“I believe all that except the gnawing part,” he said. “Nothing ever gnawed at Hank Viar. Not Partain. Not even the suicide of his wife. Your mother.”
She continued to stare at him without expression until he nodded and said, “Okay. It’s a standoff. You won’t make any reports and I won’t pass out any copies of the tape.”
She continued to look at him without expression, neither accepting nor rejecting the offer.
“You recognized me this morning, didn’t you?” he said. “From that photo.”
“Why else would I be here?”
The Colonel looked unsure for a moment, as if he really didn’t want to know the answer. He held out his right hand and, using his harshest command tone, barked an order. “Gimme the fucking tape.”
She shook her head. “That’s not part of the deal.”
“What deal?”
“When I saw you this morning in that dumb convertible, I went back and pretended to lock my car and make sure it was you — one of the two guys my daddy warned me about. When you popped up at the frozen pizzas, the deal sort of popped into my mind.”
“What fucking deal, goddamnit?”
“Know what killed my husband, Colonel?”
“I heard pneumonia.”
She shook her head. “AIDS. And for more than a year now I’ve had myself checked weekly. Day before yesterday, my test turned out to be HIV positive even though I’m still asymptomatic.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t mean you gave it to me.”
“No, but under certain circumstances I might consider it my civic duty to report all of my recent sexual partners. And that means you. Just wonderful you.”
Millwed gave her a bleak stare, then a nod of dismissal, and headed for the motel room door. Just before reaching it, he turned back and said, “Don’t show that tape to anyone.”
“I won’t, unless there’re certain circumstances.”
“There won’t be,” he said, opened the door and was gone.
Chapter 24
Emory Kite’s glass of bourbon and ginger ale stopped halfway to his mouth when he saw them heading toward his preferred table at Le Dome. In the lead was Ione Gamble, the actress-director. Following in her wake of admiring glances and gathering his own share, which he acknowledged with the charming loopy grin that helped him earn six or seven million dollars a picture, was her escort, Niles Brand.
“Jesus Christ,” Kite said, “they’re coming right over here.”
“So they are,” General Winfield said and rose.
“General,” the smiling Ione Gamble said, offering her left cheek, which Winfield’s lips intentionally missed by a sixteenth of an inch. “You remember Niles.”
“Certainly,” Winfield said, turning to shake the actor’s hand. “The three of us sat together — or rather stood, I suppose — through Cuomo’s keynote in ’eighty-four.”
“In New York,” Brand said, in case Winfield couldn’t recall the site of that year’s Democratic convention. “Helluva speech,” Niles Brand continued. “Immigrant parents. Wretched refuse. All that.”
After introducing them to Edd Partain, who said it was nice to meet them, the General introduced them to Emory Kite, who shook their hands, gave them both a dazed smile but said nothing at all.
On their way out of the restaurant, Brand asked Gamble, “Why the hell’d Millie Altford want us to shake hands with some mute midget?”
“Beats me.”
“How’d I do?” he said, anxious as always for her approval. “Wretched refuse?” she said. “Cuomo didn’t say anything about wretched refuse.”
“Yeah, well, if he didn’t, he should’ve.”
The General had the trout, Partain the sea bass and Emory Kite a filet mignon, which he ate noisily while giving detailed accounts of the sexual peccadilloes of various actors and actresses he had read about in an impressive number of supermarket tabloids. After the last bite of steak was chewed and swallowed, he turned to Partain and said, “What about this shooting you saw?”
“Someone shot and killed a doorman at the Eden apartment building on Wilshire.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“He a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Then what d’you care?”
“I work for a woman who lives in the building.”
“So?”
“My client’s being considered for a top-level job in the new administration. A few nights ago, someone dumped a dead body in the driveway of the apartment building — the body of a man her daughter’d been living with in Mexico. What my client wants to know—”
Kite interrupted. “Lemme take it from here. She wants to know if there’s any connection between the dead doorman and the guy who was shacked up with her daughter.”
“Any embarrassing connection,” General Winfield said.
“She’s also had several threats,” Partain said.
“What kind of threats?”
“On her life. She’s hired me as her security adviser.”
“Sounds like bodyguard to me,” Kite said.
“I’m responsible for advising her on what security precautions she should take.”
“But if a shooter comes along while you’re there giving her all this good advice, he’d have to go through you to get to her, right?”
Partain nodded.
“Then you’re a bodyguard,” Kite said. “No reason to be ashamed of it. Christ, that’s what the Secret Service does. Ask those guys what they do, they’ll tell you their job is to protect the President. I mean the guys on the White House detail.”
“Let me spell out what I want from you,” Partain said.
“Maybe you’d better.”
“I don’t know anything about the doorman who got shot.”
“How about the other guy, the one who was fucking her daughter down in Mexico?”
“I know about him, but not about the doorman.”
“I hope to Christ you at least know his name.”
“He said his name was Jack. For the moment, we’ll call him that. All I know about Jack is that he was a doorman and a none too successful actor. I know nothing about his friends, family or the people he owed money to.”
“What makes you think he owed money?”
“Because everybody does.”
“Then what you want is an A to Z background check on Jack the doorman-actor.”
Partain nodded.
“Why come to me?”
“Because I recommended you,” General Winfield said.
“Well, I don’t know,” Kite said. “I got a lot of other business out here to take care of. Besides, background checks take lots of time and cost lots of money.”
“I don’t know how much you charge,” Partain said. “But I do know how much time they take. First, you check the guy’s credit rating, if any, through TRW. Second, you find out if he’s got a local police sheet. And third, you find out if the FBi’s keeping tabs on him. That’s three phone calls — if you know your way around. An hour’s work. Maybe two.”
“You’re making it sound awful fucking easy,” Kite said.
“That’s because it is.”
Kite leaned back in the chair and studied the man who wanted to hire him. “You’ve done this kinda shit before, haven’t you?”
“Not like this.”
“Where?”
“In the Army.”
“CID?”
“Let’s just say in the Army and let it go at that.”
Kite nodded, more to himself than to either the General or the ex-Major, and said, “It’ll cost you three thousand. One thousand in advance. Cash.”
“You want it now or when we get outside?”
Kite looked around, as if to see who was watching, then shrugged. “Outside’ll do. After you pay me, maybe you’ll even remember Jack’s last name.”