Strachey's Folly

"Yourself included?"

McChesney didn't flinch at the insult. He just smiled a little sadly and said, "No, I was interested in Jorge's ass, not his ex­pensive tastes."

"And he was interested in yours?"

"For a while, yes. Then his interests shifted and things got a little rough between us. Before I broke things off."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"To you? No."

Williamson stood shaking his head with distaste, as if he knew the McChesney-Jorge story, and he, too, found it too ugly to contemplate out loud.

I asked McChesney, "Where did you meet Jorge?" "In Cancun." "On vacation?"

"Yes, it's a gorgeous piece of Caribbean real estate. Have you been there?"

"I visited the Yucatan about ten years ago and enjoyed it. Does your boss go there, too? I saw his picture outside with some Mexican leaders."

"Those pictures were taken here in Washington. My former employer, Representative Krumfutz, is the real Mexico maven. She taught Spanish in the Log Heaven, Pe

"No. Why do you ask that?"

"It's an impulse a lot of men have probably felt toward Jim Suter," McChesney said with no discernible emotion. "To take out a contract on him."

"I've no assassinations on my resume."

"You're to be commended. Incidentally—or not so inci­dentally—I see that Jim made the news."

"That's right."

"Somebody put him in the AIDS quilt."

"Yes."

"What an insensitive thing to do. Not to Jim necessarily, but it sullies the quilt. A lot of dead friends of mine have panels in the quilt. So as much as I dislike Jim Suter, I think this is an ex­tremely tasteless way for anybody to hurt him."

"I agree. I understand that you lost another friend last win­ter. Not to AIDS, but in a murder—Bryant Ulmer, your prede­cessor in this job. Or wasn't Ulmer a friend?"

"Bryant was not only a friend but a mentor. I'd been his deputy for two years. I miss Bryant very much, professionally and personally. I moved over here with Burton after Betty left of­fice. Representative Krumfutz's career was fucked by her dim-witted husband, Nelson—and, I think, that ignorant cunt he's shacking up with in Engineville. Ever been up to Central Pe

"Just passing through."

"It's beautiful country, but culturally it's a wasteland. If you're stuck up there for a month, as I was once, don't, say, go looking for tickets to the opera. Friday-night high school football, yes. The Ring cycle? Forget it."

"Unlike Washington, of course. Home of La Scala. Or is that someplace else?"

"We take the Metroliner to New York," McChesney said, and Williamson nodded. So these two were a couple?

"It's the same for us in Albany," I said, as if I'd ever set foot in the Metropolitan Opera more than twice. I hoped McChesney didn't start palavering about Wagner. What had happened to his tight schedule?

To my relief, he said, "I didn't like the way you bullied your way in here, Strachey, but I don't mind having been able to offer you my views on Jim Suter—unhelpful as I've been in locating him. I haven't got a current address for Jorge. I understand he's got some new place south of Cancun somewhere. So if Jim is with him, you'll have to find someone with more up-to-date in­formation than I've got. But if I've added to your knowledge of Jim's foul history and rotten character, I'm happy to have been of assistance in that regard."

"Thank you."

"I've been far more forthcoming than anything I know about you suggests you deserve, Strachey. Now it's your turn. Who's your client?"

"I can't say."

"I could find out if I badly wanted to."

"How?"

"Ask around. I already knew you were in town looking for Jim."

"Well, go ahead. Ask around. That's up to you."

McChesney studied me for a moment, then said, "I might do that." Then he stood up, and as I stood, McChesney said, "If you go down to the Yucatan, I hope you have an enjoyable time, as you say you did ten years ago. But if you locate Jim Suter, the chances are, you won't. He's poison. And for Christ's sake, don't let him get you into bed. You wouldn't know what hit you. Not for the first week, I should say. That's bliss. But after a week or so, Jim Suter is Satan and life with him is life in hell."

I told McChesney I'd be extra careful. I thanked him and left. Williamson accompanied me to the corridor, and I made my own way out of the Rayburn Building and into a cool fall drizzle.

Chapter 17

Who was my client, anyway? I wondered about that as I walked the four blocks back to the hotel—Ray Craig not vis­ible but surely in the vicinity, for I caught a whiff of his nicotine spoor as I left the Rayburn Building.

Was Maynard my client? Timmy? Jim Suter, even though he hadn't asked me to be? I guessed it was Timmy, since he was pla

Luckily, I was solvent that month, having received a good bonus on top of my standard fee for tracking down the daugh­ter of a commissioner in the Pataki administration and talking her into avoiding prosecution by returning to its owners the state po­lice aircraft often used by the governor for official jaunts around New York State. The young aviatrix, who had only recently begun to suffer from emotional problems, had somehow made off with the plane at Albany County Airport and intended to fol­low Amelia Earhart's fatal 1937 route. The disturbed young woman had gotten only as far as Northampton, Massachusetts— not on Ms. Earhart's itinerary—when I caught up with her.

Did Alan McChesney really want to know who my client was? Or did he already know all or much of what there was to know of the past four days' events, and his alternating expres­sions of curiosity and pique were smoke-machine distractions? I was inclined not to trust him, but my mind was open.

I did plan on checking out McChesney's remarks in pass­ing—if that's what they were—on Betty Krumfutz's Mexican co

Soon, I hoped to meet the actual Jim Suter. Then I would know if Mrs. Krumfutz was up to her neck in "it," or Nelson Krumfutz was or Tammy Pam Jameson or Alan McChesney or Carmen LoBello or any of Suter's other angry ex-lovers or his mother or brother or Ray Craig, or any other person or persons I had yet to meet from Jim's personal or professional life who had a reason, they believed, to threaten and badly frighten Suter and to try to kill Maynard Sudbury.