Ah, Treachery!

Chapter 22

It was almost midnight when Partain stopped the rented Taurus in front of the Eden and noticed Tom, the day doorman, talking to a uniformed policeman. Tom excused himself and hurried around the front of the car as Partain opened the door and got out.

Instead of saying hello or good evening, Tom said, “They say you guys were right here when it happened — you and Jessica.”

“That’s right.”

“Jack was one helluva guy,” Tom said, paused for two seconds, then asked, “Rented a Taurus, huh? How d’you like it?”

“Nice car,” Partain said, handing over the keys. “You knew Jack pretty well?”

“It’s like I told the cops. We weren’t exactly buddies but we got along fine. He was into acting. I’m into surfing. I work days. He worked nights. That left him free for his auditions and acting jobs, except he didn’t get a lot of either. When the cops asked how come I knew how many acting jobs he got, I asked them how many actors with steady work did night doorman as a hobby?”

“You two ever trade off?” Partain said.

“Yeah. Once in a while — mostly when Jack got himself invited to a screening where he could bump noses and smell assholes with anyone who might do him some good. Or if the surf was way up, we might trade. Jack was real nice about that.”

“Jack interested in politics?”

“Why?”

“Well, he and Ms. Altford seemed to hit it off. And if they had this mutual interest, I thought Jack might’ve traded with you on, say, election night so he could stay home and watch the returns.”

Although the question sounded lame to Partain, it didn’t seem to bother Tom. “You mean in November?”

Partain nodded.

“What day?”

“The third.”

“I mean what day of the week?”

“It’s usually on a Tuesday.”

“Nah. I’d’ve remembered that if we had. Traded. I don’t vote much and Jack said he was voting for Perot. When I ask him why, he says it’d be a vote against typecasting.” Tom frowned, now obviously puzzled, then smiled. “I get it. You wanta know if Jack and me had regular trade-off days. And if today was one of ’em and we called it off, then it should’ve been me who got zapped instead of Jack.” He frowned again, more puzzled than ever. “But who the fuck’d wanta shoot me?”

“Or Jack?” Partain said.

“Yeah. Him either?”

Even after Tom vouched for Partain, the uniformed Los Angeles cop still demanded ID, checked the Wyoming driver’s license against a list of names, then nodded and let Partain use his key card to enter the Eden.

He let himself into 1540 and found Jessica Carver waiting in the apartment’s foyer. “You find them?” she asked.

He nodded. “I followed them from Morton’s to the hospital. Your mother didn’t know who was following her, tried to lose me and almost did.”

“How’d she take it?”

“She was more concerned about you than Jack.”

“That’s nice,” she said, studied him for a moment or two, then asked, “Like a drink?”

Again, Partain nodded. “Very much.”

From behind the living room bar, Jessica Carver set a generous measure of iced Scotch in front of Partain and asked, “Where’s the General?”

“Still at the hospital.”

She glanced at her watch, saw it was almost midnight and said, “That means he’ll spend the night. It happens four or five times a year either here or in Washington. It’s got to be one of the most enduring bicoastal liaisons on record.”

“I assume it went on while they were both married to somebody else.”

“Sure. Why not?”

“They have my blessing,” he said and drank some of his whisky.

“You ever married?” she said after tasting her own drink.

“Once. For fifteen months.”

“What happened?”

“She disappeared.”

“You mean she split.”

“No. She just — disappeared.”

“Where?”

“San Salvador.”

She waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t she slapped the bar with her palm and used a loud voice to say, “Wake up, Partain!”

He stared at her. “I’m awake.”

“You sure you don’t suffer from seizures of the eyes-wide-open kind? Or is it just too, too painful to talk about? When you start something, finish it. Even if it’s the saddest of all sad tales.”

“You’re curious,” he said, sounding surprised.

“That’s quick of you.”

“Why?”

“You mean why am I curious? Because I’m normal and have a lot of respect for beginnings, middles and endings. You did pretty good with the beginning. ‘She just — disappeared.’ Why don’t you just go on from—”

He interrupted her. “You’re a good mimic, aren’t you? You had my intonation and pause down pat. Even my featureless California accent. Okay. The rest of the story. She was Salvadoran and eleven years younger than me. Or I, if you’re a grammarian. We were living in San Salvador. One morning she went out to buy stationery. She liked the thick creamy stuff, which was hard to find. She’d heard of a small shop nearby where she might buy some. She’d walked exactly forty-two meters up our street when a black nineteen-eighty-nine SEL four-fifty sedan stopped and three guys got out. Maybe they wore masks. Maybe they didn’t. Witnesses differ. They forced her into the backseat. The driver stayed behind the wheel. The car drove off and she disappeared.”

Her eyes now as wide as they could go, Jessica Carver gave her head a small hard side-to-side shake, as if to dispel the image of the abduction. “That’s awful,” she said. “God, that’s awful.”

Partain nodded.

“You never found any trace of—”

“No trace,” he said. “No body. Nothing.”

“Any chance she’s still—” Carver read the answer in Partain’s expression and said, “No. I suppose not. What about the four guys—”

Again, he didn’t let her finish. “They were never identified. It was apparently a political abduction but she was totally without politics. The only political crime she ever committed was marrying me. If she’d been of the right or the left, somebody might’ve done something. Retaliated, if nothing else, or even tracked down the guys who kidnapped her. But the apolitical have no headquarters, no chairman, no cadre, no money, no muscle. So nobody did anything.”

“What’d you do?” she asked.

“Offered a reward. Had three thousand posters printed. Paid kids to put them up everywhere. Then I had to give up.”

“Why?”

“Because she disappeared just nineteen days before I beat up the Colonel.”

“You think he—”

Partain again didn’t let her finish. “No, I don’t think that. If I thought that, he’d’ve never made general.”

The slight noise awoke Partain. It lasted only a few seconds, just long enough for him to identify it as the sound of leather heels and soles on the foyer’s black and white marble floor. The General, he thought and looked at his watch — squinted at it really because of what he diagnosed as a medium hangover. It was 5:22 A.M. and he guessed that the General had left the hospital at 5 A.M. and, with little traffic, had made it to the Eden in less than twenty minutes.

There was another sound. It was a long sigh and Partain turned to look at the sleeping Jessica Carver. After their second drink, she had come around the bar to sit on a stool next to him. A drink or so later he had kissed her and she had kissed back and they had stayed there for a time, doing all the things a pair of overly experienced teenagers might have done, until by mutual consent they came down off the barstools and headed for the nearest bedroom, which happened to be his. There they had shucked off each other’s clothes, giggled over a condom and fallen into bed.

She was experienced, creative and eager. He was experienced, creative and overeager. That was the first time. The second time had been like sex between old lovers too long apart. Nothing had gone wrong. Nothing he could remember anyway.

He heard yet another sound, this time from the kitchen. It was the unmistakable, if faint, clink of a china cup being placed in a saucer. Partain rose, pulled on his pants and the old plaid robe and headed barefoot for the kitchen, where he found General Winfield in pants, shirt and socks. The General already had the Braun coffeemaker primed and was conducting a search for the coffee itself.

“She keeps it down here,” Partain said, knelt and opened a cabinet door beneath the sink.

“What a perfectly illogical place,” the General said, accepting the can of coffee. “Did I wake you?”

“You tempted me,” Partain said and rose. “The sound of a cup and saucer means coffee.”

The General studied him for a moment. “Pleasant night?”

“Not too bad. And you?”

“Not too bad at all,” the General said as he spooned coffee into the machine.