Red Rag Blues (27 page)

Three rules kept him out of trouble. He never stole more than one car a week. He only stole cars he could sell immediately. And he never took longer than twelve seconds to get into a car. Longer than that, he moved on, left it.

He worked Georgetown about once a month. He like the summer afternoons because the heat kept people indoors. There was a Labrador dog stretched out on the sidewalk of Potomac Street but all it did was open one eye as he stepped over it. He saw the black Buick, liked it, and fingered the assortment of picks in his pocket, feeling for the right ones.

Chick Scatola heard the scratchy tickle of steel and came wide awake in a hurry. This wasn't right. He held his breath and felt his pulse pounding the sides of his skull. Cabrillo had keys, this was
wrong.
Then the door opened, someone grunted as he dropped into the driver's seat, and the door clunked shut. Walt Garrison looked at what he'd got and was pleased. Recent model, low mileage, clean condition.

Chick Scatola eased the dustcover off his body. Slowly and silently he got to his knees and peered over the front seat. What he saw was Walt Garrison, also on his knees, fumbling behind the dash. “Shit,” Chick said. That was a mistake.

Walt was so startled that he turned fast and banged his head hard on the wheel. He ended up sprawling on the floor, blood chasing down his forehead, spilling off his nose. It was only split skin but it looked like a hatchet attack. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

“Get your ass out of here. This is my car, you dumb prick.”

“Yeah? You sleep in your car?” Walt suddenly found the situation very funny. “Let's see your license and registration, then.” He tasted blood and now it wasn't at all funny.

Chick shook his head, a gesture of disgust but Walt didn't know that Chick had just driven from New York and didn't need an argument with this schmuck who was lying beyond his reach or he'd use the sap to bust him up good, except he couldn't do that because if he did, the creep Cabrillo wouldn't get into a car with a body in it. Double-shit. “Just beat it, for Chrissake,” he said. “You're out of your depth, Jack.”

The blood made the difference. Normally Walt would have tipped his hat, cut his losses and left. But he was bleeding because of this piece of piss who didn't even want the lousy Buick except to sleep in. Walt spat a stringy mix of blood and saliva. “I need a handkerchief,” he said, and took an automatic out of his pants pocket. “Move your ass!” he shouted and fired a shot past Chick's head. That too was a mistake. Chick dropped out of sight, grabbed his .32 and pumped rounds through the seat. Most missed. Two hit, the throat and the chest. Then Walt was fighting for his life, aiming low, guessing where Chick was, finally getting lucky with one shot to the head. The firing was all over in eight seconds and both men were dead within a minute, a total waste, the product of arrogance, poor judgment and the taste of blood.

The best place for a quiet gunfight in a street is inside a sturdy car such as a Buick, loaded with soundproofing. A couple of neighbors thought they heard a ripple of backfiring, went to the window, saw nothing. “People should fix their mufflers,” they said.

*

Luis worked fast. Olive oil, chopped carrot, leek and onion went into a heavy pan with a crushed clove of garlic, and all cooked to a golden brown. Meanwhile he boned and cut the fish into chunks. Slid them into the pan, added half a can of tomatoes, some herbs, didn't have fish stock so a cup of white wine and a splash of water had to do. Simmered the lot until he felt that the fish was nearly done, threw in the shrimp and the chopped pimientos and simmered a few minutes more, seasoned it, squeezed a lemon into it, gave it a healthy drink of wine, and one minute later she came downstairs in a white sleeveless dress that made her look so
virginal that his toes curled. Well, some days things ended up right.

“Bouillabaisse,” he said. “Notorious aphrodisiac. Hungry?”

“Yeah. Peckish.”

He poured the bouillabaisse into a large tureen and carried it to the table. She brought bowls and spoons and bread. They sat and looked. “You're six inches off the deck, Luis,” she said. “You're going to burst into flame unless you tell me, so for Pete's sake speak. What's happened?”

“Oh, nothing of huge significance. I met Senator McCarthy again, and this time I conned him out of five hundred dollars.”

“I see.” She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “And how did you do that, Luis?”

“The old Eldorado technique. Tell 'em what they want to hear. McCarthy wants names, so I sold him names. Easy money.”

