Ah, Treachery!

by Ross Thomas

  “Well, first of all you gotta realize Manny don’t know Dave Laney was the General's nephew because Manny don’t know there's any General Hudson.”

  “Good.”

  “I talk to you and then call Manny and tell him there's this guy who's giving some friends of mine a hard time. We settle on a price. Then Manny locates Dave Laney and sticks with him when he goes into the hospital. Laney ducks into the men's john and comes out dressed up like a doctor. This interests Manny and he follows Laney into the elevator, gets off a floor below the one Laney punches, then runs up the stairs, peeks around a door and watches Laney trying to smother the Altford woman up there in her private room. But Altford puts up a hell of a fight, rolls off the bed and starts screaming and Dave Laney bugs out. So Manny follows him down and out of the hospital and sees him hightailing it up Olympic, still wearing his doctor clothes. Manny and his guys snatch Dave and toss him into thevan. Three of ‘em hold him down, Manny drives and another guy smothers him—Dave, I mean.” “How?”

  “They stuff a T-shirt into Dave's mouth and pinch his nose so he can’t breathe. Pretty soon Dave's dead. Then they drive over to Wilshire and dump him out on the Eden's drive.”

  “Why there?”

  “They thought it might be kinda cute.” “Cute?”

  “Yeah. Dave's been done and they’re driving along Wilshire when Manny sees the Altford lady and Partain get out of her car. Manny stops, backs up, they dump Dave in the driveway and take off. Who knows what's cute to Mexicans?”

  The Colonel sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, one thing,” Kite said. “Uh—what’d the General, you know, say when he told you to get rid of his nephew?” “You want the exact words?” Kite shrugged, then nodded. “He said, ‘Lose him.’ “

  Kite smiled, then said, “Lose him,” shook his head in admiration and added, “His own kinfolk.”

  The Colonel rose. “By the way, Emory, Partain has been granted a temporary reprieve.”

  The corners of Kite's thin mouth curled down in disappointment. “That mean you want your money back?”

  “I said temporary” the Colonel replied.

  CHAPTER 30

  Partain glanced up from the Washington Post as Millicent Altford glided into the hotel suite's living room, spun around with practiced grace and asked, “How do I look?”

  “How do you want to look?”

  “Like a bunch of money.”

  “Pretty ladies in black dresses that cost that much always look like money to me.”

  “How much do you think it cost?” He shrugged. “A thousand?” “Two-sixty-five on sale at Saks.”

  Partain put the paper down and looked at his watch. “When do you meet these guys?” “Nine-thirty.” “Then we’d better go.”

  After he followed Millicent Altford into the rear of the independent taxicab, the hotel doorman closed the door and Altford introduced Partain to the driver. “Jerry . . . Edd.”

  The driver had turned to study Partain and his UCLA jacket. He was a slim black in his mid-thirties with the calm intimidating gaze that most cops and some cons try to acquire. “You the shotgun?”

  “I’m the shotgun.”

  “And just what might we be expecting?” “The unexpected.”

  “The usual, then,” Jerry said, turned back to the wheel and was pulling away from the curb when Altford asked, “How's the family, Jerry?”

  “Wife's working. Daughter's doing fine at Howard. And I’m still a GS-9. How you been, Millie?” “I’ve been better.” “Now why’d I suspect that?”

  Partain hoped the Occidental Grill just down from the Treasury Building on Pennsylvania wasn’t as old as it tried to look. Inside, its walls were lined with photographs and perhaps even a few daguerreotypes of politicians, scalawags, statesmen, civil servants and mountebanks from the past—many of them a century dead. As he followed Altford, and she followed the maitresse d’, Partain raked the room but saw nothing that bothered him except the photographs.

  Two men rose from a table at Altford's approach. One was short, tubby, blond and not more than 30, who for some reason reminded Partain of an ill-tempered puppy. The other was tall, fit, dark-haired and a smiler with pretty blue eyes. Both wore dark suits and ugly red ties and tried not to stare at Partain's warm-up jacket.

