Viar watched him curiously.

  “This a business expense?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “And here I was thinking my newest and dearest friends had gathered to feast and reminisce about the late Henry Viar, bad husband, worse father, aged spy and, late in his career, the disappearer's failed apprentice.”

  “The what?” Jessica Carver said.

  “In Central America,” Shawnee said, “in San Salvador, to be precise, old Hank sort of apprenticed himself to those who made people disappear. But he really wasn’t any good at it. ‘The mind accepts,’ he wrote, ‘but the stomach rejects.’“

  “He wrote that or said it?” Partain asked.

  “Wrote it. Up until almost the very end he’d pound out his daily pensees on the old Smith-Corona, then copy them into red spiral notebooks with a Mont Blanc pen that some shit gave him. The Shah's sister, I think, just after the Kurds got dished.”

  “You read them—these journals?” Partain said.

  “Sure. Sometimes I’d read the wadded-up typewritten pages in the wastebasket and sometimes I’d read the notebooks themselves. All thirty-two of them. One for each year.” She paused, still staring at Partain, then said, “You had a wife, I think. In fact, I know you did because old Hank always referred to her as Senora Partain.”

  Partain thought he felt the blood drain from his face. It prickled. Then his face turned hot and he wondered if his color had gone from flour white to Valentine red. When he saw them all staring at him, he sucked in air, held it, let it out slowly, then smiled what he knew must be a ghastly smile at Shawnee Viar and asked, “What else did he say about her?”

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want it verbatim?” she said. “I have this trick memory that recalls stuff like that verbatim—well, almost verbatim. It's how I made Phi Beta Kappa, fat lot of good it did me.”

  “As close as you can,” Partain said, his voice cracking on “can.”

  “Okay,” she said. “About your wife my old dad wrote something like this, but remember, it's not exactly word for word.”

  Partain made himself nod. Shawnee Viar closed her eyes for a moment, as if trying to visualize the words, then opened her eyes, stared at something that seemed to hover a foot above Partain's head and began to recite:

  “ ‘Colonel H. and Captain M. dropped by to discuss the wife of Major P. Seems they’re getting pressure from our hosts to do something or other about the lovely Senora Partain. What, pray? I ask. My two militarists suggest she might disappear—at least for a while. How long is a while? I ask. Just arrange it, Hank, says my Colonel. Put it in writing, say I. They refuse, brave lads, and I think of calling Major P., but such a call could be self-incriminating and, after all, perhaps nothing will happen. Still, something probably should be done and I must think more about it. It's now three days later and I apparently thought too long. Yesterday, Senora Partain disappeared one hundred meters from her house. Perhaps I should try to buy her back. Or is it too late? I’ll talk to Colonel H. about it. And Captain M., of course. Later. I’ve talked to them and it is, alas, far too late.’ “

  Shawnee Viar stopped talking, lowered her gaze to Partain's face, saw what was there, said, “Christ!” and shrank away from it. The others were also staring at Partain, whose eyes glittered and whose lips were twisted into a snarl. The color in his face had again deepened into a dark dangerous-looking red. He closed his eyes then, willing them back to normal. The snarl went away and the dark red face changed quickly to bright pink and then, more slowly, to normal.

  Partain opened his eyes and very softly said, “I’d like to read that one journal, Shawnee.”

  She gave her head a single slow shake. “It's gone. They’re all gone. The day Hank was killed I looked for them. They were behind a baseboard that was behind his couch upstairs. The photo's gone, too.” Shelooked at Patrokis, as if for corroboration. “Remember when I went upstairs to pee?”

  He nodded, still watching Partain.

  “That's when I looked for them,” she said. “Maybe that's why they killed him. For the journals. I’m very sorry, Major.” “I’m not a major.”

  “I’m still sorry,” she said and turned to Patrokis. “I can’t go back to Volta Place tonight.”

  “Stay with me,” he said. “At VOMIT?”

  “I don’t really live there. I’ve got an apartment on Nineteenth.” He paused. “You can have the couch or the bed.”

  Shawnee's glance toured the table and stopped at Jessica Carver. “What d’you think?”

  “I think you might be a little spacey right now and if you don’t take Nick up on his offer, I’ll know you are.”

  “What if he wants to fuck?”

  Carver shrugged. “Think of it as therapy.”

  Shawnee Viar turned to Patrokis and said, “Let's go.”

  They both rose. Partain, still seated, looked up at Shawnee Viar and asked, “Was that really what the journal said?”

  “Not word for word,” she said. “But close. Very close.”

  After they left, Partain and Jessica Carver sat in silence for what seemed to her an interminable three minutes until she ended it with a question. “You going to sit and brood all night?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I’ll get you a cab.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll walk back.”

