Cold Frame

TWELVE

Av had been noodling on his brand-new personal tarbaby all morning. Friday had turned into a perfect cluster, with Precious on a tear from the very first hour over some new and preposterous budgetary edict from “upstairs,” Wong Daddy getting served with a paternity suit, Mau-Mau getting called into the internal affairs office over an off-duty altercation that had resulted in a civilian being thrown into the Potomac, and Miz Brown announcing that he had truly found Jesus Christ and was going to put his papers in and go to divinity college.

He told Howie that he needed to talk to Precious.

“What about?”

“The mother of all tarbabies?” Av said.

“You right. Don’t wanna hear nothin’ about it. It’s Friday, so, when you get done, we’ll be havin’ lunch in Chinatown at the Dragon.”

Av was waiting when Wong came out, looking appropriately contrite. He knocked on her door and stepped in before she had time to sink her teeth into the next problem.

“Lemme guess,” she said, looking up at him over her reading glasses. “Dog ate your homework.”

“I wish,” Av said. He closed the office door, prompting Precious to give him a look. “That bad, Sergeant?”

“This’ll take a few minutes,” he began.

When he’d finished, Precious, visibly at a loss for words, began to shake her head.

“And this all goes back to that business with the FPS?” she said.

He nodded. “Apparently they weren’t FPS, either. Truth be told, I’m not sure who any of these people are.”

“And you probably don’t want to know, either,” she said. “Damn!”

She swung her chair around to look out the window for a minute. Her office had a magnificent view of several large white courthouse buildings across the congested street, which appeared to be littered with cop cars, lawyers conferring in little knots while cadging a quick smoke, and bewildered witnesses trying to figure out which court was theirs.

“Does this alleged supervisory special agent have any evidence that this Mandeville dude killed those two people?”

“Evidence?” Av asked. “As in go-to-a-grand-jury evidence? I don’t think so. She’s convinced that he used her somehow to ice McGavin, and the second one, Logan, is just too much of a coincidence in her mind.”

“Dear God, Sergeant. The National Security Council? That is so far above our pay grade as to lack breathable oxygen. Why did she come to you?”

“Metro caught the McGavin incident,” he reminded her. “Second District handed it off to ILB. Mau-Mau and I zigged instead of zagging, thereby planting both feet in it. Ultimately, we succeeded in handing it off to the Bureau, or so I thought.”

She nodded her head vigorously. “And that’s what we’re gonna do again,” she declared. “And right now, too.”

She reached for the phone, then hesitated.

“Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it,” Av said. “Who you gonna call…?”

She chewed on her lower lip as she thought about that. “And this shooter down in Rock Creek?” she asked.

“A messenger,” Av said. “As in, somebody with assets wants me, or more likely MPD, out of this business.”

“What’d your special agent friend think?”

“Supervisory special agent,” Av said. “She’s scared. She thinks Mandeville is the boogeyman here. But—”

Then he had an idea. Tyree Miller. He told Precious. She wasn’t so sure. “Professional Standards is the rat squad on steroids,” she said. “You reach out to them and you are reaching into a basket of serious snakes.”

“Yeah,” Av replied. “But he asked me to call him if there were any developments regarding Ellen Whiting. I believe this shit qualifies.”

“If he’s Bureau and she’s Bureau, why doesn’t he just call her in?”

“Funny you should ask that,” he said. “He said that he wasn’t positive that she was Bureau.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Precious said. “That has to be bullshit.”

“Or — she’s not, really,” Av pointed out.

Precious threw up her hands. “Too many mysteries here, Sergeant,” she said. “Much too murky for me, and much too federal. The bureaucrat in me is inclined to just do the armadillo.”

“And if the third ‘traitor’ dies under ambiguous circumstances while we were busy pretending we knew nothing about what’s going on?”

“How could we prevent anything that’s going on behind the federal iron curtain in this town?” she asked. “That’s why Upstairs stood up ILB in the first place, because everyday cops can’t do business with all these CT people. How could we even start to mess with this?”

“Simple,” he said. “First, warn the third guy that he’s in someone’s crosshairs. Anonymously, if we have to. Then get Second District to open a homicide investigation on McGavin. OCME thinks aconitine, and that’s a poison. Verify that’s what killed him at that restaurant. Determine that it was a homicide, and then, you know, we run it.”

