“I’m just a neighbor,” I remind Buster. “Not a competitor.”
“Fine. Then enjoy your sailing. Maybe he’ll give you some good investment tips. The guy’s made a shitload of money over the years.”
“What’s he do?”
“International trade. He was big in weapons brokering back in the 1970s. He dodged some legal bullets over that, but nothing ever stuck to him. He’s from the old Joe Kennedy–Bill Casey school, which Clinton turned into an art form—if I do it, it’s legal, don’t read to me from the lawbooks.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“He used to sell arms, now his job is to keep the Russians from selling theirs.”
“That’s ’cause he doesn’t make a profit from them selling theirs.”
“How does someone with that kind of dossier get a high-up job in the State Department?” I ask. “Wouldn’t that be considered a conflict of interest?”
Buster shakes his head dismissively. “He’s a big contributor to this and previous administrations. And he knows the playing field, he’s been running up and down it for decades. Besides, you need some pricks to do the stuff the diplomats cringe over. The James Bakers and Madeleine Albrights smile and make speeches, the James Roaches put the whip to the mule train.” He leans back. “Bottom line, the wheels of governance and commerce need pricks who can get the job done. But I don’t want any of them marrying my daughters, and I know how far to trust them, which is half as far as I can throw them.” He checks his watch. “I’d take you to lunch, but I’m booked. Let’s party soon. I’ll call you.”
• • •
A week has gone by since the “incident” at my neighbor’s airstrip, as I prefer to think of what was a chilling murder. My meeting with Buster had set my mind at ease about not having to come forward with my evidence, but for the first couple of days afterward I checked the newspapers and watched the local news on TV anyway to see if there was any mention of it.
There was none, as I’d suspected would be the case. This had been some kind of gang-style execution. Over what, or by whom, I didn’t know, didn’t care. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.
I spent today as I’ve been spending most of my days, taking care of chores around my house, shooting pictures of birds, particularly Ollie, and fishing on the way home from the birds’ refuge. I caught two nice-sized yellow perch, big enough for a substantial dinner for one. I’ll make up a salad out of my garden, pan-fry the fish in butter with some diced onion and spices, crack a bottle of decent white wine, smoke a joint, and I’ll be styling.
Check of my voice-mail—nothing urgent. Ditto my e-mail. A couple messages I save for later; one from my mother, another from Johanna, back in Boston. How much she enjoyed our evening together, trusts that I did, too, she’ll be back down to see her mother and hopes we can get together. I’ll send back a pleasant reply. Another night of fun and games with her wouldn’t be hard to take.
Having disposed of what passes for business for me these days, I flick the TV on to the CNN Headline News. I have a satellite dish that brings me more television than is good for me. It’s a lonely life out here, but it isn’t primitive. I don’t watch too much, mostly nature shows on the Discovery Channel, the news, and some of the bio stuff on A&E.
A few minutes into the top of the show, while I’m drinking my first glass of sauvignon blanc and cleaning my day’s catch, a story comes up that catches my eye. Vassily Putov, the third-ranking member of the Russian delegation to this country, who has been missing for a week and has been the subject of a quiet but intense search by the Metropolitan police force and the FBI, has been found in a Dumpster in an alley in Baltimore. The man was murdered: two gunshots to the head. The body is badly decomposed—he’s been dead a long time, probably for most of the week, according to the coroner’s preliminary examination. They flash a picture of the victim on the screen, taken before he was murdered.
It’s a big deal, with international overtones. Representatives from the State Department, along with those from the Russian embassy, are shown discussing the tragedy, speculating as to why it happened. It appears that he was the victim of a mugging—his wallet and other personal effects are missing. The body was found in a mean area, where gang and drive-by killings happen too often.
I know that part of Baltimore—it’s a shithole, one of the worst in the city. If this man was hanging around there, he was asking for trouble. The more pertinent question is, I’m thinking as I’m watching, why would an important diplomat be around there at all?
For a moment I glimpse my neighbor James Roach in the background of one of the shots—he doesn’t talk on camera, he’s standing in a group, looking solemn. Then the picture of the dead man is flashed again.
I turn away from the television; then I turn back. Something about the man jogs my memory. But before I can get a better look at him the picture is gone, and they’re on to another story.
I channel-surf; the Washington and Baltimore local news programs are on. The murder of the Russian counselor is getting big airplay. I look at the picture of the man again as it comes up on the screen. He looks familiar, but from where, I can’t recall. The anchorwoman says there is an unsubstantiated rumor that the man frequented street prostitutes, particularly transvestites. If that’s the case, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people—a most unsavory and embarrassing situation. But it would explain why he was found there.
If that’s true, I don’t know the victim—hookers and gay cross-dressers aren’t my bag. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now—he’s dead. I turn the television off and finish cooking my dinner.
Before I know it, it’s almost eleven o’clock. I’ve been listening to some jazz CDs, old standards like Miles and Sonny Rollins, and catching up on my Faulkner—As I Lay Dying, one of my favorites of his, I read it every five years or so. I’ve smoked half a joint and drunk most of the bottle of wine—I’m in a mellow place.
