by Ross Thomas
“Has Brattle ever tried anything?” Dill asked.
“I’m not sure. About a year or so after I hired my Mexicans, I also hired a guy called Clay Corcoran—the one who got killed out at Felicity’s funeral?”
Dill nodded. “Hired him to do what?”
“See if he could get past my Mexicans.”
“Could he?”
“He said he couldn’t, but that he’d like to take it one more step and hire another guy who was supposed to be tops at tapping phones and planting bugs and shit like that. So I said go ahead. Well, about a month or so before he got killed, Corcoran called and told me this guy he’d hired said it was impossible to get near my place. Now that made me feel some better, but then Corcoran got killed and I stopped feeling that way.”
“Did Corcoran ever mention the name of the guy he hired?”
“He didn’t mention it and I didn’t ask. Why?”
“It’s not important,” Dill said. “Who picked Kansas City to meet in—you or Brattle?”
“Brattle.”
“Why?”
“Why? Hell, Pick, Clyde was born there. It’s his briarpatch, his hometown.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dill lied. “Or if I did, I must’ve forgot.”
CHAPTER 33
The subcommittee’s minority counsel, Tim Dolan, and Jake Spivey had never met. When they shook hands in front of the bronze statue of William Gatty, Dill was struck by the pair’s resemblance. Their clothes helped. Both wore creased and wrinkled seersucker suits (one blue and the other gray) with shirts open at the neck from which loosened ties dangled like afterthoughts. Both were fifteen to twenty pounds overweight and most of it had gone to their bellies. Both were sweating heavily despite the air-conditioning. Both looked thirsty.
Yet the resemblance was more than physical. As they shook hands, Dill sensed that each recognized in the other a kindred spirit with a commonness of attitude, approach, and flexibility. Instinct seemed to tell them that here a deal could be cut, an accommodation reached, a sensible compromise negotiated. Here, both seemed to think, is somebody you can do business with.
The banalities had to be got through first. When Spivey asked if Dolan had had a good flight, Dolan said he wasn’t quite sure because he had slept all the way from Herndon, Virginia. When Dolan asked Spivey if the weather down here was always like this, Spivey said it was, as a matter of fact, just a touch cool for August, but it’d probably hot up some toward the end of the month. Each chuckled as he recognized a long-standing fellow member of Bullshitters, International.
Dolan then turned to Dill and, after inquiring about his wellbeing, informed him the Senator’s flight would be twenty or twenty-five minutes late. He suggested that they all repair to the airport bar for something cold and wet. Dill said fine, and Spivey said he thought it sounded like a hell of an idea. At no time did Dolan display the slightest surprise at Spivey’s unexpected presence.
They sat in a round corner booth and ordered three bottles of Budweiser. Jake Spivey paid. Nobody objected. They all raised their glasses, said cheers or something equally meaningless, drank deeply, and then talked baseball, or rather Spivey and Dolan talked baseball as Dill pretended to listen. Dolan seemed impressed by Spivey’s acute analysis of how the Red Sox just might make it into the playoffs. Still thirsty, they ordered another round of beer and just as they finished that, the Senator’s plane was announced. It was then that Dill made his second move.
He turned to Spivey and said, “Jake, I’ve got a couple of things I need to talk over with Tim here and I wonder if you’d mind meeting the Senator when he comes off the plane?”
Spivey hesitated for only a moment. “Sure,” he said. “Be glad to. I’ve never met him, you understand, but I’ve seen his picture in the paper and on TV, so I reckon I’ll spot him okay.”
“Just look for the youngest kid off the plane,” Dolan said.
Spivey chuckled, said he’d do that, and left. Dolan turned to Dill and let the surprise creep into his tone, if not into his expression. “What the fuck was all that about?”
“Tell me about you and the FBI first. What kind of deal did you make with them?”
“No deal, Ben.”
“None?”
“None.”
“Why in hell not?”
Dolan frowned thoughtfully, perhaps even judiciously. Comes now the Boston dissembler, Dill thought. Dolan said, “Two reasons. One, leaks.”