“You're serious? You sold names to McCarthy?” When Luis nodded, she stood and picked up the tureen by its handles and dumped the bouillabaisse on his head and left the dish there, upside-down. It was swiftly, deftly done. She had excellent hand-to-eye coordination. DeWolf had found that. Luis was too shocked to move. The bouillabaisse was hot and thick and for a long moment he couldn't see. When he blinked his eyes back to some sort of sticky vision, she had gone.

He didn't move. The carpet was ruined. No point in trying to talk. He knew her too well for that. He collected a piece of halibut with his tongue and chewed it and wondered if other couples behaved like this. Something was stuck to his upper lip. Baby cod, perhaps. And he could smell a trace of garlic.

She came downstairs, dressed differently and carrying a suitcase. She scooped up the car-keys.

“I may have overdone the paprika,” he said.

“Just stay away from me, you pathetic bastard.”

“A little parsley would have helped.”

The front door slammed.

A mouthful of food had slithered into his right hand. He raised it to his mouth before it could get away. The tureen was securely lodged on his head, so it must be his hat size, more or less. What a curious coincidence. His face was drying quickly. Bits of fish began dropping off it. Should he catch them, or let them fall? If he caught them he could eat them, but it would never amount to a full meal, would it? He was trying to decide, when the front door
opened and she came in. “There are two bodies in the Buick,” she said.

“Oh.” Luis licked his lips and tasted tomato. “Well, there's a surprise.”

“Is it? Feels more like routine.” She dropped her suitcase and leaned against the doorway. “And you look like the King of Siam.”

*

When Senator McCarthy first exposed the grim scale of Red subversive activity, back in 1950, he took a few shots at the CIA. If the agency had done its job properly, McCarthy said, it would have flushed out all these traitors. Made you wonder whether they were being protected by Leftists inside the agency. So the CIA bugged his office. Just routine.

McCarthy suspected this and asked the Justice Department to protect his privacy. The FBI sent a man to sweep the rooms. He found the CIA's bugs and taps, cleaned and dusted and tested them, and installed a feed to the FBI's department of electronic surveillance, a thousand yards away. Hoover didn't like McCarthy. Bastard was stealing his thunder.

The name Arabel meant nothing to the headquarters of the FBI. Then Arabel was linked to Harding and Philby at the British Consulate in New York, and Washington asked the New York office to find out what the hell was going on.

“You're cozy with Frobisher,” Prendergast told Fisk. “Take him to lunch. Take his mustache too.”

They met at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.

“Cabrillo,” Fisk said. “Now a.k.a. Arabel.”

“My goodness. Has he robbed another bank?”

“He's in Washington DC, doing business with Senator Joseph McCarthy.” When Frobisher chuckled, Fisk said, “Surprised us, too. We're hoping your chaps in British Intelligence can shed some light.”

“Nothing to do with us, old boy. Scout's honor.”

“Then why is he hiding behind his wartime codename?”

“Beats me. Tell you what: give me his address, I'll go and ask him.”

“Shall we order?”

“You've lost him again, haven't you? You can't find him.”

“I recommend the clams,” Fisk said. Enough was enough.

*

You couldn't see the bodies unless you looked in the car. Death had pulled the pins out of the joints and gravity had done the rest. They sprawled on the floor of the Buick, each looking as if he'd shoveled fifteen tons of Number One coal and was too bushed to climb into bed.

“How do you know they're dead?” Luis asked. He had got rid of the tureen and put his head under the cold tap for a few seconds, but his eyes still felt sticky. He leaned against the car and blinked a lot.

“That one's got a hole in the head. This one isn't breathing. Still, don't take my word. Check 'em out, maybe they're playin' possum.” Julie opened the driver's door. The peppery stink of explosives surged out.

“Holy smoke!” Luis said. He elbowed the door shut.

“It ain't smoke, and it ain't holy,” she said. “And unless you want to choke as you drive, I say let it all out.” She opened the door again. Luis had his mouth open but no words came. “Or you could tell the cops,” she suggested. He shook his head. “Then we're gonna have to drive this shambles out of here,” she said.

