by Ross Thomas
“Major Torres,” Haere said, adding, “I am Draper Haere.”
The guard made two telephone calls. Shortly after the second one was completed, another guard appeared and motioned for Haere to follow him. They went through three doors and down two corridors and finally into Major Torres's office.
“Please,” Torres said in English, indicating a chair.
Haere declined with a shake of his head, reached into his inside breast pocket, brought out a fat envelope, and handed it to Torres.TheMajor removed the packets of $50 bills from the envelope and counted them swiftly but carefully onto his desk.
“All there,” he said after he finished the counting. “The Haitians said it would be.” He scooped the money up, put it back in the envelope, and brought out a ring of keys. “I hear the fighting has reached the television station,” he said as he selected a small key, unlocked a drawer, and put the money away.
“Who do you think will win?” Haere said.
“The rebels.”
“Where does that leave you?”
Major Torres rose, smiling. “I’m sure the rebels will provide me with many, many customers, provided, of course, they don’t shoot everyone. Well, I think it all went smoothly enough, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Haere said. “It did.”
“And the two Haitians?”
“They decided to return to Miami.”
“Charming fellows,” the major said. “Can I offer you a ride back to your hotel?”
“No thanks,” Haere said. “I’ll walk.”
The major patted his huge stomach. “I should do that, walk more.” He took out his newly acquired gold Rolex and looked at the time. “You must let your walk take you by the Presidential Palace.”
“Why?”
“Do you like historic occasions?”
“Very much.”
“Then let your walk take you by the palace.”
A crowd of some five to six thousand persons had already formed outside the Presidential Palace by the time Haere reached it. It was a strangely silent crowd whose members spoke to each other, if at all, in whispers. Civilians armed with M-16s and wearing green scarvesaround their necks had cleared a space in front of the palace gates. The space was in the shape of a squashed horseshoe.
As one of life's great gawkers, Haere worked his way to the front of the crowd with practiced ease. Something bumped against his thigh. He looked down and with surprise found that he was still carrying Velveeta Keats's Polaroid.
“You will have something to take a picture of in a minute,” the man next to him murmured.
“What?” Haere said.
“Wait and see.”
The gates swung open and the crowd sighed. The three older civilians, wearing their green neck scarves, came through the gates first. They were followed by Colonel-General Carrasco-Cortes in full dress uniform, his hands bound behind him. Next came the two men who sometimes called themselves John D. Yarn and Richard Tighe. They walked side by side. Their hands were also bound behind them. After Tighe and Yarn came the four young officers: the two majors, the young captain, and the very young lieutenant.
The army officers took over and led the general and the two Americans to the wall. The three prisoners were turned around so that they faced the crowd. The older of the two majors looked back at the oldest civilian, as if for confirmation. The civilian frowned and shook his head. He went over to the three prisoners and moved them down the wall to the exact spot where the late President had been executed. The crowd murmured its appreciation.
There were no speeches. The civilians and the four young officers lined up in a row in front of the general and the two Americans. No more than twenty feet separated the prisoners from their captors. The eyes of the two Americans swept frantically over the crowd, seeking rescue. Yarn's eyes found Draper Haere.
“For God's sake, Haere!” It came out of Yarn's throat half-scream, half-yell.
Haere stared back at him. The four officers and the three civilians raised their weapons.
“Goddamn it, Haere, please!” This time it was indeed a scream.
Haere raised the Polaroid camera, aimed it, and pushed the red button just after the civilians and the officers fired. The camera whirred. The film rolled out. Yarn fell first, and then Tighe. The general, with three bullets in him, continued to stand. He cried, “Long live—” but was unable to complete his last command. He fell back against the wall instead, slid down it into an awkward sitting position, and sat there until he died a few seconds later.
Draper Haere took the film from the camera. He turned and walked away through the still-silent crowd. The film slowly developed. It turned out to be an excellent picture.