Bedtime. I’m going to get up early in the morning, do some bird-watching and photography, my usual routine. These birds, especially Ollie, have really gotten to me. They’re my boon companions, most days my only ones.
I turn the tube on again to catch the late sports news. The Orioles are out of the race as usual, but I like to keep up with Cal Ripken, Jr. He’s heading down the final stretch of his great career, this could be his last go-around. I make a mental note to get up to Camden Yards before the end of the season. My brother has season tickets, good ones of course, only the best for Sam. I’ll hit him up for a game.
The murder of the Russian counselor is still a big story. No clues, but plenty of speculation. On camera, the CBS State Department correspondent says there’s a theory being floated by the usual “reliable but unidentified sources in government” that this may have been the work of a right-wing dissident militia from within Russia who are unhappy with the current regime. I wonder, fleetingly, if my neighbor Roach is one of the unidentified sources. In a more cynical vein, I also wonder if this so-called theory is really about saving face. If the guy was known to be a hooker freak, with a particular yen for transvestite prostitutes, being killed by foreign agents is a hell of a lot more dignified than being killed by some flaming cross-dresser, his pimp, or some street kids who waylaid him.
The slain counselor, according to the TV reporter, was considered a moderate in Russian politics. As the announcer drones on, the dead man’s picture comes up on the screen, a different one from the early evening broadcasts. I look at it. I swear I’ve seen this face—but where?
A sudden thought occurs to me; and as it does, my pulse begins to quicken. Keeping the image of the dead man in my mind’s eye as best I can, I go into my closet and pull out the old shoes in which I’ve hidden the transparencies of last week’s murder. Taking them out—my hands are shaking, I don’t deny it—I examine them under a magnifying glass.
The faces of the two men—the murderer and the victim—are dark, due
to the early morning backlighting. Even under magnification the killer is basically indistinguishable—the cap and sunglasses he’s wearing cover most of his face. I could blow the slide up to get a closer look at him but that would blur the picture, and it wouldn’t help me see him any better.
The other man, the victim, is a clearer image. Still dark, but he wasn’t wearing anything on his head or face. I strain to see if he’s who I now think he might be.
I can’t tell. There are similarities in size, head shape, and so forth, but his face is too dark for me to venture a conclusive opinion one way or the other.
If the man in my pictures turns out to be the dead counselor, though, the shit is going to hit the fan like a Caribbean hurricane. A high-ranking foreign diplomat is killed in southern Maryland and a week later his body turns up in a Dumpster in a Baltimore slum, a hundred miles away? That’s not hookers, and it’s not a dissident Russian group, either. I don’t know squat about global politics, but the man I saw getting killed, even from far away, wasn’t a stranger to his assassin. He and his killer knew each other.
A diplomat being murdered on the property of a high-ranking State Department official is too important for me to bottle up. I should have realized that a week ago, when I found out who owned that property, and taken prompt action, even though Buster warned me not to. The police should have these pictures.
I’m going to look like a jerk, going to the authorities so late. When Roach finds out, he’ll be outraged, and he’ll have a right to be. A high-stakes murder took place on his estate. Run-of-the-mill criminals don’t travel by private jet. These people were big-time players. Further complicating the matter, I witnessed the murder before I met Roach. I exchanged pleasantries with a man who was a guest in my mother’s house and deliberately didn’t tell him about it, because he struck me as an asshole and because I was worrying about my own safety and didn’t want to get involved.
It’s too late to do anything tonight. Tomorrow I’ll do something. After I get back from my birds. By tomorrow afternoon for sure.
I put the incriminating transparencies back in their hiding place and get into bed. I left the light on in the kitchen, but I’m not getting out of bed to turn it off. Tonight, I’m leaving it on.
• • •
I get up early and go out and hang around with the birds and take pictures of them and check out Roach’s property. Not a creature is stirring. I watch the farm for a couple of hours while attending to my birding duties, wondering if someone will come by, some form of human life, but nada—not a soul. Roach had mentioned that he had a foreman and staff people, but I see no one. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the place was uninhabited.
Now I’m back in my house. It’s mid-morning and I have a raging headache, little men are beating on anvils all over the inside of my skull. My pain is not from the wine I drank or the grass I smoked last night—by my current standards I was abusing moderately. And it isn’t from the heat of the day, I wore a hat and was back by ten, before the temperature really started blasting into the stratosphere. This is a panic-attack headache I’m experiencing.
I sit down with my mid-morning red one and a cup of black coffee to think about what I’m going to do. If, despite Buster’s admonition to stay clear of this, I go to the cops and tell them I witnessed a killing, that would be bad enough. But to have the actual proof in my hot hands—that’ll be a Pandora’s box. It’ll be like owning the Zapruder film—I could be drawn into a maelstrom over which I’ll have no control.
I wash down a couple of Tylenol with the red one, sip at my coffee. The pounding in my head is going down, but my stomach is growling, and my skin feels clammy.
I need to know if the man in my pictures is the dead counselor before I do anything else, including wasting any more of Buster’s expensive time. (He doesn’t charge me, but he could be seeing a paying client while he’s with me.) I don’t know why, exactly, I have this need. I didn’t kill the man, I didn’t know him, so what if his death tilts the balance of power in the old Soviet bloc or even the entire world? Is that going to make my life any better or worse? I don’t think so.