“From the FBI?”
“Like a wet brown bag.”
“What’s two?”
“Two. Well, two is political leverage. If the kid brings this off all by himself, he’ll be in deep clover.”
“And if he doesn’t,” Dill said, “he’ll be in deep shit—and you with him.”
“We discussed it,” Dolan said. “We both agreed the risk is acceptable.”
“Hear me, Tim. For the record I think you both made a mistake. A bad one. I think you should’ve called in the FBI—for the record.”
Dolan shrugged. “Okay. You’re on record. Now tell me why you sent Spivey to meet the kid.”
“You notice how willingly he went?”
Dolan nodded.
“That means he’s not worried about passing through the metal detector.”
This time both surprise and shock spread across Dolan’s plump handsome Irish face. And fear, too, Dill thought. Just a trace. “Jesus,” Dolan said. “You mean it’s gonna be like that down here?”
“Exactly like that,” Dill said.
The Senator and Jake Spivey seemed to be chatting amiably as they rode the passenger conveyor belt down the long corridor to where Dill and Dolan waited. Spivey was carrying the Senator’s garment bag; the Senator carried his own briefcase.
After the Senator greeted Dill and Dolan, Spivey turned the garment bag over to Dill and went to fetch the car. The three men waited for it just inside the airport’s main entrance. “Looks hot out there,” Senator Ramirez said.
“It is,” Dill said.
Ramirez turned to Dolan. “Well?”
“Ben’s put himself on record. He thinks we should’ve gone with the FBL”
The Senator nodded as though Dill’s attitude was expected, if not altogether reasonable. “No gain without risk, Ben,” he said, and turned to survey the less-than-two-year-old airport. “Who was Gatty anyway?” he asked.
“He flew around the world with Wiley Post in thirty-one,” Dill said, not caring whether the Senator knew who Post was.
He apparently did, because he said, “Oh,” in an appreciative tone, gave the airport another sweeping glance, added, “Nice airport,” and again turned to Dill. “What’s Jake Spivey’s last price?”
“Immunity.”
“What d’you think?”
“Take it,” Dill said.
“Tim?”
“Take it under advisement.”
Again, the Senator nodded, thoughtfully this time, and said, “At least until we find out what Clyde Brattle’s got to say for himself.”
“Right,” Dolan said. “Never let the contract till you know what Paddy will pay.”
One of the Senator’s elegant eyebrows went up. “Boston folklore?”
“It’s in the catechism.”
“Well,” the Senator said, “what we’ll do is talk to them both and then make up our minds.” He turned to give the bronze statue another inspection. “William Gatty, huh? He looks like quite a guy.”
As they stood waiting for Jake Spivey to bring his car round, Dill examined the Senator, who was still examining the statue. You come, young sir, Dill thought, unfettered by either compunction or conscience, not to mention common sense. You come armed only with ambition of the ruthless and burning kind, which may or may not be enough. It’ll be interesting to see the battle joined. It’ll be even more interesting to see who wins.
“Jesus,” Tim Dolan said, as Spivey pulled his hundred-thousand-dollar machine to a stop in front of the airport entrance.
The Se
nator smiled slightly. “Somehow,” he said, “I knew it would be a Rolls.”
It wasn’t really a suite that Dill had reserved for Senator Ramirez and Tim Dolan on the sixth floor of the Hawkins Hotel. Instead, it was merely two connecting rooms—one of them with twin beds and the other with a single bed, a couch, and a few additional chairs. They had had coffee sent up. The empty cups now sat on the round low table along with the ashtrays and Tim Dolan’s yellow legal pad on which not a word had yet been written. Spivey smoked a cigar; Dolan his cigarettes; the Senator and Dill nothing. They were all in their shirtsleeves, except for Dill, who still had the revolver stuck down in his hip pocket. The meeting, only forty-five minutes old, had already reached its impasse.