“As I’ve explained countless times, Sergeant, we do not—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said, cutting her off. “Not ILB ‘we.’ You take it to the Investigative Services Division chief. Let our bosses talk to Bureau bosses. Encourage them to reaffirm that this does not involve Metro PD, or, regrettably, we’ll have to direct one of the districts to open a homicide case. That should move it, right there.”

“Let me ask you something,” Precious said. “You personally involved with this Ellen Whiting person?”

“Not on your life,” he said. “She’s very attractive but more than a little scary for my tastes. How many senior FBI agents ride a damn Harley?”

“Okay, but she seems to keep appearing in your life, doesn’t she.”

“I know, but last night in the bar? She seemed genuinely scared. She doesn’t have a rabbi anymore — guy retired — and she wanted help.”

“And you agreed?”

“I told her I’d think about it. She’s gotta know I’d bring it to my boss. Maybe that’s what she really wanted. I don’t know. But if any of this is true, and we do have two dead guys now, this has to go uptown to the Bureau.”

“Got that right,” she muttered. She looked out the window again. “What you gonna do, you see this Halloween guy again?”

“Open fire?” he said.

“Assuming you see him the next time,” she said.

“Gonna be looking now, boss,” he said.

“Okay. Keep this to yourself, and that includes the inmates out there. I’m gonna think, then I’m gonna make some calls. You may be right about how to approach this.”

“Wonders never cease,” he said.

“Don’t push it,” she said. “Now: out.”

Av caught up with the other inmates at the Dragon Palace twenty minutes later. The Dragon was a four-story brownstone in Washington’s diminutive Chinatown, decorated fantastically with all the requisite good-luck symbology. The first floor was a typical tourist-trap Chinese buffet, with identifiable foods swimming in aromatic if greasy steam pans. The second floor was for regulars, mostly cops and the working stiffs from the courthouses, with the occasional judge sometimes gracing the premises. The center of the second-floor room was the food service area, while private booths with ornate but discreet screens surrounded the room on three sides. A carpeted stairway led from the tourist buffet area to the second floor. A bright red door led to another stairway to the upper floors. The kitchens were down in the basement. Av had heard that the third and fourth floors offered even more privacy if the customers’ objectives went beyond lunch, although he had never verified that rumor with Wong, who would know.

Miz Brown stuck his head out of one of the screened booths and waved him over.

“My man,” declared Mau-Mau. “Give it up.”

“Can I get some chow first?”

“No,” Wong said.

“Mercy, yo,” Av said. “At least a beer?”

Mau-Mau stuck his hand out of the screen and waved an empty beer bottle. A cold one appeared in fifteen seconds. Av asked for some food. The young Chinese waiter smiled, bowed, and darted away. Av thought maybe he should have specified what kind of food he wanted.

“Well,” he said. “Like I told brother Mau-Mau, here, this thing is a potential motherfucker. Even got Precious upset.”

“You know what you are?” Mau-Mau asked. “You are a genu-wine shit-magnet. You been here, what, two weeks? And we all got this bad feeling that the big black bird of Upstairs is about to lift its tail feathers on our heads.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Av said, deciding to ignore Precious’s orders. “I guess I need to fill you in.”

Ten minutes later, there was a profound silence at the table. The waiter had returned with a plate of fragrant things for Av, who fell to with enthusiasm while the others digested his story. Finally Mau-Mau spoke.

“The National fucking Security Council?” he began.

“That a big deal?” Wong asked, spearing an entire egg roll.

“Oh, yeah, brother Wong, that’s a big deal,” Mau-Mau said. “Talkin’ serious federal juice, okay? Miz Brown, how’s that retirement package shapin’ up? Is it hard? Can maybe I do it, too?”

Miz Brown beamed and said it wasn’t hard at all. He offered to explain, but all three of them immediately put up their hands. At that moment, the screen was pulled aside by a different waiter. The inmates turned as one. A striking woman was standing there, displaying her Bureau credentials. “May I join this conversation?” she said. “Before you guys get any deeper into a certain minefield?”

“Gentlemen,” Av said. “Let me introduce Supervisory Special Agent Ellen Whiting, of the First Team.”

“You married?” Wong asked.

Everybody grinned, including Ellen as she sat down. “Would it matter, Detective?” she said with a smile. “But no, I’m not. Thank you for asking.”

“Are we in some kinda trouble?” Mau-Mau asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Sergeant Smith, you said you had met Tyree Miller?”

“Right,” Av said. “After you and I had our dinner date. He blew some serious smoke up my ass. Said he wasn’t sure you even worked for them. Did he lie?”

