Missionary Stew

by Ross Thomas

  “Right.”

  “I oughta buy a place. Maybe a condo in New York or Chicago. Settle down, you know? Maybe write my memoirs. I’ve even got a title. ‘More Lives Than a Cat.’ What d’you think?”

  “They’d never give you clearance.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

  “Tell me about Bobby Maneras and his story.”

  Meade lit another cigarette from the one he was already smoking. He tossed the finished butt into the fireplace. “I’d like to, Gladys, but I’ve got a little problem.”

  “You’re broke.”

  “That's part of it.”

  “I could fix that.”

  “I wanta put my feet up, know what I mean? I’m tired of the hustle. In New York, Chicago, I’d need fifty a year just to get by. That means I’d need half a million, doesn’t it? Put it into municipals maybe.”

  “You’re dreaming, Drew.”

  “I’m talking about cash, of course.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Impossible.”

  “I was thinking maybe I could tap you for around a hundred thousand. Secondary rights, I think they call it.” “Who's your principal buyer?”

  “Lemme tell you about Bobby first, okay?” She nodded. “Bobby was in a real jam and flat on his ass and all he had to sell was this story of his. Well, shit, I didn’t have any money and he wouldn’t tell me the story until I came up with some. So what I did is, I got him to tell mejust part of the story, and I’ll tell you this much, it's some story. So then I had to figure out who’d pay for what I had. It just so happened there was this guy in Singapore I’d known a little, back in the fifties. I got ten thousand out of him.”

  “For just part of the story?”

  Meade nodded. “That's how hot it is.”

  “Who is he?”

  “We’ll get to that. Lemme get back to Bobby. Now Bobby's problem was he had to disappear. So what I did was, I got him a Filipino passport and offered him that and seventy-five hundred for the rest of the story. He grabbed it and for all I know Bobby's in Manila now, probably getting rich all over again.”

  “But he told you the rest of the story?”

  “Oh, yeah. All of it.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I figured I’d better get out of Singapore.”

  “Who?”

  “They came looking for Bobby.”

  “Who?”

  “Everybody.” He paused. “And then they started looking for me.” He paused again. “Well, I had just enough money for a ticket to Santiago and then on to Caracas and from there to Mexico City. I crossed over at Mexicali.”

  “Walked across?”

  He nodded. “I figured I could sell the whole story for a bundle to this same guy who’d paid me ten thousand for just the taste. So I called him from a phone booth in Calexico and guess who I got?”

  “I don’t guess. Who?”

  “His widow.”

  It was a long stare. The cool green eyes locked on the cold hazel ones. Neither gaze wavered. It was Gladys Citron who spoke first, asking a question whose answer she was fairly sure she already knew.

  “Did he die in bed?”

  Meade shook his head. “It was an accident. They say. A car wreck.”

  She rose and reached for Meade's glass. When she was at the liquor, pouring two more drinks, she asked her next question casually, her back still to him.

  “Who was he?”

  “Replogle. Jack Replogle. John T. Replogle.”

  “Replogle Construction,” she said.

  “Big bucks, Gladys.”

  “An accident, you say,” she said as she turned, moved back to the fireplace, and handed him his drink.

  “So his widow claims, but what does she know?”

  “What do you do now?”

  “There was a guy with him.”

  “With Replogle?”

  “When the wreck happened. A money guy. He wasn’t hurt.”

  “I see. You think he’ll buy.”

  “I know he will.”

  “And he's here—in L.A.?”

  Meade nodded. “He gets first crack; you get second.”

  “What's his name?”

  Meade swallowed some of his drink and then frowned. “I’ve been trying to decide if I oughta tell you.”

  Gladys Citron smiled—a small, slight, confident smile.

  “Well, why the hell not? His name's Haere.”

  The smile went away. “Draper Haere?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “We’ve met a time or two.”

  “He's a money man,” Meade said. “Politics.”

  “I know.”

  “What I’ve got is sort of a political shoot-’em-up.”

  “I see. Do you know Draper Haere?”

  “Sure, I know him. Not well. I used to know his old man pretty good, though. He was a commie.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “How?” Meade asked with a cold grin. “What the hell, Gladys, I turned him in.”

  “To the subcommittee,” she said. “Back in the ‘fifties.”

  Meade nodded, still grinning his cold, almost mechanical grin that contained, as far as Gladys Citron could detect, neither regret nor apology. Nor humor, for that matter.

  “I want in, Drew,” she said.

  “I figured you would.” He frowned as though in warning. “It's big bucks though, understand?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll have to make a few calls. You want to spend the night here? There’re a couple of spare rooms.”

  “What's wrong with yours?”

  “I go for younger men these days.”

  “What the hell,” he said, “I’m only thirty-three.” He paused and frowned again. “Maybe thirty-four.”

  At three that morning, Gladys Citron rose quietly from her bed, turned to inspect the sleeping Drew Meade, and walked barefoot into the living room. In the bedroom Meade opened his eyes. It was absolutely quiet in the house and he could just make out the woman's low voice as it spoke into the telephone.

