Missionary Stew

Chapter 14

Drew Meade didn’t much like what he saw. Instead of one, there were two of them. There was the tall skinny one in the cheap new tan suit, and the other one, not quite so tall, wearing the banker blue suit and looking as if somebody had just run over his dog. Both were about the same age: forty, maybe even forty-one. He stared at each of them separately, memorizing them, and then gave a quick, careful examination to his surroundings.

“Just the one big room, right?” he said.

“Right,” Draper Haere said.

“You’re Haere.”

Haere nodded.

“You got older. I don’t even think I’d’ve recognized you. Who’s he?” Meade nodded at Morgan Citron.

“A friend.”

“The witness, huh? He got a name?”

“Mitchell.”

“What’s Mitchell’s first name?”

“Mitch.”

“Mitch Mitchell,” Meade said, still staring at Citron. “Middle initial probably M. Okay, I can live with that. Let’s get the other thing out of the way.”

“What?” Haere asked.

“Your old man. I wanta clear the air about him.”

“Go ahead. You want to sit down?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Meade chose the walnut armchair. He patted its left armrest appreciatively. “Nice old chair.”

“It used to belong to Henry Wallace,” Haere said, taking his usual seat in the Huey Long chair.

Meade was unimpressed. “Wallace, huh? Old bubble-head.”

Citron chose the leather couch. He sat, leaning forward, arms on his knees. Hubert, the cat, jumped up on the couch and inched his way onto Citron’s lap.

“About my old man,” Haere said.

“He was a commie.”

“Was he now.”

“Sure. And I nailed him. It’s what they paid me to do. It was a living, that’s all, and not much of one at that. They offered me the job back in ’forty-nine, I took it, they paid me, and I did it. I didn’t have anything against your old man. Not personally. In fact, he was a pretty nice guy. We used to have some laughs and a few beers together.”

“While you were setting him up.”

“Him and the others. You gotta remember I nailed him and six others out of that old Mine, Mill bunch. By rights, your old man should’ve gone to jail with the rest of ’em for contempt, except Replogle jerked hard on a few wires and got him off. You know it and I know it, but what the hell, it’s all ancient history now. But if you wanta get steamed about it, well, go ahead. I just wanta get it over and done with.”

There was only silence as Draper Haere examined the big gray-haired man who now sat slumped in the old chair, one long leg, his left, stuck straight out in front, the other, the right, dangling over the chair’s padded arm. A mercenary, Haere decided, forever reenlisting on life’s losing side. And a believer yet in all the old recruiting lies and tired blandishments, but perhaps a bit puzzled now by why the war is still not won. Of course, there’s always the one big battle to come, the decisive one, the last one, the one that’ll win the war and then, afterward, there’ll be loot, booty, and spoils for all.

Haere had long wondered how he would feel upon seeing Drew Meade and now, sorting through his emotions, he was surprised that all he could come up with was a touch of pity.

“You want a breakfast beer?” he said.

“Sure,” Meade said. “Thanks.”

Citron gently dumped Hubert to the floor and rose. “I’ll get them,” he said, and headed for the splendid refrigerator.

“You saw Jack Replogle in Singapore,” Haere said.

“That’s right. He tell you about it?”

“He told me. I was with him when he died.”

“That’s what his wife said.”

“He also said he paid you ten thousand dollars. You started out at fifty, but settled for ten.”

“He tell you what it bought?”

“No,” Haere said, and accepted a can of Budweiser from Citron. “He was just about to tell me when it happened.”

“I’d like to hear about that,” Meade said as he opened the top on his own can.

Haere drank some beer first. “He was just about to tell me when a blue Dodge pickup ran us off the road about fifteen miles past Idaho Springs. I got thrown out. Replogle didn’t. The gas tank exploded and he burned to death. Or maybe he was already dead.”

“You weren’t hurt?”

“I scorched my hands. They just took the bandages off last night.”

“Replogle didn’t say anything at all?”

“He said it could probably blow them out of the White House in ’eighty-four.”

Meade nodded thoughtfully. “Well, he was right about that. You say he was just about to tell you what he got from me when they ran you off the road?”

Haere nodded.

“They might’ve had you guys wired. The car anyway. But maybe not.”

“Who?” Citron said.

Meade looked at Citron steadily for several seconds, then shifted his bleak gaze back to Haere. Meade jerked his head at Citron. “Mitch here doesn’t talk much, does he?”

