Strachey's folly ds-7

by Richard Stevenson

  "Yes, it's a gorgeous piece of Caribbean real estate. Have you been there?"

  "I visited the Yucatan about ten years ago and enjoyed it. Does your boss go there, too? I saw his picture outside with some Mexican leaders."

  "Those pictures were taken here in Washington. My former employer, Representative Krumfutz, is the real Mexico maven. She taught Spanish in the Log Heaven, Pennsylvania, high school before she ran for office, and she used to lead summer student tours of Mexico and during school vacations. She really knows the place and was the one who first got me interested in it, and I fell for Mexico the way a lot of people do-the quiet friendliness, the mix of traditional and modern cultures, the inexpensive comfort, the climate. My visits to the Yucatan, unhappily, have been curtailed since my falling out with Jorge. If you're tracking down Jim Suter, it looks as if you may be getting to Mexico well before I do, if that's where he is. And if, that is, your anonymous client is prepared to finance your trip to Cancun in search of Mr. Suter. What are you supposed to do when you find him? Shoot him?"

  "No. Why do you ask that?"

  "It's an impulse a lot of men have probably felt toward Jim Suter," McChesney said with no discernible emotion. "To take out a contract on him."

  "I've no assassinations on my resume."

  "You're to be commended. Incidentally-or not so incidentally-I see that Jim made the news."

  "That's right."

  "Somebody put him in the AIDS quilt."

  "Yes."

  "What an insensitive thing to do. Not to Jim necessarily, but it sullies the quilt. A lot of dead friends of mine have panels in the quilt. So as much as I dislike Jim Suter, I think this is an extremely tasteless way for anybody to hurt him."

  "I agree. I understand that you lost another friend last winter. Not to AIDS, but in a murder-Bryant Ulmer, your predecessor in this job. Or wasn't Ulmer a friend?"

  "Bryant was not only a friend but a mentor. I'd been his deputy for two years. I miss Bryant very much, professionally and personally. I moved over here with Burton after Betty left office. Representative Krumfutz's career was fucked by her dim-witted husband, Nelson-and, I think, that ignorant cunt he's shacking up with in Engineville. Ever been up to Central Pennsylvania, Strachey?"

  "Just passing through."

  "It's beautiful country, but culturally it's a wasteland. If you're stuck up there for a month, as I was once, don't, say, go looking for tickets to the opera. Friday-night high school football, yes. The Ring cycle? Forget it."

  "Unlike Washington, of course. Home of La Scala. Or is that someplace else?"

  "We take the Metroliner to New York," McChesney said, and Williamson nodded.

  So these two were a couple?

  "It's the same for us in Albany," I said, as if I'd ever set foot in the Metropolitan Opera more than twice. I hoped McChesney didn't start palavering about Wagner. What had happened to his tight schedule?

  To my relief, he said, "I didn't like the way you bullied your way in here, Strachey, but I don't mind having been able to offer you my views on Jim Suter-unhelpful as I've been in locating him. I haven't got a current address for Jorge. I understand he's got some new place south of Cancun somewhere. So if Jim is with him, you'll have to find someone with more up-to-date information than I've got. But if I've added to your knowledge of Jim's foul history and rotten character, I'm happy to have been of assistance in that regard."

  "Thank you."

  "I've been far more forthcoming than anything I know about you suggests you deserve, Strachey. Now it's your turn. Who's your client?"

  "I can't say."

  "I could find out if I badly wanted to."

  "How?"

  "Ask around. I already knew you were in town looking for Jim."

  "Well, go ahead. Ask around. That's up to you."

  McChesney studied me for a moment, then said, "I might do that." Then he stood up, and as I stood, McChesney said, "If you go down to the Yucatan, I hope you have an enjoyable time, as you say you did ten years ago. But if you locate Jim Suter, the chances are, you won't. He's poison. And for Christ's sake, don't let him get you into bed. You wouldn't know what hit you. Not for the first week, I should say. That's bliss. But after a week or so, Jim Suter is Satan and life with him is life in hell."

  I told McChesney I'd be extra careful. I thanked him and left. Williamson accompanied me to the corridor, and I made my own way out of the Rayburn Building and into a cool fall drizzle.

