“And he turned these pictures up?”
Grimes nodded.
“How’d he do it?”
“He spent some money and cut a few corners here and there that you don’t want to know about.”
“The CIA spends money — boxcars full of it — but the only picture it’s got of Felix is the one of him coming out of that French bank with his mouth open. And in — what is it — three days, four? — your guy comes up with a family portrait of the whole fucking bunch. I can have these, can’t I?” McKay waved a hand at the photographs.
“You paid for them. They’re yours. There’s only one hitch.”
“What?”
“You’re going to turn them over to the CIA, right?”
“Right.”
“They’ll want to know where you got them.”
“I’ll give them your name.”
Grimes shook his head. “You’re going to have to give them my guy’s name.”
Again McKay stared at Grimes for several moments. “Then I’ll know it, won’t I?” he said softly.
“There’s no other way.”
“Why?”
“Because he — my guy — wants you to keep the CIA off his back.”
“Are they on it?”
“He didn’t say.”
“He doesn’t tell you much, does he?”
Grimes smiled. “He only tells me what he thinks I should know. Then if something happens — something nasty, say — I won’t know a whole hell of a lot about it. And neither will you. But you are going to have to know his name.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Chubb Dunjee.”
For a long moment the President said nothing. Then he said, “Well, shit. A Congressman.”
“One term.”
“Then what?”
“He was in the oil business.”
“After that.”
“After that he went with the UN.”
“Let’s skip a few years.”
Grimes smiled again. “You must be thinking of Mexico.”
“Mexico. The Mordida Man.”
Grimes kept smiling. “Newspaper stuff.”
“Yeah, I can see it now. ‘President Hires Mordida Man.’ Not too many votes in that.”
“He’s good.”
“He’d better be.”
“There’s only one other thing.”
“What?”
“He’s got this little problem with the IRS.”
“How little?”
“They’re talking about extradition.”
The President rose. “He hasn’t got any problem. Not if he helps get Bingo back.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
McKay shrugged. “I never heard of him.”
19
On the same day that Chubb Dunjee flew into Rome, the Minister of Youth and Sport paid his regular monthly visit to the old Mecarro coffee plantation on the northern tip of the island Democratic People’s Republic. The Minister of Youth and Sport was also the republic’s bag man.
The twenty-nine-year-old Minister had risen to his present post because (1) he was an avid soccer fan and (2) he was the youngest of the Prime Minister’s six light-skinned brothers. He was also the biggest brother, standing six-foot-six and weighing nearly 250 pounds. The Minister had once been a beach boy in Miami for nearly three years, and it was whispered that he had killed a man and a woman there because they had wanted him to do something unspeakable. Just what unspeakable act the couple had wanted the Minister to perform provided the republic’s citizens with a topic for endless gossip and prurient speculation, fueled by their certain knowledge that there was little, if anything, the Minister wouldn’t do for a flat fee of a hundred dollars. The citizens’ nickname for the Minister was the Axe.
The Minister had made the twenty-seven-mile drive from the island’s capital by himself in his brother the Prime Minister’s Cadillac El Dorado convertible. For company and security he had brought along tapes of Carly Simon, a bottle of fiery 190-proof rum, and a sawed-off shotgun that rested across his lap.
At the entrance to the plantation’s drive he honked his horn to wake up two of the republic’s soldiers, who composed 20 percent of the force that had been assigned to guard the plantation’s distinguished foreign residents. The soldiers rose, yawned, stretched, accepted a drink of rum, gave the Minister their thoughts on the approaching cup final, and when he was gone, settled back down in the shade to finish their morning nap.
Standing on the veranda of the plantation house waiting to greet the Minister was Jack Spiceman, the ex-FBI agent.
“Hello, Jojo,” Spiceman said.
The Minister sat motionless in the car waiting for the Simon song to end. “Sings pretty, don’t she?” he said.
“Very pretty,” Spiceman said, turned, and headed into the house. The Minister got out of the car and followed him, the shotgun in the crook of his left arm.
The meeting was held, as always, in the main drawing room, which was still furnished with chairs and sofas and tables from the 1930s that Leland Timble, the bank robber, had had beautifully refinished and reupholstered by skilled craftsmen in the republic’s capital. Timble was sitting in a wingbacked chair when Spiceman entered followed by the Minister. On a nearby couch sat the ex-CIA man, Franklin Keeling. As was his usual custom during the monthly visit from the Minister, Keeling occupied himself by carefully wiping away at a loaded .45-caliber automatic with a lightly oiled rag.
The Minister nodded at both Timble and Keeling, picked out a comfortable chair, sat down, rested the shotgun across his knees, and said, “Got any bourbon?”
Spiceman went to a sideboard, poured a tumbler half full of Jack Daniel’s, and handed it to the Minister, who drank it down, wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand, and said, “A couple of guys pulled in last night. From Miami. A forty-two-foot Chris Craft. Claimed they had engine trouble. We let ’em dock. Found ’em a mechanic. Fuel line was all fucked up. No big problem. Okay?”
He held out his glass and waited for Spiceman to refill it. This time the Minister took only a modest swallow.
“So they start moving around town, you know, asking questions. We let ’em ask, just making sure who they talked to — okay?” When no one said anything, he continued. “Pretty good operators. Smooth, you know, not too pushy, just a question here, a question there. You know. Then they somehow got hold of that fuckin’ Cornelius.”
Timble was the first one to speak. He said, “Ah,” and looked interested.
“We’re gonna have to do something about that fuckin’ Cornelius,” the Minister said.
“No,” Timble said. “Every community needs its dissidents. Especially its tame ones; and you’ll have to agree, Jojo, that Cornelius is exceedingly tame. Besides, he puts out a lively little newspaper that I quite enjoy. A decided community asset.”
“He talks too much,” the Minister said.
“So they talked to him,” Keeling said. “Then what?”
“Well, then they got into a fight with a buncha guys.”
“And?”
“One of ’em got his arm busted — the left one. The other one got banged up pretty good around the head. Maybe a concussion. So we took ’em to the hospital, you know, and set the one guy’s busted arm without any painkiller, and that made him yell a lot, and we gave the other guy a couple of aspirin — for his concussion, you know — and then asked if they wanted to stay in the hospital a few days, and if they did, how were they gonna pay for it, since somebody had lifted their wallets during that fight they got themselves into. Here.”
The Minister took two wallets from a pocket and tossed them to Spiceman, who began examining their contents.
“They decided they’d better go back to Miami,” the Minister said and drank some more of his bourbon. “They left early this morning.”