  “Walk?”

  He ignored the question. “Tell your mother I need to see her. Tonight. Late. After eleven.”

  “Should I mention General Winfield and his dirty plastic?” “Not yet.”

  She leaned forward to examine him
carefully, even critically, as if for character fissures or crumbling resolve. “I don’t want anything to happen to Millie,” she said. “A little mild excitement and adventure, fine. But nothing bad.”

  He nodded.

  “As for you, you’ve just had a rotten shock. How rotten I can’t even imagine. After you see Millie, I’ll sit up with you all night. Get drunk with you. Listen to you.” She paused. “Come as you are. Anytime. No reservation needed.”

  He wanted to smile at her and felt his lips stretch into something that he hoped resembled one. He then tried to make his eyes crinkle, although he wasn’t at all sure what muscles to use.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You look like you’re in pain.”

  “I am,” he said, rose and went around the table. “Let's get you a cab.”

  Partain walked south down the east side of 14th Street to L, then turned west and went the rest of the way to Connecticut Avenue and the Mayflower Hotel. He was propositioned by no whores. Importuned by no beggars. Threatened by no jackrollers. A patrol car slowed beside him near 14th and T. The near cop gave him a long speculative look and, in return, received a savage smile. The cop car rolled on.

  As he walked he wondered why he hadn’t suspected long ago that his dead wife's lack of politics would’ve been interpreted as a disguise. A Salvadoran intellectual marries a mustang major in the U.S. Army assigned to intelligence, but claims she has no interest in the politics of her own country. That’d bother them all right—enough to make them go to the Major's superiors, to that fucking Hudson, and maybe that equally fucking Millwed, and say this woman of Major Partain's is a cleverly disguised spy and something must be done about her either by you or us. So those two fuckers, Hudson and Millwed, hand the problem off to the Great Ditherer, Hank Viar, the Pepys of El Salvador, who says nothing to me, does nothing, as those two fuckers knew he wouldn’t. But tells dear diary he maybe ought to do something. But doesn’t. And they, whoever they are or were, make her disappear. And isn’t it awful that Viar is dead and you can’t ask him what really happened to her and then kill him no matter what his reply.

  Partain's rage had diminished, if not vanished, by the time he knocked on the door of Millicent Altford's suite. She asked who it was through the door. He replied. The door opened. He went in and she said, “Who ran over your puppy?”

  “Let's talk about something else,” Partain said. “Let's talk about that keeper of the guttering flame, General Vernon Winfield, because he's onto you, lady.”

  “You drunk?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Wanta be?” “Maybe.” “Sit down.”

  Partain sat down on a couch and waited for her to hand him a drink. He didn’t care what it was and she, sensing this, handed him two ounces of iced Scotch. He remembered to thank her and noticedshe was wearing a suit he hadn’t seen, a Hershey-brown one with cream piping. “New suit?” he said.

  She sat down in an armchair with her own drink and crossed her legs. “I bought it just before I checked into the hospital,” she said.

  “Shows off your legs.”

  “Well, you advertise whatever's left,” she said, sipped her drink and then asked, “What d’you mean Vernon's onto me?”

  “He knows your sun-dried one-point-two million's missing.” “Does he, now?”

  Partain nodded. “He really must have a yen for you.” “A yen? You could’ve said he longs for me. Yearns for me. Even has the hots for me. But yen sounds like diluted desire.” “He's broke,” Partain said.

  She started to giggle, tried to stop but couldn’t until Partain said, “You don’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t say that. I asked you a question, then giggled at your answer. So how d’you know he's broke?”

  “His American Express card's canceled. His VISA card's maxed out. He's two, maybe three months behind on his BMW lease.”

  “You call that broke?”

  Partain ignored the question and said, “He also did something else. He refinanced that chateau of his on Kalorama Circle for one-point-two million exactly. The same amount that was stolen from your safe and the same amount you’ve got squirreled away in that safe-deposit box in Santa Paula.”

  “Ran a check on him, did you?” she said.

  “I had somebody run one.”

  “Here in Washington?”

  He nodded.

  “I reckon it didn’t quite stretch to Aspen, did it? Thought not. You see, dear heart, Vernon's been buying up Aspen since 1958. Must ownhalf of it now. Well, maybe three or four percent anyway. Check out his total net worth and you’ll find it's between fifteen and twenty million.” “So why the bad plastic?”

  She sighed. “It's somebody to talk to. Once in a while, he gets lonely. So he lets his car lease ride and gets a call from the BMW store and that's good for a fifteen-minute chat. Amex uses mostly girls and they can be a lot of fun, if you’re sixty-seven or so. Same goes for VISA. Then he’ll pay up, although usually he overpays, and the girls’ll call back all aflutter about his new credit balance.”

