“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing — except quit your job.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Quit your job and go lie on some beach for a month until the paperwork’s done. Then go back in as a light-colonel, finish out your year down at Fort Sam doing PR for the polo team or some such shit and then retire on your pension plus the tax-free quarter mil.”
“You can fix all that, Ralphie?”
This time the Colonel’s smile was a thin one. “A two-star general can.”
“When do you have to know?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
“I need forty-eight.”
“Why?”
“I have to think up an excuse for quitting that’ll satisfy everybody. Something that won’t leave them wondering.”
“Tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em you’ve been asked to re-up as a light-colonel.”
Partain smiled slightly. “You really want me to tell General Winfield that?”
The Colonel’s expression turned thoughtful. “Yeah, well, maybe you’d better not. Maybe you’d better come up with something more — palatable.”
“You mean lie to them?”
Millwed’s wide smile reappeared. “Exactly.”
An hour later, in the parlor of the small century-old house on Fourth Street, S.E., Colonel Millwed was sitting on the ornate but remarkably preserved Victorian couch and listening to Emory Kite’s third and final version of the botched murder of Edd Partain.
“Take the silencer I used,” Kite was saying. “I make my own, you know, right here in the basement, and I’d never use one on anything bigger than a twenty-five caliber. You use one on a thirty-eight, a nine millimeter or a forty-five semiautomatic and you almost gotta use a bipod to steady the fucker. But with a twenty-five you got concealability, portability, silence and accuracy. And with accuracy you got your stopping power. And this thing wasn’t no rolling shot either. Manny pulls the cab to a stop just when Partain turns to put a suitcase in the trunk. I had time. Plenty of time. I squeezed off two rounds that take him right between the shoulder blades. It was a kill shot if I ever saw one.”
“He must’ve been wearing Kevlar,” the Colonel said for the third time.
“Well, how the fuck was I to know that?”
“Wouldn’t a head shot’ve been almost as easy and far more certain?” the Colonel said, trying to put some curiosity into his tone.
“A head shot, huh? Well, the human head is about one-fourth or maybe one-fifth the size of the human torso — waist to neck. It’s also, I don’t know, ten times as hard. I know a shooter once who went for a head shot, and the guy who’s supposed to get it moves his head just a hair. He got hit all right, but his skull’s so fucking hard the slug ricocheted off and hit his wife in the mouth and killed her and she was the one paying for the hit.”
“Well, it was a nice try, Emory,” the Colonel said.
“But nice tries don’t pay off, do they?”
“No, they don’t.”
“What nice tries do,” Kite said, “is give you a heart attack. I get on the plane and head for my seat up there in first class, looking forward to a few belts and maybe a halfway decent meal and a nice long snooze and who do I see? The fucking ghost of Twodees Partain, alive as you and me.”
“Let’s hear about the doorman,” the Colonel said.
“Jack Thomson, with no ‘p.’ Well, Jack wasn’t any problem. I had a real nice piece I borrowed from Manny, a scope and good light from the building. It was a simple pop. Almost a gimme. Fact is, Partain was only a few feet away and I could’ve had him, too, but I thought that might screw things up. Manny — you know Manny?”
“We’ve never met but we talked on the phone once.”
“That’s right. Then you know that accent he’s got. We’re driving away in the limo and Manny said, ‘Chew meesed.’ He means I missed. He thought I was going for Partain but hit Jack the doorman by mistake.”
The Colonel nodded and said, “I need to know something else. How did Manny take care of the General’s nephew?”
“Well, first of all you gotta realize Manny don’t know Dave Laney was the General’s nephew because Manny don’t know there’s any General Hudson.”
“Good.”
“I talk to you and then call Manny and tell him there’s this guy who’s giving some friends of mine a hard time. We settle on a price. Then Manny locates Dave Laney and sticks with him when he goes into the hospital. Laney ducks into the men’s john and comes out dressed up like a doctor. This interests Manny and he follows Laney into the elevator, gets off a floor below the one Laney punches, then runs up the stairs, peeks around a door and watches Laney trying to smother the Altford woman up there in her private room. But Altford puts up a hell of a fight, rolls off the bed and starts screaming and Dave Laney bugs out. So Manny follows him down and out of the hospital and sees him hightailing it up Olympic, still wearing his doctor clothes. Manny and his guys snatch Dave and toss him into the van. Three of ’em hold him down, Manny drives and another guy smothers him — Dave, I mean.”
“How?”
“They stuff a T-shirt into Dave’s mouth and pinch his nose so he can’t breathe. Pretty soon Dave’s dead. Then they drive over to Wilshire and dump him out on the Eden’s drive.”
“Why there?”
“They thought it might be kinda cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah. Dave’s been done and they’re driving along Wilshire when Manny sees the Altford lady and Partain get out of her car. Manny stops, backs up, they dump Dave in the driveway and take off. Who knows what’s cute to Mexicans?”
The Colonel sighed. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, one thing,” Kite said. “Uh — what’d the General, you know, say when he told you to get rid of his nephew?”
“You want the exact words?” Kite shrugged, then nodded. “He said, ‘Lose him.’ ”
Kite smiled, then said, “Lose him,” shook his head in admiration and added, “His own kinfolk.”
The Colonel rose. “By the way, Emory, Partain has been granted a temporary reprieve.”
The corners of Kite’s thin mouth curled down in disappointment. “That mean you want your money back?”
“I said temporary,” the Colonel replied.
Chapter 30
Partain glanced up from the Washington Post as Millicent Altford glided into the hotel suite’s living room, spun around with practiced grace and asked, “How do I look?”
“How do you want to look?”
“Like a bunch of money.”
“Pretty ladies in black dresses that cost that much always look like money to me.”
“How much do you think it cost?”
He shrugged. “A thousand?”
“Two-sixty-five on sale at Saks.”
Partain put the paper down and looked at his watch. “When do you meet these guys?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Then we’d better go.”
After he followed Millicent Altford into the rear of the independent taxicab, the hotel doorman closed the door and Altford introduced Partain to the driver. “Jerry... Edd.”
The driver had turned to study Partain and his UCLA jacket. He was a slim black in his mid-thirties with the calm intimidating gaze that most cops and some cons try to acquire. “You the shotgun?”
“I’m the shotgun.”
“And just what might we be expecting?”
“The unexpected.”
“The usual, then,” Jerry said, turned back to the wheel and was pulling away from the curb when Altford asked, “How’s the family, Jerry?”
“Wife’s working. Daughter’s doing fine at Howard. And I’m still a GS-9. How you been, Millie?”