Strachey's Folly - Stevenson Richard - Страница 39

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Back at the house, I tried to reach Timmy on Suter's phone for an update on Maynard's condition. But Timmy wasn't yet in our room at the hotel, so I left word for him at the desk that I had arrived safely at my destination and that I was finding my visit useful.

Suter and I sat for a while longer on the terrace talking mainly about Mexican history and politics—his knowledge was wide and deep—and looking up at the moon and stars. A warm breeze off the water kept the insects at bay and felt lovely against my skin. I wished Timmy were with me, and I resolved to plan a vacation with him on this sensuous tropical coast early in the wintery New Year.

I was in bed and dozing off by midnight. Soon after, there were bare footsteps on the tile floor and I felt Suter lift my sheet and ease in next to me. As he kissed me, I looked into that face, moonlit now, and ran a hand through the famous curls. But oth­erwise I was more efficient than passionate, and when I dropped into a deep sleep no more than ten minutes later, I sensed that Suter's predominant reaction to our encounter had been, like mine, exhaustion.

Chapter 22

Timmy's first words, when I stepped off the plane at National Airport Thursday night, were "That was fast."

"You have no idea."

"I'm so relieved you're back."

"And I'm so happy to look into your guileless eyes."

"Did Suter get you into bed?"

"Something like that."

"And you liked 'it,' probably, but you didn't like him."

"I wouldn't even go so far as to say I liked 'it,' fleeting as it was. God knows what it was like for Suter. He had to prove to himself that he could at least get that far with me, and he did. But for me it was almost entirely aesthetic."

"Do you mean like visiting the Uffizi?"

"Yes, except with a shorter queue to get in. That was the case last night anyway."

"And there was no risk to anybody's health?"

"There was barely any risk to the bed linen."

"Even so, do not do that again, please." His look said he meant it.

"Okay. I won't."

During the cab ride from Alexandria into Washington, I tried to give Timmy an account of my under twenty-four hours with Jim Suter in Los Pajaros and of the dramatic and complex story he had told me. Timmy kept indicating the cabdriver with his eyes, as if Mulugeta Fessahazion might be more than passingly interested. So I gave up on the Suter narrative and in­stead  described physical  developments  along the Yucatan Caribbean coast since Timmy and I had vacationed there in the mid-eighties. We planned another trip together in January or February—not to include, Timmy suggested, Los Pajaros. "It sounds as if it's not our style," he said.

Timmy did tell me during the cab ride that Maynard was still weak but recovering from his wounds and that he was alert and bordering on the garrulous. I asked if he had told Timmy any­thing useful to my investigation about Suter or anyone else. But Timmy raised an eyebrow in the direction of Mulugeta, locked his lips, and threw away the key.

Back on Capitol Hill, something pungent was in the late-evening autumn air. It wasn't burning leaves, just Ray Craig, who stepped out of the shadows near the hotel entrance as we climbed out of our cab.

"Buenas tardes, " Craig said to me, sneering.

"Yo, Ray."

"Been south of the border, Strachey?"

"Could be."

"I guess going down is nothing new for you." Craig snorted with satisfaction over his witticism.

"Did you follow me all the way to Argentina?"

"You weren't in Argentina. You were in Mexico."

"Oh, I guess you're right about that."

"Calling on Jim Suter."

"Was I?"

"The question is, why?"

"No, that is the answer, Ray. But what is the question?"

He glowered at me for a long time. Timmy stood nearby sending ESP messages my way: Don't irritate him, just get rid of him.

Craig finally said, "The question is, when am I going to bust your ass, Strachey, on a narcotics charge?"

"Not ever, Ray. Because I'm involved in no such thing, and you know I'm involved in no such thing."

"Do I? And do I know that Maynard Sudbury was never in­volved in smuggling controlled substances from Mexico?"

I sensed Timmy stiffen. "I think you know that, yes," I said.

"Then why," Craig said, giving me the beady eye, "did my two eyewitnesses to the E Street shooting pick Reynaldo Reyes out of a mug book of violent offenders with known drug-gang connections? The -witnesses had gotten a good look at the shooter as he passed under a streetlight, and each witness inde­pendently ID-ed Reyes yesterday afternoon. We'll put Reyes in a lineup when we find him and pick him up. Suddenly he's either out of the country or he's under a rock over in the Alexandria barrio. Now, why would this lowlife want to shoot your buddy, who had traveled to Mexico just a couple of weeks earlier for travel writing, you say, if they weren't both involved in the same degenerate occupation? You tell me, Strachey."

Telling Craig what Jim Suter had told me would have ex­plained Maynard's innocent involvement in the affair, but I couldn't do that. I said, "I can't answer that. But Timothy and I know Maynard Sudbury well enough to know that he's about as likely to be involved in drug dealing as Newt Gingrich is. Less probably. Sudbury is one of those ex-Peace Corps, liberal, dilet­tante types with no particular interest in accumulating money. They're all in the arts and journalism and social services and ed­ucation. The profit motive seems alien to these people, and I'm not sure how so many of them seem to survive in post-Reagan America, but they do. Without becoming criminals even. Ray, this is strange but true."

Timmy was shifting from foot to foot. Not only had he to put up with Craig, he had also to endure my joshing on the sub­ject of his dearest friends, the ex-Peace Corps mob. But he knew when to keep his mouth shut, and now was one of those times.

Craig said, "I hope for your sake that what you're telling me about Maynard Sudbury is the truth, Strachey. If it's not, you'll have me to answer to. What did you find out from Jim Suter?"

"You still haven't explained," I said, "why you think I went to Mexico to see someone you keep referring to as Jim Suter."

"Skip the bullshit game-playing. If you knew your ass from your left nut, you'd know that I've talked to Suter's mother and to six other people, most of them admitted homosexuals, that you've interviewed about Suter. What's Suter's connection to Sudbury? Is Suter Sudbury's drug connection in the Yucatan?"

"No, Ray. Suter and Sudbury were once boyfriends, and I'm talking to all of Maynard's ex-lovers trying to develop a lead on the shooting. You're hung up on this drug thing, and that's a nonstarter. In order to see that Timothy's and my friend's at­tacker is brought to justice, I'm simply doing your job the way it ought to be done. Instead of ragging me and having me fol­lowed everywhere I go, you ought to be cooperative. Grateful even."

At that, Craig spat a wad of tobacco-y phlegm at my feet and said, "What a bullshitter you are."

I said, "Tell me about Suter's lawsuit."

"His what?"

"Somebody is suing him, he says. Suter convinced me he knows nothing about the Sudbury shooting. But he said there's a lawsuit against him here in D.C., and the cops are involved in it somehow. What's that about?"

Craig said, "It's chilly out here. Let's go up to your room. We can sit down where it's comfortable, maybe throw back a cou­ple of brews, and have an exchange of information."

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