Missionary Stew (17 page)

“Shouldn’t we let the cops do that?”

“What cops?” Haere said as he and the cat started circling Meade once more.

“I see. No cops.”

“He's already dead and buried in Singapore. We’ll just prop him up against a lamppost somewhere, maybe over in Culver City. Dead bodies don’t bother them much over there. See what he's got in his pockets.”

“Me?”

“I’ve got to feed the cat.”

Still carrying Hubert, Haere headed for the kitchen area, took down a can of 9-Lives from a shelf, and sliced off its top with his elec
tric can opener. While Haere fed Hubert, Citron knelt by the side of the Huey Long chair and studied the dead man.

Drew Meade's eyes were still open and, for some reason, seemed focused on something off to the right. Despite himself, Citron glanced over his shoulder, but there was nothing to see but a wall of books. He looks as if he's reading the titles, Citron thought, and doesn’t see much that interests him. If there was an expression on Meade's dead face, it was one of disappointment mingled with disdain. The mouth was slightly open in the beginning of what seemed to be a sneer. The head was tilted back, leaning against the large chair's padded rest. The lifeless hands lay palm up in the lap in a supplicant's helpless position that somehow Citron knew they had never once assumed in life. The big feet were firmly planted on the floor. Meade smelled of death, which meant that he smelled of urine and feces.

Citron sighed and reached into the inside breast pocket of Meade's jacket just as Haere rejoined him. He found a U.S. passport and handed it to Haere. In the outside jacket pockets he found a pack of Camels and a box of matches that bore the name of a Chinese restaurant. He passed both up to Haere. There was nothing in the shirt pocket or in the pants hip pockets. In a pants side pocket, the one on the right, there was a small roll of bills, which he also handed up to Haere. The other side pocket produced seventy-four cents in change. Citron put the change back and studied Meade for several moments, then lifted up the pants legs and rolled down the short black socks. There was nothing concealed beneath them, only eggshell-white, surprisingly thin ankles. Citron rose.

“That's it,” he said.

“He had sixty-seven dollars and a passport made out to someone called Donald B. Millrun. Has he got a watch?” Citron looked. “Yes.”

“Take it.”

Citron removed the watch, an old self-winding stainless-steel Omega Seamaster. He gave it to Haere. “Robbery?” he asked.

“Why not?” Haere said. “It’ll make the cops happy.”

“What now?”

“Well, now we roll him back up in the rug, put him in your car, and dump him over in Culver City. Somewhere just off the freeway, I think.”

“My car?”

“Sure.”

“Why not yours?”

“I can’t remember where I parked mine.”

“Well, Christ,” Citron said, knelt again, and rolled out the rug. He looked up at Haere. “What d’you want? The head or the legs?”

Haere frowned. “Did you look in the watch pocket? A New York cop I once knew told me some guys hide things in their watch pockets. Older guys especially. He said it was one of the first places he always looked.”

“I didn’t look there.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“What do you expect to find—a ffolded-up thousand-dollar bill with the Swiss account number on it?”

“Just look, will you?”

Citron dug a forefinger down into the small watch pocket, felt something, and used thumb and forefinger to lift it out. It was a business card folded into a small square. Citron unfolded the card. On its front was printed: D
REW
MEADE,
I
NVESTMENT
C
OUNSELOR
. There was no address or phone number. On the back was written in pencil, “D. Haere,” and then Haere's phone number. In ballpoint ink was written, “B. Maneras,” and after that something illegible. Citron handed the card to Haere.

Haere read the investment-counselor side and then turned it over. “Well, Haere we know,” he said. “Who's B. Maneras?”

“Maybe he's the one they want us to find out about.”

“You think it was planted?”

Citron shrugged. “If we hadn’t found it, you would’ve been talking to the cops.”

Haere thought about that and then shook his head. “I can’t decide whether it was planted or not.” He turned to examine Meade thoughtfully, then turned back to Citron. “What d’you think we should do about B. Maneras?”

“We can stop where we are and call the cops—or I can find out who Maneras is, which I don’t think is going to be too hard. You call it.”

Instead of replying, Haere once more turned back to the dead Drew Meade and again seemed to study him thoughtfully. After fifteen seconds went by, Citron said, “Well?”

