Missionary Stew (18 page)

“No,” Citron said. “Only that once.”

They drove in silence for nearly a minute until she broke it with a question. “Did he say anything about me?”

“Your father?”

Velveeta Keats nodded as she stared straight ahead, her jaw clenched, her hands wrapped tightly around the wheel. Her sudden tension was almost palpable, and Citron at first thought it might be because she feared the car, but then he realized she wasn’t a good enough driver to be afraid of the car. His answer was really what she feared. He answered carefully.

“We talked about you quite a lot, your father and I.”

“He tell you I made all that up about me and Cash, you know, going to bed together?”

“He said your brother died when you were seven and he was, I think, nine.”

“My old man,” she said slowly, choosing each word with care, “is a fucking liar.”

“I see.”

“Jimmy—I told you about him—he was my husband?”

“Right. Maneras, wasn’t it? Jaime Maneras, the one whose family used to own all the milk in Cuba.”

Nodding again, she said, “Well, it was just like I told you. Jimmy caught us in bed and shot Cash dead. With a pistol. Then Papa killed Jimmy, or had him killed, I reckon, and they shipped me off out here to be a widow woman.”

“When was all this?” Citron said. “I don’t think you said.”

“Last spring. June. The first part of June.”

“Did you ever know anyone else called Maneras whose first name started with an R?”

She gave her head a small hard shake. “The only other Maneras I ever knew was Jimmy's brother, Bobby.”

“Roberto, maybe?”

She took her eyes off the road to look at him. “Yeah, that would be his real name, wouldn’t it? But nobody I ever knew called him that. Everybody always calls him Bobby.”

“What did Bobby do?”

“He did coke with Jimmy and Papa. I told you about all that, didn’t I?”

“Not about Bobby.”

“He's older’n Jimmy was. Five, maybe six years older.”

“Where is he now?”

“In Miami, I reckon. At least, he was the last I heard. Why?”

“Somebody mentioned his name to me.”

“Papa?”

“No, not him.”

“Did he, Papa, I mean, did he, well, say anything else about me— anything at all?”

“He said for me to tell you hello,” Citron paused only briefly before deciding to embellish the father's sketchy greeting to his exiled daughter. “And to give you his love.”

Again, Velveeta turned to stare at him, disbelief on her face and in her tone. “He really say that?”

“Watch the road,” Citron said, and added, “He really did.”

They had dinner in the front parlor at Vickie's, which was the name of an expensive restaurant on the south edge of Santa Monica. The menu claimed, in a small italic note, that Vickie's was named for the Victorian mansion in which it was housed, a sixteen-room structure built in 1910 and painstakingly moved in 1977 from Boyle Heights in
East Los Angeles to its present location, where it had been, according to the note, “lovingly restored.”

Velveeta Keats read all this to Citron as they waited for the waiter to return and take their order.

“If it was built in nineteen-ten,” she said, “then it really couldn’t be Victorian, could it? She died before that, didn’t she? Queen Victoria, I mean.”

“Nineteen-oh-one, I think.”

“Then it's Edwardian, isn’t it? And instead of Vickie's they oughta be calling it Eddie's.”

Velveeta Keats's small attempt at humor, the first that Citron could recall, transformed her. She smiled broadly and her eyes half closed into arcs through which something merry slyly peeped. She even laughed, although it was really no more than a chuckle that sounded seldom used, but not at all rusty. Gone was the somber poor-thing look, as Citron thought of it, and in its place appeared a look of near radiance that was not too far from beauty.

Still smiling, she looked at him and said, “You know what I used to do a lot? I used to giggle a lot.”

He smiled back. “You should take it up again.”

Her smile went away, but slowly, as she picked up the menu again and studied it. “Maybe I will,” she said, looked up, smiled again, and asked, “Would it be okay if I had the sole?”

The sole proved to be excellent, as did Citron's steak, and between them they finished off a bottle and a half of wine. When the coffee came, she declined a brandy and, bare tanned elbows on the table, leaned toward Citron. The wine, or perhaps the evening, had given her face a higher color that was more glow than flush. Her eyes also shined with something, either pleasure or excitement or possibly anticipation. Citron felt it might even be all three.

“Can I talk to you about something?” she said. “Something I maybe should’ve talked to you about before?”

“Sure.”

“It's about last night when you came with the flowers and those two men were there.” She paused. “Can I talk to you about that?”

“I don’t see why not—if you want to.”

