Jim McGill 05 The Devil on the Doorstep Page 6

  “Don’t miss government work at all?”

  “No.”

  “Ever give any thought to my idea of opening an office in Paris for me?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but my paintings have started to sell at nice prices. After word gets out about my doing your portrait, the prices will go up. I’m happy holding a brush in my hand and having my bank account grow.”

  Then McGill’s eyes were completed and he needed to be quiet.

  Gabbi had suggested that a morning workout and a massage would help him meet her need for relaxed but not drowsy quietude from him. Patti had added the idea that he let go of his everyday concerns and let his mind wander to a future time when Abbie, Kenny and Caitie were all accomplished young adults, and the presidency was behind her, and all they had to do was relax in each other’s company and perform the occasional good deed.

  McGill had followed both suggestions and the time he’d spent posing for Gabbi had been moments of meditative bliss. The notion that his life could work out free from any major sorrow had left him feeling as tranquil as a child being tucked into bed. All of which had stopped upon viewing the Secret Service video showing Patti and him being obliterated by a missile strike.

  Now, sitting immobile when he felt he should be safeguarding Patti’s future left him antsy, unsure how much more time he’d be able to give Gabbi. His preoccupation left him looking stiff.

  “I think I can finish without you,” Gabbi told him, sensing her client’s discomfort.

  “The results won’t suffer?” McGill asked, still holding his position.

  “Might work out better.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You look … remote. Reminds me of that former boyfriend I told you about.”

  Before McGill could respond, there was a tentative knock at the door.

  Gabbi said, “I’ll get it. Feel free to move, if you want.”

  Blessing, the head butler at the White House, had come calling. Chagrin at the thought of disturbing a work of art in progress filled his eyes. Gabbi thought maybe she’d ask him if he’d like to sit for a portrait, after he retired. She was sure he’d have no time before then.

  She told him, “No need to be concerned. We were just knocking off.”

  Blessing’s eyes filled with relief.

  He told Gabbi why he’d intruded. She said she’d give the message to McGill.

  The president’s husband was right where she left him, but clearly ready to hurry off if need be. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “M’sieur le Magistrat is in town,” she told him.

  “Yves Pruet?”

  “Un et le même,” she said, and then translated. “One and the same. Odo is with him.”

  “An official visit?”

  “That part wasn’t clear. Blessing did say they had talked to the FBI, and they’d like to inquire about retaining your services. They tried you at your office first.”

  The first thing that popped into McGill’s head was Baucis and Philemon.

  Whom the gods had favored for showing them hospitality.

  McGill decided he’d better do no less with Pruet and Odo.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “Tell them I said hello.”

  As McGill was leaving the room, he tried to sneak a peek at his portrait.

  But Gabbi had stepped between him and the canvas.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she told him.

  Wisconsin Avenue — Georgetown

  Sweetie and Celsus Crogher walked along Georgetown’s main shopping drag.

  Sweetie offered to buy Celsus a cup of coffee and a pastry.

  He said, “How about breakfast?”

  “If you’re hungry, sure.”

  They stepped into the Daily Grill and Celsus ordered bacon, eggs and a short stack of pancakes. Sweetie made do with a bowl of granola topped with berries. After Sweetie bowed her head and whispered a brief prayer of thanks for her food, they ate in silence. Then Celsus surprised her with his next request.

  “You don’t mind, before we get to whatever it is you have in mind, I’d like to look for some shoes.” He said he wasn’t satisfied with the pair he had for the inaugural ball.

  Sweetie gave him a look, and saw he wasn’t kidding.

  The walked up the street to Soulier Shoes. Celsus saw a pair he liked in the window. He went inside and was pleased to find they had his size. He paid more for the shoes than any three pairs Sweetie had ever owned. Not counting the ones Putnam had bought for her.

  They locked the pricy footwear in the trunk of her car and ambled along the street.

  Celsus asked, “Holmes wants something, doesn’t he? He sent you to talk to me.”

  Sweetie said, “He did, but the favor isn’t for him.”

  Celsus stopped for a moment, looked at Sweetie and asked quietly, “Holly G.?”

  The president’s code name. Sweetie nodded. She resumed walking. Celsus kept pace.

  He said, “If this is something serious, it should be handled the right way.”

  The official way, he meant. By active Secret Service personnel.

  “If that’s the way you feel, I’ll tell Jim. He thought you might be interested.”

  Sonofabitch, Celsus thought. Holmes not only knew he’d be interested, he knew the former SAC would be unable to resist. He’d still give his life for Holly G. So the bastard was roping him into one of his off-the-books schemes.

  Which, damn him, did have a way of working out.

  Just about every stinking time he trampled on other people’s turf.

  Sweetie decided she’d given Celsus enough time to stew.

  She said, “Let’s turn around. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  Celsus looked at her and asked, “How do you work with that man?”

  “Jim? There’s no one I’d rather work with.”

  “He calls the shots and you follow orders?”

  Sweetie grinned. “It’s not like that. Not even when we were cops and he outranked me. We talk things over, see who has a better understanding of a situation, a better fix for a problem. Go with the better idea.”

