I let him into the passenger side and got behind the wheel. His hands were folded in his lap, and he was staring straight ahead. I reversed out of my spot and rolled down the ramp.
They were tailing me slowly. Jimmy turned his head back, saw them, became startled, and looked at me.
“Just look ahead,” I said. “We’re almost out of here.”
We wound around the garage. Four floors down I stopped my car, rolled down the window, and pointed my arm out to the sub-roof. Then I continued down the ramp. I saw them in my rearview, veering off to the right.
I accelerated when I reached the ground floor and blew off the stop sign at the exit. I lit a cigarette and turned down North Portal at the Sixteenth Street circle. WHFS was playing Graham Parker’s “Howling Wind,” and I kicked up the volume. An Afghan hound was running alongsunning aide our car, and Broda watched him until he broke stride. Orange leaves blew out of our path as we entered the park.
Between the double glass doors of the apartment house on Connecticut Avenue, I dialed up Pence’s number.
“Yes?” he said.
“Nick Stefanos. Buzz me in, will you?”
“Certainly. Would you like me to meet you?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll be right up.”
We exited the elevator at the tenth floor and followed the carpeted hallway. Pence opened the door on the second knock. His eyes widened and both hands reached out. He pulled Jimmy Broda through the door and into his arms.
The old man shut his eyes and mumbled something as they held each other. Their faces crushed together. I stood in the hallway, my hands shoved into my pockets, and looked down at my shoes.
“Please, come in, Nick,” Pence said finally over the boy’s shoulder.
“I can’t right now,” I said. “But call me later at my apartment. There are some things you need to know.”
“Your compensation. Of course.”
“That, and other things. Good-bye.”
Before he could object, I pulled the door shut from the outside. I stood there for quite a while and listened to the muffled cadence of their voices on the other side of the door. Then I stepped away and walked slowly down the dimly lit corridor.
Early Monday morning I dialed the number for Ned’s World in South Carolina.
“Ned’s World, how may I help you?”
“This is Roy Lutz,” I said, “regional director for Panasonic, confirming my lunch appointment with Ned Plavin. Is he in, please?”
“I’ll see if he’s at his desk. Hold please.” A click, some whale music, then another click. “I’ll transfer you now.”
A gravelly voice answered after two rings. “Roy!” Plavin said with forced excitement. “I didn’t know we were on for today.”
“This isn’t Roy,” I said.
“Well, then, our lines must have gotten crossed-”
“Our lines didn’t get crossed. This concerns the Kotekna VCR deal that got soured up in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.”
“I’m not familiar with any ‘deal’ in Washington,” he said thickly. “Who is this?”
“If you’re not interested in what I have to say, hang up now. If you are, I’ll continue.” There was a silence whilesilence he thought it over. “Can we talk on this line?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I’m not sure what you’ve been told about the events of this past weekend. I suspect you know only part of the truth. I’ll condense it for you. I was one of the group that stopped the deal in the warehouse. We took the merchandise and the money. I kept the money. I traded the merchandise back to your people in exchange for a boy they were holding.”
Ned Plavin cleared his throat. “My people?” he said. “Who did you give my goods to?”
“Jerry Rosen,” I said. I watched my cat chase a large bug that was crawling across the rug to the safety of the baseboards.
“Do you have any proof of this?” Plavin asked.
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t trust Rosen,” I said. “I want this all to be over with, now. I want Rosen out of Washington. And I don’t think you want a business partner who plans on going solo with goods that you bankrolled. He’s the proverbial loose cannon, Ned. Do something about it.”
This time the silence was longer. My cat trapped the bug under its paw, examined it, then walked away. The b ug continued on its path to the wall.
“I’ll look into it,” Plavin said. “If what you say is true, I’ll act on it.”
“Do it quickly, Ned. Good-bye.”
I hung up the phone and lit a cigarette. I dialed the number for the Connecticut Avenue store and got McGinnes on the line.
“What’s happening, Nick?”
“Too early to meet me for a cocktail?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “But things are a little hectic right now. Andre didn’t post on Saturday, or today. Louie’s ready to can his ass. I don’t think I can get out till eleven.”
“Eleven’s fine,” I said.
“Where?”
“La Fortresse, in the back.”
“La FurPiece?”
“Yeah, Johnny. La FurPiece.”
THIRTY-ONE
The bartender was fanning out cocktail napkins with a tumbler when I entered La Fortresse sometime after eleven. I passed him with a nod and walked towards the back room.
McGinnes sat at a deuce, halfway into a cold bottle of beer. He saluted mockingly and shook my hand as I sat down. I put the briefcase on the floor, between our feet.
“What’ya got in there,” he asked, “a bomb or something?”
“Something like a bomb,” I said cryptically.
He waved a hand in front of his face and finished the beer left in his bottle. Our fine-skinned waitress came over to the table. Her white shirt had a start-of-shift crispness. She smiled.
“What can I get you, Nick?”
“A Coke,” I said. “Bottled, please, not from the gun. Thanks.”
“One more for me, darling,” McGinnes said, pointing at his bottle. He frowned at me. “You on the wagon, man?”
“No.”
The waitress brought our order. I poured from the bottle to a glass full of ice and waited for the foam to retreat. By the time I took the first sip McGinnes had killed much of his second beer. Some of his straight black hair fell across his forehead as he set his bottle down.
“You seen Andre?” McGinnes asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’d better drag his black ass back to work. The man is in some shit. And you know what it’s like to work with Void, full time? That shit-for-brains can’t close one deal-hell, he can’t even close his fly.”
