by Ross Thomas
“Interesting,” the General said.
“Want some coffee? I told her to make a pot.”
“Yes, I would, thank you, Mr. Kite.”
“Be right back.”
Kite returned from the kitchen in less than two minutes with two mugs of coffee. He handed one mug to the General, then held his own with both hands as he sat down in a big armchair that was low enough for his feet to rest on the floor. Kite noisily sipped his coffee, peering over the mug's rim at Winfield. “This ain’t no social call, is it?”
“No, Mr. Kite, it's not. I’m in need of your services yet again.”
Kite's left hand gave his earlobe a tug that seemed to make the corners of his mouth curl down. “Whatcha got in mind?”
“I’d like you to replace what you once removed—or had removed.”
Kite gave the left earlobe another tug and this time his eyes widened in either real or pretended surprise. “You mean in L.A.?”
“In Los Angeles, yes.”
“And you want it put back exactly where it was?” “That's not necessary. Once inside, you can leave it almost anywhere.”
“I’m not going in if anybody's there.” “I assure you no one will be there.” “And my end?”
“The same as before. And as before, you’ll take care of your own expenses.”
“Why?” Kite said with what Winfield took to be an honestly puzzled frown. “I mean, you needed it then but now you don’t. How come?”
“I needed it desperately then,” Winfield said. “But I no longer do. I now consider it a loan that must be repaid anonymously. But this time no one is to be injured and, above all, no one is to be killed.”
Kite pointed his sharp chin at the black overnight bag that still rested on the General's knees. “That it?” Kite asked.
The General nodded.
Kite put his mug down and rose. “Then maybe we oughta count it.” “Yes, I think we should.”
The General rose, holding the overnight bag by its handle, and looked around the room. He noticed a marble-top table that was placed against the far wall. The marble's color was mauve streaked by cream and each of the table's six ornately carved mahogany legs ended in the inevitable ball and claw.
“That table do?” the General asked.
Kite looked. “Sure. I’ll just move the lamp over some.”
He crossed to the table and moved a shaded brass lamp to the rear left side. The General went over to place the overnight bag on the marble. “It's unlocked,” he said.
“All hundreds?”
“Of course.”
“One-point-two million?” “Exactly, Mr. Kite.”
Kite nodded, unsnapped the bag's fasteners and lifted the lid,revealing neat, tightly packed rows of banded $100 bills. Kite stared at the money fondly, perhaps even lovingly, and was still staring at it when General Winfield cleared his throat and said, “Emory.”
“Yeah?”
“Close the lid.”
Kite froze, then thawed quickly enough to ask, “Why?” But he didn’t really wait for an answer. Instead, he slammed down the lid, spun around and lunged at the General, but slowed, then stopped altogether after Winfield shot him in the forehead with a .22-caliber revolver.
CHAPTER 38
The rented two-bedroom third-floor apartment of Nick Patrokis was at 1911 R Street, N.W., and only a two-minute walk from VOMIT, providing the Connecticut Avenue lights were with him. The apartment had once been occupied by his uncle, the restaurateur, who years ago had moved to the farther reaches of Maryland out Massachusetts Avenue just beyond the District line.
After moving, the uncle had continued to pay the rent on the apartment because it was cheaper than paying the hotel and motel bills of his extended family, whose members dropped in on him with alarming regularity from Athens and London and Sydney and Rome and Brussels. With the founding of VOMIT, the uncle subleased the apartment to his nephew, Nicholas, and by letter, telephone, fax and word of mouth, informed members of his family that if they were planning to visit him in Washington, he could recommend a Holiday Inn out on New York Avenue that was cheap, clean and only a bit dangerous.
At 8:08 that morning, shortly after General Winfield shot Emory Kite, Nick Patrokis awoke in his bedroom, looked left and found anaked Shawnee Viar sitting cross-legged on the bed, studying him with what he thought looked suspiciously like adoration.
“Let's get married,” she said.
“When?”