CHAPTER 36
Nine days after Thanksgiving, a Saturday, Draper Haere awoke in his enormous room at his usual time of 6:30 A.M. Hubert, the cat, was perched on Haere's chest, staring at him balefully. The cat was often there when Haere awoke. “Morning,” Haere said. Hubert purred loudly.
Haere pushed Hubert aside, got out of bed, moved to the kitchen, plugged in the Bunn coffeemaker, and headed for the large bathroom. When he came out nine minutes later he was showered, shaved, and dressed in gray slacks, tweed jacket, and blue oxford-cloth shirt, but no tie. It was his Saturday costume and, in Haere's opinion, almost daringly informal.
After two cups of coffee and three cigarettes, Haere donned a denim apron and cracked two eggs into a pan in which the butter was already sizzling. Just as the eggs were beginning to fry, the downstairs buzzer sounded. Haere went to the intercom, pushed the button, and asked, “Who is it?”
A woman's voice replied in Spanish, but Haere couldn’t quite understand what she said. He pushed the unlocking button and went back to his eggs. A few seconds later there was a soft knock at the door. Haere went to the door and opened it. There were two of them,neither more than seventeen years old. They were also a little plump and fairly pretty and completely terrified.
“Senor Haere?” one of them said.
Haere nodded. The one who spoke thrust a brown paper sack at him.
“One moment,” Haere said in Spanish, hurried back to his eggs, and flipped them over with a spatula. He returned to the two young women and said, “Please,” indicating that they should come in. They came into the enormous room warily and stared at everything with wonder.
Haere opened the paper sack and took out the spiral notebook. He flipped it open to the first page and read: “Draper: Please pay the bearer (or bearers) $2,000 for this—or more, if you like their looks. Regards, Morgan Citron.”
Haere turned another page and saw that it was written in French. He flipped a few more pages. It was all French. Because of his almost nonexistent French, Haere said, “Shit,” smiled at the two young women, said, “One moment,” in Spanish again, turned, went back into the bathroom, and removed $2,000 from the false bottom in the medicine cabinet. He started out of the bathroom, but stopped, turned back, added another $500, and went to his desk, where he slipped the sheaf of bills into an envelope.
He went over to the two still-terrified young women, bowed slightly, said thank you very much in Spanish, and presented the envelope to the plainer of the pair. She looked inside the envelope and giggled. She showed it to her friend. The friend also giggled. Draper Haere smiled, went to the door, and opened it. The two young women started through it, but the prettier of the two grasped Haere's hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it. Haere told them to go with God. They went quickly down the stairs, giggling all the way. Haere closed the door and smelled his eggs burning.
He hurried over to them, dumped them down the garbage disposal, lit another cigarette, picked up the kitchen wall phone, anddialed a number. On the fifth ring, Governor-Elect Baldwin Veatch himself answered with a sleepy, muttered hello.
“This is Draper, Baldy. Let me talk to Louise. I’ve got something of an emergency.”
“Aw, Christ, Draper. Hold on.”
A moment later Louise Veatch came on the li
ne. “Well?”
“Citron came through,” Haere said.
There was a brief silence and then Louise Veatch said very softly, “No shit.”
“I need you,” Haere said.
“Give me an hour,” she said. “It might take two.”
“All right,” Haere said, hung up, turned, and put some more butter into the pan.
The downstairs buzzer rang again as Haere was washing the last of his breakfast dishes. Again, he went to the intercom, pressed the button, and said, “Yes?”
A man's voice said over the speaker, “This is MacAdoo, Mr. Haere. We met down in Houston. At the airport.”
“Woodrow Wilson's kin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What d’you want?”
“Five minutes of your time. That's all.”
“That's all you’ll get,” Haere said and pressed the unlocking buzzer.
When MacAdoo came into the enormous room he looked around with frank appreciation. “Now, by God, this is something, isn’t it?”
“Coffee?” Haere said.
“Appreciate it.”
“Sit down.”
MacAdoo moved into the living-room section and took his seat in the Huey Long chair. His eyes roamed over the room and its eclectic furnishings as Haere poured coffee into two mugs.
“How do you take it?” Haere said.