“Well, they came up over the balcony from the beach and in through the sliding doors. They had those wet suits on and their masks and they had the gun, of course. Well, they didn’t say anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Not to me—not a word. One of them just pointed the gun at me and the other one, he just kept looking at his watch like, well, you know, like he was waiting for somebody.”

“Then I knocked.”

She nodded. “Then you knocked and came in and threw the flowers at them. They could’ve shot you.” “I know.”

“But they didn’t. All they did was leave. Then I got real scared and you were so great and everything, and I just never said anything about them just—you know—waiting for you. I reckon I should’ve, shouldn’t I—said something?”

Citron smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But then again, maybe not.”

“Well, I’ve said something now. Does that make it all right?”

“That makes it perfect,” Citron lied, trying to determine what it was that caused the cold prickling on the back of his neck. Apprehension? he wondered. Dread? And then he realized it was neither. It was something far simpler, far more elemental, and so familiar that Citron almost said hello. It was fear.

CHAPTER 20

It had taken two men from Bekins Moving and Storage to carry the thing up the stairs and into Draper Haere's enormous room. The men, irritated because they had to work so late, were gone now, mollified by the twin $20 bills that had been thrust into their hands by the white-haired man in the $800 suit who watched, grinning broadly, as Draper Haere slowly circled the seven-foot-tall hatrack.

It was made from black cherry with two deep dishlike cast-iron weights at the bottom where the tips of wet umbrellas could be left to drain. Two beveled arms reached out and curved in on themselves. The curved arms were there to embrace the umbrellas. The main support, all scalloped and nicely carved, held an oval mirror. Surrounding the mirror were six protruding twisted steel pegs that ended in china knobs. On these, coats and hats could be hung. It was an imposing, even dominating piece of furniture, completely ugly, and Draper Haere found it magnificent.

Haere circled the hatrack two more times and then turned to the white-haired man. “Where’d you say you found it?” he asked.

“Out in Alexandria. I was just poking around one Saturday afternoon and there it was, all by itself, way at the back.”

“Did you recognize it?”

“Draper, I can’t say I did. But I swear it looked familiar. You know, I was out to his place a time or two back when I was just a kid, no more’n twenty-six, twenty-seven, so I asked about it and when they said it’d belonged to John L., well, I thought of you, dickered a bit, and bought it.” The white-haired man reached out and touched one of the knobbed pegs. “On this peg hung the hat that sat on the head of John L. Lewis. Of course, old John L. wasn’t exactly a politician in the sense that he ever ran for public office. But he was something.”

“He’ll do,” Haere said softly, using his coat sleeve to give one of the curving arms a quick brush. “He’ll do fine.”

The white-haired man had arrived unannounced and unexpected at 7:45 while Haere was watching MacNeil-Lehrer, which he did religiously despite having privately nicknamed the pair, not unkindly, the dull boys. After the white-haired man rang the buzzer, Haere asked who it was over the intercom.

“It's me, Draper. Or more properly, it is I, Dave Slipper, and I’ve got a pair of fine lads down here with me who’re going to tote something up the stairs, if you’ll just ring the buzzer.”

Haere rang the unlocking buzzer and then went out onto the small landing and watched with surprise as the two men from Bekins lugged the hatrack up the stairs and into the room, supervised by David Slipper.

The white-haired man was then seventy-one years old and had first arrived in Washington in 1935 after graduation from Swarthmore with an additional year of postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. He had been, at various times, a New Deal White House aide, or to hear him tell it, “Harry Hopkins's office boy”; a spy of sorts for the wartime Office of Strategic Services; a syndicated columnist (121 daily newspapers); a biographer of the iron-willed Speaker of the House of Representatives, Thomas Brackett (Czar) Reed; an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture (six months); a deputy Undersecretary of the Interior (ninety days); ambassador to Chad (one year, “the longest year of my life,” he later said); and for the past
fifteen years a political fixer and consultant who charged outrageous fees for his sensible, hardheaded advice.

Many in Washington considered David Slipper to be the village wise man. He dwelt in a small mews house behind the Supreme Court, the same house he had lived in off and on since 1936. Joe McCarthy had once been a neighbor. A man of infinite grace and Southern charm, although some despised his elegance, Slipper still retained a trace of a Memphis accent that came and went depending on the grimness of the situation. For when they needed to send the bad news, they often sent it by David Slipper. And as one party wheel-horse in Boston had once told Haere, “When old Dave cuts your throat, Draper, you don’t smell no fuckin’ magnolias.”

