“Sugar here just killed himself a private detective,” Millicent Altford said. “The one you all had lunch with at the Dome.”
“Emory Kite,” Partain said, merely to be saying something.
“Kite,” she agreed, rose, went over to where the whisky was, poured herself an ounce and a half of Scotch and tossed most of it down. “Sugar here’s turning me into a morning drinker.”
“I take it he’s not here to kill you,” Partain said.
“I find that extremely offensive, Mr. Partain,” the General said.
“He’s got a gun,” Altford said.
“Want me to take it away from him?”
Before Altford could reply, the General removed the short-barrelled revolver from his topcoat pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. “It fires five twenty-two-caliber long rounds with hollow points. They do tremendous damage but are effective at only very short range. This particular weapon shoots high and right and is virtually useless unless fired by an expert marksman. I shot Mr. Kite just above the bridge of his nose from a distance of perhaps six feet. He was in motion at the time.”
Partain walked over to the General, held out his right hand and said, “Mind?”
“Not at all,” Winfield said and handed the revolver butt-first to Partain, who examined it, sniffed its two-inch barrel, nodded and tucked the weapon away in his right hip pocket.
“Now show him what’s in the bag, sugar,” Millicent Altford said.
The General thought about it first, then opened the black overnight bag to reveal the tightly packed banded bundles of $100 bills.
“How much?” Partain said.
“He says one-point-two million but I didn’t count it,” she said, turned to the General, studied him briefly, drank the rest of her Scotch, sighed and said, “Better tell Twodees how you shorted the yen, optioned all that raw land in Arizona, went in with that wildcatter up in North Dakota and then dumped your Chrysler to buy Apple Computer.”
“Yes, perhaps I should,” the General said and looked at Partain. “Over the past several years I made some extremely unwise investments. I had to cover my short position on the yen; sold some stocks I should have kept and kept those I should’ve sold. There were several other, well, desperate ventures, gambles really, and last October I was virtually bankrupt and in dire need of one million dollars. The magic figure. Not a great amount of money, if inflation is taken into account, but—”
Partain interrupted. “What about the property you own in Aspen?”
“It’s all leveraged to the limit with first, second and third mortgages. I can’t raise a dime on it.” He sighed. “Which is why I engaged Mr. Kite’s services.”
Partain looked at Altford. “Kite stole your one-point-two million?”
“Kite farmed it out, according to sugar here,” she said. “Remember poor Dave Laney? Well, he and Kite hooked up together somehow, maybe through General Hudson, who was Dave’s uncle. Anyway, Dave flew up to L.A. from Guadalajara on election day last year at Kite’s request. For a sixty-thousand-dollar cut Dave went up to my apartment, worked my safe’s combination, which he probably got from Jessica without her knowledge, put the money into a bag or something and was escorted in and out of the building by dear dead Jack Thomson, night doorman and sometime actor, who got five thousand dollars cash money and a bullet in the back of his head for his bit part.”
“Shot by Mr. Kite, I believe,” the General said.
“Why didn’t you mortgage your house?”
The General stared straight ahead. “The house was to go to the organization.”
“To VOMIT?”
Winfield nodded. “The money from Millicent I thought of as a loan.”
“Who really recommended me to you?” Partain asked Altford.
“I already told you, Nick Patrokis.”
“Not him?” Partain said, nodding at the General.
“I concurred when Nick told me,” the General said. “Millicent was extremely vague as to why she wanted a bodyguard. I of course knew it was because of the stolen money. She was frightened and understandably so.”
Partain said, “How’d you approach him — Kite?”
“Nick and I long ago discovered Kite’d been planted on us by General Hudson and Colonel Millwed. We’d had some of our people follow Kite several times and that led us to his meetings with Millwed at out-of-the-way places. After them, Millwed would usually rendezvous with General Hudson at this very hotel. They preferred small rooms on the fourth or fifth floor.”
“That doesn’t tell me how you approached Kite.”
“I simply went over to him in his office one day when no one else was around and asked if he knew of anyone who’d like to steal one million two hundred thousand dollars from a safe for which I had the combination.”
“You had it?” Altford said.
“The last time we audited the books, Millicent, I’m afraid I peered over your shoulder.”
“Christ.”
“What’d he say?” Partain asked. “Kite?”
“He wanted details, of course. And there was the matter of the commission. I offered two hundred thousand and refused to bargain. He eventually accepted.” The General paused. “It was all rather businesslike.”
“Let’s you and me do some business,” she said. “Tell me why they had to go and kill my first husband’s son, Jerry Montague?”
“Mr. Kite again,” the General said. “I think he was following his prime target, Mr. Partain. Not you, Millicent. Jerry Montague simply got in Mr. Kite’s way. I’m very sorry.”
“Who’d pay Kite to kill me?” Partain said. “Hudson and Millwed?”
“I suspect so. Because of all their unsavory activities in El Salvador. From a hint or two that I got from Mr. Kite, they seem to have inexhaustible funds.”
“You say you paid Kite a flat two hundred thousand to steal Mrs. Altford’s one-point-two million. No expenses?”
“None. When I was on my way to see him this morning, I had the notion of paying him the same amount to replace the stolen money. Not in Millicent’s safe, of course. But somewhere in her apartment. As a surprise.”
“What changed your mind?” Partain said.
The General frowned at the question, then nodded his understanding and said, “You mean why did I kill him instead?”
Partain said nothing. Neither did Millicent Altford.
“It simply had to end,” the General said. “It had gone on too long. Far too long.”
“Did you like it?” Partain said.
Mild shock spread across Winfield’s face, and he blushed slightly. “Shooting Mr. Kite? No, sir, I did not.”
“I mean all the other stuff — the deceit and the plotting and the betrayal?”
“The treachery, you mean?”
Partain nodded.
“I regret to say I found it — stimulating.”
The General put the still-open black overnight bag on the floor and rose. “It’s all there, Millicent,” he said, gathering up his hat and gloves. “One million two hundred thousand dollars. When we — I mean you, of course — audit the books next month, you’ll be able to strike a balance.”
Millicent stared at him, then shook her head and said, “I’m so sorry for you. I really am.”
He seemed not to hear. “I think I’ll walk home. Have some tea. Write a few letters.” He looked at Altford, then at Partain. “Good-bye, Millicent. Mr. Partain.”
Partain looked a question at Altford, who shook her head.
The General crossed slowly to the door, turned back and said, “Call them in an hour or so and tell them I’ll be at home.”
“The police?”
“Who else?” he said, turned again, opened the door and was gone.