Chapter 9: Perks and Recreation

I was building frequent flyer miles like crazy. For the first time in my life. The FBI policy was to let contract consultants like Daddy and me keep our miles. Fair enough since we didn’t qualify for the standard benefits package.

But now that I was working, however indirectly, for the US Senate, I wondered what the policy would be. I was spending time thinking about trivia like that because it was a break from thinking about ... no progress.

My brilliant serial number breakthrough hadn’t ... um, broken through yet. Hadn’t made a dent.

That was why I was looking down at white cumulus clouds. Or maybe cirrus. Fuck ... fluffy white clouds, okay? I was meeting Commander James Battleford Lightfoot in DC. If he was still in the Navy this week. He chose the bar at the Jefferson Hotel. Quill. Even though the Jefferson is the home for some of the RightWorld visitors — Dixie Wexler at one time — I didn’t demur. I was traveling as Winter Jennings this trip and if the Meriwethers were tracking me ... so be it.

In fact, I was planning to call Sarah Meriwether in the morning. Torment her a little, see if she had any Wexler-news to share.

Quill was what I’d expected in a luxury hotel bar. Hushed with soft, flattering lighting, expensive vittles. I showed up, courtesy, fifteen minutes early for our nine o’clock meet. Battle was already there, martini in front of him, flirting with the cocktail waitress.

He stood when I approached. Courtly, slender, handsome. I could understand his success with recently-single women. This evening Battle was resplendent in his Navy dress blues. Double breasted jacket with six gold buttons. Chest medals precisely aligned. White gloves residing in his white cap. No sword though.

We shook. “Commander.”

“Call me Battle.”

I had researched Quill’s drinks and appetizer menu — ‘Be Prepared’ is the Navy motto, if I’m not mistaken. I ordered a Little Ditty — fancy vodka with strawberry, mint, bubbles. Girly.

Our waitress nodded vaguely, kept glancing at Battle. Well, fuck her.

A tipsy businessman stumbled away from the bar, spotted Battle and staggered to attention, giving him a sloppy salute. “Ship ahoy, Captain Crunch.”

Battle reacted with a hard, curious dignity. Suddenly quiet, suddenly still, his mouth thin-lipped shut. He sat, rigid posture, two inches from the back of the chair. Both feet planted firmly on the floor, palms flat against his thighs.

A middle-aged woman, embarrassed, took the drunk’s arm, “Sorry, he didn’t get the contract.”

Battle rose to his feet, made a half-bow and smiled. She looked away, looked back, drew her husband toward the lobby.

Battle picked up the menu, “Shall we?”

Pilar, innocence personified, thanked our elevator operator and stepped off at five. She turned back, as if just remembering something and asked, “Is it true that the Wrigley is installing an automatic elevator, Mr. Boy?”

Later I told her, “Make sure you gloat a little, it’s good for the skin.”

I ordered Maryland crab cakes while Battle settled on the house-made roasted bratwurst. I managed to snag the attention of Battle’s waitress, “Bring us the cheese plate too. Please.”

Of course the repast was on me; the subject hadn’t come up. And that was fine — I was seeking info. Plus, I doubt that Battle paid for very many meals.

We waited until the food was served. He turned to me, “Guns.”

“Yes. Specifically guns that the anti-government groups have. Or want to have.”

“Anyone can buy anything these days.”

“Yes, but have you heard of...” I outlined my working theory. Barely working.

Something crossed Battle’s face. Just for a second, but I was sure I hadn’t imagined it. Pretty sure.

He paused to spread herbed goat cheese on Farm House crackers. Looked directly at me, “Is this something you know?”

I shook my head, “Not at all, Battle, not at all. I’ve been going through the paperwork on guns that were confiscated from hate groups — Neo-Nazis, like that.”

“And?”

I told him the one surprising anomaly — maybe it’s an anomaly, maybe just a mistake — that I’d stumbled across.

He frowned, “It would be ... they would love that. A nightmare for cops, feds.”

“But possible?”

He sat very still. “I don’t see why not. I just don’t see why not.”

“Related subject, have you heard anything about guns moving underground? In exchange for diamonds?”

Battle drew careful crosshatch patterns in the white tablecloth with the tines of his fork. He leaned toward me, lowered his voice even more, “That’s becoming the new racist currency, diamonds.”

“Any New York tie-in? New Jersey? Jews? Hassidic Jews?”

“That’s a logical line of inquiry.” Not exactly an answer. But sort of understandable. Despite an introduction from Bulldog, Battle didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox.

I glanced down at the tablecloth — Battle had used his fork to etch out a swastika with a diagonal slashed through it.

