Strachey's folly

Chapter 7

I know why you're doing this," Timmy said. We were back in the hotel room, where a call to GW had just confirmed that Maynard was unconscious but still in stable condition. "You're acknowledging that there's at least a possibility that some well-connected gang of some type thinks it needs to kill Maynard for whatever weird reason. And you're showing by your actions that the only way to guarantee Maynard's safety-or at least ease my mind about it-is either to disprove a conspiracy, or to expose it and end it. Is that right?"

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what you say is partly true, but-Timothy, while the size of my ego may fall within the upper midrange of normal, I do not suffer from delusions of grandeur. I can poke around and try to come up with an educated guess as to the nature of this-thing. But if it's extensive at all, there's precious little I'll be able to do about it. Especially if it's a Mexican drug-gang operation. To those people, I'd be gnatlike, an insect they'd swat. I'm selectively ambitious, yes, but I'm not suicidal."

"Do you think it is a drug operation that Suter's mixed up in?"

"I know too little to have formed a strong opinion, but right now I'd say probably not."

"I don't think so either."

"It's the involvement of the quilt," I said. "And Betty Krum-futz." Timmy nodded enthusiastically. "What could they possibly have to do with drug gangs?"

"A lot of religious-right types are hypocrites," Timmy said. "But their hypocrisies are usually more mundane-sexual or un-sensationally financial. Nobody ever suspected Pat Robertson of running a drug cartel."

"He does have ties with Mobutu in Zaire. Robertson controls mineral concessions there, and he's an apologist in Washington for the tyrant. But, as I understand them, Betty Krumfutz's misdeeds were of a more parochial variety. Or, to be more accurate, her husband's transgressions were. He was actually the only one charged and convicted of the fraudulent use of campaign funds."

"That's right. I don't remember reading about anything international in the Krumfutz case. And they wouldn't have been involved in any CIA-Nicaraguan contras drug connection. Whatever that amounted to, or didn't amount to, it took place in the early to mid eighties-way too long ago."

"On the other hand," I said, "I think we have to take seriously Chondelle's hunch that the actual attack on Maynard was done by drug people. She'd have a reliable feel for that. Maybe Betty Krumfutz wasn't involved in anything really awful. Maybe just her husband was-or is."

"As I recall, Maynard told us Nelson Krumfutz isn't in prison yet, pending the outcome of his appeals. Maybe Betty stumbled onto something-about drug dealing by her husband possibly- and she-what? — heard that some incriminating evidence had been sewn onto Jim Suter's panel in the AIDS quilt.

That sounds far-fetched, I guess."

"It does. Although we are talking here about a husband and wife who actually went out and did what people have to do in the United States in order to get elected to Congress-lust after cash like methadone addicts in search of a fix and act civil to some of the biggest assholes in the country. So, where the Krurn-futzes are concerned, feel free to give your imagination wide latitude."

"Ah so," Timmy said. "Am I now to believe that you may be ready to entertain the idea of an actual plot? Earlier today my imagination was feverish and possibly in need of medication. Now I'm supposed to give it free rein?"

"Don't go that far. Look, I'm ready to accept that there are connections among several disturbing events here. And speculation on what those connections are can serve as a pastime, for now, in the absence of facts. I'm just not ready-and I don't plan on getting ready-to implicate entire hospitals or entire transportation fleets or entire agencies of government in a monstrous conspiracy."

"I get that. You've made your views plain."

"It's not that I don't believe in conspiracies. I know, recent American history is full of them, from plots to use the Mafia to kill Castro, to the FBI plot to drive Martin Luther King to suicide, to Cointelpro, to Iran-contra. But nearly all human folly and evil, Timothy, is individual-bad or just fallible people caught in the act of being their wicked or weak selves. This has been my experience in life-from crooked pols in Albany, to greedy developers, to people who, when they are backed into an actual or emotional corner, lash out and kill."

"Yes, Don, that's been your experience. But aren't you being just a tad solipsistic?" he said, yet again waving his gilded degree from a Jesuit institution in my face. "Maybe your experience with evil has been relatively narrow, and now it's being broadened. Usually you're as rigorous as anybody I know in insisting on empirical evidence to support your analyses. But this time, you're not. All the evidence here says something complex and very dangerous is happening. I know you think I'm going all nellie and wussing out, but that's not it. It's not me, it's the facts. I am afraid, and fear is the only rational reaction to what has happened to Maynard and to you and me over the past twenty-four hours. If you've got facts to the contrary, I'd like to hear about them."

