Ross Thomas: Ah, Treachery!

“You had it?” Altford said.

“The last time we audited the books, Millicent, I’m afraid I peered over your shoulder.”

“Christ.”

“What’d he say?” Partain asked. “Kite?”

“He wanted details, of course. And there was the matter of the commission. I offered two hundred thousand and refused to bargain. He eventually accepted.” The General paused. “It was all rather businesslike.”

“Let’s you and me do some business,” she said. “Tell me why they had to go and kill my first husband’s son, Jerry Montague?”

“Mr. Kite again,” the General said. “I think he was following his prime target, Mr. Partain. Not you, Millicent. Jerry Montague simply got in Mr. Kite’s way. I’m very sorry.”

“Who’d pay Kite to kill me?” Partain said. “Hudson and Millwed?”

“I suspect so. Because of all their unsavory activities in El Salvador. From a hint or two that I got from Mr. Kite, they seem to have inexhaustible funds.”

“You say you paid Kite a flat two hundred thousand to steal Mrs. Altford’s one-point-two million. No expenses?”

“None. When I was on my way to see him this morning, I had the notion of paying him the same amount to replace the stolen money. Not in Millicent’s safe, of course. But somewhere in her apartment. As a surprise.”

“What changed your mind?” Partain said.

The General frowned at the question, then nodded his understanding and said, “You mean why did I kill him instead?”

Partain said nothing. Neither did Millicent Altford.

“It simply had to end,” the General said. “It had gone on too long. Far too long.”

“Did you like it?” Partain said.

Mild shock spread across Winfield’s face, and he blushed slightly. “Shooting Mr. Kite? No, sir, I did not.”

“I mean all the other stuff — the deceit and the plotting and the betrayal?”

“The treachery, you mean?”

Partain nodded.

“I regret to say I found it — stimulating.”

The General put the still-open black overnight bag on the floor and rose. “It’s all there, Millicent,” he said, gathering up his hat and gloves. “One million two hundred thousand dollars. When we — I mean you, of course — audit the books next month, you’ll be able to strike a balance.”

Millicent stared at him, then shook her head and said, “I’m so sorry for you. I really am.”

He seemed not to hear. “I think I’ll walk home. Have some tea. Write a few letters.” He looked at Altford, then at Partain. “Good-bye, Millicent. Mr. Partain.”

Partain looked a question at Altford, who shook her head.

The General crossed slowly to the door, turned back and said, “Call them in an hour or so and tell them I’ll be at home.”

“The police?”

“Who else?” he said, turned again, opened the door and was gone.

Edd Partain lay fully dressed on the hotel room bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about his dead wife, about General Winfield and about whether he wanted any lunch when the telephone rang at 12:33 P.M.

He took the phone off the bedside table without rising, brought it down to his left ear and said hello. A woman’s voice said, “Mr. Partain? This is Captain Lake, General Hudson’s aide? The General deeply regrets the short notice but hopes you’ll be able to join him for dinner tonight at his home in Arlington? Would that be possible, sir?”

“I think so,” Partain said, guessing she was from Virginia, probably from down around Lynchburg.

“Oh, good. Dinner’ll be around eight and the General can send a car for you. But if you prefer to drive yourself, I’ll see that a map to his house is left in your hotel box.”

“I’ll drive myself,” Partain said, relieved that the rising inflections had ended.

“He’ll be pleased to hear you’ve accepted.”

“Could I bring someone?” Partain said.

There was no hesitation when she said, “General Hudson was hoping you might.”

Connie Weeks, the Department of Interior statistician and after-six call girl, was wearing only a Cartier watch when she turned to General Hudson and said, “You were right. He’s bringing somebody.”

The General nodded and leaned back in the pale brown suede club chair to light a cigar. He wore only a pair of gray worsted pants.

“Probably bringing Patrokis,” said Colonel Millwed, who was sprawled on the long couch that was the color of rich cream. The Colonel wore only an unbuttoned white shirt.

“I didn’t think it proper to ask who,” Connie Weeks said and glanced at her watch. “Now if one of you wants a quickie, I’ve just got time. But no threesie.”

The General waved his cigar in polite refusal and said, “I’ll pass, but maybe Colonel Long Dong over there’s interested.”

Millwed, now gazing at the ceiling, shook his head and said, “Colonel Dong’s done been sucked dry.”

“Here you go, Connie,” the General said, reached into a hip pocket and produced a small plain white envelope. “You’ll find a little extra in there.”

She smiled, accepted the envelope and said, “Thank you, gentlemen,” turned and headed for her apartment’s one bedroom, only to stop and turn around when the General said, “Heard about Emory?”

“No,” she said. “What?”

“Somebody shot and killed him this morning,” he said, then waited for her reaction, which turned out to be one of surprise, if not shock, and of sadness, if not grief. “Emory Kite?”

“I hope to Christ he’s the only Emory I know,” Colonel Millwed said as he swung his feet to the floor and sat up.

“What time’d you leave him this morning?” the General said.

“Eight. Close to eight.”

“Notice anything different?”

“Sure. As I went out the front door some old guy wanted in. Middle sixties, I guess, about six feet tall, gray hair — what I could see of it — blue eyes, no beard, no glasses, no fat. He was carrying a black overnight bag and wearing a camel hair topcoat and a fancy hat and walked the way you guys walk, like you’re always in a parade.”

“He say anything?”

“He said, ‘Fun.’ ”

“Fun?”

“He looked like a possible client so I asked him if he liked fun. And he said ‘fun’ the way you just said it — as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. So I gave him my business card, the one with only my first name and phone number, and told him to call me anytime after six.”

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing. He just smiled a little and put my card in his pocket.”

General Hudson sighed, then nodded at Colonel Millwed, who rose behind Connie Weeks, grabbed her chin with one hand, the back of her head with the other, pulled hard right, pushed hard left and broke her neck.

Ten minutes later, Colonel Millwed was wearing a suit and tie and holding a roll of Bounty paper towels as he looked around Connie Weeks’s living room for something else to wipe down or mop up. The dead woman still lay on the polished hardwood floor near the cream couch.

“Any suggestions?” the Colonel said, carefully stepping over her body.

General Hudson, now in blue blazer, white shirt, tie and gray slacks, glanced around the room and said, “Just the semen in her vagina.”

“That’s yours. She swallowed mine.”

“Let’s go,” the General said and they left, taking with them Connie Weeks’s Cartier watch, her other jewelry, her cash and her credit cards.

They hurried along the apartment house corridor, met no one, took the stairs down one floor, caught an empty elevator, rode it to the basement garage and walked out separately, ten minutes apart. Colonel Millwed kept the cash and later threw the watch, the jewelry and the credit cards into the Potomac.