City of War (33 page)

He never turned around. “Don’t drive that far. Arthritis acts up.”

I counted out five hundred dollars, slapped it on the counter and pushed it into his line of sight. “There’s another five when we get there.”

“Shit, Elroy,” one of the UPS drivers whistled, “you don’t do it, I’m gonna call in sick and run them down there in Big Brown.”

Elroy thought about it a moment, then swiveled on his stool and looked up at me. After a head-to-toe appraisal, he said, “You’re that basketball fella, ain’t ya? The one gets hisself suspended all the time.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Thought so,” he said. “The grand, plus two autographs for my nephews.”

“Eleven hundred and no autographs,” I countered.

“Twelve. Cause then I got to buy them off eBay.”

“Done.”

“And all of it up front.”

The UPS guys shook their heads as I counted out the remaining seven one-hundred dollar bills. Elroy scooped up the cash and had it tucked away before I got my money clip back in my pocket.

The Watergate doesn’t look like any other building in Washington. Designed by an experimental architect, it’s an inconsistent mix of styles one critic called Guggenheim meets college dorm. But the place grows on you. And when you mention the name to people outside D.C., it always gets a response.

Elroy Webb, former boxer, former short-order cook, former aircraft carrier steward and currently full-time Reading, Pennsylvania cabbie, had kept up a running stream of chatter for the past hour and a half. And now, as I directed him onto New Hampshire Avenue and into the quiet Watergate complex, he didn’t slow down the commentary.

“Don’t look like they got the red carpet rolled out,” he observed. “Figure they’d be a little more on the ball with a celebrity coming to town and all.”

“Well, Elroy,” I said, “it’s after two in the morning.”

“Shit, you’da come home with me, the whole neighborhood’d be up to say hello.”

Archer, who seemed to be enjoying Mr. Webb’s stream-of-consciousness rambling, said, “Well, maybe we should just turn around and go back.”

I rolled my eyes, but Elroy wasn’t having any of that either. “Not a chance. I ain’t tellin’ nobody—specially Mrs. Webb—about this money. Gonna take me a run up to Atlantic City one a these days. Maybe turn it into somethin’
serious. Or maybe just get me a bottle of Mr. Beam and a Silver-Tongue Suzie and lay in for a weekend.”

I had to give the guy credit. He was seventy-five if he was a day. Considering he only stopped talking to breathe, my guess was Mrs. Webb didn’t keep the reins that tight.

The South Tower night deskman, wearing a blue blazer, maroon turban and a name tag that read Pradeep, buzzed us through the front door. I identified myself as the client of Jhanya Devereux of Beverly Hills, and he handed me a manila envelope containing two sets of keys and a piece of heavy stationery embossed with:

In broad, feminine script and rich purple ink, Ms. Radcliffe had written

I handed the note to Archer, who read it and made a gagging sound. “Wandie Radcliffe and Hugs a Bunch. I guarantee you, she’s a big fucking peroxide blonde with veneered teeth and a pair of gazongas out to here.”

“In that case, would you mind if I dropped you at a Holiday Inn?”

I told Pradeep I’d find my own way, and we took the elevator to the top floor. Three units had been combined to create a several-thousand-square-foot open space with a 270° view of the Potomac and the lights of the suburbs beyond. The décor was burled wood and hunting trophies accented with modern paintings and several stylized busts.

I’d no sooner closed the electric drapes than Archer took the control box and opened them again. “If I’m going to live on the run, then when I’ve got a view, I’m goddamn well going to look at it,” she said.

I started to say something about security, then dropped it. She wandered into the kitchen, and I heard her open the refrigerator. “Look at this, will ya. Ten ounces of Iranian beluga, a jeroboam of Pol Roger Winston Churchill and some kind of chocolate-covered turd. Oh, and two champagne flutes on ice with another note.”

“What a vacuous cunt. Where the fuck are the bacon and eggs in case we showed up in the middle of the goddamn night? I’ll lay you 8 to 5 Wandie couldn’t pour piss out of a boot.”

