Chapter 6: West Virginia

Matt picked me up at Reagan — I could get used to this. He drove directly home, directly to his Georgetown crib. We were showered and in bed ten minutes later. ‘We’ being Matt and the redheaded Barbara Reynolds.

My fella was especially aggressive, frisky, upbeat. I didn’t mind. My tummy registered a faint disapproval signal at skipping lunch, but I explained, “Chill, we’re on our way to Shake Shack.”

Specifically to the one near Dupont Circle.

Shake Shack, in case you don’t know, is a renowned burger chain, sweeping across the country from New York City onward. I guess it’s a renowned burger chain, if you do know.

And it was big news back home. The Danny Meyer concept was coming to Kansas City in the fall. To the Plaza, in fact. Naturally, I’d be ahead of the local yokels. I had actually met Danny back in my John Jay days. Well, I shook hands with him in his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe.

Vanessa was impressed. Danny was one of her idols, although he didn’t know it. When she and I vacationed in New York, staying with the Montgomerys, we ate in Union Square, Gramercy Tavern, and the original Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

Phillip told us, “The Union Square Cafe turned around the 14th Street Business District. It was grunge and whores and open-air drug marts.”

Now it’s Chelsea.

Back home, well Matt’s condo was, sort of, my DC home, he smiled at me, “The Whitaker Fund. It’s Connie’s brainchild. Another attempt to decipher the Meriwether puzzle.”

“Okay.”

“You wouldn’t have heard of South-Carolina Connover. No reason to. He’s ... slick. Clever.”

Not compliments, not judging from Matt’s tone.

He smiled at me and his sad, Nathan Lane face became giddy; he said, “Now don’t confuse him with North-Carolina Connover.”

“Of course not.”

“He’s just a shirttail cousin.”

“Of course.”

“Subject change. How do you feel about anal sex?”

Typical Matt. Straightforward. No beating around the bush. So to speak. “It depends. On my mood. On the guy. How do you feel about it?”

Shrug, “Sometimes it’s fun.”

“Hmm. Never occurred to me that you liked taking it up the butt.”

I sat up in bed, in Matt’s dark bedroom. He slumbered on, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Or, at least, the not-terribly-guilty. Typical guy. Sometimes my mind churned at night, especially when I was in the middle of a case. Most especially when I was lost in the middle of a case.

Something wasn’t right. Well, a lot of things weren’t right anent: Dixie Walker. Like where the fuck was he? Like was he still intent on killing me? Like were the Meriwethers still funding him?

But something else had been niggling away at my subconscious. Two somethings. Two conversational tidbits, seeming unrelated. Although they shared a common subject matter.

Months earlier, back when I was first considering Matt Striker as more than a professional colleague, we’d had a conversation, a post Gunther-raid conversation, in the Rafael Hotel bar — Chaz. That was before I’d conferred Most Favored Nation status on the lad.

Pre-MFN, Matt had been part of Hank Middletown’s team that had commandoed their way into the Gunther compound outside of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Looking back, I now imagined that Matt was more than a participant; he was Senator Wainwright’s eyes and ears. Probably, in some unspoken way, outranked everyone else on that raid.

At the bar, stirring his bourbon with his finger, he had shared some of the details with me. How most of the Neo-Nazis had folded without resistance. Surrendered, gave up their weapons. Hank took the leaders somewhere — into custody somewhere. But most of the rest of the scrotes were released within a day or two. Greta Gunther and her cousin Gunner had escaped.

That night in the Chaz, Matt had smiled, recounting how they’d set the Gunther armory on fire; how the ammunition had cooked off for such a long time. How the pistols, rifles, grenade launchers — the entire arsenal — had melted down.

Then he told me about the Gunther honchos, the ones taken into custody. This was the first time I’d heard a new term. New to me. Matt said, “Hank captured three ghost guns in the Gunther residence.”

“Ghost guns?”

“Yeah. In this case three AR-15 rifles. You probably know that the serial number is applied to the lower receiver, the regulated part.”

