Missionary Stew

by Ross Thomas

  Haere shook his head. “To Louise Veatch. Not to me. She and Louise are fairly close.”

  There was a lengthy silence as Citron seemed to study the beer in his glass. Haere grew impatient. “Let's have it.”

  Citron looked up. “When all this began I was dead broke, living out of my car. The rent on my post-office box was due, but I couldn’t even afford that. So I decided to give the box one last check. In it was an invitation to an ACLU fund-raiser. It offered free food and something to drink, so I went. Out of the blue, Craigie Grey offered me a job as caretaker or super of her place in Malibu. The first person I met there, in Malibu, was Velveeta Keats.”

  Haere nodded.

  “I took her to dinner tonight.”

  “You said you were going to. Where?”

  “Vickie's.”

  “Nice place.”

  “Expensive,” Citron said. “On our way there we talked about, among other things, her brother-in-law. He's called Bobby. Or Roberto. Or B. Maneras.”

  “Oh shit,” Haere said and picked up the phone beside the Huey Long chair. He punched a number. When a woman's voice said hello after five rings, Haere said, “Louise.”

  “Christ,” she said, “I was almost asleep.”

  “Where's Baldy?”

  “Still at some meeting.”

  “Is Craigie Grey working?”

  There was a brief silence. “I’m trying to remember. No. I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Take her to lunch tomorrow, will you?”

  “I can try.”

  “Try isn’t good enough.”

  “Well, I can see her sometime probably. Coffee or drinks or something. What do you want?”

  “Talk to her about Citron. Find out everything you can. Why he was invited to an ACLU fund-raiser. Why she offered him the job. Who put her up to it—if anyone did. Everything.”

  “Has something happened to Citron?”

  “No, he's fine. He's right here. A little paranoid maybe.”

  “What do you want me to be when I talk to Craigie—subtle, tough, direct, devious or what?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’ll call her first thing in the morning. Speaking of calls, did you know old Dave Slipper's in town?”

  “I know.”

  “He called Baldy. In fact, that's where he is—with Slippery. What's it all about?”

  “Baldy wouldn’t tell you?”

  “No. He just said it was important.”

  “They want Baldy to drop it.”

  “Huh,” Louise Veatch said. “I reckon I’d better wait up for him then, hadn’t I?”

  “Maybe you’d better,” Haere said, told her goodbye, and hung up. He turned to Citron. “Louise will get it out of her tomorrow.”

  Citron nodded. “Let me try something else on you.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “Suppose I came up with something really god-awful—a top-grade political mess, say—what would you do with it?”

  “Try to elect somebody President, somebody smart, like Veatch.”

  “Not brilliant?”

  Haere shook his head. “I used to think we needed a brilliant President, but then I realized that if he was brilliant, and still wanted to be President, he’d probably have a few bolts loose.”

  “And that's all you want to do?”

  “Jesus. Isn’t that enough?”

  Citron didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he said, “Tomorrow, or the next day, I want to fly down to Tucamondo. I’ll need to take two things with me.”

  “What?”

  “Money. Quite a lot.”

  Haere nodded. “No problem.”

  “And some insurance.”

  “What kind of insurance?”

  “Velveeta Keats.”

  Haere went into one of his long silences. His normally sad expression deepened into one of near despair, which by now Citron had learned to interpret as keen interest. “It's all linked together somehow, isn’t it?” Haere said. “Everything.”

  Citron nodded. “I think so.”

  “Yeah,” Haere said. “It's got to be.”

  CHAPTER 22

  They had agreed to meet in the Polo Lounge for what Craigie Grey called brunch. Louise Veatch was driven to the Beverly Hills Hotel by Charlie, one of the two state policemen who had been assigned to the governor-elect and his wife. Charlie was a flirt. When he got out of the car and went around to open the door for Louise Veatch, she told him he could go play with his hoop in the park for the next hour.

  “Hoops,” said Charlie, who was three years younger than the governor-elect's wife. “I’ve seen pictures of hoops in books. Is that what they played with when you were a kid, Mrs. Veatch?”

  “They went out just before skateboards came in, Charlie,” she said.

