Briarpatch (29 page)

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Authors: Ross Thomas

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: Briarpatch
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“But after that, Jake?” Dill said. “After Vietnam?”
“After, huh? Well, after that Clyde got greedy, and went bad, and got even richer, and I got out. I had nothing to do with later, but I know what happened. So if all you wanta do is hang old Clyde Brattle—well, shit, fellas, I'll furnish the rope.” He paused and added in a low hard voice, “But you don't touch me.”
There was a silence until the Senator smiled and said, “So. I'd say we've arrived at an understanding of our respective positions at least, don't you, Tim?”
Dolan looked at Spivey and grinned. “I'd say we know where Jake stands pretty well.”
The Senator rose. The meeting was over. After Spivey rose, the Senator held out his hand. “You've been frank with us, Jake—you mind that? The Jake?” Spivey shook his head. “And we appreciate it. We'll discuss it among ourselves and I'm sure something can be worked out that'll make us all reasonably content.” The Senator was smiling as he shook Spivey's hand. It was a pleasant smile, even warm, but not warm and pleasant enough to guarantee anything.
Spivey smiled back—his quick, brief half-smile—turned, picked up his seersucker jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and
headed for the door. He stopped at the sound of Dill's voice. “I'll ride with you, Jake.”
As they waited for the elevator, Spivey said, “I think I'd better cut myself that deal with old Clyde.”
“I think you'd better,” Dill said.
At 6 P.M. on that Monday evening, that hot August 8, the outside temperature was still 101 degrees. At a little past six they made love on the large old oak desk. The desk was in her office in the suite Anna Maude Singe shared with a certified public accountant. The CPA had given up and gone home shortly after four o'clock on what had turned out to be the hottest day of the year. The secretary he and Singe also shared lasted until four-fifteen before she, too, gave up and went home.
Dill had signed the papers first. They gave Singe his power of attorney and enabled her to collect on his sister's life-insurance policy and, if possible, sell the yellow brick duplex. After scrawling his name for the last time, Dill put the ballpoint pen down and touched Singe on her bare tanned arm. Suddenly, they were up and kissing frantically, she working on his belt, he on her panties, sliding them down over her hips and bare legs. She got his belt undone and he paused long enough to shrug out of his jacket. His pants and shorts dropped to the floor with a clank and the pistol fell out of his hip pocket. Neither of them noticed because they were too busy with the mechanics of the thing. But they soon
worked that out, and then it was all lunge and thrust and small cries and finally joint explosion and sweet release.
Dill stood up after a while, his pants and shorts still around his ankles. Anna Maude Singe sat up on the edge of the desk, tugging her skirt down over her knees and smiling, obviously pleased with herself. She looked down, prepared to laugh at the pants and shorts puddled around Dill's ankles. But when she saw the pistol lying on the hardwood floor, her smile went away and she didn't laugh. She said, “Aw shit,” instead.
Dill reached down and pulled up his shorts and pants, buckled his belt, bent back down, picked up the revolver, and jammed it into his right hip pocket. He then picked up his jacket from where it had fallen and slipped it on.
“Just who're you going to shoot?” she said.
“Who do you suggest?”
“That's smartass,” she said, sliding off the desk and moving to a window that looked down on Second and Main six floors below. “I don't want smartass right now. What we did on that desk top there for five or ten or fifteen minutes, or whatever it was, well, it was the most erotic and satisfying fucking I've ever done, which, you might've guessed, is considerable.” She paused. “I don't know why it was, but it was.”
Dill nodded, almost gravely. “I thought so, too.”
“Then I saw the gun lying there and it went away. The after-glow—or whatever. I'll look at that desk now, and I'll remember making love to you on it, but I'm not going to remember how tremendous it was. All I'm going to remember is that goddamn gun.”
“I'm sorry,” he said. “About the gun.”
She turned, sat down at the desk, and opened a drawer. She took out her purse, removed a set of keys, and offered them to Dill. “The one with the dot of red nail polish opens my door.” He
took them, examined the one with the red dot, and slipped them into his pocket. She looked at her watch. “You'd better go.”
“I've still got a few minutes,” he said.
“You'd better go.”
“All right.”
She frowned. “When can I come home?”
Dill thought about it. “Eleven-thirty, I'd say. No later than that.”
“Will you be there?”
“Sure, if you want me to.”
She was still frowning when she said, “I don't know whether I do or not.”
“If you don't, you can throw me out.”
She nodded and said, “You'd better go.”
“Right,” he said, turned, and moved to the door.
“Dill,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I wish you hadn't had the gun.”
“So do I,” he said, opened the door, and left.
 
