Strachey's Folly - Stevenson Richard (читать книги онлайн регистрации .TXT) 📗

Timmy said, "It's getting late. What about tomorrow? Could you have your exchange of information tomorrow?"

"Let's have an exchange of information here and now," I said. "Why wait? Ray, why don't you light up a butt and relax? Timmy, if you want to take a load off your feet, you go on up. But I'm going to tell Ray right now that Jim Suter has two con­nections to Maynard, and both, I discovered, apparently have nothing to do with the shooting.

"One connection is, many years ago Suter and Sudbury were lovers for a short time. The other connection is, a panel with Suter's name on it appeared in the AIDS quilt on Saturday, and Maynard recognized this and notified the Names Project of this strange occurrence the day he was shot. The Names Project is where I plan to concentrate my investigation next, Ray. And if you were smarter than I'm afraid you might be, that's where you'd start asking questions, too."

Craig was sucking in the carbon monoxide, etc., from a Camel Light now, probably reducing the chances that in the throes of withdrawal he would suddenly yank out a service re­volver and slam hot lead into our chests. I hated to sic him onto the Names Project—these people deserved better—but I needed time to check out Suter's wild tale of drug gangs in Central Penn­sylvania and then to talk him into the Witness Protection Pro­gram and save him from his lover-jailer Jorge and the Mexican drug cartel killers.

Craig said calmly, "I already am in touch with the AIDS quilt organization." "Hey, good."

"They faxed me a copy of the form that came in with Suter's panel. The panel was submitted in April by a David Phipps, but the name seems to be phony. He used a Mailboxes, Etcetera drop, and now I gotta get a fucking court order to find out who rented the box. I'm working on it. Am I conducting my investi­gation to your satisfaction, Strachey?"

"Nice work, Ray. Now tell me this. Who is Captain Milton Kingsley, and why did he follow me to Cancun? I know that a couple of your junior officers have been tailing me around D.C. since Sunday morning. But am I such a criminal celebrity in your department that I merit a captain to keep tabs on me?"

In middrag, Craig went very still. "You spotted Kingsley? Tailing you? In Mexico?"

There was no way I could have blabbed to Craig that a pal of Chondelle's in the department had been the source of Captain Kingsley's travel plans. "I spotted him, yeah."

"How do you know Kingsley?" Craig said grimly. "How did you recognize him?"

"Suter recognized him. He knew him from a piece he once wrote for Washingtonian magazine."

Craig dragged deeply on his cigarette and said nothing more.

I asked him, "What about the lawsuit? Suter wouldn't tell me what that was about. He seemed embarrassed by whatever it was."

Craig still stood looking pensive, disturbed even, apparently over my report that I had spotted Milton Kingsley in Cancun. Fi­nally Craig said, "I ran Suter's name. It came up once. He was charged with assault last year. The judge threw out the assault charge. But the court record says the victim told the judge that he planned on pursuing a civil action. I've got somebody check­ing to find out if that was done."

"Who brought the charge, and what was the nature of the assault?"

"The alleged victim was a Carmen LoBello. LoBello is a man who used to do a drag act, pretending to be Mrs. Liddy Dole. The so-called assault was this: Suter gave LoBello herpes, LoBello claims, and now LoBello's got a big cold sore on his upper lip half the time. LoBello can only do G. Gordon Liddy Dole, with a big mustache that covers up the cold sore. Except, nobody wants to go see a drag act with somebody called G. Gordon Liddy Dole. So LoBello is up shit creek. You queers sure pick up some interesting ways to get yourself in trouble," Craig said, and I had to agree with that.

Chapter 23

Of course I'm going to sue that evil man!" LoBello spat out. "Because of Jim Suter my career is in ruins! Until I kissed Jim Suter, I was a star! God, I was fabulous. I did Hillary to a tee, my Jamie Gorelick was dead-on, and I had Dianne Feinstein nailed, and Barbara Bush and Maxine Waters, and— God, can you imagine what the demand would be for my smarmy-marmy Liddy Dole now that that nine-faced Southern bitch is all over the tube, doing her white-bread Oprah routine at the Republican convention! I'd be doing Liddy on Jay, on Let-terman, on Nightline. Instead, I'm still pushing mine-acid re­ports around, and it's all because of that lying, manipulative, vicious, evil rodent Jim Suter. Oh, I'm suing him, all right. I'll sue his ass from Dupont Circle to the Supreme Court! When I catch up with Mr. Pretty-head-herpes-mouth Jim Suter, just you watch the subpoenas fly!"

The three of us were seated around a small outside table at the cafe with the excellent croissants on Second Street, SE. The early-morning Capitol Hill before-work crowd had been arriving for some time, and those seated closest to us must have been having trouble concentrating on their Posts and Timeses and lattes. LoBello was a strikingly attractive man, with the wom­anly—as opposed to effeminate—manner of the best drag queens. He had longish, swept-back, perfectly groomed dark hair in the style of an Italian maestro, and a fine-boned face that could have been out of La Dolce Vita except for the spectacularly large cold sore that took up about a quarter of his nicely shaped upper lip. The mustache LoBello had grown for his G. Gordon Liddy Dole act, and to cover up the sore, was gone now, as was the fat cigar.

Timmy had set up the meeting with LoBello while I was in Mexico. We had known that LoBello was a disgruntled former boyfriend of Suter's who, we figured, might have quilt-panel sewing ability. This was before Suter theorized to me that the panel had in fact been a warning to him from the drug gang, but also before Ray Craig had come up with the news that LoBello had once charged Suter with assault—assault to the upper lip with an ugly virus.

I said to LoBello, "I guess you don't know where Jim Suter is. Otherwise you would have launched your suit against him." "I haven't got a clue where Jim is. Wherever he is, I'm sure the place has turned into Chernobyl just from his presence. I could probably just keep my eyes peeled for emotional mush­room clouds rising. Meanwhile, I was thinking of hiring a private detective to locate the elusive Jimmy. And Timothy tells me you're a dick. Since you're looking for him anyway, perhaps you would do me the kindness when you locate Jim to give me or my attorney a jingle. You can bill me for whatever you want— up to twenty dollars, if you don't mind." "Okay."

"I've done everything I could think of to smoke Suter out. But he's gone. His phone's disconnected, and I've waited outside his building dozens of times, sometimes for hours, just sitting on the curb nursing my rage. But he never goes in and he never goes out. It's hard to imagine that Jim Suter could stay away from Washington for long. This town is where he's a star—a big, big star. Jim's the Jane Fonda—I used to do her, too, by the way—he's the Jane Fonda of backroom, right-wing-political Washington, is what he is—as Jim will be the first to let you know."

"Suter may be a star," Timmy said, "but he seems not to be a well-loved star."

"No, Mary Tillotson, Jimmy is not." LoBello dabbed at the filmy latte mustache that didn't begin to camouflage his large cold sore. "There's a good chance, of course, that he's here in town and he's hiding out. There are probably dozens of Wash­ington men looking for his ass so they can take legal action. Ei­ther on grounds of mental cruelty—which won't get them far in one of the local homophobic courts of law—or for passing his hideous herpes around, as in my unhappy case. My attorney has advised me that anybody whose livelihood is dependent on their physical appearance—and let's face it, whose isn't?—could make an airtight legal case against any person who ruined that physical appearance. Legally, it's disfigurement."