As I paid the tab — almost $200 before tip — he said, “I’ll ask around about ... your serial number idea.”

“Thank you.”

While I waited for my receipt, Battle stood, offered his hand and walked toward the lobby, ramrod straight. Gloves in his right hand, cap pinned beneath his left arm. Our cocktail waitress vectored her approach to my table so that she crossed paths with the Commander. She said something, he nodded, said something back.

Room number? Cell number? Any of my business?

I woke up to the sound of Matt’s shower. Smiled and stretched. Brushed my teeth and joined him. Like a certain boy I know, Matt’s morning wood was still reporting for duty. I sat on the shower bench, turned him to face me. Didn’t take me long. Brushed my teeth again.

In his breakfast nook, he smiled at me, “I could get used to you.”

I looked at him solemnly, “I’m falling for you, Matt.”

“Excellent.”

A positive response, but not exactly the reinforcement that ... oh well.

Fuck.

I was back home, back in my beloved Kansas City. Walker was still ga-ga over my Dutch Boy Bob. And what’s resided below it, of course.

Matt texted me on that Samsung from Craigslist. “Pay phone.”

I rode down courtesy of Nature Boy and Edwina. He was erect again, more common these days than not. These nights, I guess. It was a little after eleven. Midnight for Matt.

I exited the Wrigley lobby, automatically checking the 180-degree vista in front of me. That ongoing Dixie Wexler thrum. Not any louder than usual, just ... always there.

I turned right on Main and walked the two blocks to Union Station. For some reason, perhaps indifference, they had left a block of six payphones — in those old fashioned booths — intact. Matt had all six numbers; he’d call me on one of them.

“Hello.”

“One of Connie’s sources heard a Wexler rumor.”

Constance Grayson has several lines of Meriwether inquiries going, all under Matt’s supervision. “Good source?”

“Her info pans out at sixty, sometimes seventy percent.”

“Excellent.”

“Yep, in this line of work, it is. She heard Wexler is making a run — the Nazi compounds again. Word is, he’s conducting two-week reconnaissance and survival schools for noobs.”

“Recruits?”

“Some of them. Others just like the thrill. Bragging rights.”

“Go back to the Klan and strut around.”

“That’s it.”

“What should I be doing?” Somehow, I’m now reporting, sort of, to Matt.

“Nothing for now. I’m trying to verify it.”

“You don’t like single-source, do you?”

“Not if I can help it. You ready for Jersey?” My diamond search. Or diamond-information search.

“I leave in the morning.”

“Take care, Rachael.”

“You too.”

The survival-training rumor made more sense than a previous bit of gossip — Wexler was holed up at the tip of the continent, Key West. One road in from the mainland, one road out.

If that rumor were true ... well my job would be simplified. I told Matt — pillow talk — “I’ll approach from the water, not by land. I’ll use my submarine, have it drop me in a CRRC Zodiac. I’ll get close enough and swim under water, using my closed-circuit breathing gear so there won’t be any bubbles. Piece of cake.””

Matt looked slant-eyed at me.

I said, “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

I thought the reference went over his head until he gave me a Jack Nicholson grin.

Fucking high school dropout.

It was a bumpy flight, United from KC to Philadelphia. And Rachael Adams didn’t even get to keep the frequent flyer miles. Matt hadn’t lectured me, just said, “It’s not safe, not now anyway.”

He thought some, he knew I could be frugal. “Tell you what, don’t use them, not yet. But they won’t expire anytime soon so they’ll be available. If and when.”

“If and when.”

I’d been through Philadelphia on Acela, but had never been to the airport. Rachael would rent a car and drive it to a garage in Camden, New Jersey. Where I’d trade it for a certain gray Chevy Impala, circa 1980. The one that Matt, or I guess my United States government, had purchased from Vivian Villarreal in Warsaw, Virginia.

Matt said, “Don’t drive into the garage until two. Anytime between two and two-fifteen will be fine.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“A Camden cop.”

“Trustworthy, obviously.”

“No, bribable though.”

“Oh.”

“She’ll make sure no one follows you in. And out.”

“What if someone does?”

“She’ll call me; I’ll text you.”

“Deal.”

“You won’t see the cop, but don’t look around either.”

“Okay. The Impala’s on the third floor, right?”

“Yep. North end of the garage. Keys on the right passenger tire. Right front.”

I didn’t look around, didn’t see the Camden police officer. The keys were where they were supposed to be. I unlocked the trunk and found my DC Heckler & Koch in a zippered leather case. Holster too, as well as BlingSting.