 
By five minutes before seven that evening the temperature had dropped to 98 degrees. The rented Ford sedan with Dill at its wheel was parked some forty feet from the alley that ran behind the large old house at the corner of Nineteenth and Fillmore. On the alley was the garage apartment or carriage house where Dill's dead sister had sometimes lived and where he had made the appointment with Clyde Brattle for seven o'clock.
Seated next to Dill was Tim Dolan. In back was Joseph Luis Emilio Ramirez, the Child Senator from New Mexico, whose black eyes glittered with what Dill supposed was excitement.
“What did you say their names are?” the Senator asked, staring
at the dark blue Oldsmobile 98 that was parked the wrong way just up the street and on the other side of the alley. Two men were seated in the front seat of the Olds. Their faces were indistinct.
“Harley and Sid,” Dill said. “They work for Brattle. As far as I know, they always have.”
“What do they do?”
“Whatever he tells them to do. Right now, I think they're making sure the FBI hasn't been invited.”
“Where's Brattle?” Dolan said.
“He'll be along.”
They sat in silence for a minute or two. A taxi turned the corner at Twentieth and Fillmore and drove toward Dill's Ford and parallel to the brickyard-turned-park across the street.
“I'd say that's Brattle in the taxi,” Dill said.
Just before it reached the Oldsmobile, the taxi speeded up. By the time it passed Dill's parked Ford it was moving at fifty miles per hour at least. “That was Brattle all right,” Dill said.
“Why didn't he stop?”
“He'll be back. Harley and Sid probably signaled him with the brake lights.” Dill looked at his watch. “Well, it's one minute till. I guess we'd better go.”
He got out and went around the car. The Senator slid over and got out on the right-hand side, carrying his briefcase. “Put it back,” Dill said, “unless you want Harley and Sid to paw through it.”
“Oh,” the Senator said. “Yes. I see.” He put the briefcase in the Ford's back seat. Dill checked to see that all four doors were locked. They started for the carriage house. The Oldsmobile blinked its lights on and off. Dill waved.
“Brattle will want to make sure that none of us is wired,” Dill said as he put the key into the lock of the door that led to the airless stairway. Before he opened the door, he turned to look at Ramirez and Dolan. “You're not, are you?”
The Senator shook his head. Dolan said, “Shit, no.”
“We'll probably have to unbutton our shirts anyway.”
“What about him?” Dolan asked.
“Brattle? We'll make him unbutton his, too.”
 
