The Brea File (27 page)

“Just bring your lists back here. We’ll get you more help if you need it.”

That extra help might mean making the Brea investigation more visible, Macimer thought. And that brought him back to the question that was beginning to disturb him more than he cared to admit. Why had the Director wanted the Brea case kept as quiet as possible? Why keep a lid on it? Because it might mean bad publicity for the Bureau? Or was it because John L. Landers would go before Senator Sederholm’s committee for confirmation as FBI Director exactly one week from today?

* * * *

From the noonday heat of K Street, Macimer passed through the glass doors of the Prime Rib into the cool, dim elegance of the narrow reception room. The reservations man reacted with alacrity when Macimer mentioned Oliver Packard’s name.

Packard was in a black leather booth in a corner of one of the intimate dining rooms. The booth was both secluded and strategic, commanding a view over the room. Behind the syndicated columnist, framed by one of the brass-rimmed black wall panels, was a Louis Icart print. Packard seemed perfectly at ease in the elegant Art Deco setting. He wore a beautifully tailored light blue jacket that appeared to have the approximate weight of a handkerchief. His pink shirt had a ruffled front, and he wore a blue bow tie with white polka dots. The bow ties, which he wore for almost any occasion, were a trademark. His hair flowed luxuriantly over the collar of his jacket. Macimer placed his age at well over fifty, and there seemed no reason for Packard’s hair to be that blond.

“So you’re Macimer.” Oliver Packard clucked in mysterious disapproval. “Pity. You’re all letting your hair grow. And colored shirts! It’s getting so you can’t tell
who
is a G-man anymore.” The columnist smiled coldly, showing a thin edge of nicotine-stained teeth. His coal-black eyes, Macimer thought, would have done credit to a Borgia. He said, “You’ll have lunch, of course.”

“Some other time,” Macimer replied. “Suppose we get down to what you called me about. Do you know what was in those papers Gerella supposedly received from an informant?”

“Precious little,” Packard admitted. “But there’s nothing supposed about them—he
did
receive some FBI documents. They were samples, according to the informant.” He paused, staring at Macimer with his medieval eyes. “They must be important for your goons to bloody their butchers’ hands on my best reporter. Or are you prepared to deny that?”

“I don’t think even you believe it.”

“No? Do you know where Joe Gerella was Saturday night?”

“How would I know that?”

“You must have known he was following you.”

Macimer stared back at the columnist in obvious surprise. “No, I didn’t know. I talked to Gerella last week, Mr. Packard. I told him then I had no story for him. And I don’t know anything about the attack on him. I didn’t know about this informant until you told me. Gerella never spoke of having received FBI documents.” He paused. “When exactly was he attacked?”

“Around one o’clock in the morning.”

“That’s a good time for a mugging. And if Gerella was following me, that explains why he had a slip of paper with my name on it.”

Oliver Packard shook his head. He took his time fitting a filter cigarette into a mother-of-pearl holder and lighting it. “I think it means more than that, Macimer. I don’t put much stock in coincidence—not in this town. In any event, we’ll find out. Gerella’s going to survive, Macimer. I’m going to see to it that he does.” The pronouncement was Godlike. “He can’t talk—his jaw is all wired. He can’t move because of his ribs. He can’t walk because he has a broken ankle. But as soon as his head is clear enough he’ll be able to do one thing: he can still
write!
” Packard leaned forward, his bow tie bunching under the fleshy folds of his neck, the cigarette in its holder jutting upward in a way that called to mind pictures of Franklin Roosevelt. “I give my people their heads if they’re good—and make no mistake, Macimer, Gerella is good. He was working on his own time, and he wouldn’t have been doing it without good reason. He wouldn’t have spent a dull Saturday night checking out a dull gathering of old cronies in the Bureau without a
very
good reason. Do you want me to learn what it was from him or do you want to tell me?”

“Let him tell you himself,” Macimer answered shortly. “I can’t. But I want to be there as soon as he can communicate. I want to know what FBI documents came into his possession and why he didn’t inform the Bureau.”

Packard leaned back in the booth and gazed past Macimer. The Prime Rib at lunchtime was always busy. Macimer noted, however, that the booths on either side of Packard’s corner location were empty. In the District, Oliver Packard could have just about any accommodation he wanted, including privacy.

