The Shadow Cabinet (24 page)

“I hadda date,” Franconi said.

“Sure, Frankie had a date. A two-hundred-dollar date. How can anyone live in that place? Where's the privacy, huh? That's where you hang your hat, isn't it, Edelman?”

“Not really, but there are some attractive locations in Georgetown,” Edelman replied.

“We didn't see them, did we, Chuckie?”

“Naw, we didn't see them.”

“Only I didn't say Lake Tahoe, did I say that? All the way out here? Lake Tahoe?” Kramer's head was turned as he spoke to his wife, who knelt at the picnic basket behind him, but he couldn't see her face. She didn't lift her gaze from the plates she was preparing. “Did I say Lake Tahoe?”

“No,” she answered, her head still lowered. “You didn't say that.”

“O.K., then, you shoulda waited like I told you to—”

“I wanted to save you the trouble—”

“You shoulda waited, goddammit!” His voice lifted cruelly, but she didn't stir, still crouching out of sight, searching for knives and forks from the basket.

Wilson had seen and heard enough. He rose silently, looking at Rita Kramer.

“Two days, that's all,” Kramer muttered, turning back toward the river. “Just two days, two crummy days, an' I woulda been here myself, handling these sleazebags.”

Rising, Rita leaned over from behind him, put a paper napkin on his knee and then a paper plate. He moved the wineglass to his left hand and took it. “What is this stuff?” He picked suspiciously at the corner of the sandwich.

“It's chicken and lettuce, all white meat.”

“That's mayonnaise. That stuff looks like mayonnaise to me—”

“It's butter; just butter, salt, and pepper, that's all—the way you like it.”

Gingerly Kramer picked up the sandwich and began to chew, his mouth partially open, the sounds audible to everyone. Wilson carried his wineglass back to Rita Kramer's picnic basket.

“I think I'll move along,” he told her. “The security man can lock up after you're finished.” She lifted her head, her eyes wide, like a punished child. It wasn't the face he had grown accustomed to.

“Please,” she said.

“Stick around, Wilson,” Artie Kramer called loudly over his shoulder, still smacking his lips. “I haven't finished with you yet. You think I forgot about you, watching over there all this time like some kinda Mister Invisible? You think I'm just sitting here enjoying the scenery? I seen better scenery in Bakersfield. I wanna talk to you.”

“
Please,
” Rita whispered.

Wilson returned to the stone wall and sat down.

Artie Kramer finished his sandwich and gazed out over the river, butter still on his lips, his cheeks pouched like a chipmunk's. His jaws still moved rhythmically. He washed his mouth with Chablis, put paper plate and plastic glass on the flagstones at his feet, and wiped his face, neck, and ears with the napkin. “Maybe you think I didn't notice,” he resumed, tossing the wadded napkin toward the picnic basket. He missed and it rolled into the cool shadows. “Hey, babe,” Kramer remembered, watching his wife retrieve it, “I forgot to tell you. Howie Dickson bought a place up near Carmel. Paid what—eight hundred thou, Chuckie?”

“Eight hundred thou,” Chuckie said.

“That's nice,” Rita said.

“Wait'll they hear about this. Wait'll they hear Rita bought a wired-up house built by the head of the CIA—right, Chuckie?”

“Wait'll they hear,” Chuckie said, turning to look at Wilson.

“Only we wanted to come into Washington real quiet, didn't we, babe? Real quiet. No bank dicks at the front gate, like this one has got, no one blowing off sirens, no closed-circuit TV unless we put it in ourselves. You a friend of his, Wilson? Is that why you were giving Rita all of this hassle about this house, checking her out like you were looking for something? What are you looking for? You wanna see my tonsils, you wanna see my gall bladder scars?”

“Let's not start that again, Artie,” Rita said.

“Start what? I'm talking to Wilson, O.K.? I'm not talking to you! I'll get to you, don't you think I won't. This guy's into me for a hundred and fifty Gs already, like you are! You mean I can't talk to him like he's my pal? If I was into someone for a hundred and fifty Gs, I'd be his pal, O.K.? How about it, Wilson? You a friend of his?”

“Who are we talking about?” Wilson asked.