“Black.”
Haere handed MacAdoo a mug of coffee. MacAdoo took it with his right hand and patted the arm of the chair with his left.
“Nice old chair,” he said.
“Belonged to Huey Long.”
“No kidding. The Kingfish.” MacAdoo sipped his coffee and smiled. “Now that's good coffee.”
Haere said nothing.
“It's been sort of your life's study, hasn’t it, Mr. Haere? Politics, I mean.”
Haere only nodded.
“Your friend, Mr. Citron?”
Again, Haere nodded.
“In case you haven’t heard, he's in Sri Lanka. With the Keats girl. Woman, I mean. Velveeta. Velveeta Keats. That is sort of pretty, isn’t it, if you forget about the cheese and all?”
“Very,” Haere said.
“You heard about Gladys Citron, I expect.”
“I heard she died in her cell in Kansas City.”
“Heart failure,” MacAdoo said in an almost sorrowful tone.
“Heart seizure,” Haere said automatically.
“What's the difference?”
“Everyone dies of heart failure.”
MacAdoo thought about it. “You’re right.” He drank some more of his coffee. “I imagine you’ve pretty much got the whole picture by now, haven’t you?”
Haere nodded. The nod was a lie, but he saw no reason to tell MacAdoo the truth.
“You going to run with it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“We’d like to dissuade you.”
“We?”
“Yes, sir. We.”
“Langley, you mean.”
MacAdoo smiled slightly.
“How do you intend to do that—dissuade me?”
MacAdoo frowned. “We don’t really know, Mr. Haere. That's why I’m here. To find out what you want.”
“I don’t want much of anything,” Haere said, “except a new President in ‘eighty-four. Can you guys handle that?”
MacAdoo sighed, put his coffee mug down, and rose. “I was afraid you’d say something like that. No way I can change your mind?”
Haere shook his head, rose, and walked MacAdoo to the door. The tall man opened it, turned, and examined Haere somberly. “Mr. Haere, I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how we’re going to be able to leave you alone.”
“Try,” Haere said.
MacAdoo nodded, turned, and went down the steps. Haere watched him go. When MacAdoo reached the street door, he opened it, and then held it for someone. Haere could hear MacAdoo's polite, faint “Ma’am.”
Louise Veatch came through the street door carrying a small suitcase. She started slowly up the steps. When she arrived at the landing, she brushed past Haere and into the enormous room. He closed the door. Louise Veatch looked around the room.
“Which one of those closets can I have?” she said.
Haere stepped over and took her bag. “You left him?”
“I left him.”
“For good?”
“For better or for worse, anyway.”
“What’d he say?”
“About what you’d expect. He was still yelling when I went out the door.” She smiled. It was a sad smile. “Well, are you glad? You haven’t said.”
Draper Haere put his arms around her, drew her to him, andkissed her. It was a long, tender kiss, full of promise. When it was over, Haere made her the one promise he felt he could keep. “It won’t be dull.”
Louise Veatch smiled. “I know,” she said. “That's probably the real reason I’m here.”
It took Louise Veatch more than an hour to translate aloud for Haere what Morgan Citron had written in the spiral notebook. When she was finished she looked at Haere and said, “Good God! Did you know all this?”
“A lot of it. Not all.”
“Are you going to use it?”
“What do you think?”
Louise Veatch thought about it for more than a minute before she answered. “Use it, Draper.”
He nodded, rose, and went over to the kitchen wall phone. “Get on the extension,” he said.
Louise Veatch waited until Haere dialed eleven numbers. She then picked up the other phone. It rang three times before it was answered by a woman's voice with a hello.
“It's Draper Haere, Jean. Is he in?”
“Yes, of course, Draper. Just a moment.”
The Senator came on the phone. “Hello, Draper.” He had a deep, almost harsh voice.
“I need to ask you a question, Senator.”
“Shoot.”
“How would you like to be President?”
Almost ten seconds went by before the Senator softly said, “Very much.”
“Then I think we’d better talk,” said Draper Haere.