  “Olden times,” Charlie said. “They must’ve been wonderful.”

  “They were,” she said. “Be back in an hour.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charlie said, deciding he would have just enough time to drop in on a Pan Am stew he knew who lived on Hillcrest a block down from Sunset.

  A few people waved at Louise Veatch as she entered the Polo Lounge and slid into the corner banquette where Craigie Grey was waiting. The two women touched cheeks, ordered coffee, and then studied the menus. When the waiter returned with the coffee, CraigieGrey asked for grapefruit and a single slice of whole-wheat toast. Louise Veatch said she would have the cantaloupe, but no toast.

  “How's the governor-elect?” Craigie Grey asked as she dug into her grapefruit.

  “Trying to act gubernatorial.”

  Craigie Grey looked up slyly. “Not Presidential?”

  “One thing at a time, Craigie.”

  “Folks are talking.”

  “Good.”

  “Is he really gonna go for it?”

  “He keeps saying people probably feel they’ve had enough Presidents from California to last ‘em awhile.” Louise Veatch carved off a slice of cantaloupe with her spoon and chewed it thoughtfully. “Morgan Citron,” she said. “Do you think he’d make us a good press secretary?”

  “Good Lord, honey, I don’t know. Is that what Baldy's thinking of?”

  Louise Veatch shrugged. “Draper Haere brought it up the other night. You know Draper?” Craigie Grey nodded.

  “Well, Citron's been doing a little work for Draper, thanks to you, and we were all sitting around the other night, Baldy, Draper, and me, and Draper came up with Citron's name. For press secretary. After all, he did almost win a Pulitzer once, and you know how Baldy likes to do the unexpected. What d’you think? You hired him.”

  “I honestly don’t know, Louise. I just met him that one time.”

  “Where was that?”

  “At that big ACLU fund-raiser last week. The one you all couldn’t make. I did my anti-national-ID-card speech, the one where I really get all steamed up.”

  “I know,” Louise Veatch said. “I’ve heard it. What was he doing when you hired him?”

  “Nothing I know of.”

  “Who invited him?”

  “To the ACLU thing?”

  Louise Veatch nodded.

  “Well, I just hired him, sort of on impulse, you know, and then I got to thinking about it, so I checked around a little, not much, but some, and it seems his mama had sent us a check and a list of folks she thought might be possible members and contributors. So we sent them all an invitation and he was one of them.”

  “His mama?”

  “Gladys Citron.”

  “No kidding? That's his mama? The ice lady?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I don’t think they get along too well, him and his mama.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Louise Veatch said.

  “Know what?”

  “I mean, hiring a press secretary whose mama's West Coast editor of the American Investigator is not the slickest PR move I can think of”

  “It's not his fault.”

  �
��Craigie, let me tell you something. You can afford to collect strays. Baldy can’t. What’d you do, anyway—just walk up to him and say, ‘Hi, there, I’m Craigie Grey and I’d like you to be my new super’?”

  “Well, no, I didn’t do it exactly like that. But you know me, sugar. Somebody pointed him out at the reception, and there he was over by the food, just gobbling it down and looking like he hadn’t had a square meal in nine days, so I went over and we got to talking and he seemed so nice and polite and, well, lonely, and then I got curious and asked him about Africa, because I’d read about that, and if that Emperor or President or whatever he was was really a cannibal, and then, well, why not? I needed somebody so I asked him if he’d like to be my new super because that little fag who was there had just up and run off to San Francisco.”

  “And he said yes.”

  Craigie Grey nodded. “And then the next day, I think it was the next day, you called and asked me if I knew any investigative reporters around and I said, sure, how about Morgan Citron? Isn’t that what I said?”

  “That's what you said,” Louise Veatch acknowledged, shaking her head regretfully.

  “What's the matter?”

  “I just wish his mama wasn’t Gladys Citron.”

  “Well, sugar, all I can say is it's not his fault.”

  “No,” Louise Veatch said. “But it's the reason he won’t get the job.”