The columnist tapped another cigarette out of a brightly colored box. The cigarette was wrapped in pink paper. It was long, handmade and expensive. Macimer wondered if Packard had them in colors to match his shirts. The speculation was deprecatory and he told himself to back off. Packard was a poseur but he was also wickedly smart. And dangerous.

Packard lit the second cigarette from the glowing ash of the half-smoked one. He blew a cloud of smoke in Macimer’s direction and said, “Gerella calls you Mr. Clean—it was in some of the notes in his desk at the office. Unfortunately he didn’t say much else.”

“I’m no cleaner than average, but this time Gerella jumped to the wrong conclusion—just as you did—if he thought that I or the FBI had anything to do with what happened to him.”

“Perhaps.” Packard’s tone was deceptively mild, almost indifferent. The abrupt change made Macimer wary. “But he could be wrong and right at the same time, I suppose. Perhaps you didn’t have a hand in his being mugged by those Latinos. But he could be right about the story he’s after.”

“Latinos?”

“That’s right, didn’t I mention that? Gerella is still groggy this morning, but he managed to scrawl that much during one of his periods of coherence. He thinks the three goons might have been Cubans. Of course, Cubans are more the CIA’s touch, aren’t they? Don’t tell them too much, convince them it’s for a patriotic cause, and send them out to do the dirty work.” Packard fixed Macimer with his malevolent stare. “They called Gerella something. It’s the only thing he remembers them saying.
Traidor!
Traitor. Care to make any guesses why, Macimer?”

Macimer shook his head slowly. Cubans, he thought. Three of them. He wondered if, in the darkness and confusion of his attack, Gerella would have known if one of the attackers was a girl.

As for accusing Gerella of treason, betrayal, Oliver Packard’s sarcastic reference to the CIA suddenly made sense. If the muggers had been led to believe that Gerella was working on a story that might damage the FBI…

“If you’re telling the truth,” Packard said, “maybe you are clean, Macimer. And maybe it’s time to tell the rest of the truth. Come clean all the way. I think Gerella is onto something, Macimer—he has to be or there wouldn’t have been an urgent need to shut him up and steal those documents. I won’t let this story go now. The truth
will
come out.”

“I can only tell you what I told Gerella. I don’t have a story for you.”

“You don’t have to worry about the repercussions, I can assure you. A man of your background, you don’t have to stay with the Bureau. And you can be taken care of.”

“Are you offering me a bribe, Packard?”

The columnist showed a thin ridge of small yellow teeth. “It would be exceedingly foolish of me to offer a bribe to a G-man, wouldn’t it? Especially these days, with all your sting operations, your hidden cameras and the like.”

The repetition of the archaic term for an FBI agent was mocking, intended to keep Macimer off balance. He ignored it. “I have nothing more to talk to you about, Mr. Packard. There’s no story.” He slid out of the booth, pausing at the end of the table to stare down at the columnist. Packard delicately put out his cigarette in a crystal ashtray. Half smoked, the butt lay there like a pink worm next to three other dead worms. “But I’m going to find out who attacked Gerella and why. I can promise you that.”

“So am I, Macimer. So am I.”

Oliver Packard raised a soft, long-fingered hand in an elegantly casual gesture as the FBI man turned away. Instantly an attentive waiter hurried forward. “I think I’ll have another, Francis,” Packard murmured as Macimer walked away. “Very,
very
dry this time.”

Only when he was on the sidewalk outside the restaurant did Macimer allow his anger to surface, the anger he had not permitted Oliver Packard to see.

A man named Antonelli had telephoned twice while Macimer was out. He had left a number where he could be reached. Macimer checked first with Willa Cunningham. “He has something to do with the Senate Committee on Intelligence,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“I think he’s an investigator.”

Macimer returned the call. The phone was answered on the second ring. “I have to talk to you, Inspector,” Antonelli said.

“I’m not an inspector, Mr. Antonelli, but go ahead.”

“Not on the phone.”

“Just who are you, Mr. Antonelli?” The voice seemed muffled, as if the man had a cold. The accent was vaguely New Yorker.