  Chapter 17

  Who was my client, anyway? I wondered about that as I walked the four blocks back to the hotel-Ray Craig not visible but surely in the vicinity, for I caught a whiff of his nicotine spoor as I left the Rayburn Building.

  Was Maynard my client? Timmy? Jim Suter, even though he hadn't asked me to be? I guessed it was Timmy, since he was planning on paying my expenses. In fact, I figured that he and I could split the costs of the investigation. That would make me my own co-client, and not for the first time either.

  Luckily, I was solvent that month, having received a good bonus on top of my standard fee for tracking down the daughter of a commissioner in the Pataki administration and talking her into avoiding prosecution by returning to its owners the state police aircraft often used by the governor for official jaunts around New York State. The young aviatrix, who had only recently begun to suffer from emotional problems, had somehow made off with the plane at Albany County Airport and intended to follow Amelia Earhart's fatal 1937 route. The disturbed young woman had gotten only as far as Northampton, Massachusetts- not on Ms. Earhart's itinerary-when I caught up with her.

  Did Alan McChesney really want to know who my client was? Or did he already know all or much of what there was to know of the past four days' events, and his alternating expressions of curiosity and pique were smoke-machine distractions? I was inclined not to trust him, but my mind was open.

  I did plan on checking out McChesney's remarks in passing-if that's what they were-on Betty Krumfutz's Mexican connection as a high school Spanish teacher who, prior to her years in the Pennsylvania legislature and the U.S.

  Congress, could have taken part in illegalities-maybe Log Heaven schoolkids running drugs in their pencil boxes? — that Jim Suter later got wind of or was somehow involved in. But if Mrs. Krum-futz was knowingly connected to Jim Suter's danger-and May-nard's shooting and the ransacking of his house-she certainly had not betrayed any of that to me during our Log Heaven encounter. She had, on the contrary, seemed genuinely surprised that Jim might be in trouble. Or was that all an act put on by an experienced pathological liar?

  I'd run into that before.

  Soon, I hoped to meet the actual Jim Suter. Then I would know if Mrs. Krumfutz was up to her neck in "it," or Nelson Krumfutz was or Tammy Pam Jameson or Alan McChesney or Carmen LoBello or any of Suter's other angry ex-lovers or his mother or brother or Ray Craig, or any other person or persons I had yet to meet from Jim's personal or professional life who had a reason, they believed, to threaten and badly frighten Suter and to try to kill Maynard Sudbury.

  The only thing I was sure of was, it was Jim Suter who held the answers to all my questions. And, of course, I also knew that Suter was the Gay Male Siren of the Decade, the great sex bomb who had lured Washington's strongest gay men onto his irresistible shoals, where all were wrecked and some sank. I'd always thought of myself as being immune to the obvious-it was subtlety that could dampen my palms-but I was certainly interested in seeing for myself what all the excitement was about.

  Back at the hotel, Timmy had left a message for me at the desk, saying that Maynard was doing well and Timmy expected to speak with him over the lunch hour. Timmy said he'd be back at the hotel by late afternoon.

  Another message had been left by Chondelle Dolan: "Ray and Filbert switched."

  That was all. Officer Filbert Furlong, it seemed, was now following Timmy, and Ray Craig was trailing me around. I'd guessed that was the case-Craig's sour scent was often in the air around me. And the question re
mained, was I such a criminal, or potentially criminal, big cheese that the D.C. Police Department believed it needed to send a detective lieutenant out to keep watch on me? Or was Craig involved in some unofficial rogue operation-the grotesque conspiracy that had seized Timmy's imagination and made his skin crawl even when he had no idea at all as to what it might be about? Again, Jim Suter was the man with the answers.

  Stevenson, Richard

  Stevenson, Richard — [Donald Strachey Mystery 07] — Strachey's Fol ly

  Chapter 18

  At twelve-thirty I met Red Heckinger and Malcolm Sweet in a restaurant at the Hyatt Regency just north of the Capitol. These were the two friends of Jim Suter's that Bud Hively had told Dana Mosel about and I'd tracked them down. They were a couple, it turned out, and neither had been at all reluctant to meet with me, despite my vague description to them of my professional identity and my current role. As we sat down, the reasons for their willingness to have a word with me became all too plain.

