Ah, Treachery!

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 maîtresse 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 maÎtresse 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, I think 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 Partain 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?”