The Hanging

Chapter 24

“So, you’re the woman who is trying to ruin my life.”

Francis Weidermeyer, a big, florid man with a giant’s chest and no discernible ass, walked around the massive desk in the construction trailer I had been directed to and offered his hand. He had to talk over the rumbling of heavy equipment outside; from international arms dealer to construction boss-quite a comedown.

“I’m only trying to earn a buck,” I said.

He threw his head back and laughed.

Late afternoon, it was hot in Las Vegas, humid for the desert. The sweater I put on at Mme Olivier’s that morning was uncomfortably warm; I was grateful for the arctic chill of the air-conditioned trailer.

I’d had too much day already. If Lana Howard, my executive producer, hadn’t arranged for the network’s jet to fly me to Las Vegas, I would not have gone. But Chin’s suicide had elevated the project, and me, in the network’s estimation. A news crew was sent to film me-with a security detail en train-boarding the sleek plane at Burbank Airport’s Executive Air Terminal. All of the fuss was window dressing that would be used to promote the film. As uncomfortable as that made me-was I the story, or was I the reporter?-I was happy for the ride.

“Will you give me a few minutes of your time?” I asked Weidermeyer.

“Hell, I’d like to take you home and play with you for a few days, but, yeah, I’ll give you a few minutes. What do you want to talk about?”

“Park Holloway, Hiram Chin, Clarice Snow, a boy named Frankie, you.”

“Junior. God, haven’t seen the boy since he was what? Twelve? And how is Junior?”

“He’s in jail, waiting arraignment on an attempted murder charge.”

“Attempted? The dumb fuck, never thought he’d amount to much. Who’d he try to take out?”

“Me.”

He dropped his head, smiling at some private joke.

“I hoped to run into you at Park Holloway’s memorial service,” I said.

“Yeah, well.” He looked up, seemed to focus on a point somewhere over my right shoulder before he looked directly at me. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to run into the widow.”

“Karen wasn’t there,” I said. “There will be a second service in Gilstrap this weekend. She’ll be there.”

“Not much chance of me showing up in Gilstrap. I’m not exactly a favorite of the former wife.”

“Why is that?”

“Could be because I paid the rent on her husband’s Georgetown love nest for about a dozen years, took credit for his love child. Boy, when Karen found out about that…” He puffed his lips, let out a long breath. Then he gave me an abashed smile. “When she found that out, it was D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

“When was that?”

“As soon as Park left Congress. Not much point in me carrying Clarice for him anymore, was there?”

“I thought it might have something to do with an arms deal that went sour,” I said, taking the seat he offered.

“It all went down at about the same time.” Facing me, he rested one haunch on the near edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest. “You think you know something about that, do you?”

“Only in broad strokes. You want to tell me what happened?”

“Not really, no. That deal is how I ended up in this shithole, managing an army of guys who are working with fake green cards and borrowed Social Security numbers. They’re good workers, but every time the Immigration inspector shows up they all scatter and I lose a day’s labor.”

“How did Clarice end up with the collection of fakes the court awarded you?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Honey, I just did my best to change the subject.”

“It was a pretty good effort. But I don’t have a lot of time, and I have a whole lot of questions.”

“How do you know Clarice has the fakes?”

“I figured it out for myself.”

He thought about that for a moment.

“I always liked Clarice,” he said. “The girl has a lot of spunk, you know? When she lost the Georgetown place, she moved out to the west coast with the boy.”

“To Santa Barbara,” I said.

“Yeah. Years ago, Park bought her a little summer cottage near the ocean-no one stays in D.C. during the summer-so he could see her during congressional recesses. Guess you could call it Love Nest West.”

He checked for my reaction to that. I gave him a little smile. He was one of those blowhards who loved to talk once he got started. All I had to do was let him run.

“Old Park really left the girl hanging in the wind when he bailed out of Congress,” he said. “To make ends meet, Clarice started selling off her own collection of Chinese antiques-good stuff, she knew what she was doing when she bought it. She did well enough to set up a gallery. When she heard the courts awarded me that pile of fake shit, she offered to try to sell it on consignment.”

“Did she know it was all fake?”

“Know?” He threw back his head and laughed. Hooted, actually. “She owned the workshop where it was all made.”

“When did you know that the dictator put up fakes as collateral for your arms deal?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might…”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“The thing I want you to know,” he said, “is that Park didn’t know until later, not until after the Honorable President for Life of the Noble Republic of yada, yada got the heave-ho and the shit hit the fan. Park was thrown for a loop, said we all used him, betrayed him; and we did. He bailed out of Congress when he found out, dumped Clarice, tried to off himself. He couldn’t live with the thought of scandal, though in the end it was kept pretty quiet. Scandal like that isn’t good for anybody’s business.”

“What happened to you?”

“My suppliers threatened to bring me up on charges, but they gave it up because I had a detailed map of the weapons industry’s graveyard, if you know what I mean. Still, I got blackballed, lost everything.”

A wry smile emerged from his air of gloom.

“Worst luck, I lost everything except my wife, Phillida,” he said. “Phillida. What kind of name is that for a woman? I called her Phil once when we were dating and a new Ice Age descended; you might remember the chill.”

“How did you end up in construction?”

“Hiram,” he said. “I don’t have a criminal record, but I don’t exactly have star quality references, either. When contracts of this size go out, everyone in the company gets a thorough looking-at. Hiram said to wait until the project got underway and he’d put in the word for me, because after the work starts, no one looks at new hires. Hiram always knows the back door to walk through.”

“What is that back door?” I asked. “The same company you work for won the contract to complete a major building program at Anacapa College where Hiram and Park have been working. A four-hundred-million-dollar bond project. What is Hiram’s connection to the construction company?”

He shook his head. “All I know is, I did Clarice a favor, Hiram did me a favor. Now we’re even. Finished.”

“Hiram and Clarice are close?”

“They’re kin of some kind. It was Hiram who introduced her to Park during a trade junket to China, years ago.”

He looked at his watch.

“All this talk has made me thirsty,” he said. “How about I buy you a drink?”

“I would,” I said. “But what would Phillida say?”

He tossed his head to the side, grimaced good-naturedly at the mention of his wife. There was a sort of smarmy charm about him, the salesman’s glibness and sense of humor. He might be fun at a backyard barbecue, but I wasn’t sure he could ever be sufficiently domesticated to bring indoors.

I rose and offered my hand.

“Thank you for your time.”

“Sure,” he said, taking my hand in both of his and holding on to it. “I have nothing else to do with my time except put up a new hospital wing. All the time in the world.”

I tugged my hand and he released it.

“I don’t suppose you’ll repeat any of this on camera for me?” I said.

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Too bad,” I said. “You’d film like a champ.”

He laughed. “I bet Hiram already turned you down, didn’t he? If I know Hiram, he’s milking a cash cow somehow at that college and he won’t risk losing hold of the teat by talking to you.”

“You seem to have some affection for him.”

He shrugged. “Hiram and I go back a long way. We had some good times, put together some big deals. Everything fell apart, sure, but it seems to me those were better times than these.”

There was sadness in his smile. “Does that make me sound old?”

“No, it makes you sound human,” I said. “Mr. Weidermeyer, I’m sorry to tell you. Hiram Chin passed away this morning.”

He paled, visibly upset. “I didn’t know he was sick.”

“Only sick at heart,” I said. “He went by his own hand.”