Strachey's folly

Chapter 22

Timmy's first words, when I stepped off the plane at National Airport Thursday night, were "That was fast."

"You have no idea."

"I'm so relieved you're back."

"And I'm so happy to look into your guileless eyes."

"Did Suter get you into bed?"

"Something like that."

"And you liked 'it,' probably, but you didn't like him."

"I wouldn't even go so far as to say I liked 'it,' fleeting as it was. God knows what it was like for Suter. He had to prove to himself that he could at least get that far with me, and he did. But for me it was almost entirely aesthetic."

"Do you mean like visiting the Uffizi?"

"Yes, except with a shorter queue to get in. That was the case last night anyway."

"And there was no risk to anybody's health?"

"There was barely any risk to the bed linen."

"Even so, do not do that again, please." His look said he meant it.

"Okay. I won't."

During the cab ride from Alexandria into Washington, I tried to give Timmy an account of my under twenty-four hours with Jim Suter in Los Pajaros and of the dramatic and complex story he had told me. Timmy kept indicating the cabdriver with his eyes, as if Mulugeta Fessahazion might be more than passingly interested. So I gave up on the Suter narrative and instead described physical developments along the Yucatan Caribbean coast since Timmy and I had vacationed there in the mid-eighties. We planned another trip together in January or February-not to include, Timmy suggested, Los Pajaros. "It sounds as if it's not our style," he said.

Timmy did tell me during the cab ride that Maynard was still weak but recovering from his wounds and that he was alert and bordering on the garrulous. I asked if he had told Timmy anything useful to my investigation about Suter or anyone else. But Timmy raised an eyebrow in the direction of Mulugeta, locked his lips, and threw away the key.

Back on Capitol Hill, something pungent was in the late-evening autumn air. It wasn't burning leaves, just Ray Craig, who stepped out of the shadows near the hotel entrance as we climbed out of our cab.

"Buenas tardes, " Craig said to me, sneering.

"Yo, Ray."

"Been south of the border, Strachey?"

"Could be."

"I guess going down is nothing new for you." Craig snorted with satisfaction over his witticism.

"Did you follow me all the way to Argentina?"

"You weren't in Argentina. You were in Mexico."

"Oh, I guess you're right about that."

"Calling on Jim Suter."

"Was I?"

"The question is, why?"

"No, that is the answer, Ray. But what is the question?"

He glowered at me for a long time. Timmy stood nearby sending ESP messages my way: Don't irritate him, just get rid of him.

Craig finally said, "The question is, when am I going to bust your ass, Strachey, on a narcotics charge?"

"Not ever, Ray. Because I'm involved in no such thing, and you know I'm involved in no such thing."

"Do I? And do I know that Maynard Sudbury was never involved in smuggling controlled substances from Mexico?"

I sensed Timmy stiffen. "I think you know that, yes," I said.

"Then why," Craig said, giving me the beady eye, "did my two eyewitnesses to the E Street shooting pick Reynaldo Reyes out of a mug book of violent offenders with known drug-gang connections? The — witnesses had gotten a good look at the shooter as he passed under a streetlight, and each witness independently ID-ed Reyes yesterday afternoon. We'll put Reyes in a lineup when we find him and pick him up. Suddenly he's either out of the country or he's under a rock over in the Alexandria barrio. Now, why would this lowlife want to shoot your buddy, who had traveled to Mexico just a couple of weeks earlier for travel writing, you say, if they weren't both involved in the same degenerate occupation? You tell me, Strachey."

Telling Craig what Jim Suter had told me would have explained Maynard's innocent involvement in the affair, but I couldn't do that. I said, "I can't answer that. But Timothy and I know Maynard Sudbury well enough to know that he's about as likely to be involved in drug dealing as Newt Gingrich is. Less probably.

Sudbury is one of those ex-Peace Corps, liberal, dilettante types with no particular interest in accumulating money. They're all in the arts and journalism and social services and education. The profit motive seems alien to these people, and I'm not sure how so many of them seem to survive in post-Reagan America, but they do. Without becoming criminals even. Ray, this is strange but true."

Timmy was shifting from foot to foot. Not only had he to put up with Craig, he had also to endure my joshing on the subject of his dearest friends, the ex-Peace Corps mob. But he knew when to keep his mouth shut, and now was one of those times.

Craig said, "I hope for your sake that what you're telling me about Maynard Sudbury is the truth, Strachey. If it's not, you'll have me to answer to. What did you find out from Jim Suter?"

"You still haven't explained," I said, "why you think I went to Mexico to see someone you keep referring to as Jim Suter."

