He looked up at Tighe and Yarn, who were staring at him curiously, wondering when he was going to fall. “That goddamn Gladys,” Meade said, took a step backward, sat down in the wing-back chair, coughed once, breathed raggedly three more times, and died.
Seconds later Gladys Citron came into the living room from the hall, crossed to the wing-back chair, and stood staring down at the body of her quondam comrade-in-arms, infrequent lover, and occasional friend. Her left hand strayed up to the lapel of her suit where she fingered the Legion d’Honneur.
“They weren’t very loud,” she said. “The shots. I could just hear them in the bedroom with the door closed.” She looked at Tighe and Yarn. “Did he say anything?”
“He claimed he just gave them a taste,” Tighe said. “Haere and your son. He didn’t know Morgan was your son, though. He’s using the name Mitch Mitchell for some reason. Meade didn’t believe that either, but he didn’t know Morgan was your son until I told him.”
“What did he say?” she asked. “When you told him.”
“I think he said, ‘Aw, shit.’ ”
“ ‘Aw, Christ,’“ Yarn said.
“Anything else?”
“ ‘That goddamn Gladys,’ ” Tighe said. “That’s the last thing he said.”
She turned to look again at the dead man. “Poor old Meade,” she said, crossed to the tray of bottles, and poured herself a glass of wine.
“Meade told him too much,” Yarn said.
“Told who?” she said as she slowly raised the glass to her lips.
“Your son. And Haere, too.”
Gladys Citron seemed to consider Yarn’s assertion for several moments. Finally, she turned to look at Yarn, took another sip of her drink, and said, “Then I suppose we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”
Chapter 17
The most interesting sight B. S. Keats saw during the hour-long scenic drive up the California coast was the encampment of Cadillac People, which so intrigued him he had the driver turn around and go back for another look. The driver slowed the limousine as Keats stared fascinated at the collection of aging cars and campers and old school buses that were parked willy-nilly at the edge of the sea.
“What’d you say they call ’em?” he asked Citron.
“The Cadillac People.”
“Not all of ’em have Cadillacs, though.”
“They just call them that.”
“What the hell do they do all day?”
“Listen to the radio and keep an eye on the ocean.”
“None of ’em work?”
“Not anymore. They’ve more or less given up.”
“How do they get by — on welfare?”
“No.”
“What’s gonna happen to ’em?”
“That’s what they’re waiting to find out,” Citron said.
“You know what?” Keats said. “They make me kinda hungry. Any place to eat around here?”
“There’s a place back at the county line. You like fish?”
“Sure.”
“It’s got good lobster and shrimp. You eat outside on picnic tables — with your hands mostly.”
“Let’s try it.”
Citron rolled the divider down and told the driver where to go. After the divider was rolled back up, Keats gave Citron a long calculating look and said, “You given my proposition any thought yet?”
“About being a fancy man?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called it that. About all I really want you to do is keep an eye on Velveeta. Take her to the picture show once in a while. Maybe to a museum. They got museums out here?”
“There’s one just down the road,” Citron said. “The Getty.”
“Well, she likes things like that, so you could do those things and sort of look in on her, make sure she’s eatin’, listen to her jabber, maybe even take her to bed, if you are all of a mind to. What I reckon I’m really askin’ you to do is be her best friend.” Keats paused. “I’d make it worth your while.”
Citron turned to examine the brown-faced man. The faded blue eyes had gone back into their round and almost honest shape. The expression was wholly ingenuous. Citron had seen such expressions before in places like Cicero and Marseilles and Montevideo. He had also learned to distrust them.
“Who were they, Mr. Keats?”
“Might as well call me B. S. Everybody else does.”
“Who were they?”
“Those two fellas you run off? They were just hired hands, that’s all. I still got me some enemies back home, Morgan. So after you called and told me about what happened, well, I made a couple of calls and now I got one less enemy than I used to.”
Citron nodded slowly, as if the elimination of one’s enemies was only to be commended. “So they won’t be back?”
“No, sir, those two won’t.”
“What about others?”
“I’m workin’ on that. Mendin’ my fences, like the fella says.”
“Why don’t you just hire Velveeta a bodyguard?”
“She won’t put up with it, that’s why. I’ve tried, and her mama’s tried, but she won’t hear of it. So I gotta do it on the sly kind of, and you fit the bill.” There was a long pause that lasted until Keats added, “Like I said, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I’m not too interested in doing it for money.”
Keats’s eyes narrowed themselves back into their crafty squint. “But you’re interested in something, right?”
Citron nodded.
“What?”
“Central America. You have any contacts there?”
“One or two maybe.”
“I’m interested in finding out about a small secret war that broke out down there over cocaine and money. A great deal of money. I don’t know where, though.”
“A story, huh?”
Again, Citron nodded.
Keats, made no attempt to keep the shrewdness out of his expression. “That’s all you want — a story? You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, shit, boy, get me to a phone after dinner and let’s see what I can dig up.”
The governor-elect put down his fork, picked up his wineglass, drank, put the glass down, and said, “One hundred thousand dollars.” His tone was reverent, as it always was when discussing any sum over $500.
“Cash,” Draper Haere said.
“We haven’t got it,” Baldwin Veatch said.
“Or any way to get it,” said his wife.
Louise Veatch and her husband were having lunch near their pool in the rear of the white two-story house with the sharp angles and too much glass brick that had been built by a Mexican movie actress in 1938. It was the last house on a dead-end street just off Santa Monica Canyon. It was built on two acres of land and had a seldom-used tennis court to go with the pool.
Baldwin Veatch had bought the house on impulse in 1973 at a distressed price. Its value had subsequently soared, and the house was now the governor-elect’s principal investment, indeed his only one other than the $5,000 he had in an E.F. Hutton money market fund. In the Veatches’ joint checking account there was $1,452.26. Because politics was the only profession he had ever followed, Veatch was a relatively poor man. He had found his modest circumstances useful at the polls, if inconvenient at the end of the month when the bills came due. However, Veatch long ago had found a partial solution. Whenever he needed money, he asked Draper Haere to find him some. Haere always did.
Lunch that warm November day had been served by the Mexican maid. It consisted of hot dogs, canned baked beans, and a green salad. To drink there was an inexpensive, slightly acid red wine from the Napa Valley. The Veatches set what Draper Haere always thought of as a mean table, and he had declined their invitation to join them, citing his usual no-lunch rule.