“I’ll take the feet,” Haere said.

They had no trouble getting Drew Meade down the stairs, but they did experience some difficulty in folding him into the rear of Citron's 1969 Toyota sedan. Either Meade or the rug wouldn’t fold. They finally managed to fit him in by lowering the head end of the rug down onto the floor and letting the feet end stick up in the air, pointing at the rear window.

Haere slammed the rear door shut. “Well, that should do it,” he said, taking a step backward to see how it all looked.

“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Citron said.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Mine, too,” Haere said as he opened the curbside front door and got in.

In Culver City they found an industrial side street with a vacant lot that contained six junked cars, and there they dumped Drew Meade. They left him, still wrapped in his cheap blue rug, lying between the remains of a 1970 Volvo and a 1973 Ford Fairlane.

Back on the Santa Monica freeway, Draper Haere said he could
use a drink, and they decided on a bar in Venice they both knew, the Mainsail, a place that catered to serious drinkers.

After the waitress brought Haere his double Scotch on the rocks and Citron his double vodka, also on the rocks, they both drank and then waited for the other to begin. Finally, Haere lit one of his occasional cigarettes and said, “You’ve got something else, haven’t you? That's why you were outside waiting.”

“A place name. Tucamondo.”

Haere nodded as he drew a mental map and pinpointed Tuca-mondo. “Is that where it happened—the small secret war Meade was going to tell us about?”

“Maybe.”

Haere had some more of his Scotch. “How’d you find out—if you don’t mind my asking?”

“There's a guy from Miami called B. S. Keats. The B. S. stands for Byron Shelley. He's got a remittance-woman daughter who he wants me to baby-sit. Mr. Keats was once very active in the cocaine trade. He wanted to pay me to baby-sit his daughter, who's a touch fey. I agreed, but instead of money, I asked him to make a few phone calls. He did and came up with Tucamondo.”

“Just like that?”

Citron nodded.

Haere sighed and said, “I think you’d better tell me about Mr. Keats and his daughter.”

“Yes,” Citron said. “I think I’d better.”

They were on their second drink, singles this time, when Citron finished his report. The report was delivered to an impressed Haere in short paragraphs, none more than two sentences long. Citron had spoken in a flat, almost uninflected voice, pausing at the end of each sentence, pausing even longer before a new paragraph began, and spelling out each name as if he thought Haere might want to write it down. The most important facts were grouped together first, and the
rest were recited in their descending order of interest and importance. He's calling in a story, Haere marveled, as Citron ended his report with a precise accounting of how much of Haere's money he had spent thus far.

Draper Haere was silent for almost a minute as he digested what he had been told. “I rather liked the two Haitians,” he said. “The two bodyguards.” He paused. “And Keats, too. B. S. Keats. B for Byron, S for Shelley. I liked him, too. And all it took him was a couple of phone calls.”

“Four actually.”

“Four.”

There was another silence. Haere finished his second drink and said, “That's it, then?” “Not quite.”

Haere nodded slowly. “I sort of expected there’d be something else. A kicker.”

“Velveeta Keats.”

“Velveeta. I like her, too. The name, I mean.”

“She was once married to someone called Maneras.”

“R. Maneras, maybe?”

“J. Maneras. J for Jimmy—or Jaime.”

“Maneras. That's a pretty common name, isn’t it?”

“About like, oh, say, Hansen or Nichols.”

“Still a pretty common name.”

“Not if you find it written on a card that's folded up and stuck down inside some dead man's watch pocket just a couple of hours after you agree to baby-sit a lady who was once married to somebody called Maneras. I’d say that makes it a rather unusual name.”

Haere rattled the ice in his empty drink. “So where are we?”

“I think we’re being pointed in a certain direction, don’t you?”

“The right direction?”

“I don’t know.”

Haere rattled his ice again. “Velveeta Keats,” he said. “It's a pretty name, if you forget about the cheese.”

“I thought I’d take her to dinner tonight.”

“Someplace nice.”

“Yes.”

“Buy her some wine.” “She likes wine.”

“Maneras,” Haere said. “I wonder who B. Maneras is.”

“I’ll try to find out.”

“If you do, call me.”