“Next year. The year after. Ten years from now.”
“That's an idea,” Patrokis said, rose naked from the bed and hurried into the bathroom. Even with the bathroom door closed he heard the loud ring of the black nineteen-year-old Touch-Tone phone that had yet to need repair and whose twin models fetched $100 to $150 at the swap meets where Patrokis had acquired much of his clothing and all of the furniture for the apartment and VOMIT.
After the second ring the phone went silent. When Patrokis, still naked, came out of the bathroom, Shawnee Viar offered him the instrument and said, “It's Partain.”
Patrokis said hello and Partain said, “I just got a call from General Hudson.”
“Why?”
“He wants me to meet with him and Colonel Millwed.” “Again—why?”
“So we can talk about my going back in the Army as a lieutenant colonel, serving out my twentieth year and retiring on a well-deserved pension.”
“Tell him to go ahead and put in the papers.” “I did, but he still wants to talk.” “Where?”
“He’ll call back with time and place.”
“Why is it,” Patrokis asked, “that I suspect the three of you will meet by moonlight at some lonely crossroads in Rappahannock County?”
“Think I should take along a weapon?” “You have one?”
“No.”
“The gun seller has no gun?” “Do you?”
“What would I do with a gun?” Patrokis said. “He wants a gun?” Shawnee Viar asked.
“Hold on,” Patrokis said, put a hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Shawnee and said, “Why d’you ask?” “He can have Hank's,” she said. “I thought the cops took it.”
“They did, but he has a couple of others stashed around the house.” “Would you lend one to Partain?” “What's he want with it?”
“I don’t know,” Patrokis said. “Maybe he wants to shoot Colonel Millwed. Or General Hudson. Or both.”
“Tell him I’ll bring it to him wherever he is,” she said.
At 8:59 A.M. the telephone rang in Edd Partain's hotel room. After he answered it, Millicent Altford said, “My daughter back in her own bed yet?”
“She's not here.”
“You dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Then get your butt over here right now without anybody seeing you. Think you can handle that?” “I can try.”
Partain opened his hotel room door, glanced up and down the corridor, saw no one, closed his door, went four quick steps to the door next to his, opened it and slipped inside.
“Lock it up good,” Millicent Altford said.
Partain shot the bolt, fastened the chain and turned to look first at Altford, who was sitting in a chair, wearing her cashmere robe, then at General Vernon Winfield, who sat at attention in a straight-back chair, hat and gloves off but topcoat still on, the black overnight bag on his knees.
“Sugar here just killed himself a private detective,” Millicent Altford said. “The one you all had lunch with at the Dome.”
“Emory Kite,” Partain said, merely to be saying something.
“Kite,” she agreed, rose, went over to where the whisky was, poured herself an ounce and a half of Scotch and tossed most of it down. “Sugar here's turning me into a morning drinker.”
“I take it he's not here to kill you,” Partain said.
“I find that extremely offensive, Mr. Partain,” the General said.
“He's got a gun,” Altford said.
“Want me to take it away from him?�
��
Before Altford could reply, the General removed the short-barrelled revolver from his topcoat pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. “It fires five twenty-two-caliber long rounds with hollow points. They do tremendous damage but are effective at only very short range. This particular weapon shoots high and right and is virtually useless unless fired by an expert marksman. I shot Mr. Kite just above the bridge of his nose from a distance of perhaps six feet. He was in motion at the time.”
Partain walked over to the General, held out his right hand and said, “Mind?”
“Not at all,” Winfield said and handed the revolver butt-first to Partain, who examined it, sniffed its two-inch barrel, nodded and tucked the weapon away in his right hip pocket.
“Now show him what's in the bag, sugar,” Millicent Altford said.
The General thought about it first, then opened the black overnightbag to reveal the tightly packed banded bundles of $100 bills. “How much?” Partain said.