“Yeah.” Now I knew.

Matt glanced at me, but let my fib pass. “Ghost guns are sold without serial numbers. They’re usually shipped in kit form — only partially assembled — so they’re legal. A technicality, a loophole, but there you go.”

I sat here, in Matt’s bed, gently stroking his back, thinking now about ... eccentric stuff. Ash Collins once told me he likes the fact that my mind works in oblique ways. Rather than looking directly at a picture, I sometimes peered out through a hazy window, around a corner. Spotted an unseen pattern.

The oddball connections I occasionally made occasionally surprised me.

As I thought about that Gunther raid, I also was revisiting the short conversation I’d had with the diamond guy — Sholom Satmar. While he was dismissing me he’d said, “Diamonds buy a lot of things on the world market. Drugs, weapons, bribes, overthrowing small governments. Whores.”

Guns again.

Over breakfast Chez Striker I asked Matt about guns. General questions; the half-formed, probably half-baked, theory I was just starting to think about ... well, I’d keep that to myself. For a while anyway.

It’s not that I wanted to be seen as having — brilliantly — cracked the Wexler case. Singlehandedly. Well, I guess it was, sorta, what I’d like. Okay, love. But for the time being, I’d work the gun angle single-o. If there really was an angle.

“Take an AK-47. How do you anonymize it, Matt?”

He was casually poaching six medium-sized eggs. I was in charge of pan-frying slices of salty country ham from Broadbent’s in rural Kentucky. I was also heating up sandwich biscuits and slicing extra-sharp cheddar. Who said I can’t multitask?

Matt smiled across the kitchen at me, “Guns? You got off on the right floor.”

I batted my eyes, “Few deserve such a friend as you.”

He laughed at the ambiguous, faux-compliment. “Okay, first lose the serial number.”

“How do you do that?” I was cutting the ham into biscuit-size portions, adding cheese, plating. And judiciously considering whether I’d fixed enough sandwiches to share.

“Acid first. Then take an Emery Wheel to what’s left.”

I swallowed my first heavenly bite, “That’s it?”

“Save some for me. If you want any eggs.”

I curled my arm protectively around the sandwich platter, “We’ll see.”

“After you’re sure the numbers can’t be traced, reverse-tape the trigger and handle — everywhere you’re going to touch.”

Hmm ... anonymity was, sort of, giving me an idea. A glimmer. We’d see.

I said, “James Battleford Lightfoot. What’s Battle’s schtick?”

Matt smiled and the sun shone, “Let’s see. He moves around a lot. Smart in his line of work. Which is women. Widows and divorcées specifically. For his front ... last I knew in DC he was a senior civilian consultant to the Inner Ring at the Pentagon.”

He frowned, then smiled again, “No, wait. He’d moved on to the investigative side for the House Armed Services Committee. Added another couple of medals.”

“Then he transferred to the Navy and you saw him in San Diego.”

“I just saw him for a minute. Let’s see ... a cocktail bash, retirement party for Admiral Hanson at the Del Coronado. A couple of top-heavy matrons had Battle cornered.”

“Did you say hello to him?”

“No, not when he was working. He saw me, looked through me.” Matt shrugged, “I wouldn’t queer his play. Not unless I had to.”

My Matt.

Before I’d left on this trip to DC, my older sister, Autumn, called me. Trying to keep panic out of her voice. But I knew her too well, had known her all my life.

We’d never been enemies — oh the usual snits and fits. Short-term grudges. But we both vied for Daddy’s attention. His affection. Along with our mother. Daddy seemed unaware of our three-way competition. I realized now that he didn’t miss stuff. Especially stuff that obvious.

But mostly Autumn and I moved in different circles. Two years can be quite a gulf for kids.

She said, “I need to see you.”

Something in her voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. Sort of.”

“Any danger? Right this minute?”

“Oh no. Don’t be so dramatic. Just because you have a license. An office. Big deal.”

I kept my counsel. More mature than “Fuck you!” and slamming down the phone. Although it’s challenging to slam a cellphone.