  “That's right, he's here with me,” she said. “He wants a hundred thousand—for what he calls secondary rights.” There was silence as she listened. “He says he's going to give first crack at it to Draper Haere, that's H-A-E-R-E.” She listened again. “He wants it in cash.” Another brief silence and she said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  In the dark bedroom, Drew Meade stretched and smiled up at the ceiling.

  CHAPTER 13

  Morgan Citron awoke and turned his head to inspect the left side of the king-size bed that took up most of the space in the small room. Velveeta Keats was no longer there. Citron looked at his new watch and saw that it was a few minutes past four. They had gone to bed around 11:00 and made love—or fooled around, as Velveeta Keats would have it—for forty-five minutes or an hour. Citron hadn’t kept precise track of the time. Velveeta Keats had proved to be a passionate, inventive, even amusing lover much given to acrobatics and experimentation. Despite nearly four hours of sleep, Citron still felt slightly ravaged, but pleasantly so.

  He located some of his scattered clothing—his shorts and shirt— put them on and went into the living room, where he found Velveeta Keats standing before the large sliding glass doors, a mug of coffee clutched in her hands. She was wearing a light cotton robe and staring out at the pale moonlight on the ocean. She was also crying, although she made no sound.

  Citron put his arms around her. “Still scared?” he said.

  He felt her nod against his shoulder. “I reckon … I reckon I’d best call him.”

  “Your father.”

  There was another nod against his shoulder. “He oughta at least know, hadn’t he?”

  “I think so.”

  She looked up at him. “What time is it back there?”

  “Miami? About seven. Is that too early?”

  She shook her head. “He won’t talk to me, though.”

  “Not at all?”

 
Again, she shook her head no. “I suppose I could talk to Mama, but she’d just go into a tizzy. Mama doesn’t much like scary news.”

  “Is there anyone else you could talk to—a brother, maybe a sister?”

  “I had a brother, but Jimmy killed him.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “My husband. My late husband. I told you all about him, didn’t I?”

  “You mentioned him. That's all.”

  “Jimmy found me in bed with Cash.”

  “Cash was who?”

  “Cash Keats. My brother. He was two years older’n me. I.” She turned away from Citron and resumed her inspection of the moonlit ocean. “Sounds like one of those sorry tales all about Southern decadence and incest, doesn’t it?”

  “It happens.”

  “Did you ever wanta go to bed with your sister or mama?”

  Citron smiled. “Certainly not my mother. I don’t have a sister, so I can’t really say.”

  “But you can imagine it?”

  “Sure. It's not hard.”

  “Well, Papa couldn’t. He quit speaking to me, packed me up, and sent me out here. I call Mama now and then, or she calls me, and she says he hasn’t budged—Papa, I mean.”

  “You want me to talk to him?”

  She chewed her lower lip before answering. “I—I’d appreciate it.”

  “What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Just tell him what happened and that I’m okay, but that I thought he oughta know about those two kidnappers or whatever they were.”

  The number in Miami rang six times before it was answered with an “allo.” It was a male voice.

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Keats, please.”

  “Je ne comprendspas.”

  Citron switched to French. “I would like to speak with Mr. Keats. My name is Citron.”

  “Ah, Citron. You are French?”

  “Is Mr. Keats there?”

  “You speak very good French. Are you from Paris?”

  “Just tell him I wish to talk to him about his daughter.”

  A deep voice boomed over the line. “What about my daughter, mister?”

  “Are you Mr. Keats?”

  “I’m Keats. Get off the fuckin’ phone, Jacques.”

  Citron could hear an extension phone being put down.

  “My name is Citron.”

  “I heard all that. I’m getting so I can parlez-vous a little bit, but it's sure as shit harder’n Spanish. Hell, anyone can learn to habla espanol, but you gotta talk way up there in the front of your mouth and move your tongue around real quick to parlez-vous French. Now what's all this about somebody claiming to be my daughter?”

  “Velveeta Keats.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “I must have the wrong number.”

  “No, you ain’t got the wrong number. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me about this daughter I’m supposed to have.”

  Citron could hear a woman's voice in the background. And then Keats was yelling at her. “Goddamnit, Francine, I’m gonna find out what's wrong. Just lemme do it my way.” Keats then resumed his conversational rumble. “Now go on with what you were saying, Mr.—uh—”

  “Citron. Morgan Citron.”

  “Citron. That's ‘lemon’ in French, ain’t it?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. Let's have it.”

  “I’m a friend and neighbor of your daughter's—”

  “Where?”

  “In Malibu.”

  “What's the address?”

  Citron reeled off the five-digit number on the Pacific Coast Highway.

  “Okay. That checks. What number you callin’ from?”

  Citron read off Velveeta Keats's number.

  “Hang up and I’ll call back. Just make sure it's you who answers.”

  The phone went dead. Citron hung it up and looked at Velveeta. “He said he’ll call back.”

  She shrugged. “Papa's sort of, well, suspicious, I reckon.”

  A moment later the phone rang. Citron picked it up and said hello.

  “Okay, buddy, let's hear it.”

  “As I was saying, Mr. Keats, I’m a friend and neighbor of your daughter's.”

  “So?”

