A call to a staffer named Jennifer at the Hart Senate Office Building provided Bowen with the name of Director Ross’s CIA protective team leader — an agent named Adam Knight. Jennifer assured him that Knight was “one of the good guys.”
Knight answered on the first ring. He apparently had little to do since Director Ross was now behind bars. Bowen told the agent he was working on a congressional inquiry. Knight was hungry for answers himself so he swallowed the story without a hitch.
The poor guy was still spitting blood from losing his protectee. Bowen could hear his teeth cracking from tension as they spoke over the phone. He wanted to investigate matters himself, but had been ordered to stand down by his deputy director, who was now at the helm of the agency. Knight had little to offer, but was able to give Bowen a name.
Joey Benavides had been hired by the IDTF just before being fired from the Clandestine Service. According to Knight, a long-distance affair with an Internet porn star on his government computer had earned Joey B a suspension. Lying about the continuation of the affair and the use of a government computer had cost him his job. Benavides had been one of the men next to Director Ross’s house just before they’d evacuated to the safe site.
The consummate protector, Knight was itching to have a long face-to-face with the guy, but he’d been threatened with violations of any number of laws if he so much as sent a text.
Bowen promised he’d do enough talking for both of them.
“He’s a smarmy son of a bitch,” the agent said. “It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you put the boot to him a few extra times for me.”
“I only plan to talk to him,” Bowen said. He gave the Charger some gas, speeding up to take the Beltway exit toward Alexandria.
“Whatever,” Knight said. “But when you listen to that slick bastard for two minutes, you’ll be ready to mop the floor with his ass. From what I understand, he’s mooching off a woman who owns an empanada shop somewhere north of Dupont Circle.” The line went silent while Knight checked his watch. “If he’s not on shift yanking the fingernails out of some poor schmuck the IDTF has in custody, you’ll find him at a blues bar called Madam’s Organ about now having a liquid lunch. It’s on Eighteenth Street. Big mural on the side of the building of a redheaded saloon girl with writing all over her chest. You can’t miss it.”
“Got it,” Bowen said.
“Don’t forget to give the bastard a little good feeling for me.”
“You have no idea where Director Ross is being held?” Bowen asked. “No guesses?”
“None,” Knight said. “But Joey will know.”
“Like I said,” Bowen reminded him, “I only plan to talk to him.”
“Look,” Knight said, “Bowen, or whatever your name is, let’s get one thing crystal clear. I’m smart enough to know deputy marshals don’t do congressional inquiries. Do you think I’d be talking to you over the phone about this if Jennifer hadn’t called me after she talked to you? There’s a war going on. Hell, I’m sure my boss is tied up in it somehow. That’s why they carted her off to a secret cell somewhere in Mugambu or wherever the hell she is. But anyone interested in finding her is on the same side of that war as I am, so more power to you. Just cut the bullshit and knock out a couple of Joey’s teeth.”
Bowen ended the call and made a U-turn to get back on the GW Parkway. He took the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac into DC, and then headed north, cutting through the National Mall and past Ford’s Theatre. It took him another fifteen minutes to zigzag his way through DC’s never-ending road construction and end up in front of the bawdy mural on the side of Madam’s Organ. There was no missing it. Nothing like a redhead with breasts the size of boulders to welcome a guy to an establishment.
Bowen backed into an open parking spot a half a block down from the bar. It was a little past one and the sidewalk in front of the blues bar was still buzzing with patrons. The darkness inside pulsed the tones of a tenor saxophone with mournful notes that could have made Pollyanna weep.
Adam Knight texted an Agency file photo of Benavides. The buttons on his white shirt strained against their stitching, ready at any moment to pop off and zing around the room like so many stray bullets. It was difficult to say if the oil that slathered Joey B’s black curls simply oozed from his body, or if he applied it in the form of a gel. Dark chest hair that looked like a dead animal pelt provided a tangled nest for the gold chain that draped above his open collar. They weren’t visible in the photograph, but Bowen was sure this guy would have rings, lots of them, gold and dripping off his fat fingers.
It took all of five seconds to spot him once Bowen’s eyes adjusted to the dark interior of the Madam’s Organ. He was sitting in a side booth like a cockroach in the shadows, chatting with another guy. The protégé looked to be in his early twenties — probably a newbie whom Joey thought he could train up in the finer points of greasiness.
The big-bosomed mural outside of the bar had nothing on the waitress who met Bowen at the counter. Everything about the woman oozed pissiness. Even her double-D chest frowned at being stuffed into a C-cup T-shirt. Bowen gave her ten bucks to seat him in the booth where he could watch the door and still have his back to Joey Benavides. She didn’t actually smile, but the ten bought him a dab more attentiveness than he’d expected. He told her he was waiting on someone who might join him, so she brought two glasses of water just in case.
Bowen ordered a burger and sweet potato fries at the recommendation of the waitress, and then sipped his water while he listened to Benavides crow in the adjoining booth. The little turd could not seem to shut up about his recent escapades with some housekeeper at a hotel in Colombia. Bowen’s mother called such talk “singing your own mighty songs.” She had assured August when he was still in grade school that others would be much more impressed when you sang mighty songs about them.
Benavides’s story about his prowess with the Colombian maid dragged into disgusting minutiae. Bowen thought his plan to eavesdrop was going be a bust, but the kid sitting with Benavides finally got a question in at about the time Bowen got his food. His waitress wrote her phone number on a bar napkin and slid it over next to his water. He gave her a wink, trying not to imagine what might come exploding out of the tight T-shirt if he got too near the woman. He stuffed the napkin in his shirt pocket with a conspiratorial nod.
She walked away to growl at another customer.
“…I heard it got pretty rough,” the kid next door said. His voice was wobbly with excitement.
“Rough, hell.” Benavides laughed around a mouthful of hot wings. Bowen could hear the pop as he sucked the dressing off his fingers. “It was epic. You should have seen her. Oh, she sat there all high powered and dictatorial when we brought her in…”
Bowen pushed the voice memo button on his cell phone, and slid it along the rail to his left so it rested between the wall and the high wooden partition that separated him from Benavides.
“Did she give anything up?” the kid asked. “I mean, you know, anything useful?” He spoke in a fearful hush and Bowen wasn’t sure his phone would pick it up. It didn’t matter. Joey B spoke in the sotto whisper of someone who’d had too many beers.
“Not yet,” Joey said, slurping on his fingers again. “At least not while I was there.” He laughed, snorting.
“She’s on the older side, but she’s lost a shitload of weight. Not half bad to look at… if you’re into the whole mom sort of thing. That dude, Walter, really has his eyes on her though, because I thought he was going to throw her down on the table right there.”
“I called him Walters once,” the kid mumbled. “I thought he was going to shoot me for adding an ‘s.’ ”