“Oh, yes, he did,” Ellen said. “His office called me this morning. Said we needed to talk. Made an appointment for noon. Can you imagine why?”

“Yes, I can,” Av said. “I went to my boss this morning. Told her what you told me. Mentioned Mister Miller by name. I’m guessing she took it up the line, and somebody Upstairs dropped a dime.” He paused for a moment. “But, wait — that just happened. Like twenty minutes ago.”

“Which should mean that that’s not why they want to see me,” she said.

Av looked pointedly at his watch. “Since you’re here and not there, I take it you blew them off?” he asked. They all looked at her approvingly.

“I called Miller’s office at ten, told them something had come up and I needed to reschedule to two o’clock. They said fine. I asked what the meeting was about. The guy I talked to told me it concerned my clandestine meetings with a Metro PD cop in odd places, such as his pad in the middle of the night and then at a gay bar down the street from the National Cathedral.”

Aw, shit, Av thought. They had both had tails on them. “And what’d you say to that?” he asked.

“That we were in lu-u-v,” she said brightly. “What else?”

“You went to a gay bar?” Wong asked, looking at Av. “With her?”

“What’s this minefield you’re talkin’ about?” Mau-Mau asked. “Me and my pension want to know.”

“One thing at a time, guys,” Ellen said. “Sergeant Smith, what do you think your boss will do with what you told her?”

Av told her what he’d recommended.

Ellen closed her eyes for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “Today’s Friday. How fast will your chief of investigative services react to this situation?”

“Our chief of D’s?” Wong said. “Fast?”

Av grinned. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think Lieutenant Johnson knows, either. Upstairs might just try to hush the thing up — wait to see what, if anything, happens. Or, more likely, he’ll go wailing to the chief, herself, and get her to call someone in the Bureau. How did you find us here?”

“I called ILB, asked one of the secretaries. She said you guys usually came here on Fridays, so I gave it a try.”

“Bring your watchers with you?” Av asked.

Ellen sighed. “Probably,” she said. “But it’s not like they had to try very hard.”

“Uh-oh.” Mau-Mau groaned.

“Meaning, if we are interested in someone’s whereabouts, we have the means to track that someone right down to a gnat’s ass.” She turned to Av. “Remember to bring your phone today? Or, how’d you guys pay for lunch? Credit card, by any chance?”

Three worried nods.

Ellen shrugged. “There you go,” she said. “But, look: despite what happened yesterday, I think there’s a much bigger problem here in River City.”

“And what is that?” Mau-Mau asked.

“As I told Sergeant Smith, I believe that some officials who disagree with the whole concept of the DMX committee are being killed to shut them up.”

The other three inmates looked at Av with expressions that said: so it was true, what he’d been telling them.

“You still believe that Mandeville is behind those two deaths?” Av asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“So the minefield you’re talking about is the fact that we now know what you know. And that could be some dangerous knowledge.”

“Oh, Lord,” Howie said. “We’re all going down.”

Nobody had an answer to that dire prediction. Finally, Ellen spoke up. “There’s someone I think can help us,” she said. “A civilian. I think I need to go see him.”

At that moment two tiny hands pulled aside the privacy screen. An elderly Chinese lady stood there, her face a study in wrinkle-art. “Black Suburbans,” she announced to the four cops. “Suits. Matrix sunglasses. Looking for missy, here, I think.”

“Oh, shit,” Ellen said. “I need to avoid this.”

“Mary Soo,” Mau-Mau said. “This lady needs a way out. Third floor open?”

“Red door, right over there,” she said. “Missy come with me.”

Miz Brown and Mau-Mau stood up when Ellen did. “Want some company?” Mau-Mau asked. “He’s about to retire and I’m thinking hard on it.”

“Yeah, you guys get gone,” Av said. “Wong, you should probably go, too. I think I can handle this by myself.”

“Fuck that noise,” Wong said. “Not done with these egg rolls.”

Mary Soo rattled off some lightning-fast Chinese to the waitstaff, and then led the three escapees through the red door. Av heard the lock click when it closed. Two waiters hurried over and cleared the two empty place settings from the table, and then drew the screens closed down to just a crack. A minute later, Av watched three large men come up the big stairway from the buffet room below. One of them conferred with the waitstaff and then they approached Av’s booth. A waiter ran over, bowed, and drew the screens open. Wong cocked his head to one side.

“You guys like egg rolls?” he asked. “We got extra.”