  “Last night she invited me to dinner. At seven o’clock, I knocked on her door. There was no answer. The door was unlocked so I went in. Two men dressed in wet suits were holding Velveeta. I threw something at them.”

  “What?”

  “Flowers.”

  “You mean like—like pansies or something?”

  “Carnations.”

  “You must have clabber for brains, brother.”

  “You may be right. Anyway, they pulled a gun.”

  “They shoot her?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “They left. Velveeta has a balcony facing the beach. They went over that, down to the surf, and swam out to a small cabin cruiser.”

  “You call the cops?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Velveeta said not to.”

  “This happened last night?”

  “Yesterday evening. Around seven.”

  “And you’ve been fuckin’ her ever since, huh?”

  Citron sighed. “She just wanted to let you know.”

  “Hell, I don’t mind. She's thirty, going on thirty-one. She can do any goddamn thing she wants to. But you say you’re a friend of hers, huh?”

  “That's right.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna take the next flight out to L.A. I want you to meet me at the airport. You. Not her. My missus will call back and tell you what flight it is. I want you to rent a limousine with a driver and a Hertz Ford. A big Ford.”

  “I don’t have a credit card.”

  “Goddamn, she sure can pick ‘em. Use her credit card. She's got credit cards coming out the kazoo.”

  “Why two cars?” Citron said.

  “Because I never travel alone.”

  “Who's coming with you?”

  “Who?” Keats said. “My two French niggers, that's who.”

  It was 7:15 A.M. when the phone rang at the crucial moment during Draper Haere's ritualistic preparation of his breakfast. He picked up the kitchen's yellow wall telephone, said, “Call back in five minutes,” hung up, and used the stainless-steel spatula to flip his two frying eggs over gently.

  At 7:20 the phone rang again. Haere rose from the table, again picked up the long-corded yellow phone, this time in his left hand, sat back down, cut into one of the eggs with a fork, and was pleased to see it had been cooked to perfection. He then said, “Hello.”

  The man's voice said, “Is this Draper Haere?”

  “Himself.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, this is Haere,” he said and forked some grits mixed with egg yolk into his mouth.

  “How soon can you get to a pay phone?”

  Haere clamped the phone between his left shoulder and ear, put down the fork, picked up a biscuit, broke it open, and spread both halves with butter. “I don’t know,” he said. “An hour. A day. Maybe a week. Why?” He took a large bite of the buttered biscuit and chewed it with pleasure. Haere rarely found anything to fault in his cooking.

  “Well, fuck it then,” the man said. “I’ll just have to risk it.”

  “Risk what?”

  “Telling you who I am.”

  “Okay. Who?”

  “Drew Meade.”

  Haere had a square inch of homemade sausage about halfway to his mouth. He put the fork down, then picked it up again, examined the morsel of sausage carefully, put it into his mouth, and chewed it thoroughly before speaking. “Let's talk.”

  “Fine,” Meade said. “Where?”

  “My place in an hour.”

  “What's the address?”

  Haere told him.

  “You remember me, huh?” Meade said.

  “I remember you.”

  “Yeah,” Meade said. “I figured you would.�
�

  After the connection was broken, Haere rose and placed the yellow wall phone back on its hook. He turned, looked down at his partlyeaten breakfast, picked up the plate, and started to dump its contents into the sink, but paused. On the plate was an untouched biscuit and a leftover sausage patty. He sliced the biscuit open, placed the sausage patty between the two halves, and wrapped it up in wax paper. He knew he would be hungry later, and cold biscuit and sausage would be not only good, but also comforting. It had often been his lunch or even dinner in Birmingham. My heritage, he thought, as he turned on the faucet, again picked up the plate, scraped its contents into the sink, and switched on the garbage disposal. As he watched what was left of his breakfast being ground up and sluiced away, Haere thought about his dead father and the man who long ago had accused him of political heresy. Haere discovered there was no anger left, or even any bitterness. Nothing now remained other than a kind of cold curiosity. It would be interesting to see how Drew Meade had survived the years. It would be even more interesting to find out just what it was he had for sale. If anything. Haere decided a witness to the meeting would be both useful, and, indeed, necessary. He turned back to the wall phone, picked it up, and called Morgan Citron.

  Citron answered on the first ring. “I was just about to call you,” he said after Haere identified himself.

  “What’ve you got?” Haere said.

  “I called Singapore yesterday. Also New York. Then I tried to call you, but couldn’t get you.”

  “I was in a meeting,” Haere said.

  “The guy I talked to in Singapore can be described as either a highly reliable source or an authoritative spokesman. Take your pick.”

  “I like authoritative spokesman.”

  “Right. Well, according to him both the CIA and the FBI were looking all over hell for your Drew Meade in Singapore. When they couldn’t find him, they bought themselves an Anglo body, dumped it in the ocean, let it be found, and then swore it was the late Mr. Meade.”

  “Why?”

  “That my authoritative source wouldn’t say—or didn’t know. Anyway, Meade's supposedly dead and buried. AP made it official with a two-paragraph story they filed election day—or the day after, Singapore time. My authoritative source didn’t believe a word of it.”

  “He's right,” Haere said. “I’m meeting with Meade at my place in about forty-five minutes.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “I need a witness.”