With a sinking feeling, I realized, too, that as much as I wanted to steer clear of the power struggle between Cheryl Tobin and Hank Bodine, I was already deeply embroiled in it.
I went downstairs to find Bodine and tell him what I'd learned.
18
As I came down the stairs I heard loud voices and raucous laughter emanating from the bar. Hugo Lummis was clutching a tumbler of something brown and seemed to have a real buzz on. He was talking to a guy I recognized as Upton Barlow, the chief of Hammond's Defense Division. Barlow was tall, with sloped shoulders, looked like an athlete. Deep lines were etched around his mouth, a stack of parallel lines carved into his forehead. He had receding gray hair, little black eyes like raisins, a pursed mouth.
The two of them seemed to be trading travel horror stories. They were both members of the million-mile frequent flyer club, and it sounded like they didn't much like Europeans.
"Ever notice the crappy plastic toilet seats?" Lummis was saying. "Even in the good hotels? And the weird way they flush, like with metal plates on the wall or whatever?"
"No, it's the showers that are the worst," Barlow put in. "They're made for midgets."
I looked around the huge main room, saw Geoff Latimer sitting by himself in a big overstuffed chair, reading the Wall Street Journal. I didn't see Hank Bodine, though, or Clive Rylance.
"Good luck finding an ice machine in your hotel," Lummis said. "Ask for Coke and you get it as warm as a bucket of spit. Must be some European Union law against ice."
"You can't even watch the news in your hotel room," Barlow said. "You put on CNN, and it's all different. You get, like, a forty-five-minute report on Nairobi or Somaliland or something."
I had a feeling the Europeans didn't like them much, either.
"Why don't you join us, fella?" Lummis said to me.
I hesitated for an instant. Having a drink with these old goats was just about the last thing I wanted to do. If Hank Bodine was going to have a talk with Clive Rylance, I should probably find some way to eavesdrop. If they weren't down here, maybe I could find Ali and pretend to introduce myself so I could spend some more time with her.
But then I reminded myself that if I was really going to help Ali uncover evidence about a bribe paid to the Pentagon, the two guys at the bar were exactly who I should be hanging out with. If a bribe had really been made to someone in the Pentagon, it would be surprising if these two didn't know about it. Both of them schemed night and day to sell planes to the Air Force and were willing to do anything to make the sale. If there was a conspiracy, they'd have to be two of the key players.
Upton Barlow picked up on my silence, and said, "Aw, he doesn't want to sit with us old farts."
"Sure, that would be great," I said, walking down the bar and sitting in the stool next to Upton Barlow. I introduced myself.
"I'm sure I've gotten e-mails from you," Barlow said, shaking my hand. "Mike Zorn's assistant, right?"
"That's right." I was surprised he remembered who I was.
"But Mike's not going to be here, is he?"
I started to answer, but Barlow turned away to greet someone else who'd just come down the stairs. It was Clive Rylance, an intense-looking, dark-haired, handsome man who looked as if he'd been carved out of a block of granite. He had an oblong head and a square jaw. He had a heavy beard that he probably had to shave twice a day. He should have been cast in the James Bond movies instead of the guy they have now.
"Well, if it isn't Clive Rylance, international man of mystery," Barlow said.
Rylance put one hand on Hugo's shoulder and, with the other, reached over and shook Barlow's. Actually, they seemed to be trying to crush each other's hands. "Gentlemen," he said.
"Speak for yourself," said Lummis. "You know everyone here, right? Don't know if you've met…Golly, what's your name again?"
"Jake Landry," I said, shaking with Rylance.
"Clive," Rylance said. "So are you a new member of the executive team?"
"Just filling in for Mike Zorn," I said.
"Good," he said. He looked around at the others and laughed. "Phew. I was starting to feel real old there for a second."
"You just fly in from Paris?" said Barlow.
"Yesterday," Rylance said. "I had a dinner in New York last night."
"Oh yeah? Where'd you eat?" Lummis said. I had a feeling Hugo Lummis dined out a lot, judging from his girth.
"Per Se."
"You actually got a table?" Barlow said.
Rylance shrugged. "Come on, man."
"Yeah, what am I saying? If anyone can wangle a reservation, it's you," Barlow said. "So you have that risotto with the truffles from Provence?"
"The Kobe beef with the marrow," Rylance said. "Fantastic."
"I don't know why everyone says it's not as good as French Laundry," Hugo Lummis said. "I think it's even better. But I think we're leaving our friend Jake out of the conversation, aren't we?"
"Not at all," I said. "Never heard of French Laundry, but I'd put it up against Roscoe's House of Chicken 'N Waffles any day."
"Chicken and waffles?" Rylance said, disgusted.
Lummis wheeled his stool around to look at me, and said, "Say, I love that place."
"Admit it," I said, "given a choice between some microscopic piece of beef at that Laundry place and Herb's special at Roscoe's, you wouldn't hesitate, would you?"
"Roscoe's, for sure," Lummis agreed. "Ever had their candied yams?"
But Rylance wasn't interested. "Anyone seen Hank around?" he said.
"Last I heard, he was hot on Cheryl's trail," Barlow said. "Had something he wanted to raise with her."
"Raise all the way up her ass, I suspect," said Lummis. "So, Jake, you ready to be inspired and motivated by our fearless leader?" He fanned his hands in the air like a preacher rousing his flock. "The symbol of our company is the lion," he said in a falsetto, not a bad imitation of Cheryl Tobin. "And I'm here to make that lion roar."
I laughed politely, and both Rylance and Barlow guffawed loudly, then Barlow leaned in close to the guys and muttered out of the side of his mouth, "It is a goddamned gynocracy around here these days."
The bartender took my order-another Macallan single-malt, only he didn't ask me how old-and Rylance pulled up a stool on Lummis's other side. Then Kevin Bross passed by, wearing black workout shorts and a black sleeveless shirt that showed off his sculpted physique. He was drenched with sweat. The watchband of his heart-rate monitor was beeping rapidly. Bross had broad shoulders and a narrow waist and looked like he spent a lot more hours in the gym than at the office. As he walked behind me, he bumped up against my only good shirt with his slick arm, dampening my shoulder.
"Good workout, Coach?" Clive Rylance said. "Hey, did someone strap a time bomb on you or something?"
"Huh?" Bross said.
"Sounds like you're about to explode."
"Oh, that," Bross said, and he reached under his shirt and tugged at a chest strap. It came off with a Velcro crunch. "Heart-rate monitor. What about you, big guy? Brits don't exercise?"
Rylance hoisted his tumbler of Scotch. "Just my left hand," he said.
"Guess your right hand doesn't need the exercise, huh?" Bross said.
They both laughed.
"We gonna do Zermatt again this year, Kev?" Barlow said. "I want to see you wipe out doing the slalom again. That was a blast."
"Cram it, Upton," Bross said jovially, "or I'll tell them what happened to you at the top of the Blauherd lift."
Barlow tipped his glass and laughed. "Touchй. So, is the sauna coed this year?"
"Clothing optional, I hope," Rylance said, and everyone cracked up.
Just then I saw Hank Bodine-or, to be accurate, I heard him. He was standing in one of the alcoves on the other side of the room, hands on his hips, talking to someone.