"Skip the bullshit game-playing. If you knew your ass from your left nut, you'd know that I've talked to Suter's mother and to six other people, most of them admitted homosexuals, that you've interviewed about Suter. What's Suter's connection to Sudbury? Is Suter Sudbury's drug connection in the Yucatan?"

"No, Ray. Suter and Sudbury were once boyfriends, and I'm talking to all of Maynard's ex-lovers trying to develop a lead on the shooting. You're hung up on this drug thing, and that's a nonstarter. In order to see that Timothy's and my friend's attacker is brought to justice, I'm simply doing your job the way it ought to be done. Instead of ragging me and having me followed everywhere I go, you ought to be cooperative. Grateful even."

At that, Craig spat a wad of tobacco-y phlegm at my feet and said, "What a bullshitter you are."

I said, "Tell me about Suter's lawsuit."

"His what?"

"Somebody is suing him, he says. Suter convinced me he knows nothing about the Sudbury shooting. But he said there's a lawsuit against him here in D.C., and the cops are involved in it somehow. What's that about?"

Craig said, "It's chilly out here. Let's go up to your room. We can sit down where it's comfortable, maybe throw back a couple of brews, and have an exchange of information."

Timmy said, "It's getting late. What about tomorrow? Could you have your exchange of information tomorrow?"

"Let's have an exchange of information here and now," I said. "Why wait? Ray, why don't you light up a butt and relax? Timmy, if you want to take a load off your feet, you go on up. But I'm going to tell Ray right now that Jim Suter has two connections to Maynard, and both, I discovered, apparently have nothing to do with the shooting.

"One connection is, many years ago Suter and Sudbury were lovers for a short time. The other connection is, a panel with Suter's name on it appeared in the AIDS quilt on Saturday, and Maynard recognized this and notified the Names Project of this strange occurrence the day he was shot. The Names Project is where I plan to concentrate my investigation next, Ray. And if you were smarter than I'm afraid you might be, that's where you'd start asking questions, too."

Craig was sucking in the carbon monoxide, etc., from a Camel Light now, probably reducing the chances that in the throes of withdrawal he would suddenly yank out a service revolver and slam hot lead into our chests. I hated to sic him onto the Names Project-these people deserved better-but I needed time to check out Suter's wild tale of drug gangs in Central Pennsylvania and then to talk him into the Witness Protection Program and save him from his lover-jailer Jorge and the Mexican drug cartel killers.

Craig said calmly, "I already am in touch with the AIDS quilt organization." "Hey, good."

"They faxed me a copy of the form that came in with Suter's panel. The panel was submitted in April by a David Phipps, but the name seems to be phony. He used a Mailboxes, Etcetera drop, and now I gotta get a fucking court order to find out who rented the box. I'm working on it. Am I conducting my investigation to your satisfaction, Strachey?"

"Nice work, Ray. Now tell me this. Who is Captain Milton Kingsley, and why did he follow me to Cancun? I know that a couple of your junior officers have been tailing me around D.C. since Sunday morning. But am I such a criminal celebrity in your department that I merit a captain to keep tabs on me?"

In middrag, Craig went very still. "You spotted Kingsley? Tailing you? In Mexico?"

There was no way I could have blabbed to Craig that a pal of Chondelle's in the department had been the source of Captain Kingsley's travel plans. "I spotted him, yeah."

"How do you know Kingsley?" Craig said grimly. "How did you recognize him?"

"Suter recognized him. He knew him from a piece he once wrote for Washingtonian magazine."

Craig dragged deeply on his cigarette and said nothing more.

I asked him, "What about the lawsuit? Suter wouldn't tell me what that was about. He seemed embarrassed by whatever it was."

Craig still stood looking pensive, disturbed even, apparently over my report that I had spotted Milton Kingsley in Cancun. Finally Craig said, "I ran Suter's name. It came up once. He was charged with assault last year. The judge threw out the assault charge. But the court record says the victim told the judge that he planned on pursuing a civil action. I've got somebody checking to find out if that was done."

"Who brought the charge, and what was the nature of the assault?"

"The alleged victim was a Carmen LoBello. LoBello is a man who used to do a drag act, pretending to be Mrs. Liddy Dole. The so-called assault was this: Suter gave LoBello herpes, LoBello claims, and now LoBello's got a big cold sore on his upper lip half the time. LoBello can only do G. Gordon Liddy Dole, with a big mustache that covers up the cold sore. Except, nobody wants to go see a drag act with somebody called G. Gordon Liddy Dole. So LoBello is up shit creek. You queers sure pick up some interesting ways to get yourself in trouble,"

Craig said, and I had to agree with that.