 
It was five minutes past seven before Clyde Brattle arrived, accompanied by Harley and Sid. Dill had turned the air-conditioning on and the temperature was down to an almost comfortable 80 degrees. The Senator and Dolan had their jackets off. When Tim Dolan asked Dill why he didn't take his off, Dill said he didn't feel all that warm. Dolan looked at him curiously, but said nothing because of the knock at the door.
It was Dill who opened it. The knocker was the big man, Harley. Behind Harley was Sid and behind Sid, farther down the stairs, was Clyde Brattle.
“Just the three of you?” Harley said.
Dill nodded. “Just the three of us.”
“You don't mind if Sid and me make sure.”
“I don't mind.”
Harley and Sid came in, slowly followed by Clyde Brattle, who nodded at the Senator and Dolan, but ignored Dill. Harley headed for the rear of the apartment and its bedroom and bath. Sid went over the living room and kitchen. Dill went with him and watched him work. He decided Sid was very good. He knew where to look and what to look for and also where not to look. He wasted no time. In less than five minutes Sid was back in the living room. He shook his head at Brattle. Harley arrived a moment later and did the same thing.
Brattle smiled almost apologetically to Ramirez and said, “Senator, if you don't mind we'd like you and Mr. Dolan to unbutton your shirts—just to avoid any unpleasantness later.”
“Of course,” Ramirez said, and started unbuttoning his shirt, which, Dill noticed, was custom-made. The Senator, his shirt unbuttoned, revealed a flat tanned chest and belly. Dolan's unbuttoned shirt revealed a soft, white, strangely hairless body.
“You, too, Clyde,” Dill said, starting to unbutton his own shirt. Brattle smiled, took off his jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt. His stomach was flat and untanned. Dill kept his jacket on, but pulled his shirttails out and held the shirt wide open for all to see.
Brattle smiled at Sid and nodded at Dill. “Pat him down anyway, will you, Sid?”
Sid found the pistol almost immediately and showed it to Brattle. “He's got this piece is all,” Sid said.
After seeming to consider the find, Brattle shrugged and said, “I think everyone can get dressed now.”
Sid gave the pistol back to Dill, who put it away and started stuffing his shirttails back down into his pants as he turned to Harley and Sid and said, “So long, guys.” They looked at Brattle. He nodded. Harley and Sid left. For some reason no one said anything until their footsteps could no longer be heard on the stairway.
The Senator took over then. He placed Brattle in a chair, and himself and Dolan on the couch. He asked Dill if there might be something cold to drink, water if nothing else. Dill said he thought there might be some beer.
Dill came back from the kitchen with the last four bottles of Felicity's beer and four glasses. He put them on the coffee table and let everyone help himself. Brattle poured his beer, tasted it, smiled his appreciation, turned to the Senator, and said, “So. I presume you've already talked to Jake.”
“Today, you mean?” Ramirez said, not giving anything away.
“How is he—still protesting his innocence?”
The Senator smiled. “At least he's not a fugitive.”
Tim Dolan leaned forward, both hands wrapped around his glass of beer. “You're here to plea-bargain, Mr. Brattle. Let's hear what you've got to offer.”
Brattle made a small deprecatory gesture. “I offer myself, of course. A plea of guilty to certain indiscretions in exchange for a certain amount of leniency.”
“How much leniency?” Dolan asked.
“Say, oh, eighteen months?”
Dolan smiled, although in it there was nearly as much sneer as smile. “Instead of ninety-nine years, right?”
“I haven't quite finished,” Brattle said.
“Go on,” the Senator said.
“In addition to myself, I can also give you Jake Spivey, whose culpability in this business is only a shade less than my own.”
“Spivey,” the Senator said. “Well, Spivey is, I think, already hooked. We can reel him in, take a look at him, and either keep him or throw him back.”
“Spivey is part of my package,” Brattle said. “I'm afraid you'll have to keep him—small fry or no.”
The Senator looked at Tim Dolan, who made the corners of his mouth go down in an expression that said, So what if Spivey does a year or two—who cares? The Senator's small nod replied that he didn't.
“So far, Clyde,” Dill said, “you've offered us yourself and Jake. I don't know if Jake's a keeper or not. But you're the real prize. The big fish. The trophy winner. Still, all we really have to do is get up, walk over to that phone there, call the FBI, tell them you're here, and ask them to bring along the net. And that doesn't require any bargaining or deal. Just a phone call.”
“That occurred to me,” Brattle said.
Dill smiled. “I'll bet it did.” He turned to the Senator. “I think Clyde has something else to offer. Something irresistible.”
“An inducement,” Brattle said with a pleasant smile.
The Senator didn't return the smile. He asked, “What?” instead.
Brattle reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a three-by-five card. He passed it first to Dolan, whose eyebrows shot up after he read what was written on it and whose surprise made him say, “Mothera God.” He handed the card to the Senator, who read it without expression and started to put it away in his pocket until he saw Dill's outstretched hand. After only a slight hesitation, the Senator passed the card to Dill, who read the four names on it in a clear loud voice.
Two of the names were household words, providing the household listened occasionally to the evening network news, read the hard-news section of at least one daily paper, and bought or subscribed to almost any magazine other than TV Guide. The two other names were less well known, but still familiar and much respected by those who thought of themselves as Washington power brokers. The first less well-known name belonged to a man who was still an extremely high-ranking CIA officer. The second not so well-known name was that of another man who also had been a top CIA officer, but was now an expensive Washington lobbyist. The first household name was a White House deputy chief of staff. The second household name was the real prize: it was that of a former CIA superstar who had since gone on to become a U.S. Senator.

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