Missionary Stew

Chapter 21

On their way back from the restaurant, Velveeta Keats drove and revealed in a low, hesitant voice a half-dozen of her more bizarre sexual fantasies. She wanted to know if Morgan Citron would be interested in helping her realize some of them. Citron said he found the first two interesting, but the third one, the one involving a generous use of Log Cabin syrup, sounded a little messy. And although the remaining three offered intriguing possibilities, he wasn’t quite sure they could get around to all of them in a single evening. Velveeta Keats suggested that they limit themselves to the first two or three, and then see what happened. Citron said that seemed sensible to him.

“You don’t think I’m weird, do you?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

“They just come to me.”

“Your ideas.”

“Uh-huh. Do you think they’re awful?”

“I think they’re fine,” he said. “All except the Log Cabin syrup thing. That doesn’t do much for me.”

She frowned and then brightened. “Maybe we could try it with Wesson oil instead.”

Citron said he thought that might be an idea.

It was nearly midnight when Citron gently detached the sleeping Velveeta Keats’s iron grip, sat up on the edge of her bed, and started pulling on his shorts.

She stirred, awoke, and smiled sleepily. “You leaving?”

“I’ve got a couple of things to do.”

“I want to thank you for a real wonderful evening.”

“It was different,” he said as he zipped up his pants. Velveeta Keats giggled her agreement as Citron slipped on his shirt and started buttoning it up. “Do you have a passport?” he asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“I may have to take a trip. Maybe you’d like to come along.”

“Where?”

“Central America.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow or the next day.”

“How long?”

“A week. Ten days at the most.”

“You going to do one of those writing-traveler stories of yours?”

“Research mostly, I think.”

She smiled. Citron saw that it was a happy, trusting smile, full of anticipation, but it disappeared almost immediately.

“Is this his idea — Papa’s, I mean — or yours?”

That’s better, Citron thought. Don’t trust them, don’t trust me; don’t trust Papa behind that tree. “Mine,” he said. “All mine.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. It’s just a junket actually — all expenses paid. We’ll fly down, look around, and then come back.”

“And you really want me along?”

“Very much.” He waited for her to say no. Please say no, he thought, and I’ll just excuse myself ever so politely, go load up the Toyota, and head north. Maybe the Cadillac People have a chapter up in Oregon or Washington State. He made himself smile as he willed her to refuse.

“Well, sure, darlin’,” she said. “I’d love to go.”

Citron telephoned Draper Haere at nine minutes past midnight. The phone was answered halfway through its second ring.

“You’re up,” Citron said.

“I’m up.”

“We need to talk.”

“Here okay?”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

“Fine. You can help me move the hatrack.”

“What hatrack?”

“The John L. Lewis hatrack,” Haere said and hung up.

Together, Haere and Citron moved the heavy hatrack to a point near the door where it would be the first thing any visitor saw. Haere gave it a few more tugs and pushes until he thought he had got it just right, stepped back with an admiring glance, and asked, “What d’you think?”

“It’s... well, hideous,”Citron said.

Haere smiled happily. “Yeah, isn’t it?” The smile went away as he turned to Citron and said, “What’ve you got?”

“An answer or two, a few questions, some paranoia, and an idea.”

“That’s a start. You want a beer or something?”

“A beer would be fine.”

Citron was sitting on the old leather couch when Haere handed him a can of beer and a glass. Haere took his usual seat in the Huey Long chair where Drew Meade had sat his last. “Where do you want to start?” Haere asked.

“With my landlady.”

“Craigie Grey?”

Citron nodded, poured beer into his glass, tasted it, and said, “How well do you know her?”

“Not well. She’s a cause type, a mild leftie, makes a good stump speech, works hard, and from what I understand is a pretty sharp businesswoman. I also think she’s not a bad actress.”

“She recommended me to you?”

Haere shook his head. “To Louise Veatch. Not to me. She and Louise are fairly close.”

There was a lengthy silence as Citron seemed to study the beer in his glass. Haere grew impatient. “Let’s have it.”

Citron looked up. “When all this began I was dead broke, living out of my car. The rent on my post-office box was due, but I couldn’t even afford that. So I decided to give the box one last check. In it was an invitation to an ACLU fund-raiser. It offered free food and something to drink, so I went. Out of the blue, Craigie Grey offered me a job as caretaker or super of her place in Malibu. The first person I met there, in Malibu, was Velveeta Keats.”

Haere nodded.

“I took her to dinner tonight.”

“You said you were going to. Where?”

“Vickie’s.”

“Nice place.”

“Expensive,” Citron said. “On our way there we talked about, among other things, her brother-in-law. He’s called Bobby. Or Roberto. Or B. Maneras.”

“Oh shit,” Haere said and picked up the phone beside the Huey Long chair. He punched a number. When a woman’s voice said hello after five rings, Haere said, “Louise.”

“Christ,” she said, “I was almost asleep.”

“Where’s Baldy?”

“Still at some meeting.”

“Is Craigie Grey working?”

There was a brief silence. “I’m trying to remember. No. I don’t think so. Why?”

“Take her to lunch tomorrow, will you?”

“I can try.”

“Try isn’t good enough.”

“Well, I can see her sometime probably. Coffee or drinks or something. What do you want?”

“Talk to her about Citron. Find out everything you can. Why he was invited to an ACLU fund-raiser. Why she offered him the job. Who put her up to it — if anyone did. Everything.”

“Has something happened to Citron?”

“No, he’s fine. He’s right here. A little paranoid maybe.”

“What do you want me to be when I talk to Craigie — subtle, tough, direct, devious or what?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“I’ll call her first thing in the morning. Speaking of calls, did you know old Dave Slipper’s in town?”

“I know.”

“He called Baldy. In fact, that’s where he is — with Slippery. What’s it all about?”

“Baldy wouldn’t tell you?”

“No. He just said it was important.”

“They want Baldy to drop it.”

“Huh,” Louise Veatch said. “I reckon I’d better wait up for him then, hadn’t I?”

“Maybe you’d better,” Haere said, told her goodbye, and hung up. He turned to Citron. “Louise will get it out of her tomorrow.”

Citron nodded. “Let me try something else on you.”

“Okay. What?”

“Suppose I came up with something really god-awful — a top-grade political mess, say — what would you do with it?”

“Try to elect somebody President, somebody smart, like Veatch.”

“Not brilliant?”

Haere shook his head. “I used to think we needed a brilliant President, but then I realized that if he was brilliant, and still wanted to be President, he’d probably have a few bolts loose.”

“And that’s all you want to do?”

“Jesus. Isn’t that enough?”

Citron didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he said, “Tomorrow, or the next day, I want to fly down to Tucamondo. I’ll need to take two things with me.”

“What?”

“Money. Quite a lot.”

Haere nodded. “No problem.”

“And some insurance.”

“What kind of insurance?”

“Velveeta Keats.”

Haere went into one of his long silences. His normally sad expression deepened into one of near despair, which by now Citron had learned to interpret as keen interest. “It’s all linked together somehow, isn’t it?” Haere said. “Everything.”

Citron nodded. “I think so.”

“Yeah,” Haere said. “It’s got to be.”