“He says one-point-two million but I didn’t count it,” she said, turned to the General, studied him briefly, drank the rest of her Scotch, sighed and said, “Better tell Twodees how you shorted the yen, optioned all that raw land in Arizona, went in with that wildcatter up in North Dakota and then dumped your Chrysler to buy Apple Computer.”
“Yes, perhaps I should,” the General said and looked at Partain. “Over the past several years I made some extremely unwise investments. I had to cover my short position on the yen; sold some stocks I should have kept and kept those I should’ve sold. There were several other, well, desperate ventures, gambles really, and last October I was virtually bankrupt and in dire need of one million dollars. The magic figure. Not a great amount of money, if inflation is taken into account, but—”
Partain interrupted. “What about the property you own in Aspen?”
“It's all leveraged to the limit with first, second and third mortgages. I can’t raise a dime on it.” He sighed. “Which is why I engaged Mr. Kite's services.”
Partain looked at Altford. “Kite stole your one-point-two million?”
“Kite farmed it out, according to sugar here,” she said. “Remember poor Dave Laney? Well, he and Kite hooked up together somehow, maybe through General Hudson, who was Dave's uncle. Anyway, Dave flew up to L.A. from Guadalajara on election day last year at Kite's request. For a sixty-thousand-dollar cut Dave went up to my apartment, worked my safe's combination, which he probably got from Jessica without her knowledge, put the money into a bag or something and was escorted in and out of the building by dear deadJack Thomson, night doorman and sometime actor, who got five thousand dollars cash money and a bullet in the back of his head for his bit part.”
“Shot by Mr. Kite, I believe,” the General said.
“Why didn’t you mortgage your house?”
The General stared straight ahead. “The house was to go to the organization.” “To VOMIT?”
Winfield nodded. “The money from Millicent I thought of as a loan.”
“Who really recommended me to you?” Partain asked Altford.
“I already told you, Nick Patrokis.”
“Not him?” Partain said, nodding at the General.
“I concurred when Nick told me,” the General said. “Millicent was extremely vague as to why she wanted a bodyguard. I of course knew it was because of the stolen money. She was frightened and understandably so.”
Partain said, “How’d you approach him—Kite?”
“Nick and I long ago discovered Kite’d been planted on us by General Hudson and Colonel Millwed. We’d had some of our people follow Kite several times and that led us to his meetings with Millwed at out-of-the-way places. After them, Millwed would usually rendezvous with General Hudson at this very hotel. They preferred small rooms on the fourth or fifth floor.”
“That doesn’t tell me how you approached Kite.”
“I simply went over to him in his office one day when no one else was around and asked if he knew of anyone who’d like to steal one million two hundred thousand dollars from a safe for which I had the combination.”
“You had it?” Altford said.
“The last time we audited the books, Millicent, I’m afraid I peered over your shoulder.” “Christ.”
“What’d he say?” Partain asked. “Kite?”
“He wanted details, of course. And there was the matter of the commission. I offered two hundred thousand and refused to bargain. He eventually accepted.” The General paused. “It was all rather businesslike.”
“Let's you and me do some business,” she said. “Tell me why they had to go and kill my first husband's son, Jerry Montague?”
“Mr. Kite again,” the General said. “I think he was following his prime target, Mr. Partain. Not you, Millicent. Jerry Montague simply got in Mr. Kite's way. I’m very sorry.”
“Who’d pay Kite to kill me?” Partain said. “Hudson and Millwed?”
“I suspect so. Because of all their unsavory activities in El Salvador. From a hint or two that I got from Mr. Kite, they seem to have inexhaustible funds.”
“You say you paid Kite a flat two hundred thousand to steal Mrs. Altford's one-point-two million. No expenses?”
“None. When I was on my way to see him this morning, I had the notion of paying him the same amount to replace the stolen money. Not in Millicent's safe, of course. But somewhere in her apartment. As a surprise.”
“What changed your mind?” Partain said.
The General frowned at the question, then nodded his understanding and said, “You mean why did I kill him instead?”
Partain said nothing. Neither did Millicent Altford.
