“She said she couldn’t wait.”
“Uh-huh,” Kite said with a suspicious frown that he quickly erased with a grin. “Gave you her card, I bet.”
The General smiled slightly and nodded.
“I don’t mean to step out of line, General, but if you’re ever in the mood for a little of the strange, you can’t do any better’n Connie. Five hundred a night and cheap at the price. Nice girl, too. Went to college, got herself a pretty fair job at Interior, doesn’t do drugs and loves to travel.”
“Interesting,” the General said.
“Want some coffee? I told her to make a pot.”
“Yes, I would, thank you, Mr. Kite.”
“Be right back.”
Kite returned from the kitchen in less than two minutes with two mugs of coffee. He handed one mug to the General, then held his own with both hands as he sat down in a big armchair that was low enough for his feet to rest on the floor. Kite noisily sipped his coffee, peering over the mug’s rim at Winfield. “This ain’t no social call, is it?”
“No, Mr. Kite, it’s not. I’m in need of your services yet again.”
Kite’s left hand gave his earlobe a tug that seemed to make the corners of his mouth curl down. “Whatcha got in mind?”
“I’d like you to replace what you once removed — or had removed.”
Kite gave the left earlobe another tug and this time his eyes widened in either real or pretended surprise. “You mean in L.A.?”
“In Los Angeles, yes.”
“And you want it put back exactly where it was?”
“That’s not necessary. Once inside, you can leave it almost anywhere.”
“I’m not going in if anybody’s there.”
“I assure you no one will be there.”
“And my end?”
“The same as before. And as before, you’ll take care of your own expenses.”
“Why?” Kite said with what Winfield took to be an honestly puzzled frown. “I mean, you needed it then but now you don’t. How come?”
“I needed it desperately then,” Winfield said. “But I no longer do. I now consider it a loan that must be repaid anonymously. But this time no one is to be injured and, above all, no one is to be killed.”
Kite pointed his sharp chin at the black overnight bag that still rested on the General’s knees. “That it?” Kite asked.
The General nodded.
Kite put his mug down and rose. “Then maybe we oughta count it.”
“Yes, I think we should.”
The General rose, holding the overnight bag by its handle, and looked around the room. He noticed a marble-top table that was placed against the far wall. The marble’s color was mauve streaked by cream and each of the table’s six ornately carved mahogany legs ended in the inevitable ball and claw.
“That table do?” the General asked.
Kite looked. “Sure. I’ll just move the lamp over some.”
He crossed to the table and moved a shaded brass lamp to the rear left side. The General went over to place the overnight bag on the marble. “It’s unlocked,” he said.
“All hundreds?”
“Of course.”
“One-point-two million?”
“Exactly, Mr. Kite.”
Kite nodded, unsnapped the bag’s fasteners and lifted the lid,revealing neat, tightly packed rows of banded $100 bills. Kite stared at the money fondly, perhaps even lovingly, and was still staring at it when General Winfield cleared his throat and said, “Emory.”
“Yeah?”
“Close the lid.”
Kite froze, then thawed quickly enough to ask, “Why?” But he didn’t really wait for an answer. Instead, he slammed down the lid, spun around and lunged at the General, but slowed, then stopped altogether after Winfield shot him in the forehead with a .22-caliber revolver.
Chapter 38
The rented two-bedroom third-floor apartment of Nick Patrokis was at 1911 R Street, N.W., and only a two-minute walk from VOMIT, providing the Connecticut Avenue lights were with him. The apartment had once been occupied by his uncle, the restaurateur, who years ago had moved to the farther reaches of Maryland out Massachusetts Avenue just beyond the District line.
After moving, the uncle had continued to pay the rent on the apartment because it was cheaper than paying the hotel and motel bills of his extended family, whose members dropped in on him with alarming regularity from Athens and London and Sydney and Rome and Brussels. With the founding of VOMIT, the uncle subleased the apartment to his nephew, Nicholas, and by letter, telephone, fax and word of mouth, informed members of his family that if they were planning to visit him in Washington, he could recommend a Holiday Inn out on New York Avenue that was cheap, clean and only a bit dangerous.
At 8:08 that morning, shortly after General Winfield shot Emory Kite, Nick Patrokis awoke in his bedroom, looked left and found a naked Shawnee Viar sitting cross-legged on the bed, studying him with what he thought looked suspiciously like adoration.
“Let’s get married,” she said.
“When?”
“Next year. The year after. Ten years from now.”
“That’s an idea,” Patrokis said, rose naked from the bed and hurried into the bathroom. Even with the bathroom door closed he heard the loud ring of the black nineteen-year-old Touch-Tone phone that had yet to need repair and whose twin models fetched $100 to $150 at the swap meets where Patrokis had acquired much of his clothing and all of the furniture for the apartment and VOMIT.
After the second ring the phone went silent. When Patrokis, still naked, came out of the bathroom, Shawnee Viar offered him the instrument and said, “It’s Partain.”
Patrokis said hello and Partain said, “I just got a call from General Hudson.”
“Why?”
“He wants me to meet with him and Colonel Millwed.”
“Again — why?”
“So we can talk about my going back in the Army as a lieutenant colonel, serving out my twentieth year and retiring on a well-deserved pension.”
“Tell him to go ahead and put in the papers.”
“I did, but he still wants to talk.”
“Where?”
“He’ll call back with time and place.”
“Why is it,” Patrokis asked, “that I suspect the three of you will meet by moonlight at some lonely crossroads in Rappahannock County?”
“Think I should take along a weapon?”
“You have one?”
“No.”
“The gun seller has no gun?”
“Do you?”
“What would I do with a gun?” Patrokis said. “He wants a gun?” Shawnee Viar asked.
“Hold on,” Patrokis said, put a hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Shawnee and said, “Why d’you ask?”
“He can have Hank’s,” she said. “I thought the cops took it.”
“They did, but he has a couple of others stashed around the house.”
“Would you lend one to Partain?”
“What’s he want with it?”
“I don’t know,” Patrokis said. “Maybe he wants to shoot Colonel Millwed. Or General Hudson. Or both.”
“Tell him I’ll bring it to him wherever he is,” she said.
At 8:59 A.M. the telephone rang in Edd Partain’s hotel room. After he answered it, Millicent Altford said, “My daughter back in her own bed yet?”
“She’s not here.”
“You dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Then get your butt over here right now without anybody seeing you. Think you can handle that?”
“I can try.”
Partain opened his hotel room door, glanced up and down the corridor, saw no one, closed his door, went four quick steps to the door next to his, opened it and slipped inside.
“Lock it up good,” Millicent Altford said.
Partain shot the bolt, fastened the chain and turned to look first at Altford, who was sitting in a chair, wearing her cashmere robe, then at General Vernon Winfield, who sat at attention in a straight-back chair, hat and gloves off but topcoat still on, the black overnight bag on his knees.