You don’t hear the C-word word a lot, especially from women. I took it as a sign anger was replacing fear. Wandie just happened to wander into the process. I moseyed into the
kitchen and saw Archer had the caviar open and was digging at it with two fingers then ramming it into her mouth.

I said, “I think there’s an all-night diner just over the Key Bridge. Since we don’t have time to sleep, you want to rough it on finger food or take a ride?”

Pointing to a piece of taxidermy, she said with her mouth full, “I could eat the ass end out of that warthog, so lead on, Frank Buck. I need calories.”

“Give me a minute.” I left her in the kitchen and went through the apartment until I found what I expected—a gun safe. You want to find a firearm in any major city, look for the richest neighborhood and go to the master bedroom. Every time I’m invited to a party, I test my theory, and I’m rarely disappointed. Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Beacon Hill in Boston, my town, Beverly Hills. It’s not about politics. Regardless of which editorial page you believe in, when you know you’re a target, you don’t leave the lives of your loved ones to the tender mercies of a minimum-wage switchboard operator or high-school-dropout security guy.

This safe was locked, of course, and to my surprise, the combination wasn’t taped to the bottom of a nightstand drawer. Nor was it slipped between the pages of one of the leather-bound volumes of French nudes on an adjacent shelf. I stopped and thought for a moment. Rich people are usually as lazy as everybody else, meaning they like to keep their passwords and combinations within arm’s reach.

But after a couple more false starts, I was about to chalk this guy up as being one of those rare ones who commit things to memory. Then I noticed there was a lamp that wasn’t on. When I’d entered, I’d hit the wall switch, and six lamps scattered throughout the place had lit up. But jammed between the seven-foot safe and an even taller armoire was a glass and brass floor lamp that remained dark. But even if it had been on, placed where it was, it wouldn’t have illuminated much of anything. I stepped forward and looked through the top of the shade. The bulb was black.

I crossed the room and flicked off the wall switch. The
room went dark. Then I walked back to the floor lamp and turned it on. Instantly, a series of numbers glowed on the door of the safe.

From the doorway, Archer said, “What the…?”

“Phosphorescent marker and a black light,” I said. “The owner’s recall isn’t any better than anyone else’s, but he gets bonus points for clever.”

I spun the dial of the lock, and the door popped open. Inside was an impressive collection of both long guns and pistols, and in one of the two drawers, I found what I wanted—a Sig Sauer .45 threaded for a suppressor. The professionally manufactured silencer itself was in the second drawer. I slipped the Sig in one pocket of my jacket and the tube in the other. D. J.’s Beretta I put in the drawer.

As I was closing the safe, Archer said, “Bwana Watergate has some interesting stuff, but when it comes to shotguns, Purdy may have great resale, but you can’t beat Bertuzzi in the field.”

“The lady is full of surprises.”

“The guy who owned my modeling agency had a hunting lodge in the Adirondacks. We lived together long enough for him to teach me to shoot just about everything. By the way, isn’t getting caught with a suppressor a mandatory seven?”

“Federal, yes. D.C. local, who knows? Maybe the needle.”

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to take the Glock .40? Better stopping power and a bigger magazine.”

“And pulling the trigger is like dialing 911. I hope I don’t have to shoot anybody, but if I do, I want to be able to get some miles between us before anyone figures out what happened.”

As we drove toward Arlington in Wandie’s silver SUV with all of eleven miles on the odometer, Archer seemed lost in thought. It was confirmed when we passed the Lincoln Memorial and she didn’t look. Not easy to do. Finally, she said softly, “You say this guy, Dante, was a shrimp.”

“John Wayne, he wasn’t. Why?”

“Well, you’d like to think a guy trying to kill you is fuck
ing scary. At the very least, imposing. That little fuck on the boat still pisses me off. If he hadn’t gotten those cuffs on me, I could have kicked his anorexic ass to fucking Seattle.”