“It simply had to end,” the General said. “It had gone on too long. Far too long.”
“Did you like it?” Partain said.
Mild shock spread across Winfield's face, and he blushed slightly. “Shooting Mr. Kite? No, sir, I did not.”
“I mean all the other stuff—the deceit and the plotting and the betrayal?”
“The treachery, you mean?”
Partain nodded.
“I regret to say I found it—stimulating.”
The General put the still-open black overnight bag on the floor and rose. “It's all there, Millicent,” he said, gathering up his hat and gloves. “One million two hundred thousand dollars. When we—I mean you, of course—audit the books next month, you’ll be able to strike a balance.”
Millicent stared at him, then shook her head and said, “I’m so sorry for you. I really am.”
He seemed not to hear. “I think I’ll walk home. Have some tea. Write a few letters.” He looked at Altford, then at Partain. “Good-bye, Millicent. Mr. Partain.”
Partain looked a question at Altford, who shook her head.
The General crossed slowly to the door, turned back and said, “Call them in an hour or so and tell them I’ll be at home.”
“The police?”
“Who else?” he said, turned again, opened the door and was gone.
CHAPTER 39
Edd Partain lay fully dressed on the hotel room bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about his dead wife, about General Winfield and about whether he wanted any lunch when the telephone rang at 12:33 P.M .
He took the phone off the bedside table without rising, brought it down to his left ear and said hello. A woman's voice said, “Mr. Partain? This is Captain Lake, General Hudson's aide? The General deeply regrets the short notice but hopes you’ll be able to join him for dinner tonight at his home in Arlington? Would that be possible, sir?”
“I think so,” Partain said, guessing she was from Virginia, probably from down around Lynchburg.
“Oh, good. Dinner’ll be around eight and the General can send a car for you. But if you prefer to drive yourself, I’ll see that a map to his house is left in your hotel box.”
“I’ll drive myself,” Partain said, relieved that the rising inflections had ended.
“He’ll be pleased to hear you’
ve accepted.”
“Could I bring someone?” Partain said.
There was no hesitation when she said, “General Hudson was hoping you might.”
Connie Weeks, the Department of Interior statistician and after-six call girl, was wearing only a Cartier watch when she turned to General Hudson and said, “You were right. He's bringing somebody.”
The General nodded and leaned back in the pale brown suede club chair to light a cigar. He wore only a pair of gray worsted pants.
“Probably bringing Patrokis,” said Colonel Millwed, who was sprawled on the long couch that was the color of rich cream. The Colonel wore only an unbuttoned white shirt.
“I didn’t think it proper to ask who,” Connie Weeks said and glanced at her watch. “Now if one of you wants a quickie, I’ve just got time. But no threesie.”
The General waved his cigar in polite refusal and said, “I’ll pass, but maybe Colonel Long Dong over there's interested.”
Millwed, now gazing at the ceiling, shook his head and said, “Colonel Dong's done been sucked dry.”
“Here you go, Connie,” the General said, reached into a hip pocket and produced a small plain white envelope. “You’ll find a little extra in there.”
She smiled, accepted the envelope and said, “Thank you, gentlemen,” turned and headed for her apartment's one bedroom, only to stop and turn around when the General said, “Heard about Emory?”
“No,” she said. “What?”
“Somebody shot and killed him this morning,” he said, then waited for her reaction, which turned out to be one of surprise, if not shock, and of sadness, if not grief. “Emory Kite?”
“I hope to Christ he's the only Emory I know,” Colonel Millwed said as he swung his feet to the floor and sat up.
“What time’d you leave him this morning?” the General said. “Eight. Close to eight.” “Notice anything different?”
“Sure. As I went out the front door some old guy wanted in. Middle sixties, I guess, about six feet tall, gray hair—what I could see of it—blue eyes, no beard, no glasses, no fat. He was carrying a black overnight bag and wearing a camel hair topcoat and a fancy hat and walked the way you guys walk, like you’re always in a parade.”