  Altford stuck out her hand at the older and taller of the two and said, “Congressman Finch, I’m Millicent Altford.”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Altford,” the Congressman said, indicated the tubby man and added, “This is—”

  “We spoke on the phone,” Altford said, offering her hand to the shorter man and not letting the Congressman finish. “You’re Willy MacArthur.”

  “Will MacArthur,” he insisted, released her hand and looked past her at Partain, whose eyes were quartering the room.

  Altford noticed MacArthur's curiosity. “Mr. Partain, this is Congressman Finch and Mr. MacArthur, who's counsel to the subcommittee.”

  Partain gave them a collective nod and went back to reading the room.

  “Mr. Partain won’t be joining us,” Altford said as she sat down at the table and accepted a menu from the maitresse d’.

  When the Congressman and the counsel were seated, MacArthur asked, “He your bodyguard?”

  Partain didn’t let her answer. “I’ll be back at ten-thirty, Ms. Altford.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Partain.”

  As Partain turned away, he heard MacArthur ask Altford why she needed a bodyguard. Partain lingered just long enough to give the restaurant one last inspection and hear her say, “I think I’d very much like a drink and I do so hope you both’ll join me.”

  At K Street the cab turned right onto Connecticut Avenue and it was then that Jerry, the driver, asked Partain, “How long’ve you been shotgun?” “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want nothing to happen to Millie.” “Known her long?” “Long as I can remember.”

  “Nothing's going to happen to her.” “Not over your dead body, right?” “Close,” Partain said.

  Partain rang the bell to the entrance of the narrow four-story building whose ground floor housed the Greek restaurant. Seconds later, the irritating unlocking buzzer sounded. Partain pushed the door open, climbed four flights of stairs and found a grinning Nick Patrokis waiting on the fourth-floor landing.

  Partain stopped on the next to the last step and examined Patrokis. “You grew a beard and an earring.”

  Still grinning, Patrokis grabbed Partain in a bear hug and lifted him up to the landing, where he lost the grin, abruptly let Partain go, stepped back and said, “That's not blubber I felt. That's Kevlar.”

  Partain poked a finger into Patrokis's ample gut and said,”Blubber.”

  Patrokis led the way into VOMIT headquarters, where, for the first time, Partain took in the long narrow room, the partitioned space for Emory Kite's office and the woman with gray eyes and the long auburn hair who rose from a chair beside a huge old golden oak desk.

  Patrokis said, “Shawnee Viar, Edd Partain.”

  “We’ve already met,” she said. “Sort of.”

  “Where?” said Partain.

  “In a photograph. There were four guys in it. You and three others.” “Who were the other three?”

  She answered his question with one of her own. “You didn’t happen to shoot my old dad in the heart yesterday afternoon, did you?” “I was in L.A. yesterday afternoon and I’m sorry Hank's dead.” “Are you?” she said, studied him for a moment and nodded. “Yes, Ithink you almost are. It was Hank who showed me the photograph a day or two before he died. He was in it. You were in it. So was Colonel Millwed, except he was a captain then.” “Who else?”

  “Was in it? Colonel Walker Hudson—now Major General Hudson.” “What’d Hank say about us?”

  “That the three of you were real mean bastards. Was he right?” “He was about two of us,” Partain said. “The other one's a pussy.” “But you’re not the other one, are you?”

  Before P
artain could reply, Patrokis said, “After Shawnee found her father, she called General Winfield here but got me instead. I’ve been doing what I can but she's still a little shook.”

  “Am I?” she said, studied Patrokis for a while, turned back to Partain and studied him, then turned again to Patrokis and asked, “You two met in Vietnam?”

  Patrokis nodded. “He's the one who threw the Zippo at me.”

  They ate at the card table. They ate the Greek dishes that had been dispatched by the uncle from his ground-floor restaurant. There were only the three of them but the uncle had sent enough for four, more than enough really, and all of it had been lugged up the four flights of stairs by a teenage Nicaraguan busboy. Partain tipped him $10 and wrote it down in his expense notebook.