After a moment’s hesitation the guarded answer came. “I’m a PI from New York. For the last two months I’ve been doing some work for Senator Sederholm’s committee. I guess you know what about, Mr. Macimer.”

“No, I don’t. Suppose you tell me.”

Antonelli chuckled uneasily. “The senator don’t know about this—why I’m calling, I mean. Nobody does.”

“What do you want, Antonelli?”

“I think we should talk, Mr. Macimer.”

Macimer felt his pulse quicken. First Gerella, now a private eye, both hinting at dark secrets. Gerella was covering the Senate hearings, Antonelli worked for the committee. He said, “All right, when can we meet?”

“Yeah, well…” Antonelli seemed to weigh the problem, although he must have chosen a place in advance. “Tonight. Nine o’clock.”

After dark, Macimer thought. “Where?”

“I’ll get in touch. You like seafood, Mr. Macimer?”

“Well enough.”

“Be at Hogate’s at seven. I’ll call you. In the bar.”

“I thought you didn’t trust telephones, Mr. Antonelli.”

The private eye chuckled. “I’ll trust that one.”

As soon as he had hung up Macimer asked Willa Cunningham to dig up an index on private investigators. She had it on his desk in five minutes. John Antonelli was listed in the Manhattan directory as a private investigator and security consultant. He had an office on Third Avenue.

Macimer decided to place a long-distance call. After the fourth ring it was answered by a woman with a bored manner. Mr. Antonelli was not available.

“Is this his answering service?”

“That’s right.”

“When can I reach him?”

“I’m sorry, we are unable to divulge that information,” the woman said in a singsong voice, as if she had said it a thousand times before. “If you’d care to leave your name and phone number, your call will be returned as soon as possible.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Not if Antonelli was in Washington.

As Macimer thought about their meeting, he wondered why someone who was planning to talk to him face to face would bother to disguise his voice over the phone.

* * * *

When Macimer had first come to Washington back in the early 1960s, Hogate’s was a small, unpretentious waterfront fish restaurant. He had found its warmth and friendliness appealing, not to mention the heaping quantities of fresh seafood offered at prices suitable to a new agent’s income.

The modern Hogate’s is a warehouse of restaurants, embracing the brown waters of Washington Channel with wide glass wings. There were several tour buses stacked out front when Macimer arrived. He found a parking place on the street a short distance away and walked back to the restaurant in a fine soft drizzle.

There he mingled with tourists debarking from the buses and the downtown evening crowd of diners.

The bar was a low-ceilinged cavern off to the right side of the main entrance and the oversized lobby. In spite of its size, the lounge was crowded and noisy. There was a small bandstand, empty at this hour, but recorded music pounded from multiple speakers. The decor was predictably nautical, with heavy beams, grayed woods, ship’s artifacts scattered about and the inevitable red vinyl upholstery.

Macimer found a stool where he could look out through the wide windows at the channel. Under a gray sky the water was still and flat as pavement. Raindrops pattered over its hard brown surface. There was no activity in the channel or across the way on the greenbelt that was East Potomac Park. Surrounded by noisy confusion, Macimer gazed out upon a drizzly scene as peaceful and soothing as the memory of childhood summers at a rented cottage on a lake in Michigan. Something of the stillness of the water, unruffled by the soft drizzle, seemed to enter the spirit.

“So this is where the FBI disappears when the sun goes down,” said a voice behind him.

Macimer turned. “Erika! For heaven’s sake… where’s Russ? Isn’t he with you?”

“Don’t get up.” She placed a restraining hand on his shoulder and slipped onto a stool beside his. “I like sitting close to the bottles, don’t you? Oh, don’t look for Russ, he isn’t here. He’s married to the Bureau, didn’t you know? But of course you do. You’re one of the bridesmaids, right?”

Macimer grinned. She was well on the way, he judged, remembering Jan’s comments about Erika’s heavy drinking. “I guess you could say that.”

“I just did.”

“Is Russ meeting you here later?”

“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. The question is, do I have a need to know?” Erika peered at him with exaggerated suspicion. “Are you on duty?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m waiting for a phone call.”

She leaned toward him and whispered in a conspiratorial tone. “Is Hogate’s under investigation? I’ve always thought there was something fishy about this place.”