A black woman of about fifty-five dressed in a white uniform came into the entrance hall and started collecting our coats. Procane introduced her to me and she said, how do, and started hanging the coats up in a closet.
“How many you gonna be for dinner?” she said.
“Just the four of us,” Procane said and led the way into the living room. It had a huge chandelier that must have been a hundred years old because it used real candles instead of electric lights. There was a worn oriental rug on the floor that was probably as old as the chandelier and maybe even more expensive. The furniture was low with curving, spindly legs and I wondered whether people were that much shorter in the late eighteenth century. On the walls were some oil portraits, darkened by age, and above the mantel was a large mirror with a gilt frame. I didn’t see any ashtrays.
The housekeeper followed us into the room and told Procane, “I spect y’all be wantin some coffee,” and Procane said yes, coffee would be fine. She nodded and headed back toward the kitchen, going through a formal dining room that was separated from the living room by a set of richly molded sliding doors. There was a long, narrow table of dark burnished wood in the dining room, some chairs that to me looked more frail than delicate, and another chandelier that had to depend on candles.
“Well, Mr. St. Ives, how do you like it?” Procane said.
“Is this the hideout?”
He smiled. “Why, yes, I suppose it could be called that.”
“Is it yours?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve merely leased it for six months. The lease has two more months to run. I’ve been coming down here at least once a week for the past four months, usually to give small dinners for several key congressmen and senators. Lobbying really.”
“For what?”
“I chose one of the conservation measures. It gave me an excuse for renting the house and I actually became quite interested in this particular bill. Did you realize that we’re slaughtering our wildlife at a simply appalling rate?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I may even have done some good.”
“And when you weren’t lobbying, you were planning,” I said.
“Every detail.”
“It’s rather elaborate.”
“But necessary.”
“Wouldn’t a motel be just as good?” I said and crossed my legs. The armless chair that I was sitting in creaked. It was upholstered in a worn, mauve-colored fabric that might have been royal purple a hundred years ago. Its back had the shape of a flattened light bulb.
“Not if something goes wrong,” Procane said.
“For instance?”
“If the police are brought in. They might check motels. They don’t check private residences on N Street.”
“You told the driver to be back at ten tonight. That means it’s going to happen before ten. Can I ask when?”
“At precisely nine,” Procane said.
“Can I ask where?”
Procane seemed to think about that for a moment. “Yes, I think I can tell you that now. At a drive-in movie.”
“That’s where the buy will take place?”
“Yes.”
“Drive-in movies are good,” I said. “I’ve used them three or four times.”
“I can see how they would be in your line of work,” Procane said. “Moving around at a drive-in movie is nothing unusual. People are always going to the refreshment stand. Cars arrive and depart at any time. It’s dark, which offers some concealment. And it’s usually fairly crowded, which offers some safety.”
The housekeeper came in carrying a tray that held a silver coffee service and four cups and saucers. Procane thanked her and then nodded at Janet Whistler who poured and served the coffee. Nobody wanted cream and no one took any sugar except me.
We sat there in that stiff living room of the house on N Street at four o’clock in the afternoon, drinking coffee like four strangers who had been named to a committee that was supposed to do something that we weren’t quite sure that we really wanted done. So we sipped our coffee and talked about how good it was and about the weather and about the room’s furnishings and whether antiques were a good investment.
Then we were silent for a while, as if all possible topics had been exhausted, except the one that we had met to talk about but no one wanted to be the one who brought it up. The silence went on for four or five minutes until I said, “What happens to those other guys?”
“What other guys?” Procane said.
“He means the ones who’re going to try to steal the million and blame it on us,” Wiedstein said.
“I was wondering when you were going to bring them up,” Janet Whistler said.
“Now that I have, what happens to them?”
“It depends,” Procane said.
“On what?”
“On whether they follow the plan that they stole from me.”
“What if they don’t?”
Procane shook his head. “If they don’t,” he said, “I will probably feel quite sorry for them.”
19
There were pork chops for dinner, double-cut ones with ruffled white pants so that you wouldn’t get your hands greasy when you picked them up and gnawed at the meat close to the bone, which everyone did except Janet Whistler who didn’t seem to be too hungry.
There were also mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and a salad and I ate everything that was set before me, including two pieces of apple pie, not forgetting to compliment Mrs. Williams on her cooking. She shook her head and said, “I don’t think that crust was too good.”
There hadn’t been much conversation at dinner either and there was even less afterward. We had coffee in the living room again. And since there didn’t seem to be anything that we wanted to talk about Miles Wiedstein went upstairs and came back down with a small, portable Sony television set. He plugged it in and we listened to Walter Cronkite skim over the news.
When Cronkite said, “And that’s the way it is, Wednesday, November the third,” Miles Wiedstein turned the set off before Cronkite could tell us what year it was.
“Well,” Procane said, rising, “the world seems no worse than usual — nor better either.” He looked at his watch. “It’s now seven-thirty. We will leave here promptly at eight-twenty. I suggest that we retire for the next forty-five minutes to collect our thoughts and, if possible, relax.” He looked at me. “Mr. Wiedstein will show you your room.”
“This way,” Wiedstein said. I followed him into the hall and up a flight of carpeted stairs. “That one there,” he said, pointing to a door. “We share a bath. If you hear me throwing up, don’t pay any attention. I always throw up before one of these things.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten.”
He shook his head. “I like to throw up. It gives me something to do. It doesn’t mean I’m sick. Not really sick.”
My room had a canopied bed, a bureau, a dresser, two chairs, and a chaise longue. I went through the drawers but they were empty. So was the closet. The two windows were decorated with pale yellow curtains. Their shades were down. I raised one of the shades and saw that I had a view of N Street. It was dark outside. I lowered the shade and stretched out on the bed, staring up at the canopy. I heard some footsteps in the hall. A door closed. Then another one. I shut my eyes and kept them that way, even when I heard my hall door open. I heard movement in the room and someone breathing, but I kept my eyes closed. At the sound of a zipper being unzipped I opened my eyes. It was Janet Whistler and she was half out of her gray pantsuit, the top half. She had nothing on underneath it.
“Move over,” she said, stepping out of her pants. I moved over. She eased herself onto the bed next to me and started working on my tie. “You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “I don’t want you to do anything.”