  “And if you can’t agree?” Celsus asked.

  “Then we disagree, and whoever has more invested in the situation gets to make the call. If we can’t decide who has more skin in the game, each of us tries his or her own approach.”

  “And that works out?” His tone said he couldn’t believe it would.

  “So far,” Sweetie said. “Maybe we’re just lucky, but our luck’s held out pretty well for over twenty-five years now.”

  The former SAC shook his head.

  “I never count on luck.”

  “We don’t count on it either. We do everything we can to earn it.”

  Sweetie thought steam might shoot out of Celsus’ ears, with a whistling sound.

  It was remarkable, she thought, that Jim and this man hadn’t come to blows over the course of the president’s first term. That or start shooting at each other. The absence of overt hostilities had to be attributed to God’s grace and mercy.

  Still, she thought maybe the Almighty could use a helping hand in this case.

  “You wouldn’t be working directly with Jim,” Sweetie said.

  The former SAC’s eyes filled with suspicion. “No?”

  “Unh-uh. For political reasons, he can’t be seen getting involved. That’s why he needs you.”

  “I’d be working alone?” Celsus asked.

  He wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable with that.

  He’d always been part of a team.

  The one with the most guns and money.

  “No,” Sweetie said. “You’d be working with Captain Welborn Yates.”

  Celsus knew Yates. Knew about him, too. He was the front man for Holmes’ inside investigations. The ones, like this one, whatever it was, that wouldn’t have looked good for the president’s husband to do. But Yates was more than just a pretty face. He was smart. He’d tracked down the car
thief who’d killed his three friends.

  And he was always respectful when dealing with the Secret Service.

  That mattered to Celsus. As the president’s pet, Yates could have lorded it over people.

  “So he would be working for me?”

  “With you. You’ll work out your own professional courtesies. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Celsus paused to consider. Sweetie hoped he didn’t need a manicure to reach a decision.

  She played her last card. “You know from my visits to the White House that the president and I are friends, right?”

  “Yeah?” Celsus said, feeling uneasy about what might be coming.

  “So I know the woman. When we speak privately, I call her Patti. And I know Jim McGill as well as I know anyone. So when he asked me to talk with you, I knew both he and the president would like to have your help. Jim wouldn’t ask without Patti’s approval.”

  So there it was, Celsus thought. Out in the open.

  Holly G. wanted him to go along with whatever McGill had planned.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  Linnean Avenue, NW — Washington, DC

  “You can’t do this,” Kira Fahey Yates told her husband, Welborn.

  The two of them sat in Welborn’s office in their new home. Welborn had had the privilege of visiting McGill’s Hideaway in the White House and for the first time in his life had felt envious of someone else’s circumstances. He wanted a space — a retreat — of his own, under his own roof, just like the hideaway. Somewhere he might go to think, plan or simply daydream.

  So when Kira had come to him and said their townhouse, in which they’d lived for little more than a year, would soon be inadequate as their twin daughters came to need rooms of their own, and they should buy a house while the market was still relatively soft, he’d agreed without a quibble. Taking Kira by surprise. Making her feel a little cheated. She’d written out a list of arguments to overcome his every objection.

  She’d showed it to him. All five pages.

  He’d kissed her and said, “Hang on to it. I’m sure you’ll find new applications.”

  Kira was cheered by the thought, and the two of them went house hunting. They found just the place. A two-story white brick Colonial with a finished attic and a finished basement. Four bedrooms, five bathrooms, two detached garages, a sun room where Kira could hold court and an office for Welborn. He installed a huge leather sofa, as close as he could find to the one Mr. McGill had, opposite the room’s fireplace.

  The lot was a half-acre so the girls would have a big backyard to tear around in once they became self-ambulatory. It was everything Welborn and Kira could ask for in a new home. The price tag for domestic bliss was only one-point-five million dollars.

  That sum was made doable by the fact that Kira had family money and Welborn had received a one-hundred-acre country estate in Virginia as a wedding present from the Queen of England, whom his father had served as personal secretary for twenty-two years. Welborn had used the property as collateral to secure a private loan from Mom and Dad.

  What with Welborn’s position at the White House secure for the next four years and Kira joining her uncle, Mather Wyman, the former vice-president, in his new political consulting business, working from home, Captain and Mrs. Yates felt sure there wasn’t another young couple in the country luckier than they were.

  Then Welborn came home to tell Kira he had to hit the road and hunt for assassins.

  “You just can’t do it,” Kira repeated.

  “It wouldn’t be my first choice, either, but I think I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Practicality.”

  “What?” Kira asked.

  “Well, if the president gets assassinated, I’m not sure Vice President Morrissey would keep me on. If I lost my job, I couldn’t repay the house loan. We’d all be thrown out into the snow.”

  Kira understood her husband was trying to humor her.

  He reached a hand out to her. They were seated in the far corners of the sofa.

  Kira didn’t budge, leaving a one-cushion gap between them.

  She said, “I have money. I’m working. I’ll pay the bills.”

  Welborn dropped his hand. “Oh, sure. Then I’d feel inadequate. Turn to self-pity and bad habits. Be a poor father figure for our girls. They’d probably grow up and marry wastrels. Then you’d have to support those guys, too. A whole cycle of dependency could begin.”