The C-word
and
attitude. She was going to be okay.

It was going on 3:30 a.m., and we were full. Archer had ordered everything on the menu and done her best to finish it. We’d just crossed back over the Key Bridge when a car passed us at breakneck speed, weaving wildly. I’d seen him coming and pulled to the curb, and even then, he’d almost gotten us.

“Probably a congressman late for a vote,” I said.

Archer was fixated on something else. “Is that what I think?” she asked, pointing.

I looked and answered, “Yes.”

“Take me there,” she said.

I turned left at the next intersection and found a parking spot on the street. There are always people on the Mall. Thirty below in a sleet storm, and there’d still be strollers. This was only early fall, so even a couple of hours before dawn, there were a dozen or so insomniacs walking and talking.

As we approached the Vietnam Memorial, Archer grabbed my arm and held tight. “You haven’t done this before?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Please don’t let go of me.”

The Vietnam Wall is a haunting place. Like the white crosses at Normandy, if you listen closely, the voices of the fallen whisper on the wind. I checked the directory for the location of Commander Cayne’s name, then Archer and I walked slowly down the long, gentle path into the black granite canyon. As always, there were small, private offerings along the way. A picture of a young man throwing a football, a white rose, a tattered teddy bear, a purple heart, a folded note with “Gil” written on it.

When we came to the panel I had noted in the directory, I slowed, but Archer pulled on my arm, and we kept walking.
At the intersection where the east and west walls meet, we stopped. Here, the memorial rises to its highest point, and here, the acoustical nuance pushes together the quiet prayers of everyone along the paths.

We stood in silence until Archer finally said, “Okay, I’m ready now.”

We retraced our steps back along the west wall until we reached the panel we had passed earlier. In the third row was the name Alexander Connor Cayne. Archer reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding onto me, and I stepped forward so she could touch the letters.

She ran her fingers over the cut stone, and I felt her knees begin to buckle. I put my arm around her, and she swayed against me, then regained her footing. I asked if she would like to make a rubbing of her father’s name. She shook her head no and buried it in my shoulder.

As we walked up and out of the basin, there was an older lady, backlit by the Lincoln Memorial, standing in the grass alongside the path. She was wearing a long, black cloth coat and a matching wide-brimmed hat, and she had her hands thrust deep into her pockets. Even in the dark, she was elegant.

When we reached her, she stepped forward and looked at Archer. “Pardon me, miss, but you are so beautiful I just wanted to look at you more closely. I’d like to think you are the kind of young lady Mark would have brought home.”

Archer smiled and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Was Mark your son?”

The woman nodded. “First Lieutenant Mark Stephanie. My only baby. He was due home on Christmas Eve, and the whole family was there to surprise him. We didn’t know his platoon had been ambushed two days earlier, and he’d died carrying a wounded man to safety.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Archer tenderly.

The woman’s eyes were wet, but she seemed to need to tell the story. “Mark’s body was never recovered, so after my husband died, I sold my home in Minneapolis and moved
here to be close to the only thing I have left of him, his name. There are a lot of us—mostly mothers. We don’t socialize, but we know each other. It helps a little.”

The woman turned and looked up at me. “You were a soldier, weren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’m, I was. United States Army.”

“Just like Mark. Would you mind if I held you for a moment? It’s been so long. And I’d like to feel the warmth of someone who wore a uniform.”

I stepped forward and took her in my arms. Held her. Felt her shudder. After a few seconds, she let go and thanked me. Then she turned and walked away.

28

Manfred and Marlon

Archer hadn’t said anything since we left the Wall, but now, as we drove east toward Annapolis, she looked at me. “You know, ever since I met you, I’ve been trying to figure you out.”

“How’s it coming?”

“It only took half an hour on the Internet to get the broad strokes, but that’s just packaging. I’ve spent half my life around rich men, and you’re not like any of them.”