  "Jim Suter knows you're looking for him," Heckinger said, "and he wants you to stop looking. Now."

  "Do not pass go," Sweet added. "Do not collect two hundred dollars. Or, if you feel you must, do collect two hundred dollars from anybody you think might provide that sum. That's up to you. Just don't go looking for Jim Suter. Do you understand what we are saying? That way, no one will have to go looking for you."

  I sat for a moment and considered this new wrinkle. Heckinger and Sweet watched me and waited. Both men were in their forties, in the mandatory dark-suit/bright-tie get up, and loafers that shone as bright as a thousand suns.

  Heckinger, with thinning, pale orange hair, was a slight man with a little face and big words that came out of it in a voice that sounded as if he were forcing it down an octave or two. Sweet was bigger and thicker, with a muscular neck, a nose like a shoehorn, and a sandy-colored brush cut that looked as if it could shred a turnip with a couple of swipes. Sweet had a big mouth that had smiled broadly when I introduced myself, but now neither Sweet nor Heckinger looked congenial at all.

  "Care for a drink while you're deciding?" A waitress dressed like somebody's idea of a mod Dolley Madison had appeared. Heckinger asked for the house Chablis, Sweet a Sam Adams, and I decided a Molson might provide some welcome false reassurance.

  Then I said to Heckinger and Sweet, "I detect a note of threat in your words.

  Or is my inference unwarranted?"

  Sweet looked at me and said, "Bite my ass."

  "My inference was correct then, I see."

  Heckinger had lowered his head and was shaking it with regret tinged with disgust. "Strachey, Strachey, Strachey." He sighed.

  I said, "Yo, bro."

  "Don't you understand, Strachey, that this is bigger than you are?" Heckinger said, and it was all I could do to keep from guffawing.

  "Are you guys for real?"

  They both glared, and Sweet said tightly, "Do you know who we are? If you did, you wouldn't be so fucking… so fucking soigne."

  Soigne? "I haven't the foggiest idea who you are. Are you escapees from some Lawrence Sanders Washington potboiler? That's what you talk like. When I walked in here today, I was under the impression I was experiencing actual human life. Now I'm not so sure."

  Heckinger sneered. "Malcolm and I represent a consortium of interests. A consortium of powerful interests. Let's just leave it at that. Is that real enough for you?"

  "A consortium of powerful interests. Heavens. Everybody stand back, for I'm starting to feel somewhat less soigne."

  "Maynard Sudbury isn't feeling too soigne," Sweet said ex-pressionlessly. "Is he?"

  I said, "No, he isn't."

  They watched me and said nothing.

  "Did you have Maynard shot?" I asked.

  Heckinger leaned toward me, sighed, and shook his head. "No, of course we didn't have Maynard shot. Malcolm shouldn't have said that. We don't know who shot Maynard. He's a nice guy-Malcolm and I have known Maynard for years.

  I'm sorry he got dragged into this, and Jim is very sorry about Maynard, and we're all relieved that he seems to be recovering well. Malcolm was just trying out a bit of shock treatment on you, Strachey, when he said that. But he didn't mean anything besides emphasizing the point we're making. On Jim's behalf, we're simply trying to get your attention, basically, and to convince you to stay away from Jim. That's all we want from you. And that's what Jim wants.

  Comprende, amigoP"

  "Yo comprendo. And it's also what your powerful consortium of interests wants?"

  "That's part of the picture, yes."

  "To me, that part of the picture is still awfully blurry. Once it's clear, then I'll see what I'll do. I'll bet you fellows are in a position to help me out in that regard, no?" They sat tight-lipped and I went on, "Here are some questions I'll need comprehensive answers to before I'll even begin to consider backing off. Ready to take some mental notes? Got your thinking caps on?"

  They glowered.

  I said, "Which powerful interests do you represent? Where exactly is Suter, and why is he hiding? Is he in Mexico? Is he in danger there? Are others in danger there or here? Who shot Maynard and ransacked his house, and why?

  "Are drugs involved? Have there been other illegal activities Jim's involved in?