"I didn't say I wasn't afraid."

"No, but you keep acting as if I'm the Grady Sutton character to your Joel McCrea. I saw the way you and Chondelle were looking at me a while ago-as if I were a small child who would probably have to be sent to the countryside until the war is over. Yes, I am afraid, and I guess I show it, but-I've made a decision about something."

"About what?"

"I'm staying in Washington until Maynard is safe. I'll call Myron today. It'll screw things up in the office, but he'll understand, and Fred Ginsburg can cover for me.

I've got three weeks of vacation time coming, and I'm taking it. I'll stay with Maynard-if he lives-and if I have to, I'll hire a private security service to keep us both secure. Also, if you're going to go ahead and investigate Jim Suter and the mysterious quilt panel-which it looks as if you're going to do, because you're a good guy and because you're hopelessly nosy and curious-then I'm going to pay your expenses."

"I guess you have made a decision. More than one decision. For both of us."

"No, I've just decided what I'm going to do. You have to make your own decisions."

"You Peace Corps guys stick together. I've noticed that."

"That tends to be true."

"When we go back to the hospital, we'll probably find Sargent and Eunice Shriver kneeling in prayer at Maynard's bedside."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

Timmy had my number, as always. "So okay then. I'll never be a full-fledged member of the Peace Corps club, but I'll do my bit for the cause, and for Maynard-and of course for you. I'll follow the question wherever it leads. My belief is, it won't lead far. But we'll see."

"Thanks, Don."

Then came a sudden sharp rapping at the hotel-room door. Timmy started, then quietly moaned, "Oh no, oh no."

I didn't want to believe what I thought Timmy was thinking. But as I approached the door, even before opening it, I thought I caught a whiff of Ray Craig's nicotine aura.

We let him in. He sniffed the air. He glared. Without being invited to do so, Craig took a seat. I thought, he's going to light a cigarette. He didn't, but he fiddled with the pack in his jacket pocket. I wondered if a map was in the packet in the pocket of the jacket-a routine from an old Red Skelton movie-but I decided that mentioning it was unlikely to bring a chuckle to Craig's lips.

He said, "You two had coffee with Detective Chondelle Dolan this morning and went walking around with her. Why?"

"How do you know that?" I said.

His ordinarily dead eyes flashed at my insolence. A Ray Craig of fifty years earlier would have pulled out a sap and worked me over while his goonish partner held me in a head-lock. But the times had changed enough for me-if not for every U.S. inner-city resident-and Craig apparently felt not only constrained by the law, he was even unable to avoid answering my question.

"I've had you two under surveillance."

"Why?" I asked.

"For your own protection."

"I doubt that we need protection. What makes you think we might?"

He eyed me coldly, glanced at Timmy, then looked back at me and said,

"Washington can be a dangerous place."

"Your decision to have us followed was based on local crime statistics?"

Craig snapped, "I use my professional judgment. If you think I'm some fucking incompetent with shit for brains and my head up my ass, I'd like to hear about it."

This produced a long, strained silence. I knew Timmy would be considering, as I was, Craig's vivid but visually confusing metaphor.

Craig himself finally broke the tension. "Let's talk about Chondelle Dolan."

"Sure. Let's."

"You people stick together, don't you?"

"Chondelle was never in the Peace Corps. For that matter, neither was I."

"You know damn well what I mean. She's a lesbo. She's a big nigger lesbo."

Timmy said evenly, "I'm requesting that you do not talk like that."

"Come again?" Craig eyes were blazing.

"Never mind."

"What do you want with us this time?" I said. "We were just on our way out."

"I've got news concerning my investigation. You'll be interested in this. I've got two eyewitnesses to the E Street shooting. My witnesses say the perpetrators were Mexicans."

Timmy and I feigned surprise. "Oh?"

"Did Sudbury use drugs?" Craig said.

Timmy said, "No."

"Do you?"

"No," Timmy repeated.

I said, "We get high on life. How about you? What do you get high on?"

Craig was seated on the desk chair and I was on the edge of the bed. He flushed and spasmed once, but he didn't lunge at me. Instead, he clapped his notebook shut violently, stood up, and tramped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.