“Sure.”
Spivey took two more cans of Miller’s from the desk refrigerator and popped their lids. Dill took a long swallow and said, “Okay, you want to start again?”
“What now — Brattle?”
“Brattle.”
Spivey moved his hand underneath the edge of the desk. “Okay, we’re rolling. Now.”
Again, Dill counted silently to fifteen and asked his first question: “Clyde Brattle worked for the CIA how long?”
“Twenty years.”
“He was a career employee?”
“Yes.”
“When did he resign?”
“He didn’t resign. He was fired in seventy-five.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Can you guess?”
“I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think a guess would be admissible.”
“Did it have something to do with funds under his control?”
“That would be pure speculation on my part.”
“Were the funds misappropriated?”
“I heard they were, but that’s only hearsay.”
“Your disclaimer is noted. How much money was involved?”
“Somewhere around five hundred thousand, I heard.”
“Dollars?”
“Dollars.”
“When did you leave the employ of the CIA?”
“In April of seventy-five just after Saigon fell.”
“Where were you then?”
“When it fell? In Saigon.”
“Where was Clyde Brattle?”
“He was there, too.”
“Neither you nor Brattle made any attempt to escape?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were no longer in the spook trade. We were by then simple businessmen.”
“Describe the nature of your business, please.”
“We formed a company that bought surplus equipment from the new Vietnamese government and sold it on the open market to whoever wanted to buy it.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“Defensive weaponry, transportation, communications.”
“What kind of weaponry?”
“Small arms. Mortars. Light artillery. Some rolling stock — jeeps and trucks. Field communications gear. Some helicopters. Whatever they wanted to get rid of. They needed money bad and we had some and knew where we could get a whole lot more.”
“You and Brattle put up the money to form your company?”
“Yes.”
“How much did he put up?”
“Close to four hundred thousand.”
“And you?”
“All I had. One hundred thousand.”
“And the profits were shared how?”
“A quarter for me, three-quarters for Clyde. That’s because I had the contacts.”
“The Vietnamese contacts.”
“North Vietnamese. Except by then it was all one big happy country, North and South alike.”
“And who did you sell the surplus American weaponry to?”
“It wasn’t American. It was Vietnamese. They fought a war. They won the war. The spoils were theirs.”
“But it was of American manufacture?”
“That’s right.”
“So who did you sell it to?”
“Whoever would buy it.”
“For instance.”
“People in Angola, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Yemen, both South and North, Bolivia, Ecuador, and a little, but not much, to some folks in Uruguay.”
“How much of this American-made, Vietnamese-acquired equipment did you sell?”
“About a hundred million dollars’ worth.”
“And your share of the profits?”
“You mean just mine?”
“Yes.”
“I cleared a little over four million after expenses, which ran sort of high.”
“And Brattle. How much did he net?”
“I’d say around sixteen million after expenses.”
“And this went on for how long?”
“You mean Brattle and me?”
“Yes, your association, your partnership.”
“For about five or six years.”
“Then what?”
“Then he wanted to get into some funny stuff and I got out.”
“What kind of funny stuff?”
“Computer technology, sophisticated weaponry, guidance systems, all kinds of new stuff you could get hold of in the States, but could never get the okay to sell. Clyde said we could sneak ’em out. I said fuck it and quit.”
“Strike the ‘fuck it’ and substitute ‘no thanks,’ please. And so that’s what you did — you quit?”
“That’s right.”
“Was Mr. Brattle upset?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly humming ‘Blue Skies.’”
“Was there any unpleasantness?”
“I had to get some lawyers and he got his and they all hemmed and hawed at each other and I came out with a net of about thirteen million, which was all reported to the IRS, where I’m under permanent audit, like I told you.”
“When’s the last time you saw Mr. Brattle?”
“About a year and a half ago.”
“Where?”
“Kansas City. He had some routine papers for me to sign. I flew up there, signed them, and had a drink with him. Then I flew back here.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“No.”
“It was shortly after your meeting with him that he fled the country, right?”
Spivey laughed his loud hoorah laugh. “Yeah, I guess you’d have to say old Clyde was sort of forced to flee.”
“Strike the laughter,” Dill said. “You know why he skipped, of course.
“Because they wanted to arrest him for doing business with the wrong folks.”
“Where do you think he is now?”
“Dead,” Spivey said.
“Let’s assume he isn’t dead,” Dill said. “Let’s assume he’s arrested and brought to trial. Would you be willing to testify against him?”
“I have no comment to make at this time,” Spivey said, moved his left hand underneath the edge of the desk, and switched off the tape recorder. He studied Dill for several moments. “You offering me immunity, Pick?”
Dill nodded slowly.
“Put it in writing?”
Dill shook his head no.
“Give me a few days to think about it?”
Again, Dill nodded.
Spivey grinned. “You think I got another tape recorder going, don’t you?”
Dill smiled and nodded.
Chapter 11
They had lunch in the “family” dining room, which was large enough to hold a carved oak sideboard, a matching china closet, and a table that seated twelve — or up to sixteen with all the leaves in. To get to the family dining room, Spivey led Dill through the “company” dining room, whose table could easily seat thirty-six, although Spivey said he never used it because he didn’t know three dozen people he’d actually want to sit down and eat with.
They sat at the end of the table farthest from the kitchen or — as Dill later observed — the pantry. The family dining room overlooked the pool, which was oblong in shape and had been added as an afterthought in the early thirties just before pools started taking on the forms of kidneys and boomerangs. It was a big pool, at least forty by seventy, and Dill thought it resembled the municipal one he and Spivey had learned to swim in at Washington Park.
Spivey was seated at the head of the table with Dill on his right when Daphne Owens came in. She had changed into a skirt and blouse. Dill rose when she came in. Spivey didn’t. She gave Dill an amused look that made him feel a trifle gauche for some reason.