Haere took another admiring walk around the hatrack. “How the hell’d you ever get it out here?”

Slipper shrugged. “Oxy was deadheading one of its 727s back out, so I made a couple of calls and bummed a ride.” Oxy, of course, was Occidental Petroleum.

“Just to see me?”

“Among other things. Have you dined?”

“Not yet.”

“Got any eggs?”

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll just whomp us up an omelette.”

The omelette was perfect, as was the salad that Slipper created out of a head of rather dubious iceberg lettuce, garlic, and some hot bacon grease. They ate at the scarred library table in the dining area and shared a bottle of wine. The table had once graced the study of Rep. Vito Marcantonio (D., N.Y.), or so it was claimed by the Brooklyn dealer who had sold it to Haere.

Slipper put down his fork, patted his lips with a paper napkin, and said, “So. How's the Candidate?”

“Veatch is fine.”

“And the lovely Louise?”

“Great.”

Slipper produced a thin silver cigarette case that was almost the size of a Number 10 envelope. He offered it to Haere, who shook his head. Slipper selected a pale-brown cigarette and lit it with a gold Ronson that Haere knew to be forty years old. Slipper inhaled, blew out the smoke, and smiled. “I didn’t see you at Jack's funeral,” he said, “but then you don’t go to funerals, do you?”

“No,” Haere said. “I don’t.”

“It was a nice do, a fine crowd. The Unitarian preacher mentioned God once—in passing, of course—and Maureen was awful, but then Maureen always is, isn’t she?”

“I talked to her on the phone. She was a bit put out at having been turned into a widow.”

“Stick to your rule, Draper, and keep away from funerals. They’re simply a reminder of mortality, and, God knows, at my age, I don’t need any reminders. But I go, I go, and the amazing thing is, they’re all growing younger—the departed, I mean. What was Jack? Sixty or thereabouts.”

“Around in there.”

“When I was young, sixty was ancient. Now it's what—middling middle age? Roosevelt, for example. Only sixty-three when he died. Almost a young man by today's standards. But old then. Old and tired and used up.” He shook his head sadly. “The war, I suppose.” His moment of mourning over, Slipper looked at Haere again. “Jack was in the war, wasn’t he?”

“Navy pilot.”

Slipper nodded, as if remembering. “What was it, hit-and-run? You were with him, Draper. What d’you think—really?”

Haere sighed, produced his own cigarettes, and lit one. “Slippery, when you come on like that, my ribs get all tensed up waiting for the blade to slip between them. Now, I want to thank you for the John L. hatrack. It's a fine addition, and I really appreciate it. And you make
just one hell of an omelette. But deliver it, will you? The message. Whatever it is.”

Slipper smiled. “Do you have a drop of brandy by any chance?”

“Martel.”

“Why don’t we have a drop and some coffee? That be too much bother?”

As Haere poured coffee from the Bunn Pour-Omatic and measured out two brandies, Slipper's eyes wandered over the room. “Remarkable place, Draper. It must be unique. Do you still have that wicked cat?”

“He's around,” Haere said and set the coffee cups on the table.

“Hubert, right?”

“Hubert,” Haere agreed, served the two small brandy snifters, and resumed his seat.

“How was New York?” Slipper said. “I’m curious.”

“He couldn’t make up his mind, so I saw his mother. She told me to forget it.”

“Remarkable woman,” Slipper said. “She and I had a small thing going once. My Lord, it must have been back in the late ‘forties, around in there. We planned a tryst, an assignation, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, of all places. I showed, of course; she didn’t.” He sniffed deeply. “I can still remember the smell of all that chocolate.” He sighed. “Well, that's one down, isn’t it?”

“That's what I told Veatch.”

“What d’you really think his chances are?”

“In ‘eighty-four? Zero.”

“I’m, well…I’m not so sure,” Slipper said carefully. “His name keeps cropping up here and there in some rather interesting places. After all, California will have twenty percent of the delegate strength. That's a sound base. He's got time—two years. Money should be no problem, right? I mean, hell, Draper, you can take care of that. And, my stars, he is presentable, if a trifle glib for my taste, but they’re all
that way nowadays. Glib, I mean. They have to be. A mumbler, a hemmer and hawer, just won’t do. Not on television. The only thing is…” Slipper let his sentence fade away.