“Who'm I talking about, listen to him. Who'm I talking about? The guy that built this house, that's who I'm talking about. So what's all this hassle, all this shit with Rita, with Edelman there? All those guys in uniforms out at the gate, all this hardware inside? I may not have a pedigree like you creeps, but I'm not stupid!”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Wilson said. “Grace Ramsey owns this house.”

“She inherited it from her husband,” Edelman said. “He died a few years ago.”

“So what'd her old man do?” Kramer asked Wilson. “Let's hear it! What'd he do?”

“He was a lawyer.”

“He was a fed, like you! CIA, wasn't he? C'mon, Wilson, don't fuck with me.”

“I knew him as a lawyer,” Wilson said. “But maybe your information is better than mine; it makes less sense. That's the way it usually is.”

“What'd he say?” Kramer asked Edelman.

“He said your information is better,” Edelman said dryly.

“It sure as hell is,” said Chuckie Savant.

“What's your angle, Wilson?” Kramer continued. “You and this lawyer Donlon that don't show his face. He was CIA too, wasn't he? How come is it you're giving us all this grief? What is it—you think our pedigrees won't wash? C'mon, Wilson, what's this all about? You're a fed too, aren't you?”

“Artie, please,” his wife said.

“What the hell are you after?” he continued indignantly. “All this nosing around. My wife comes east to buy a house real quiet like and a couple of feds try to hustle her this one. A couple of days later, someone's frisking my offices in L.A. The immigration dicks send a couple of snoopers around to my dress plant, looking for Mexes, then I get a raid and gotta lay off two lines. Then pretty soon some twerp from IRS is giving my accountant some shit about my '78 and '79 returns and says I'm gonna get an audit. So what the hell's this about, Wilson? Who tied you to my tail? What do you think—that I'm washing someone's dough to buy this place, that I'm gonna put slots in the front room, a couple of roulette wheels in the basement?”

“I think you're a little confused about something,” Wilson said.

Kramer turned to Edelman. “Tell him!” he demanded.

Edelman removed his glasses, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his glasses very carefully, looking out across the river. “Mr. Kramer feels he's been victimized by some very clumsy scrutiny recently, ever since his name was mentioned for a political appointment. Something of a pattern …” He smiled wanly, as if to dissociate himself from his client's suspicions.

“What does Grace Ramsey's house have to do with it?” Wilson asked.

“Since Grace Ramsey's husband was at one time a senior deputy at the Agency, as was this lawyer Edward Donlon, he draws a connection—”

“That's not the whole story,” Chuckie Savant interrupted. “You got it all wrong.”

“Shut up,” Artie said. “Let's hear what Wilson has to say. C'mon, Wilson, lay it on us, the way you did in the old days when you were a fed over at Justice. Maybe you're still a fed, huh? Working some sting? C'mon, Wilson, we're not stupid. Who's pulling your string these days? What's this shakedown all about?”

“Please, Artie,” Rita Kramer pleaded quietly. “This isn't the place.”

“I think Mrs. Kramer is right,” Edelman said.

“Who the hell cares what you think! I'm talking to this fed here! C'mon, answer me, pal. Tell me about all this hassle you've been dishing out.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. The only problem was the price. That caused the delay, nothing else—”

“Lemme tell you about the price,” Kramer broke in. “You wanna talk about price? O.K., we'll talk about price! For all these Gs you took Rita for, it don't even have no screening room, not even a place to put one! Nothing! It hasn't got no sauna, no hot tub, nothing but a crummy little bar and a pint-sized pool you couldn't even get five fat ladies in! You know what that kind of dough will buy in L.A., Wilson? You know what it'll bring? No, you don't know. You don't know nothing, Wilson, because you got shit in your ears, same as Edelman here, who I told not to do nothing without checking with me, same as I told Rita when I sent that telex from Palm Springs telling her to hold up till I got here! You think I can't smell some kind of shakedown in all this shit you an' this lawyer been dishing out?”

Kramer's composure, like his grammar, had broken apart. Confused or not, the anger was genuine, Wilson thought, looking at a white-faced Rita Kramer. “You received a telex?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I never got it,” she whispered.

“I said it, didn't I?” her husband shouted. “Didn't I say it?” He looked angrily at Wilson. “What do you want, an affidavit! I got a copy. Give him the copy, Chuckie.”

“It's in my briefcase.”

“Well, go get it the fuck outta your briefcase.”

