“Whitey here was with that Alicia when we went to snatch her,” the Bahamian informed Rococco.
“Now that’s interesting.” Rococco spared me an Arctic smile. “And does President Dickson know that?”
The way he said it I realized that he knew that Alicia was Dickson’s daughter. “Well, uh, no.” I had to admit it.
“And if he learned of it, what do you think he would do?”
“Fire me.”
“Very good.” Rococco awarded me a gold star. “We don’t have to worry about Mr. Powers,” he assured his henchmen. “He has his little secrets from the President, just as we do.”
“Except that yours aren’t so little,” I reminded him. “These three goons of yours tried to bump off Dickson. That’s not exactly in the same class with - umm - dating his secretary.”
“Dating?” The hee-haw came from the Bahamian. “That was sure ’nuf some plain-an’-fancy dating you was up to in that palm tree, Mister Charlie!”
“Dickson’s secretary?” Rococco reminded me that we both knew better. He paused, letting that sink in, and then he continued. “As for these gentlemen shooting at my old friend Nick, Why what proof do you have?”
“Three rifle bullets that will match up with the three guns they were carrying.”
“Really?” Rococco was wide-eyed. “But these guards don’t carry rifles. Show Mr. Powers your weapons, gentlemen.”
Each of them held up a submachine gun.
“You see, Mr. Powers? And if you were to go to Nicholas with such a fantastic story, who do you think he would believe? You, the man who seduced his -- umm—secretary? Or me, his friend and mentor of some twenty years?”
“Column B,” I admitted, defeated.
“That’s right, Mr. Powers.”
“I still say we should waste him!” Fee-fi-fo-fum! The Bahamian smelled the blood of an ofay-man.
“Sure an’ that’s me preference too!” The Irishman must have noticed my black-and-tan socks.
“Si! Kill him!” The Cuban agreed.
“Oh, no. He would only be replaced. And possibly by someone a lot less amenable to working with us.”
Rococco chipped off another one of his iceberg smiles.
“Mr. Powers will continue working for President Dickson and he will stay out of our way while he’s doing it. He has no choice. Isn’t that so, Mr. Powers?”
“That’s so,” I agreed, crossing my fingers behind my eyeballs.
“You can go now, Mr. Powers.” Rococco waved me away. Why not? He was sure he had me in his hip pocket.
I left. Evidently they’d held me in some sort of guest house on the other side of the grounds from the main building. The two structures were a little more than a mile apart. Heading back, I had a lot to think about.
What was Rococco’s game? First his gorillas had tried to put the snatch on Dickson’s illegitimate daughter. Then they had tried to kill Dickson himself. Or had they? Somehow I couldn’t believe those three were such bad shots. Could they have missed him on purpose? Had they only been trying to scare Dickson? If so, then what was the purpose? Was there a connection with “Insecticide?” My guess was that only Rococco knew the answers.
I was following a sort of path through the carefully arranged shrubbery which sculpted the grounds. Rounding a bend, I came to a halt in astonishment. Three crones were bent over a cauldron, stirring it with large ladles.
They hadn’t seen me. I stepped back into the shadows to be sure they wouldn’t. However. I recognized them. I’d seen their pictures in the papers often enough during the period which preceded the leaving of offfice by Nicholas Swillhouse Dickson.
The most familiar was Rosalie Forest, Dickson’s one-time Girl Friday, famed far and wide for her heavy foot on the tape-recorder gas pedal. She stopped stirring long enough to hold up a little doll with a ski-slope nose and stick a pin in it. Stirring beside her was Dotty Whiskers, former I.L.L. lobbyist, kidnap victim of the four “Flushers”24 (Katzenjammer, Jammerkatzen, Rosenkrantz, and Guildenstern25 ), and living testimonial to modern medicine’s ability to cause and cure disabling coronary ailments as political expediency dictated. Mrs. Whiskers was shredding some papers— presumably “politically sensitive documents”-- into the fire under the cauldron. Just to keep from getting out of practice, I imagined. The third hag—a little less haggish than the other two -- Was Marsha Twitchell, a southern belle wrung out once too often, former wife of Big Don, Dixie mush-mouth hooked up by a permanent hotline to the gossip columns of the nation. Every so often Marsha stopped stirring long enough to jot down a few notes for the book she was writing. According to Paw Chitlin, her New York lawyer-cum-agent, these memoirs would be “critical” of her husband’s “judgment in remaining loyal and protecting the President.” Would Dickson ever let her get the manuscript off the island?
“Double, double, spoils and trouble,” Rosalie Forest singsonged as she stirred the cauldron. “I gave him the best years of my life,” she added, sticking in another pin.
“Memos burn and Congress bubble,” Dotty Whiskers cackled. “An honest politician is one who, when he’s bought, he stays bought!” She shredded some toilet paper. “Nick Dickson is not an honest politician!”
“Says he’s not a crook,” Rosalie Forest reminded her.
“Sure!” Dotty Whiskers cackled again. “And let me make one thing perfectly clear: Jesse James was only trying to investigate if any of his subordinates were robbing the railroad.”
“Got him by his groiny stubble!” incanted Marsha Twitchell in her magno1ia-’n’-Coca-Cola drawl. “Big Don used to say ‘Lawsy-and-Order,’ and shut mah telephone and hold me prisonah in mah own house and all to protec’ that Tricky Nickie Dickson26 . Y’all know they use to be law pahtnehs? Law-and-Ordeh pahtnehs! Why Tricky Nickie had Big Don handlin’ moah bugs than a houn’ dawg with fleas!” She jotted down another note on the margin of her manuscript.
My eye was caught by metal glinting in the shrubbery behind the kettle. Carefully, I circled the witchy trio and reached the glittering objects from behind. The glint came from three high-powered rifles with telescopic sights. Each of them was warm, as though recently fired. I examined them. One bullet was missing from the clip of each.
What the hell?
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find that the Bahamian had crept up behind me. He gestured. I looked where he’d indicated and saw PeePee Rococco waiting in the underbrush. I made my way over to him.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I think those three fired the shots at Dickson,” he whispered back.
“How come you think that now? What about the bullets your men fired?”
“I didn’t know it when last we met, but since then I've questioned them. They didn’t shoot at Dickson. They merely responded to shots fired at the house from this general direction.”
I stared at him, wondering whether to believe him, or not. “Are you telling me that you thought your men shot at Dickson and that was okay with you, but now you find out they were shooting to protect him and that’s okay with you too?”
“I didn’t have to tell you, Mr. Powers.” There was a petulant note in his voice, like that of a little boy wrongly accused of stealing his father’s stash of hash. He faced away then, his underlings facing away with him.
Confusion rained, soggying up my brain. Just who had fired the three shots at Dickson? Could I even be sure that the three rifles in the underbrush belonged to the three witches? For all I knew, they might be the same three rifles Rococco’s hoods had been packing before. He might even have had them planted here now just to muddy up my thinking.