Brennan reached an arm over Pace’s right shoulder and pointed to the far end of the bar, where there appeared to be enough room for two more bodies, if the bodies didn’t mind intimacy. Pace turned sideways, slicing his way into small openings between people and pressing his body forward to create openings where none was readily apparent.
“This place is a zoo,” he said when he grabbed a few inches of bar.
“Same every night,” Brennan replied, waving past Pace to attract a bartender. “What’ll you have? I’m buying.”
“Oh, joy and wonderment,” Pace smiled. “Anchor Steam.”
“You’re an expensive date. Remind me never to bring you here again.”
Brennan caught a barkeep’s eye. “Anchor and a Boodles martini, very dry, twist.”
The server turned to fill the order when somebody bumped into Pace’s back. It was to be expected in this crowd so Pace didn’t turn to see the tall, heavily-muscled man shrink-wrapped in tight blue jeans and a turtleneck sweater strained by a size-eighteen neck, thick biceps and a massive chest. Pace wouldn’t have recognized him anyway, but the large man knew Pace well. His name was Sylvester Bonaro. His occupation was muscling people. His recent activities involved driving a ’99 light-blue Ford van with newly acquired damage to the right front side.
Bonaro wasn’t in the bar to drink, although he ordered a Budweiser to avoid looking conspicuous, if it was possible for a man his size to look otherwise. When the beer arrived, he poured half into a glass and then left both bottle and glass sitting on the bar as he turned his full attention to overhearing the conversation between Pace and Brennan.
“Rumor has it you had a rough day,” Brennan said, tilting his martini to Pace in the manner of a toast.
“I’ve had better and hope never to have worse,” Pace replied, ignoring the glass that came with his beer and sipping the Anchor Steam from the sweating bottle. “Avery landed on me hard. Where did you hear about it?”
“From several people, but they only had it secondhand. Something to do with a visit you made to Ken Sachs a wee bit late for the chairman’s taste?”
Pace nodded. “Sometime well after midnight. I was pretty drunk. Woke him up. Accused him of murder. Nothing special.”
“Sounds harmless to me.” Brennan took a sip of his drink. “You sure about Sachs?”
“I was then.”
“Now?”
“I don’t know.”
Pace’s breath caught as images of the lunch at the Dulles Marriott with Mike slammed back at him. Had Mike been right about Sachs being worthy of their trust?
“We’re making a terrible mistake if you’re wrong about Sachs.”
“I’d stake our lives on Ken Sachs being clean.”
Stake our lives… stake our lives… stake our lives… stake our…
The words roared in Pace’s head, louder and louder, until they became unbearable.
“Steve?” He heard the voice close to him and was unsure if it was real or imagined. “Steve, where have you gone?”
He turned and saw Glenn’s face nearly pressed against his own, and the cacophony in the bar flooded in over the memories, burying them in a tide of human small talk. Pace took a long pull at the Anchor Steam, finishing a third of it.
“I think we’d better get out of here,” Brennan said, downing the last of his martini and throwing a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “You’re white to the eyes.”
“They murdered Mike,” Pace said, staring at the bottle in his hand. “They murdered Mike, and they murdered Mark Antravanian to cover up something about the Sexton.” He looked up to Brennan. “They’re not going to get away with it, Glenn.” He set the bottle on the bar and shouldered his way past the Irishman, through the wall of humanity, to the front door.
Two pairs of eyes watched him go. Brennan was simply bewildered. Beside him, Bonaro was frowning deeply, and he acted quickly. He pulled three one-dollar bills from his pocket and threw them on the bar beside his untouched Bud. With his shoulders hunched like a football lineman’s, he bulled his way past the boisterous crowd and followed Pace through the door and into the cover of growing darkness.
18
Bonaro burst out the door of The Grapevine, nearly knocking down two men and a woman about to enter. Without bothering to acknowledge their incredulous expressions, he strode to the curb and looked up and down H Street searching for a sign of Pace.
There he was, about to enter an alley that cut through to Pennsylvania Avenue. Bonaro suspected Pace was headed for his car and toyed briefly with letting his charge go and reporting in. But he thought it better to see the reporter home, to be certain, and then make his call.
Bonaro’s instincts were correct. Pace drove directly to his New Hampshire Avenue apartment building, entered its underground garage, and disappeared.
Bonaro headed up New Hampshire to Dupont Circle and a public phone. At Dulles, Elliott Parkhall answered on the second ring.
“We got a problem,” Bonaro said. “The subject knows. I overheard him tell a friend.”
“How much does he know?” Parkhall asked.
“That the engineer’s accident was no accident. And the pilot was a charade. He believes the same people did both killings, and he suspects they’re tied to the crash.”
“Goddamn it!” Parkhall exploded. “I was afraid of that after his story this morning. Where is he now?”
“I put him to bed. I think he’s down for the night.”
“Where can I find you later?”
“My answering machine. Like always.”
“Where the hell is that machine? Where do you stay?”
“That’s my business. If you need me, you’ll reach me.”
Bonaro slammed the receiver back, his contempt for the man on the other end growing with every contact. If the job didn’t pay so well, he would have dumped it, just to be rid of the jerk.
Normally he didn’t care where his fee came from, but he had some curiosity about the people who ran Parkhall. He wondered if they knew how squirrelly the little shit was. Bonaro never told clients where to find him; he surely wouldn’t tell a squirrel. The phone line to his recorder wasn’t in his name, and the recording said simply, “Leave a message.” There was nothing to tie him to this operation but Parkhall’s word, and Parkhall didn’t even know his full name. If things went wrong, he would drive back to Baltimore with his partner and disappear into the camouflage of the waterfront. Parkhall could take the fall. The shit deserved it.
But Bonaro didn’t want things to go wrong. His sense was there was too much cash yet to be made. If Parkhall screwed this up, Bonaro vowed, his last act before heading north would be to off the sucker. If Parkhall let somebody chop down the money tree before the harvest was in, he’d by God pay for it. Bonaro started toward his van, then detoured into the Dupont Circle Hotel. The place had a nice bar, and he owed himself a drink.
Elliott Parkhall stared at the dead telephone receiver for several seconds before replacing it in its cradle. What the hell had he said to make the guy mad? He’d simply asked him where he lived, for chrissake. Screw him, anyway. Who did he think he was? Hell, muscle was easy to find. If the guy got out of line again, he would demand new help. That black guy, Davis, must know all kinds of people in the ghetto with guns and an urge to make some easy money. That was another thing Parkhall resented. He didn’t like working for blacks. He never met one he trusted. It was a one of them who’d stolen his promotion at Warner Woolcott and left him to dicker with the NTSB.