Jake Spivey settled back in his chair, put the cigar in the corner of his mouth and smiled cheerfully around it. “Tim, what you’re asking me to do is climb up on the scaffold, stick my head in the noose, let you fellas give it a few yanks—just to make sure it’s snug—and then I’m supposed to say what an honor it is to be there on the occasion of my own hanging. Then, depending on how you all’re feeling that day, maybe you’ll spring the trap, and maybe you won’t.”
“Nobody’s going to spring any trap, Jake,” Dolan said.
Spivey looked at him quizzically. “You got the votes on the full committee?”
“We’ve got them,” Senator Ramirez said.
Spivey turned to study the Senator with interest. “Well, sir, I’m sure you can add as well as I can, and probably better because I’m not real good at it. But I hired me some lawyers up in Washington who everybody says are damn good at their adds and takeaways. God knows they oughta be. They charge enough. Well, these lawyers up there—after they got through adding this and subtracting that—well, they say you’re gonna be between two and three votes shy. Probably three.”
“Then I suggest you retain different counsel,” Ramirez said.
“Senator, lemme ask you one simple question.”
“Of course.”
“What you want me to do—when you boil it all down—is help you hang Clyde Brattle, right?”
The Senator nodded.
“So what’s in it for me?”
“You’re asking for total immunity.”
“That’s what I’m asking for. But what am I gonna get?”
“Immunity is a distinct possibility,” Ramirez said.
Spivey smiled. “Possibility don’t quite hack it, distinct or otherwise.”
“It would be premature for us to say anything else at this stage, Mr. Spivey. You know that.”
“Jake,” Tim Dolan said.
Spivey turned to look at him. Dolan leaned forward, selling. “Let me put it this way, Jake. Brattle’s bad and we want him bad. You’re, well, you’re only half bad, or maybe even only one-quarter bad, so if we have to choose between you and Brattle—choose who we’re going to put the blocks to—then we’ll go for real bad and Brattle and so will Justice and I can almost damn near guarantee you total immunity.”
Spivey smiled once again and Dill noticed that each time the smile grew colder. “There’s that ‘almost’ again,” Spivey said, “which is almost as bad as ‘distinct possibility.’” The cold smile grew icy. “You know what I think you guys are really trying to do?” The cold smile was still there as he looked first at Dolan, then at the Senator, and then back at Dolan. His glance slid over Dill.
It was the Senator who finally said, “What?”
“I think you’re trying to jug both me and old Clyde. I think you’re fixing to do a deal with Clyde where he’ll go rest up in one of those federal country clubs for a year or two and, in exchange for that, he’ll give you me—and maybe a couple of other guys I can think of. Or he says he’ll give us to you. Clyde lies a lot, you know. Thing is, he lies all the time—morning, noon, and night. But I’m gonna give you the facts: Clyde can’t hand you me—no matter what he claims.”
“What about all that stuff in Vietnam, Jake?” Dill said.
Spivey seemed grateful for the question. “Well, all that happened a long time ago, didn’t it? And nobody gives a shit anymore anyhow. But what I did there I did as a contract employee of the United States Government. And while what I did wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t any worse’n what some of the rest of ’em did. So if you think you can scapegoat me on that, you’re flat wrong. To do that you’d have to have more’n Clyde Brattle. You’d have to have Agency backing and that you’re just not gonna get.”
“And afterward?” Dill said.
“You mean after the last chopper took off from the top of the Embassy and we lost and went home? Well, after that I bought stuff and sold it. That’s all.”
“Trading with the enemy is what some might call it, of course,” the Senator said.
The small half-smile that appeared on Spivey’s face was mean for its size. Here it comes, Dill thought. The one he’s been saving. He looked at Dolan and Ramirez and saw that they, too, had sensed it.
Spivey’s voice was low and almost gentle when he said, “They haven’t called it trading with the enemy yet—and you wanta know why?”
Dill didn’t think anyone really did. Finally, it was the Senator who quietly asked, “Why?”
“I was told to,” Spivey said.