“He’s a listener.”

“Well, that question Mitch just asked brings us around to the meat of the thing.”

“Money,” Haere said.

“I’m thinking,” Meade said, “I’m thinking of around four hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Think again,” Haere said.

Meade took out his Camels, lighted one, blew some smoke out, and smiled. “What I gave Replogle was just a taste — because that’s all he’d pony up for. What I’m offering you and, of course, Mitch here is the full course. Is Mitch the money man?”

“No,” Haere said. “I’m the money man.”

Hubert, the cat, wormed his way back onto Citron’s lap. Citron stroked him under the chin and the cat purred. Citron smiled at Meade and said, “They buried you in Singapore.”

Meade looked at him and grinned. “Been checking me out, huh?”

Citron nodded. “They offered a reward for you, seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, but when nothing happened, they found themselves a body, buried it, and claimed it was you.”

“Not much of a reward,” Meade said.

“No.”

“Dead or alive?”

“I forgot to ask.” Citron smiled. “They gave you two paragraphs in the New York Times”

“No kidding. I’d sort of like to read that.”

“You only made the first edition.”

Meade shrugged. “Better’n nothing. How many guys get that?” He turned to Haere. “You want what I got, right? And no matter what price I set, you’re gonna try and jew me down. I don’t blame you. I’d do the same thing. And maybe I might come down a notch. I’m not saying I will, I’m just saying maybe. But first I’m gonna give you a smell. If you like it, we can start talking serious money. If you don’t, I’ll go peddle it somewhere else. Fair enough?”

Haere nodded slowly.

“Okay,” Meade said. “About six months back, Washington fought a secret mini-war down in Central America there. Four guys got killed on one side, five on the other. The war was over a ton or two of cocaine and thirty-five to fifty million bucks in cash money. When the shooting was over and the smoke blew away, one side found out it had been suckered. I can give you time, place, dates, and names. All you gotta do is come up with four hundred thousand in cash.”

There was a long silence. Finally, Draper Haere said, “One question.”

“Maybe I’ll answer it; maybe I won’t.”

“Whose money was it — the thirty-five to fifty million?”

“Didn’t I say? Uncle Sam’s.”

“Cash?” Citron said.

“Cash.”

“How much of this did you tell Jack Replogle in Singapore?”

“Not a hell of a lot more than I just told you. I gave him some names is all, and he forked over ten thousand without a blink and thought he’d made the buy of the year. But Replogle was one smart son of a bitch, although I don’t have to tell you that.”

“He’s also dead,” Haere said.

Meade shrugged. “What more do you need?” he asked. “I mean, I could sit around here all day selling you on the quality of my goods. But I don’t have to. You were there. You saw him get it. Hell, you almost got it yourself. I don’t know how you could want a better fuckin’ testimonial than that.”

“Now we get to the key question,” Haere said. “Just who are they?”

Meade only smiled and slowly shook his head. Haere rose. “Let’s have another beer,” he said, collected the empty cans, and headed for the refrigerator. While Haere was getting the beer, Meade studied Citron.

“You look like somebody,” he said. “Somebody I used to know.”

“Who?”

Meade gave his head a small irritated shake. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

Haere came back with three more cans of beer, which he handed around. As he held out the can to Meade, he said, “You might as well forget about four hundred thousand, or three fifty, or even three hundred. We might — and I’m stressing might — well, we just might come up with one hundred, and then we’d only buy it in twenty-five-thousand-dollar chunks. If you started running dry or making it up toward the end, we wouldn’t pay. That’s our offer and it’s take it or leave it.”

Meade popped open his can, drank from it, wiped his mouth, belched softly, frowned, and said, “Cash?”

“That’ll be a problem.”

“Checks don’t do me any good.”

“Okay. Cash.”

“When?”

“I don’t know,” Haere said. “I’ll have to check around. It’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Afternoon.”

“Where?”

Haere looked at Citron. “What about your place?”

“That should do,” Citron said. Meade frowned. “Who else?”

“Who else what?” Haere said. “Who else will be in on it — when we talk, I mean?”

“Nobody else. Just you, me, and — uh—” For a moment Haere couldn’t remember the alias he had given Citron. Meade grinned coldly. “Mitch here.”

“That’s right,” Haere said with a small smile. “Mitch.”