  They walked out of the hotel together. Louise Veatch turned, waved goodbye, and then climbed into the rear of the black Mercury sedan that Craigie Grey noticed was driven by a young blond man whose cool blue eyes swept the hotel drive and entrance before he closed the door and circled around to the driver's side. Craigie Grey remained standing on the top step until the Mercury rolled away. She turned then, went back into the hotel, and headed for a phone booth. She dropped a coin and dialed a number. When the telephone was answered, she said, “Gladys Citron, please. This is Craigie Grey.”

  Gladys Citron leaned back in her chair with the phone to her ear and listened patiently to Craigie Grey's rambling description of her brunch with Louise Veatch. Finally, Craigie Grey ran down and concluded her report with, “And that's all I said.”

  “What was she wearing?” Gladys Citron said.

  “That real pretty green silk of hers she bought at Neiman-Marcus last fall. The one with the dolman sleeves.”

  “I’ve seen her on TV in that.”

  “She wears it a lot.”

  “And that's all you told her?” Gladys Citron asked. “That's all. I swear.” “You did very well, then.”

  “Gladys?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means you’re not going to run that …stuff, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course it does,” Gladys Citron said.

  The call from Baldwin Veatch was more summons than invitation. After Draper Haere said he would be there in fifteen minutes or so, he hung up the phone and turned to the wife of the man he had just been talking to. Louise Veatch was slipping her green silk dress down over her head. Haere was wearing his Jockey shorts and an unbuttoned white shirt.

  “He wants me there in fifteen minutes,” Haere said.

  “I heard,” Louise Veatch said, smoothing the dress down over her breasts and hips.

  “He wanted to know if I’d seen you. He thinks you ought to be there, too.”

  “That means he wants out.”

  Haere picked his pants off the back of a chair and started putting them on. “I thought you had him in line.”

  “That was at three this morning,” she said, picking a few cat hairs off the sleeve of her dress. “I wish that goddam Hubert would stay the hell off my clothes.”

  “You could hang them up.”

  “Passion carries them straight to the floor.” She turned to look at Haere. “At three this morning, I thought I had Baldy wavering, but that may have been just to shut me up. He wouldn’t say much, but I reckon Dave Slipper took him way up the mountain and showed him the valley down below.”

  “Slippery's good at that,” Haere said, picked up a paisley tie, and examined it critically. “In fact, he's the best there is.” Haere sawed the tie back and forth underneath his shirt collar, started to knot it, but said, “Well, hell,” turned to the phone instead, picked it up, and punched a number from memory. When it was answered he said, “This is Draper Haere, Carlotta. What flights have you got going to Tucamondo tomorrow?” He listened and then said, “I’d rather change in Houston than Miami.” To a question he replied, “Two. First-class. Put them on my American Express. The names are Morgan Citron and Velveeta Keats. Velveeta like in the cheese.” He listened again as the details were repeated. “Right,” he said, “and thanks. I’ll have somebody pick them up.”

  Haere hung up the phone and went back to knotting his tie. Louise Veatch examined him with saddened eyes. Her mouth played with a small half-smile. “You reckon this is the fork in the road for us?”

  Haere finished with his tie before answering. After slipping the knot firmly into place, he said, “You could leave him.”

  “Is that a proposition, an invitation, or what?”

  “Both.”

  “Then I’d never live in the White House, would I?” “You won’t anyhow.”

  She looked around the enormous room as if seeing it for the first time. Haere couldn’t tell if she thought what she saw was sad or only ridiculous.

  “I could just move in here with you and dumb old Hubert, right?”

  “Hubert's not so bad.”

  “But then I’d never meet the Queen or try out my Cajun French on Mitterrand or anything.”

  Haere smiled slightly. The possibility of Louise Veatch's meeting the Queen of England was one of their oldest private jokes. “We could get married,” Haere said, adding quickly, “and if you’re dying to meet Mitterrand, I could probably fix that up somehow.”

  Louise Veatch stared at him for long moments before whispering, “What about the Queen?”

  “I don’t think I can swing that.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “But?”

  “You know what we’d be in five years?”

  “What—dull?”

  “Never dull, Draper. Just quaint.”

  “Well, what's wrong with that? I’m sort of quaint already.”