“Who told you to?”
“Langley.” The half-smile was back now, no longer mean, but triumphant. Or vindictive, Dill thought. “It was a long time ago, Senator,” Spivey went on, “almost ten years ago and maybe you don’t remember, but—”
The Senator interrupted. “I remember.”
“—we bugged out and left it lying around. Tons and tons of it. Heavy stuff, light stuff, you name it—just lying around. The spoils. Well, it was over and old Ho’s folks’d finally won just like everybody with a lick of sense knew they would. They didn’t need all that stuff though. Some of it, of course, but not all. But Langley knew folks who did. Folks in Africa and the Middle East and South America and Central America and you name it. So our job, me and Clyde, was to buy it from Ho’s people for cash money and sell it for cash money to those folks who had their own little insurrection going—or counterrevolution or half-ass uprising or what have you. These were all folks that Langley was sort of looking after and encouraging. So that’s what we were told to do, and that’s what we did, and that’s how we by God got rich. So if you wanta indict me for that, you’re gonna have to indict half of Langley and a whole bunch of other people, and to tell the truth, Senator, I don’t think you got the git to make it go.”
“But after that, Jake?” Dill said. “After Vietnam?”
“After, huh? Well, after that Clyde got greedy, and went bad, and got even richer, and I got out. I had nothing to do with later, but I know what happened. So if all you wanta do is hang old Clyde Brattle—well, shit, fellas, I’ll furnish the rope.” He paused and added in a low hard voice, “But you don’t touch me.”
There was a silence until the Senator smiled and said, “So. I’d say we’ve arrived at an understanding of our respective positions at least, don’t you, Tim?”
Dolan looked at Spivey and grinned. “I’d say we know where Jake stands pretty well.”
The Senator rose. The meeting was over. After Spivey rose, the Senator held out his hand. “You’ve been frank with us, Jake—you mind that? The Jake?” Spivey shook his head. “And we appreciate it. We’ll discuss it among ourselves and I’m sure something can be worked out that’ll make us all reasonably content.” The Senator was smiling as he shook Spivey’s hand. It was a pleasant smile, even warm, but not warm and pleasant enough to guarantee anything.
Spivey smiled back—his quick, brief half-smile—turned, picked up his seersucker jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the door. He stopped at the sound of Dill’s voice. “I’ll ride with you, Jake.”
As they waited for the elevator, Spivey said, “I think I’d better cut myself that deal with old Clyde.”
“I think you’d better,” Dill said.
CHAPTER
34
At 6 P.M. on that Monday evening, that hot August 8, the outside temperature was still 101 degrees. At a little past six they made love on the large old oak desk. The desk was in her office in the suite Anna Maude Singe shared with a certified public accountant. The CPA had given up and gone home shortly after four o’clock on what had turned out to be the hottest day of the year. The secretary he and Singe also shared lasted until four-fifteen before she, too, gave up and went home.
Dill had signed the papers first. They gave Singe his power of attorney and enabled her to collect on his sister’s life-insurance policy and, if possible, sell the yellow brick duplex. After scrawling his name for the last time, Dill put the ballpoint pen down and touched Singe on her bare tanned arm. Suddenly, they were up and kissing frantically, she working on his belt, he on her panties, sliding them down over her hips and bare legs. She got his belt undone and he paused long enough to shrug out of his jacket. His pants and shorts dropped to the floor with a clank and the pistol fell out of his hip pocket. Neither of them noticed because they were too busy with the mechanics of the thing. But they soon worked that out, and then it was all lunge and thrust and small cries and finally joint explosion and sweet release.
Dill stood up after a while, his pants and shorts still around his ankles. Anna Maude Singe sat up on the edge of the desk, tugging her skirt down over her knees and smiling, obviously pleased with herself. She looked down, prepared to laugh at the pants and shorts puddled around Dill’s ankles. But when she saw the pistol lying on the hardwood floor, her smile went away and she didn’t laugh. She said, “Aw shit,” instead.