Chuckie Savant hurried across the terrace and disappeared around the walk. Rita Kramer still knelt near the picnic basket, but her hands were idle, her shoulders slumped. Edelman brooded silently across the river, his arms folded, his back to Artie Kramer.

Wilson stood up and opened his briefcase. “The house isn't worth all of this,” he said. “If you don't want the house, I'll void the contract.”

Rita Kramer looked up; Edelman turned in surprise.

“Don't shit me, Wilson,” Kramer said suspiciously.

“No, I'll void it, the sooner the better—”

“Sure, listen at him,” Kramer said. “He cuts off my balls and when I get rough he calls it a vasectomy.” He laughed, looking around for an echo of assent, but Chuckie Savant wasn't there. “Then I get a lawyer and you tell me I can have 'em back, gold-plated. I can wear 'em around my neck. Just smooth, sure, like it never happened.”

Wilson removed the copies of the contract. Clipped to the top was the certified check for $150,000 he'd been holding for Matthews' return from Florida the following day. “Like it never happened,” Wilson said.

“But you got bad memories, right?” Kramer continued. “Real bad memories. How much to take away the pain?”

“A receipt,” Wilson said, “a receipt and a statement withdrawing any claims.” He gave the documents and check to Edelman, who looked at them, still surprised, and then at Artie Kramer, who was impatiently holding out his hand. “Lemme see 'em.” Rita Kramer stood up and went into the house without turning. Her husband didn't look up. “Sure,” he agreed finally, handing the contract and check back to Edelman. “Write him out what he wants, but no residuals, O.K.? Nothing left on the books—right, Wilson?”

“Nothing on the books.”

“No fingerprints, nothing.”

Edelman followed Rita Kramer into the house. Chuckie Savant hurried back along the walk, carrying a briefcase, and handed Artie a sheet of telex newsprint, which he studied silently. Then, beckoning for Savant's briefcase, he took it on his lap, opened it, and searched for something, while Savant hovered by in embarrassment. “What's this shit?” Kramer asked, taking out two nudist magazines and waving them accusingly at Savant. “What's this—a tit show, a nooky rag? You oughta be ashamed, a man your age, playing with himself like this. Go get yourself a two-hundred-dollar date, like Frankie.” He put one magazine over the newsprint, like a straightedge, and tore it in two. One section he handed to Savant. “Show him this, show him his affidavit.”

“It's all right; I'll take your word,” Wilson said.

“What's wrong, you don't trust us?” Savant said. “Read it for yourself.”

Wilson still declined. “You sent it from Palm Springs, you say?” he asked. “When was that?”

“Listen at him.” Kramer laughed. “Listen at him, would you? What'd I tell you? These guys don't forget. Last Sunday, yeah. I was in Palm Springs last Sunday, playing golf. You wanna know my handicap? On the eighth green, I get to thinking about Rita, worrying about her, how she might make a mistake. I send for my secretary, who's waiting for me in the clubhouse, drinking tomato juice on account of his ulcer. It's a foursome I'm not gonna leave for nothing. I got five grand riding on the next hole. So my secretary hustles out in a golf cart and I tell him to send this telex to Rita. So he calls L.A. and sends the telex. What else do you wanna know?” He was still smiling. “I got contacts, Wilson. You think I don't have contacts? I got your number, you and this here lawyer Donlon.”

“This was last Sunday?” Wilson said.

“Yeah, Sunday. Give Wilson some bubbly, Chuckie.”

“Where'd she hide that bottle?” Chuckie Savant finally found the Chablis under a napkin in the wicker basket and refilled Artie Kramer's glass, but Wilson declined. Edelman returned from the house with a neatly printed legal document which Kramer signed and passed to Wilson, who read it, folded it in his pocket, and stood up.

“Cool—right, Edelman?” Kramer said, watching Wilson. “Look at him. He turns over a hundred and fifty Gs and don't bat an eye. You got class, Wilson. They must be playing you big, real big. They must be working you on a million-dollar gig. C'mon, we're pals now. I'll show you a little class too. C'mon, whose pants are you guys trying to get into?”

“Isn't there something for him to sign?” Chuckie Savant said.

Kramer turned in annoyance. “How about the Rams game?” he asked. “Aren't they playing?”