  What is Betty Krumfutz's connection to whatever is going on here, if any? Does Betty's husband fit in? Does Tammy Pam Jameson? What about Jim's ex-lovers, such as Carmen LoBello and/or Alan McChesney? And Jim's mother and brother-what's the deal with them anyway? Is Bryant Ulmer's murder related to any of this? Why was a panel with Jim's name on it placed in the AIDS quilt, and why was the panel vandalized late Saturday afternoon and portions of Jim's Betty Krumfutz campaign biography taken?

  "Answer these questions clearly and concisely, if you can, guys, and then I'll begin to think about winding up my investigation. But not before then." I didn't ask about Ray Craig, who was nowhere to be seen but whose distinctive scent I'd been aware of less than a minute after my arrival in the restaurant.

  Heckinger and Sweet sat glaring at me. Neither could see the sweat trickling down my sides nor the muscular twitch on the back of my left calf. No one spoke for a moment, then Heckinger said, "You must be quite the conspiracy buff, Strachey, to imagine that all those persons and all those events that you enumerated could possibly be interrelated."

  "Nope. Not at all."

  "No?"

  Dolley Madison reappeared with our drinks and said, "Ready to order yet?"

  "Not yet," Sweet snapped without looking at the waitress, who, apparently experienced in her line of work, was unruffled by bad manners, and away she flew.

  Heckinger said to me, "You're not among the sizable percentage of the American public who believe that Vince Foster was murdered at the White House and the U.S. Park Police, under Hillary Clinton's direction, dumped Foster's body in a Virginia glade with a gun in his hand, and then moved a truckload of incriminating Whitewater and other documents out of Foster's office and into the Lincoln bedroom, where the papers were shredded and flushed down Mary Todd Lincoln's bidet?"

  "No," I said. "I doubt anything like that happened."

  "Then you're very naive," Heckinger said. "Minus the embellishments that I added for my own amusement, something very much like what I just described is very probably what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Foster-a man who knew too much and may have been wavering in his loyalty to the extremely powerful people he knew it about."

  I waited for Heckinger to break into a sly grin and then maybe give me an affectionate noogie, but both he and Sweet continued to regard me gravely.

  They believed that hooey?

  I said, "My opinion, based on the results of several federal investigations and on the thorough reporting in an excellent daily newspaper, the New York Times, is that you are incorrect."

  They both snorted, dismissing both the national law enforcement establishment and the Sulzbergers as, I guessed, either patsies or coconspirators in the Vince Foster
plot.

  I went on, "It's not that I believe conspiracies never happen. They do, obviously.

  There were all those CIA plots to overthrow governments in Guatemala and Iran and Guyana and the Congo, and of course, Hoover trying to ruin Martin Luther King or drive him to suicide. And the King assassination itself I also wonder about-James Earl Ray came out of a rat's nest of racist crazies, and King's murder could easily have been a plot hatched in the back of a Southern barroom.

  "On the other hand, Sirhan Sirhan pretty clearly acted alone when he shot Bobby Kennedy. And I've never seen any really good evidence that the JFK assassination was the work of-to use your terminology-'a consortium of powerful interests,' including, in the popular Oliver Stone version, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyndon Johnson, the mob, and the board of directors of the Marriott Corporation. I think Oswald did it himself because he was a pathetic schmo with some confused leftist ideas who thought he'd knock off the suave, good-looking rich guy who was the president of the capitalist United States, and damned if he didn't somehow pull it off. People can't stand to think that a dork like Oswald could turn history upside down, so they look for some larger, darker, more sensationally evil explanation. But there probably isn't any.

  "In fact, the Lee Harvey Oswalds are the source of most of the evil in the world, I think. Individual persons who are mad at the world, or mad at their wives, or just mad, or just weak and mixed up-they gradually or suddenly lose it, and then they rape or rob or commit murder. There are criminal conspiracies, sure-mob racketeering, drug smuggling, savings-and-loan rip-offs, and other organizational crimes. Sometimes angry, disturbed people do commit their crimes in groups-I know that-ordinarily for reasons of greed. There's violent mass folly, too, like Vietnam or Bosnia, but that's another story. By far, most of the people who inhabit the jails around the world, or ought to, are people whose folly is only personal. For reasons of their own, they are impelled to do the wrong thing, maybe a very wrong thing, and somebody else gets hurt.