“No matter how late?”

“Anytime,” Haere said.

CHAPTER 19

At 7:45 that night the two men who sometimes called themselves Yarn and Tighe parked their Oldsmobile 88 behind the Mercedes sedan in Gladys Citron's driveway. John D. Yarn was behind the wheel, Richard Tighe beside him. They examined the house briefly. A light was on in the living room. The porch light had also been turned on.

Without speaking, they got out of the car and walked through the iron gate and up the curving cement walk to the front door. Tighe rang the bell. The door was opened almost immediately by Gladys Citron. Nothing was said. The two men went inside, through the small foyer, and into the living room. Gladys Citron followed them.

Tighe headed for the tray that held the bottles and glasses. He spoke over his shoulder to Yarn. “What d’you want, Scotch?”

“Scotch.”

“Gladys?”

“Nothing,” she said.

Tighe mixed the two drinks, turned, and handed one to Yarn. Gladys Citron crossed to the wing-back chairs, hesitated, then sat down in the one where Drew Meade had died. She was wearing a long
dressy robe of dark-blue silk. It went nicely with her hair. She leaned her head back against the chair, closed her eyes, and said, “Well?”

Tighe sat down in the chair opposite her and took a swallow of his drink. Yarn continued to stand, sipped some of his Scotch, and said, “I like that, Gladys. The way you plopped down in old Drew's chair.”

“It's my chair,” she said, her eyes still closed. “He merely died in it.”

“Well, it went about like we thought it would,” Tighe said. “They dumped him over in Culver City.”

“And?”

“They found the card.”

“You’re sure?” she said.

“It was gone, anyway.”

“I wonder which one,” Tighe said.

Yarn looked at him. “Which one what?”

“Found it.”

“Haere. I’d say Haere.” “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Yarn said. “Maybe just because he's foxier.”

Gladys Citron opened her eyes. “I won’t have him hurt.”

Tighe smiled at her. “You should’ve thought of that before, Gladys.”

“He's still my son. They won’t have to hurt him.”

“We’ll tell them that, won’t we?” Tighe said to Yarn.

Yarn grinned and nodded. “Maybe we can hang a sign around his neck. ‘Handle with Care.’ Something like that.”

Gladys Citron leaned forward in her chair. When she spoke, her tone was surprisingly soft, but her stare was hard and unwavering. “I must not be making myself clear.”

Tighe finished his drink. “Sure you are, Gladys. You’re playing Mommy—maybe forty years late, but you’re playing it pretty well. You have to understand something, though. If it comes to choosing between your son and us, and I’m talking about
all
of us, then a hard choice will have to be made. I mean, if it comes to us or him, who do we choose?”

Gladys Citron leaned back in the chair and again closed her eyes. “I’ve got a migraine,” she said. “Why don’t you two run out and play somewhere.”

“Who, Gladys?” Yarn said.

“It needn’t come to that,” she said, her eyes still closed.

“But if it does?”

She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “He was a very pretty baby. One of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. But then I was never really very much of a mother.”

“He was never much of a son either, was he?” Yarn said.

It was several moments before Gladys Citron answered, her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. “No,” she said, “not much.”

They drove to the restaurant in Santa Monica in Velveeta Keats's dusty yellow Porsche, a 911 model that had been given to her on her thirtieth birthday.

“I just went out to get the mail that day,” she told Morgan Citron, “and there the keys were with a little note in the mail-box that said, ‘Happy Birthday, honey—Love, Mama,’ but of course it was Papa that went out and bought it and all.”

She was not a good driver. At the corner of the Pacific Coast Highway and Topanga Canyon she ran through a red light and just missed a pickup truck that had two large brown dogs in its bed. The dogs barked at her as she barely scraped by on the right. Citron closed his eyes automatically and opened them only when he was sure the danger had passed. “When was this?” he said.

“My birthday? Last August. August ninth. I turned thirty. How’d you feel when you turned thirty?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I think it was just another day.”

“How about forty?”

“Forty. Well, forty wasn’t so hot.”

“Where were you?”

“In jail. In Africa.”

“What’d you do?”

“On my fortieth birthday?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think I cried,” he said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I did.”

“Did you do that much? Cry, I mean.”