He looked at her as if she were a stranger. His eyes were wide open and blank, like a child's. “Hey, snap out of it!” she said, and kicked his ankle. He stumbled, and bit the inside of his mouth. The pain shocked him out of his stupor. “Look,” he said, very calmly, and pointed. “It's the triple virgin.” He was calm because calmness was all he had left.

“Hi, you guys,” Stevie called. “Small world, huh?” They watched her approach. There was no way they could stop her. “I was parked by the corner,” she said, “saw you guys come out, knew you straight off, fifty yards away, I got twenty-twenty vision, my optician says I could have been a fighter pilot, or maybe if I took up skeet shooting, you know, I could win Olympic gold, just takes
hot shit in the fuckin' springtime!”

“Did you kill these two?” Julie asked.

“Not me. Did you?”

“We never met them,” Luis said. “Every time I meet
you,
however, it's guns and homicide and bodies left lying.”

Stevie took a closer look. “That's my date, in the back. Chick Scatola. Him an' me came here on business. This other …” She shrugged.

“Your date?” Julie said. “You don't seem too knocked out about what happened to him.”

“He kept tellin' me I drive too fast. He got on my tits.”

“Hell of an epitaph,” Luis muttered.

“I drive better'n most men. Sammy Fantoni drove like he was leadin' the Veterans' Day Parade. Sammy and Chick were cousins. Maybe that explains a lot.”

“I don't really believe I'm saying this,” Julie said, “but we gotta get rid of these bodies. This is Potomac Street. They got
standards”

“Dump 'em in West Virginia,” Stevie said. “They got lots of wilderness over there. Hell, they got wilderness in West Virginia ain't hardly never been touched yet by nobody at all.”

“A triple negative,” Luis said. “And in all this heat.”

“You got fishy gunk on your shirt,” she told him.

“West Virginia,” Julie said.

*

Kim Philby made a transatlantic call to Peter Cottington-Beaufort and told him that the Consulate had traced Luis Cabrillo to Washington and to Senator McCarthy's office, where they discussed naming names.

“When he tried to blackmail me with his so-called memoirs, I thought he was bluffing,” Philby said. “But maybe he really knows something. Why else would he go to McCarthy?”

“Yours would be a considerable scalp for the senator to wave from Capitol Hill.”

“So would yours, Peter.”

“How could Cabrillo possibly … No, I withdraw the question. Irrelevant. Pity you weren't able to achieve expunction when you had the chance. Still, you know where your man is, don't you? Hurry down to Washington and do it yourself this time.”

Long pause. The line crackled.

“Either you're scratching your head,” Peter said, “or a hungry crab is chewing on the transatlantic cable.”

“I've never done an expunction. Arranged plenty, but never actually done one.”

“Remember that the bullet does the expunging. All you do is squeeze the trigger. I'm told that's hugely reassuring.” The line went dead.

*

West Virginia was easy to find. Interstate 66 came out of Washington and barreled straight across Virginia for sixty or seventy miles until it hit the Appalachian Mountains, got discouraged and called it a day.

Luis was hungry. Lunch had been skimpy. He'd taken a quick shower, then driven the Buick with Julie sitting alongside and both corpses stiffening in the back, under the sand-colored dust sheet. Nobody had said much. Now he signaled to Stevie, who was following in the Chrysler, and they pulled off at a roadside diner. Luis was getting out when Julie said, “News on the hour.” She turned on the car radio and searched for a Washington station, WMAL or WTOP. “Might have something about the Potomac Street massacre. You never know.” What she got was a live broadcast of Senator McCarthy's 4 p.m. press conference. She groaned. Luis brightened like a dog hearing his owner's key in the door. “Bet you he uses my names,” he said.

A couple of hundred miles to the north, Kim Philby was in a bar at Idlewild Airport, waiting for his flight to be called. The television set showed Tom and Jerry until the station suddenly cut to Senator McCarthy. “Goose the volume a bit, would you?” Philby asked the barman. Together they watched the unlovely image, listened to the drumroll of accusations. “Dunno if he scares the Kremlin,” the barman said, “but he makes me want to hide in the broom closet.” He went away and came back. “I done nothin' wrong,” he said. “Nothin' un-American.” Philby nodded and the barman left him alone.