As best as I can figure it out—and I hate psychoanalyzing myself more than anything—is that I feel so guilty over so many crappy things I’ve done over the past several years that I’ve suddenly developed the need, fueled by this awful event that I witnessed, to atone for my sins by doing good deeds, starting now. I’m like Rip Van Winkle waking up into a new world. One of my worst sins (except with Marnie, where I sinned in the other direction) has been lack of involvement in the world of people—the cynic keeping everyone at arm’s length, like I did with that nice lady Johanna Mortimer.
Doing the right thing in this situation, the moral thing (as opposed to the legal thing), is to turn my evidence over to the authorities. If the man I saw being killed a few miles from here is the counselor, why was his body picked up and transported a hundred miles away, then dumped in a shithole slum and made to look like a mugging accident, with kinky and humiliating sexual overtones to make the victim look bad, as if he deserved to be killed?
Why would his killer go to all that trouble? Why did the murder occur on the property of an American assistant secretary of state? If the killer wanted to discredit James Roach, ruin him, the body would have been left on his property, not taken away. So that’s not the reason. Maybe the killer knew this was Roach’s property and specifically didn’t want Roach implicated. Would that mean the killer knew Roach? And how could the killer and his pilot have known they could land on the airstrip, commit the crime, and get away without being seen? Did they know no one from the farm would be there? Did they know the farm staff’s schedule? Or was there collusion between the killer and people who work for Roach? Between the killer and Roach himself? That would be fucking scary—the man lives a couple of miles from here, practically on my back doorstep. Was the killing premeditated, as I’ve been assuming, or could it have risen from an argument that got out of hand? What were the victim and the killer arguing about?
The possibilities are endless—if the man in my pictures is the Russian counselor. The million-dollar question. I don’t know if he is—this could be all smoke, no fire. But I do know, for my own peace of mind, that I have to find out.
My pal at King James Community College, Pierce Wilcox, has good contacts in the photography business. I phone him up and tell him my problem: I have pictures of some people in which the features are unrecognizable. I want to try to digitally enhance the slides to see if I can make an identification. “It’s a delicate situation,” I tell him. “I don’t want anyone knowing I have these pictures.”
“You moonlighting as a detective now?” he asks with curiosity.
“Kind of,” I answer evasively. “It could be embarrassing to the parties involved.”
“What honey pot are you dipping into now that you shouldn’t be?” he asks. I can feel his salacious old-man’s smile across the wire.
“You know me too well, Pierce.”
A couple hours later, he calls me back. “There’s a lab in Washington that should be able to handle your problem. My guy there will do what he can to help you out.”
“This is kind of sensitive.” I’m nervous about anyone seeing these pictures and figuring out who they’re of.
“Not to worry. My friend will bring you in after hours. No one else will know you’ve been there, and he’s the height of discretion—he’s handled delicate situations many times.”
“Okay,” I answer reluctantly. I’m taking a chance, but I have to find out. “I’m trusting you on this, Pierce.”
“I’m doing you a favor here, man,” he says peevishly. “So’s my friend.”
“No offense meant,” I assure him quickly. “I’m still paranoid these days, from what happened down in Texas.”
It’s a lame excuse, but Pierce buys it. He knows the story of my crash and burn in Austin.
“None taken,” he says forgivingly.
I need t
o trust people. So far Buster’s the only person I’ve confided in, and he’s a lawyer, sworn to secrecy. I either need to widen the circle, or start sleeping with a gun on my bedside table. I don’t like guns, never have.
“Thanks for the help, Pierce. I appreciate it.”
• • •
I park my car in an enormous, dimly lit, almost empty parking lot located in an industrial section of Anacostia, in southeastern Washington, and walk toward a long, concrete-slab building with slit windows that are set high above street level. The building is flanked by others that are architecturally similar, monstrous block-square tombstones that were constructed to be anonymous. High-tech companies that perform exotic, ultramodern work for government and industry occupy these cheerless structures. Their drab exteriors mask the originality and artfulness of the activities that go on inside them.
The company that is housed in the particular building I’m going to is an ultra-high-tech photography lab. Some of the exotic jobs they perform include monitoring images from satellites all over the world, and inventing and perfecting state-of-the-art camera devices to deal with infrared imaging; anything that involves any type of cutting-edge photography can be handled here. They also have beautiful printing and reproduction facilities—they do work for the Smithsonian and important public art galleries around the world. And they also specialize in what I’m here for—they can enhance images so as to make the obscure or indefinable identifiable. A considerable portion of their work comes from federal agencies like the CIA, the FBI, and the Defense Department.
My host, who tells me his name is Jack (but deliberately doesn’t offer up his last name), explains all this to me as he leads me through the building to the area where we’re going to be working. He’d met me outside and walked me in, giving me someone else’s ID card to wear to get past the guards, who knew him and didn’t pay us any attention. So much for security, I’m thinking—no wonder the Chinese have our nuclear secrets.
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