  She smiled. It was a melancholy smile of complicity and promise and love that almost convinced Haere he would never lose her. Then she was in his arms, and they were kissing frantically. When the kissing ended she said, “Aw, Jesus, Draper. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.”

  “I had to ask.”

  She leaned back to look at him. Her smile was still there and tears were now rolling down toward the corners of her mouth where he knew she would lick them away. She always did.

  “You know what?” she said.

  “What?”

  “After you asked, I almost—for a second there—I almost said yes.”

  Haere smiled, but only a little, and used his forefinger to mop up one of the tears. He tasted it. “Salty, like they say.” He kissed her again, this time on the tip of her nose. “You’ll like the Queen,” he said.

  CHAPTER 23

  The huge living room in which Baldwin and Louise Veatch did most of their entertaining, if scarcely any of their living, was minimally furnished and almost devoid of color except for a few curious paintings by some long-dead Mexican artist. The paintings hung near the tiled concrete staircase that swept down in an S-curve from the second floor. A wall of glass looked out over the patio, the pool, the tennis court, and a fine old stand of pines and eucalyptus. The trees should have helped. Instead, they only barred the sunshine and made the room gloomy and tomblike and even menacing. It was a room that caused guests to drink too much and talk too little at the infrequent parties that were held in it. Louise Veatch hated the room. Her husband, when he thought about it at all, which was seldom, found it only drab, but not drab enough to spend any money on.

  The Mexican maid's sandals slapped against the la
rge square purplish tiles as she served drinks from a silver tray. There was only silence until the maid left. Then David Slipper raised his glass of bourbon and water and said, “Well, here's to all of us.”

  Slipper was seated in a cream-colored chair of boxy design. Draper Haere stared at him coldly and then shifted his gaze to the governor-elect, who was seated at one end of the long cream couch. At the other end was his wife. The governor-elect was fondling a glass ofwhite wine. Louise Veatch had a glass of vodka on the rocks to her lips. She had the feeling she would need it.

  “Okay, Baldy,” Haere said. “Let's have it.”

  Veatch met Haere's cold gaze with a cool one of his own. His mouth, before he spoke, was drawn into a firm line. His big chin looked bold and resolute. It's his hail-to-the-chief look, Haere thought.

  “I’ve decided we should drop our little investigation before it goes any further than it already has,” Veatch said.

  Haere nodded thoughtfully without shifting his gaze. “You’ve decided?”

  “That's right.”

  Haere looked at David Slipper. “What’d you promise him, Slippery, besides the moon and the stars and the key to the vault?”

  The white-haired man shrugged and smiled. “I never promise anything, Draper. You know that. I only mention …possibilities.”

  Haere smiled sadly and turned back to Veatch. “Baldy,” he said, “let me ask you just one question. What the fuck makes you think you can call it off?”

  Suspecting a trap, Veatch summoned his warmest, most lopsided grin. “I only meant, Draper, that my involvement, which you’ll have to admit has been minimal, will end.” He paused. The grin disappeared. “Forthwith,” he snapped.

  Haere was seated on a chair made out of chrome tubing and leather. He leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, both hands clasping his glass of beer. It was an earnest position and the same that most assume when seated on a toilet. “Baldy,” he said softly, “you’re up to your neck in it. It was your idea to begin with. Jack Replogle came to you first, not to me. But what you’ve boarded is a runaway train. You certainly don’t want to stay, but you sure as hell can’t jump either.”

  “I say jump, governor,” Slipper said.

  “Shut up, Slippery,” Haere said. To Veatch he said, “I’ve caught a glimpse of what this thing might be. Just a glimpse—somewhere out of the corner of my eye. I’m almost convinced it's big, awful, and absolutelydevastating, and I’m guessing—just guessing—that in the books it could fall somewhere in between Teapot Dome and Watergate. If I’m right, then I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to use it. You know. You could ride it right into the White House. Maybe even in ‘eighty-four. But regardless of what you do, Baldy, I’m going after it—if necessary, all by myself. There’re plenty of other would-be Presidents out there who’ll know what to do with it—except I prefer you, God knows why. So what I’m offering you is your last best chance to go live in the White House. In or out?”