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Ross Thomas: Missionary Stew

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Ross Thomas Missionary Stew

Missionary Stew: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Hired by a political kingmaker to investigate a cocaine war, journalist Morgan Citron uncovers a scandal involving the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. It’s a story that will make Watergate look like a parking ticket — if Citron lives to tell about it.

Ross Thomas: другие книги автора


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The grungy downstairs back apartment seemed to be Unit A. Using the same key he had used on the gate, Citron unlocked the apartment door and went in. He felt for the light switch, turned it on, and found himself in a one-room studio with a large single window overlooking the patio. The furnishings were sparse: a phone, a couch that he assumed pulled out into a bed, a round Formica-topped table with four chairs made out of bent iron and molded plastic, a shabby armchair that seemed to be of the reclining variety, and an old seventeen-inch black-and-white General Electric television set. The floor was covered with linoleum of the speckled-white-and-gold kind. It was almost worn through in the space in front of the Pullman kitchen. On the walls there was nothing. Not even a calendar.

It took Citron only two trips out to the Toyota to bring in everything he owned. As he was storing away the last of his three aluminum cooking pots, a woman’s voice said from the still-open door, “Can you fix a running toilet?”

Without turning, Citron said, “No.”

“What about a broken heart?”

“Not that either,” he said and turned.

His first impression was that although she was not very old, she was not nearly as young as she looked, which would have made her around nineteen, possibly twenty. Twenty-one at most. Somehow Citron knew she was at least thirty. It might have been the melancholy that peered out through her eyes, which were large and almost the color of woodsmoke. She had a beach dweller’s careless sun-streaked hair and an oval face with a rather interesting nose and a wide mouth set above a quite small chin that nevertheless looked defiant — or perhaps only stubborn. She was effortlessly pretty and with a little artful makeup might even have been beautiful in a vulnerable sort of way.

“I’m in Apartment E — in front,” she said. “My name’s Keats. Velveeta Keats.”

“Velveeta.”

“Sort of tips you off, doesn’t it? I mean, about my family. You’re wondering what kind of folks would name their youngest daughter Velveeta.”

“Am I?”

“Sure. The answer is: my kind of folks. The Keatses. The Florida Keatses. Or to pinpoint it: the Miami Keatses. My family was very big in the drug trade down there in the sixties and seventies.”

“But no more,” Citron said.

“They cashed out and went into T-bills. At least, that’s what they were in a year or so ago. They may be in municipal bonds by now. You ever notice how fast things move nowadays? The Keatses went from dirt-poor to hog-rich to banker-stuffy in one generation. But when I was born back in ’fifty-two they named me Velveeta because back then they thought it sounded pretty and tasted good.”

“They still like Velveeta?”

“The name?”

“The cheese.”

“They don’t like either one anymore. Mama calls me Vee now and they switched to Brie. Mama puts it on crackers with slivered almonds and sticks it in the microwave for a few seconds. If you’re wondering what I’m doing out here, I’m a remittance woman. Are you the new super?”

“Caretaker really.”

“What’s your name?”

Citron told her.

“That’s nice. French, isn’t it?”

“French.”

“Well, I’ve got this running toilet.”

“Jiggle it.”

“The handle?”

“Right.”

“I did that.”

“Try taking the top off. There’s a round ball in there that floats. Bend the rod that holds the ball. Bend it down. That sometimes works.”

“I did that, too.”

“Have you got a radio?”

“Sure.”

“Well, put the radio in the bathroom and turn it on. If you play it loudly enough, you won’t hear the toilet.”

She came farther into the apartment and looked around curiously. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Not at all.” He gestured toward the recliner, but Velveeta Keats chose instead one of the bent-iron-and-plastic chairs. Citron took a half gallon of Gallo red out of one of the two cardboard cartons he had carried in from the Toyota and poured wine into a pair of mismatched Kraft cheese glasses. He handed one of them to Velveeta Keats and then sat down opposite her at the table.

She examined her glass. “I remember these. Pimento cheese used to come in them. The Keatses always drank out of these and jelly glasses. Back when we were poor. Are you poor?”

“Extremely,” Citron said.

“What’d you do — before you got poor?” she said. “That’s my personal question.”

“I wrote and traveled.”

“You mean you were a travel writer? What’s doing in Omaha? Beautiful, unspoiled Belize. Tierra del Fuego on twenty a day. Stuff like that?”

“I guess I was really more of a writing traveler.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, I’d travel to someplace where not too many people go, live there awhile, maybe six months, sometimes longer, and then write about what it was like.”

“Is that what you’re doing here — in Malibu?”

Citron shook his head. “No.”

“What happened?”

“I think I ran out of places.”

“How long’ve you known the landlady?”

“Craigie Grey? Not long.”

“How long’s not long?”

“About five hours.”

“You’re right. That’s not long.”

Velveeta Keats finished her wine, put the glass down, and cupped her face in her palms. “I was married to a Cuban for three years.”

Citron waited for the rest of the tale. When there was nothing but silence for almost fifteen seconds, he said, “Well. A Cuban.”

“His family used to own all the milk in Cuba.”

“Before Castro.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know how anyone could own all the milk in Cuba, but that’s what he always said. When I married him, he was in the dope business. That’s really why I married him, so the Keatses and the Manerases could combine operations. It worked out okay. Sort of, I reckon. For a while. You ever been married?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The usual reasons.”

“Name two.”

Citron thought for a moment. “Well, one died and the other one said no thanks.”

“Then you’re not gay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“The guy who was here before you, he was gay. I mean, he was gay gay. I’d be feeling low and he’d pop over with a plate of fudge and the latest gossip and have me in stitches in no time.” She examined Citron carefully. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re the type to pop over with a plate of fudge.”

“Who can tell?” Citron said.

Velveeta Keats rose. “Well, thanks for the wine and the plumbing advice.”

“You’re welcome.”

She moved to the still open door, stopped, and turned. “I’m a good cook,” she said.

Citron smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yes,” she said. “You do that.” She then turned and went through the door.

After Velveeta Keats had gone, Citron continued to sit at the table with his almost empty glass. He felt it stir then, almost uncoil, the first faint signs of the disease that had killed a billion or so cats. Curiosity. He began to wonder how it would all turn out and where he would be a year later. He was not accustomed to thinking of the future in terms of more than a day or a week — a month at most. The thought of a year was unsettling. It seemed like infinity. For a moment he thought of repacking his two cardboard cartons and returning to the comforting hopelessness of the Cadillac People. Instead, he rose, rinsed out the two glasses, transformed the couch into a bed, brushed his teeth, and got between what seemed to be a pair of reasonably clean sheets. After fifteen minutes or so, the sound of the surf put him to sleep. He dreamed of Africa.

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