  After dinner, Patrokis cleaned everything up and was storing away the folding card table when Partain asked him, “How's business?”

  “We got nineteen new members last month, lost four to death and disgruntlement and our newsletter circulation's holding at about a ninety-six percent renewal rate.”

  “You put out a newsletter?” Shawnee Viar asked.

  “Seven or eight times a year.”

  “What's it called—The Vomitorium?” “The VOMIT Verifier” “What's it verify?” “Deceit and bullshit.” “Who writes it?”

  “I write about a third,” Patrokis said. “Members contribute the rest.”

  “I once edited a now-and-again eight-page newsletter for a hospital,” she said. “We called it Cries from the Locked Ward. I did the whole thing on a computer.”

  Patrokis sighed. “We have a computer but I still don’t know how to use it.”

  She smiled at him. “And you don’t want to learn either, do you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Tell you what. I’ll come down here and use it to store all your records and files and do the mailing list and even put out your newsletter. Probably save you a bundle. How much’ll you pay me to save you a bundle?”

  Patrokis looked at Partain for guidance. Partain gave him none. Nick Patrokis bit his lower lip, cleared his throat and said, “This is embarrassing as hell but I suppose we might just possibly pay you a thousand a month.”

  “That much?” she said. “I’ll take it. When do I start?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow I have to bury dear old Dad, but that's in the morning. I could be here by one—or one-thirty?”

  Patrokis turned away from her to look slowly around VOMIT headquarters as if for the last time, turned back to Shawnee Viar and said, “One or one-thirty's fine.”

  “Where’re the services?” Partain asked her.

  She named an undertaker on Wisconsin Avenue and said, “Eleven o’clock, and there won’t be any formal eulogy although I did get somebody to say a few words.”

  “Who?” Partain said.

  “General Hudson.”

  “You called him or did he call you?”

  “I called him,” she said. “At the Pentagon. He said he’d be honored.” “Why not someone from the agency?”

  “Who?” she said. “Besides, wouldn’t it be neat if it's the murderer who eulogizes the victim?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Harold Finch, the newly elected U.S. Representative from a safe Democratic district in Ohio, railed throughout dinner at the enormous cost of running for public office. Millicent Altford listened, mostly in silence, and ate her crab cakes. When she was done she pushed her plate an inch away, leaned slightly forward and interrupted the Congressman to ask, “Would you really like to know why you’re here in Washington and Joey Sizemore's not?”

  Sensing a trap, the Congressman frowned and said, “I like to think it's because I ran the better campaign.”

  “What d’you two guys really know about Sizemore?”

  “He was about the last of the big-band Congressmen,” Will MacArthur said and looked surprised when no one chuckled.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Hell, Joey's so old he can remember Herbert Hoover, and the Depression to him is just like day before yesterday. When he first got elected way back in nineteen-fifty-four he’d been director of organization for the CIO's Packinghouse Workers. Ask your average guy today what CIO stands for and he’ll probably tell you Chief Information Officer.”

  “What does it stand for?” MacArthur said. “I forget.” “Look it up,” she said.

  “We’re all well aware of Joey's glorious record,” the Congressman said. “God knows we heard about it enough. But the truth is he simply got old and out of touch. It happens.”

  “He wasn’t out of touch,” she said. “He was out of money. You out-spent him three to one in the primary and coasted through the general. And maybe we’ll get back to that, but first I’m going to tell you about me and Joey Sizemore before he ever went to Congress.”

  MacArthur looked at his watch, making no effort to sneak a glance.

  Altford grinned at him. “Ever hear of Liberty magazine, Will?” “Of course.”

  “I doubt it. Well, Liberty used to run a little time schedule just above each article. Reading time: three minutes twenty-two seconds—or seven minutes fourteen seconds. The listening time for the story about Joey Sizemore and me’ll take six minutes nineteen seconds, so you might as well stop squirming.”

  “I’ve always been interested in political history,” MacArthur said.

  “No, you haven’t,” she said. “You got a little interested after you hired on with the Congressman here, but before that you were primarily interested in wills, escrows, insurance, mortgages and estate planning.”