  She paused, frowned and said, “One-point-two million, huh? Not in cash, I hope.”

  “I don’t know,” Partain said.

  “He must’ve got a whiff from somewhere.”

  “That it was stolen?”

  She nodded. “He probably thinks that's why I checked into the hospital—because I let it be stolen and didn’t know what to do about it. He may even have it all planned out that when he and I meet to tot up the books next month, I’ll ‘fess up that all the money's gone for good and then ask, Sweet Jesus, whatever can I do? And Vernon maybe hopes to snap open a big new shiny black attache case, plumb full of hundred-dollar bills, and say, ‘Don’t worry, little darlin’, everything's gonna be just fine.’“

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, sir. I don’t.”

  Partain finished his drink and said, “How’d he find out?” “Somebody told him,” she said. “Not me. Not you. That leaves the thief.”

  “Or somebody the thief told,” Partain said, placed his glass on a table and rose. He stood there for a moment, looking as if he had forgotten something and uncertain about whether he really wanted to remember it.

  She leaned forward and looked up to examine him more closely. “What's eating you, Twodees?” she said, her voice gentle, almost coaxing.

  “I found out what caused the disappearance of my wife,” he said. She closed her eyes for several seconds, then opened them and asked, “What’re you going to do about it?”

  “Right now, I’m going to go get drunk with your daughter.” “I couldn’t suggest anything better,” said Millicent Altford.

  CHAPTER 37

  General Vernon Winfield left his house the next morning at 7:15 A.M., carrying a black leather overnight bag. He walked briskly to Connecticut Avenue, turned south and continued the pace that was now aided by a mostly downhill grade.

  The January weather, for a change, was fair but cold with little wind. The General wore his camel hair topcoat, his Borsalino hat and fur-lined leather gloves. He had settled into the rhythm of his pace and, without a glance, passed the narrow four-story building that housed the Acropolis Restaurant and VOMIT.

  After reaching the Dupont Circle Metro station, he hurried down into a waiting red-line car, congratulating himself on either phenomenal or lucky timing. Winfield resurfaced near Union Station, soon reached and crossed the Capitol grounds, waited patiently for a green light at Second and Pennsylvania Avenue, then headed east until he came to Fourth Street, where he turned south again, ignoring the modest birthplace of J. Edgar Hoover.

  Two and a half blocks later, on the east side of Fourth, he climbed five concrete steps, opened and went through a three-foot-highwrought-iron gate and six paces later reached a door that he guessed to be one hundred years old. He shifted the black overnight bag to his left hand, set it down, stripped off his right glove and used bare knuckles to knock on the o
ld door.

  It was opened almost immediately by an exceptionally pretty young brown-haired woman who obviously was just leaving. She wore a sheared beaver coat, pink mittens and a large brown leather purse slung over her right shoulder.

  “You here to see Kitey?” she said.

  The General nodded, smiling slightly.

  “Well, he's upstairs in the shower and I’ve gotta beat it so why don’t you just go in and sit down and make yourself uncomfortable on anything you pick.” She examined him more carefully, as if pricing his topcoat and hat. “You like fun?”

  “Fun?” the General said.

  “You know. Fun and games.” She used her teeth to yank off her right pink mitten, plunged the bare hand into her oversized purse, came up with a business card and handed it to Winfield. He looked down and saw that the card read “Connie.” Underneath that was a telephone number.

  “Anytime,” she said, tugging on the mitten, “after six.”

  Then she was gone, hurrying through the wrought-iron gate and bounding down the five steps. The General put her card in a topcoat pocket, picked up the overnight bag and entered the front parlor of Emory Kite.

  He removed his hat, topcoat and remaining glove, placing them all on what he decided was a remarkably ugly love seat. After glancing around the rest of the Victorian room, the General grimaced slightly and sat down on the red velvet sofa, the black overnight case on his knees.

  Winfield didn’t rise when he heard someone clatter down thestairs. Emory Kite entered the parlor, wearing pants, shirt and leather-heeled loafers. He started at the sight of the General, recovered nicely and asked, “Connie gone?” “She said she couldn’t wait.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kite said with a suspicious frown that he quickly erased with a grin. “Gave you her card, I bet.”

  The General smiled slightly and nodded.

  “I don’t mean to step out of line, General, but if you’re ever in the mood for a little of the strange, you can’t do any better’n Connie. Five hundred a night and cheap at the price. Nice girl, too. Went to college, got herself a pretty fair job at Interior, doesn’t do drugs and loves to travel.”