  Tears appeared in Kira’s eyes. Not from mirth.

  She said, “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father. I don’t want that for Aria and Callista. I don’t want to become a widow like my mother, either.”

  Welborn slid over to Kira, knocked off the kidding and took his wife’s hand.

  “I don’t want any of those things either, but I honestly don’t know how I’d live with myself if I didn’t help out and some harm, or worse, came to the president.”

  “But that’s what the Secret Service is for.”

  “True, but to be effective they need the best possible information.”

  Kira looked for another rebuttal, but she hadn’t been given the time to work up a list of reasons. She thought she might not be able to dissuade Welborn in any case. Because if she succeeded in keeping him from doing what he proposed and the president was assassinated, the wound to their marriage might never heal.

  Welborn had never seen Kira look so forlorn. It broke his heart.

  He said, “I’m not going to try to be a hero. I’m not going to do anything more than see if I can find out if there’s a real threat to the president. If there is, I’ll beat a hasty retreat and tell the Secret Service. They’ll do the heavy lifting.”

  Kira nodded, not that she really believed Welborn.

  He wasn’t the sort to bug out and let other people bear the burdens.

  Kira took hold of Welborn’s other hand.

  “If you’re going to do this, you’ve got to have help. Promise me that.”

  Welborn said, “I’ll take whatever help I can get.”

  Never realizing he’d just agreed to work with Celsus Crogher.

  McGill Investigations, Inc. — Georgetown

  Investigating Magistrate Yves Pruet stepped through the front door of the building where James J. McGill had his professional offices and asked Dikki Missirian, who stood at his side, “This building has an elevator?”

  “I am sorry, no,” Dikki said.

  “I am sorry also,” Pruet told him.

  He wondered if he’d picked up a virus on the flight to America. Airplanes were notorious for transmitting any number of maladies. It would be the height of irony if he were struck down by a virus while in pursuit of a killer.

  Odo asked Pruet, “Would you like me to see if I can arrange for a sedan chair?”

  Dikki gave Odo a look, wanting to help, but not understanding.

  Odo tried to clarify. “A palanquin.”

  Understanding was reached and Dikki smiled, briefly.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in this country.”

  Pruet sighed. “Good litter bearers are so hard to find. Never mind, I’ll walk.”

  He started up the stairs. To the third floor. Sacre bleu.

  Odo trailed behind, serving as his rear guard. Ready to catch Pruet should he swoon.

  Dikki called out, “I’ll bring refreshments right up.”

  McGill greeted them with a smile at the door to his outer office.

  “Yves, mon ami. Odo. It’s great to see the two of you again.”

  He embraced the magistrate and shook the bodyguard’s hand. He led the visitors into the reception area and introduced them to Deke Ky and Leo Levy. Handshakes were exchanged all around.

  “Deke is a former special agent with the Secret Service. Leo was my White House driver, and is a former race car driver. Now, they both work here with me.”

  Dikki arrived with a tray of glasses and chilled bottles of sparkling water. Poland Spring. He s
et the tray on the reception desk. “Anything else you need, gentlemen, just call.”

  He bowed his way out.

  Pruet asked McGill, “You own this building? That genial fellow is your employee?”

  McGill said, “He owns the building. He’s my landlord.”

  Pruet and Odo exchanged a look of surprise.

  “You don’t have landlords like Dikki in Paris?” McGill asked.

  “Not that I have seen,” Pruet said.

  “I’ll let him know. He has cousins looking to get into the business.” McGill picked up three bottles off the tray. “Grab a glass and we’ll go into my office and talk.”

  Pruet relieved McGill of a bottle and handed it and a glass to Odo.

  The bodyguard recognized his cue.

  “If you don’t mind, Yves, I will stay here and talk with my new friends about the Secret Service and race cars. Tell them how we Corsicans do things.”

  “An excellent choice,” the magistrate said.

  He and McGill went into the inner sanctum.

  Colonial Suites Hotel — Newport News, Virginia

  The prayer breakfast in the hotel conference room became a prayer brunch due to the tardy arrival of both the pastor who would give the blessing and the member of Congress who would be the featured speaker. The two men had driven down Highway 64 from Richmond, keeping to the speed limit, looking at the countryside and wondering if the CIA was able to read their minds as they passed Camp Peary.

  The camp was the Agency’s training facility, also known as The Farm.

  They joked about it, the idea of mind-reading, but neither of them put it beyond the realm of possibility. Spook shops and the mad scientists at DARPA consciously pushed themselves in the direction of science fiction, and then worked out ways to turn fantasy into fact. Not that they let the public in on what had been achieved with taxpayer dollars.

  The pastor, George Mulchrone, sitting in the driver’s seat, turned his thoughts to raising money for legal fees. Not for himself. For the abominable pederasts who not only trashed their vows of celibacy but also couldn’t keep their filthy hands off young boys. The horrid creatures were bankrupting the church, and if he had his way —

  “Pull off at the next exit, will you, George?” the politician, Philip Brock, said. “I’m going to be sick.”