  The Congressman grinned. “Did her research, Will.”

  “You betcha,” Altford said. “Anyway, in nineteen-fifty-two I was fresh out of college and working at Foote, Cone and Belding in Chicago. I’d decided the country was going straight to hell unless it elected Adlai Stevenson President. So I went down to Stevenson headquarters in Chicago and volunteered my services. I finally got in to see what may’ve been a deputy assistant campaign manager. It was a typical campaign office for the times. One big room. Lots of desks. Typewriters. Ringing phones. Hot as hell. Noisy. And then there was this fifty-year-old slob sitting behind one of the desks.

  “Sitting to one side of him was a smooth redheaded guy of about thirty or thirty-one. I tell the slob my name and that I want to help out in the campaign and he tells me they aren’t hiring. I tell him I’m volunteering part-time and he tells me I don’t talk like I’m from around there. I tell him that's because I’m not, I’m from Dallas, but I work at Foote, Cone.

  “Then the slob asks who sent me and I’m about to tell him no one sent me when the redheaded guy says, ‘I sent her.’

  “The slob says, ‘Well, if you sent her, you find her a slot.’

  “The redhead, of course, is Joey Sizemore and he takes me outside where we catch a cab and head for the old Morrison Hotel that they tore down years ago. We ride up to the eleventh floor and go into a big room that has two desks, two phones on each desk, a secretary called Norma, who's at least sixty, and nothing else.

  “Joey introduces me to Norma, tells me she used to be a senior long-distance telephone operator with Southwestern Bell, uses a key to open a desk drawer and hands me a typewritten list of names with addresses and phone numbers that's about an inch thick. It was the Fat Cat List. Every Democrat in the country who had an estimated net worth of one hundred thousand or more, which’d be about a million today.”

  Altford paused, sipped some water, and went on. “All I had to do was call each name and talk whoever answered into contributing a minimum of one thousand dollars to the Stevenson campaign. Norma had this sexy contralto voice and placed each call person-to-person, working east to west. All operator-assisted then. No Touch-Tone. No direct-dialing. Ancient times.

  “I asked Sizemore what to say. He said since I was in the ad business, I’d think up something. There were almost two thousand nameson that list and we called every damn one of them. A lot of them twice.”

  “What
was your batting average?” the Congressman asked. “Point five ninety-three.” “Good Lord.”

  “That's when I learned what makes people give money to politicians.”

  The Congressman smiled. “Is it a secret?” She shook her head. “Fear and flattery.”

  Still smiling, Congressman Finch said, “What about hope for a better tomorrow?”

  “Forget hope,” she said.

  There was a silence until MacArthur said, “But Stevenson lost.”

  The Congressman sighed long and deeply and after it ended Altford asked, “How much did it cost you to beat Joey Sizemore in the primary—nine hundred thousand, a million?”

  “Close.”

  “Your money?”

  “I don’t have that kind of money,” he said.

  “Well, not many congressional candidates do until they get re-elected a few times and build up their war chests. I sent Joey a bundle of one hundred thousand and he spent it smart. If I’d’ve sent him another hundred thousand, he’d’ve whipped your butt.”

  The Congressman smiled again. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew he’d be vulnerable in the general election. Joey Sizemore's not quite Little Rock's type. The Republicans sensed this and were all set to spend a ton of money, if Joey’d won the primary. But he didn’t, you did and the GOP backed off.”

  There was another silence until MacArthur said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Altford, but I’m still not sure I get the point of all this.”

  “Then you weren’t listening,” the Congressman said. “The point is that there's a primary every two years.” “So?”

  The Congressman ignored him and spoke to Millicent Altford instead. “How much could you raise if...” He let the question trail off. “If I’m still pissed off enough two years from now?” Finch nodded.

  “A million or so, but I’d have to call in every last one of my markers.”

  The Congressman put all of his considerable charm into a smile. “We didn’t invite you here to antagonize you, Mrs. Altford. We asked you here to give us advice and counsel on how to reform campaign financing.”