rode the other elevator from there to the lobby, where, for some reason, I neglected to beat the shit out of him.”
Chapter 25
After a grateful swallow of the bourbon and water Kelly Vines had handed him, the chief of police looked at Jack Adair and said, “Tell me something. Was Soldier ever a soldier?”
“In two wars,” Adair said, turning from the window in Vines’s room where he had been inspecting the ocean. “And Soldier, incidentally, was his real name.”
“Couldn’t be,” Fork said.
“Years ago I saw his birth certificate. It was back in the early fifties when a certain Mrs. Shipley in the State Department was suspicious of almost anyone who applied for a passport, but particularly suspicious of applicants who’d served in the Lincoln Battalion in Spain and later with the OSS, which is why Soldier’d come to me.”
Fork made no effort to hide his surprise and disbelief. “What the hell was he doing in Spain?”
“Purely by chance Soldier’d landed a job to shepherd nine Dodge ambulances from Detroit down to Mexico and over to Spain. They’d been bought for the Loyalists by some folks who, I think, were later called premature anti- Fascists.” Adair smiled. “Soldier always said his old pal Hemingway helped raise some of the money.”
“How old was Soldier then?”
“When he went to Spain? He’d have been just twenty. He was born April sixth, nineteen seventeen, and I remember the date because it was the day we declared war on Germany.” Adair smiled again, rather gently, and added, “World War One.”
Sid Fork’s impatient nod indicated he knew all about World War One. “And that’s why his folks named him Soldier?”
Adair nodded. “His full name was Soldier P. Sloan. The ‘P’ was for Pershing. A general-in World War One.”
“And he joined up after he got the ambulances over to Spain?”
“So he claimed. Anyway, it was his experience there that got him commissioned a second lieutenant in the OSS just after the war started.” Adair gave Fork another almost apologetic smile. “World War Two.”
“So what’d he do-or claim he did?”
“In the OSS? Engaged in all sorts of hugger-mugger-at least when it didn’t interfere with his black market operations.” This time Adair’s smile was more knowing than apologetic. “Black markets and wars always seem to go hand in hand.”
Fork neatly cut off any further discussion of black markets by asking, “Why’d he want a passport in the fifties?”
“Debts,” Adair said.
“Wanted to skip out on ’em probably.”
“Something like that. So I called in a favor that a certain Republican congressman owed me and Soldier got his passport. When he came back from Europe four years later in ’fifty-five he was thirty-eight years old and suddenly a retired lieutenant colonel. He promoted himself two more times after that, impressing a never-ending series of gullible but wealthy widows who provided him with clothes, cars, cash and whatever remaining charms they had to offer.”
“I sort of inherited Soldier from Jack,” Kelly Vines said, putting his drink down carefully on the coffee table and leaning forward to stare at Fork. “Where’d you run across him, Chief?”
“He was our first hideout customer,” Fork said. “And afterwards he sent us about a third of our other clients, including you two. He sort of adopted the three of us-B. D., me and Dixie-and liked to take us out for Sunday dinner. Well, that got old pretty quick for me and B. D., but Dixie always went until she married Parvis. She said she liked Soldier’s manners.” He looked at Vines coldly. “Satisfied?”
After Vines replied with a shrug, Fork asked, “So what do we do with him after the autopsy-bury him, cremate him, donate him-what? He have any kids, ex-wives, brothers, sisters, anybody?”
Adair sighed. “He had a thousand acquaintances and Kelly and me. But from what you say, he also had you, the mayor and Dixie. So I suppose we should bury him with a headstone and all.”
“‘Soldier P. Sloan,’” Vines said. “‘1917-1988.’ Then a line or two after that.”
“We’ll leave the wording up to you, Kelly,” Adair said and turned to Fork. “So what’ll it cost, Chief-the plot, the stone, a cheap casket and a few words by a not overly sanctimonious priest?”
“Soldier a Catholic?”
“Fallen away, I’m afraid.”
“Then I know just the priest. As for how much, well, he had about five hundred and fifty in his wallet, but that won’t quite cover what we’re talking about.” When he felt Kelly Vines’s hard stare, he hurried on. “He also had a thousand-dollar bill in his watch pocket, but I’m not sure you can spend that.”
“It’s perfectly legal tender,” Adair said. “And since you’re the chief of police, the bank shouldn’t ask any questions.”
“There was something else in Soldier’s watch pocket,” Fork said. He fished the folded-up diary page from his shirt pocket and handed it to Vines. “Except it doesn’t make sense.”
Vines unfolded the page and studied the numbers and capital letters, as if for the first time. “I was never any good at crossword puzzles,” he said, “but this first notation, ‘KV 431’ and ‘JA 433’ is pretty obvious. It’s Jack’s room number and mine.” He looked up and handed the page to Adair. “The rest is gibberish.”
Adair read the other line of capital letters silently, then aloud, “C JA O RE DV.” He read it aloud again, rose, walked to the window, as if its light might help, silently read the letters yet again, stared out at the ocean for a few moments and turned to Vines. “Maybe it’s simpler than it looks.”
“Maybe it’s an old OSS code,” Fork said.
“More likely it’s just the crude shorthand of an old man who didn’t trust his memory,” Adair said. “‘C JA’ could mean, ‘See Jack Adair.’ The next thing could be either a zero or a capital O. If it’s a zero, it could read, ‘See Jack Adair zero,’ which doesn’t make sense unless you translate zero into ‘alone’ or ‘by himself.’ RE probably means just what it looks like: ‘in regard to.’ The last initials are DV and the only DV I know is my daughter and Kelly’s wife, Danielle Vines.”
Vines asked, “See Jack Adair alone in regard to Danielle Vines?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I’d best go see Dannie.”
Sid Fork shook his head and said, “Dumb idea, Judge.”
“Why?”
“You plan to drive?”
Adair nodded.
“Where to?”
“Agoura, isn’t it?” Adair said, looking at Vines, who also nodded.
“Somebody could pull up alongside you on the freeway with a shotgun loaded with double ought and no more Jack Adair.”
“They could walk through that door and do the same thing,” Adair said.
Fork turned to examine the hotel room door, then turned back. “That’s why I’m moving you both in about thirty minutes.”
“Where to?”
“To a place with the tightest security in town.”
“No jail cell, thanks,” Adair said.
“I’m not talking jail cell,” Fork said, “I’m talking about nice clean rooms, semi-private bath, guaranteed privacy, phone, bed and breakfast, and all for only a thousand a week. Each.”
“Must be some breakfast,” Vines said. “Does she really need the money?”
“Yes, sir. She does.”
“Who?” Adair said.
“The wife of the late Norm Trice, who owned the Blue Eagle,” Vines said. “She lives in this huge old Victorian place where the security looks fairly good from what I saw.” Vines took in the hotel room with a small gesture.
