Missionary Stew

Chapter 10

Draper Haere was in his downstairs cubicle-like office working on one of his diseases when Morgan Citron finally reached him. To keep his staff occupied and the payroll met during slack political seasons, Haere handled the direct-mail solicitations of a half-dozen organizations that were trying to cure, or at least alleviate, diseases of the heart, the lungs, the eyes, the mind, and the nervous system. The mailer he was editing when Citron called was for an organization that claimed to be easing the suffering of disabled children whom Haere always thought of as the crippled kids. It was his favorite disease. Haere rendered his services at cost and over the years had raised substantial sums. He was not at all sure that the money was being well spent.

When his secretary told him Mr. Citron was on the line, Haere picked up the phone and said hello.

“I’ve been trying to get you,” Citron said.

“I was in a meeting,” Haere said, remembering with much pleasure and no guilt his meeting in the Sir Galahad Motel. “What’ve you got?”

“Something I think we’d better talk about.”

“Right. Where are you?”

“Harry’s Bar.”

“Give me fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”

“Fine,” Citron said.

It took Haere thirty-five minutes to reach the underground parking garage in the Century City complex that housed Harry’s Bar. He would have made it sooner except he had trouble finding his car. Because he walked so much, Haere sometimes didn’t use his car for days and frequently forgot where he had parked it. The car was an immense sixteen-year-old dark-green Cadillac convertible that Haere had accepted in lieu of a fee from one of his first clients, a Congressional candidate who had tried vainly to swim against the Republican tide in 1968. It was only the second car Haere had ever owned, and because it ran faultlessly with minimum maintenance, other than the new batteries he had to keep buying, Haere saw no reason to replace it. Haere was really not much interested in cars, although he had once dickered for a Model T Ford of doubtful provenance that supposedly had been purchased in 1923 by William Jennings Bryan.

Most of the lunch trade was gone when Haere entered Harry’s Bar and joined Morgan Citron at a table near the entrance. Citron had a cup of coffee in front of him and also an empty sandwich plate.

“Sorry I’m late,” Haere said.

“I had something to eat. You want anything?”

Haere shook his head. “I usually skip lunch.” He looked around. “Shall we talk here?”

“I don’t see why not.” Citron signaled a waitress, who brought a fresh pot of coffee and a cup and saucer for Haere.

When she had gone, Haere said, “Well?”

“Those two guys who dropped by to see you last night?”

Haere nodded. “The FBI agents.”

“Well, they’re not.”

“Who says so?”

“Their verification section.”

“Here in L.A.?”

“Right.”

“You called?”

“Yes.”

Haere smiled his appreciation. “You’ve got one suspicious mind, haven’t you, friend?”

Citron smiled back, but said nothing.

“I checked their ID,” Haere said. “Carefully. Over the years I must’ve checked a hundred of them. They’ve been popping in on me since I was sixteen.”

“Did these two have all the right moves?”

“They were perfect.”

Citron poured them both more coffee. “What’d they want to know — most of all?”

“They wanted to know a little about me and a lot about Jack Replogle, and whether he’d said anything to me before we cracked up.”

“What in particular?”

“Drew Meade. They wanted to know if Replogle told me what he and Meade had talked about.”

“Did they want that more than anything else?”

Haere thought back to the night before. “I’d say they bore down on it pretty hard.” Haere took out a pack of cigarettes and offered Citron one. Citron shook his head. Haere lit his with a match from a small box supplied by the bar.

Citron waited until the cigarette was lit. “I guess I’d better spend some more of your money.”

Haere nodded his assent. “What on?”

“Long distance.”

“Singapore?”

“Singapore,” Citron agreed. “I thought I’d call this afternoon. If you can drop me off on the PCH, I can catch a bus or hitch a ride from there.”

Haere signaled for the check. “Where’s your car?”

“Somebody gave me a ride into Century City. To see my mother. He was supposed to run me back, but it didn’t work out.”

Haere almost had his American Express card out of his wallet when he stopped and looked at Citron. “Jesus. Not Gladys Citron?”

Citron grinned. It was a brief, wry grin. “I’m not sure if that’s a question or an accusation. But you’re right. She’s my mummy.”

“Jesus,” Haere said again.

“You know her?”

“We’ve met a few times.” Haere tried to make the tone of his next question casual, but he could hear his voice betraying him. “Somebody didn’t tip her off on the Replogle thing, did he?”

Citron shook his head. “No, she just wanted to say hello, give me a birthday present, and find out if I’d ever been a cannibal.”

“That sounds like Gladys.”

“Yes,” Citron said. “Doesn’t it?”

Because he had a thirty-five-minute wait between buses, Drew Meade took a twenty-minute survey stroll around Santa Barbara and reconfirmed his impression of it as a candy-ass town. He found its people either too tan or too old, its weather too nice, its architecture too hokey. There was no hustle. Everybody seemed to have just got up from a nap, or about to go take one. Still candy-ass all right, he thought, looking up State Street, then turned and went back to the bus station.

The thing to do, he decided, is to stay out of towns named after saints. St. Louis, St. Paul, San Diego, all horseshit towns. Even San Francisco, now that the fags have taken over. But when his ship came in (and Meade’s ship had remained hull down on the horizon for forty years now), he’d go live in New York or Chicago or even Cleveland. Someplace without suntans. Someplace with suits and ties. Someplace civilized, for God’s sake.

Meade went into the bus station’s men’s room and had two quick drinks from his pint of Jim Beam. Back out in the waiting room he sat down in a plastic seat, took out a box of gumdrops, and ate them one by one as he surveyed his fellow passengers, not at all liking what he saw.

Time was, he told himself, when people going somewhere could be divided up into three classes: bus guys, train guys, and plane guys. Bus guys wore coats and pants that didn’t match and tieless shirts buttoned up to their necks. Train guys dressed a little better, if not much, and carried shoeboxes filled with fried chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and potted-meat sandwiches. Plane guys all wore $100 suits with vests and if they couldn’t think of anything else to do, they’d climb up on a shoeshine stand and let some nigger play with their feet. Nowadays, though, you couldn’t tell the plane guys from the bus guys. They had leveled it all out. It’s like they’d gone over it all with a grader.

If someone had suggested to Drew Meade that at sixty-three he might be considered a senior citizen, or even elderly, he would have stared contemptuously at them with his chilly hazel eyes and demanded to know what the fuck they were talking about. If he’d had a drink or two and was feeling expansive, he might even have tried to explain how you can’t get old until you’ve got it made. Until then, you just can’t afford old age. This was Drew Made’s faith, his dogma, his creed. It kept him young.

They called the bus to Los Angeles just as Meade finished his last gumdrop. He rose and headed for the bus, a six-foot-two, wide-shouldered man with a shambling gait of deceptive quickness. Because he was also a totally suspicious creature, Meade turned his lined, big-jawed face up toward the destination sign on the front of the bus to make sure it really was going to Los Angeles. Satisfied, he used his 223-pound frame to shoulder a smaller, younger man out of the way and entered the bus, heading toward the rear and, if possible, a seat all to himself.

Meade now had $19.47 in his pocket, which meant he couldn’t afford to feel any older than thirty-three. He was on his way to Los Angeles to seek his fortune, a quest that had taken him almost around the world. When he pulled this deal off, he could afford to feel older — as much as forty-five or so. But until then, thirty-three. Maybe thirty-four tops.

He took a slip of paper from his pocket and studied the address again. It was in Beverly Hills on the wrong side of Wilshire — down in the flats where the original planners had intended the servants and tradesmen to live. Beverly Hills, he thought. Queen of the candy-ass towns.