Stuart Woods: Shoot Him If He Runs

“Morning,” the man said to everybody.

“Good morning.”

“Bartender, do you have any Alka-Seltzer back there?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir.” A glass of water was placed on the bar and two tablets began to fizz.

“I’ve got to stop eating my own cooking,” the man said. His accent was mildly southern.

“You’re eating your own cooking on vacation?” Stone asked, grateful for the opening.

“I came in on a boat last night,” the man said. “Sailed it down from Lauderdale.”

“Singlehanded?”

“Yep. A lot of fun.”

“I’ve done a little of that. I sailed a fifty-footer from here to Lauderdale a few years back.”

“Mine’s smaller than that,” the man said. It’s a Hinckley Bermuda Forty.”

“Nice boat. Easy to singlehand?”

“Well, I improved the deck layout a little for singlehanding, and GPS sure makes the navigation easier.”

“How’d you pick St. Marks?”

“Well, I was going sailing, anyway, and…” He stuck out his hand. “By the way, my name is Harry Pitts.”

Stone shook the hand. “Stone Barrington.”

“Lady I used to go out with has a place here, so I dropped in to see her, thought I’d rest up for a week or two. Where you from?”

“New York.”

“I’m from a little town in Virginia you never heard of. What business you in?”

“Attorney. You?”

“I had a very nice home improvement business; sold it a couple of years ago and retired. Bored out of my skull, until I went sailing. A friend took me out on the Chesapeake, and I kind of went nuts about it. Excuse me.” He picked up the glass, drank the fizzy liquid, belched, and set the glass down. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’d better rejoin my lady. If you’re around later, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I’d like that,” Stone said.

“You staying here?”

“Yes, cottage number one, down on the beach. Why don’t you both join us for a drink around six?”

“That’s mighty nice of you; let me check with Irene, and I’ll get back to you.” He gave a little wave and went back to his table.

“What do you think?” Stone asked.

“He’s not Teddy, but that was good about asking them for a drink; at least we’ll get to talk to Irene. He’s waving at you.”

Stone looked over at the table. Harry Pitts was making a circle with his thumb and forefinger and nodding, then held up six fingers.

Stone gave an acknowledging wave and turned back to his piña colada. “It would be a plus if they didn’t turn out to be awful bores,” he said.

“I don’t see how anybody who rose as far in the Agency as Irene could turn out to be a bore,” Holly replied.

“Any way you slice it,” Stone said, “she was a bureaucrat.”

Their guests arrived at ten minutes past six, laughing. It seemed that they had already had at least one drink, but Stone poured vodka gimlets that he had made the night before and stored in the freezer. Introductions were made.

“So,” Stone said, “are you both from Virginia?”

“How did you know that?” Irene Foster asked.

“Harry said he was from a small town in Virginia that I never heard of.”

“Well, I’m from Virginia, but not from a town you never heard of, or from any other town,” Irene replied, taking a big sip of her gimlet. “I’m a country girl.”

Harry Pitts laughed. “She’s the slickest country girl you ever met,” he said. “She worked for the CIA for more than twenty years.”

“ Harry! ” Irene exclaimed.

“What’s the matter? Is it still a secret?”

“Sort of,” she muttered.

“It wasn’t a secret when you worked there,” he said. “Why is it a secret now?”

“I’m sorry,” Stone said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You’re not prying,” Irene said. “It’s just that when you work for the Agency for so long, you get used to not discussing your work. I used to tell people I worked for the Agriculture Department; that usually stopped the conversation in its tracks.”

Everybody laughed.

“This is one hell of a good drink,” Harry said, taking another sip and savoring it. “How do you make it?”

“Pour six ounces out of a fifth of vodka, replace it with Rose’s sweetened lime juice, and put it in the freezer until it hurts to hold the bottle. If you make it in a cocktail shaker, you just water it down.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Harry said. “So easy!”

“Certainly is.”

Dino jumped in. “What part of the CIA did you work for, Irene? Were you a spy? Or is my question a no-no?”

“It’s not a no-no,” Irene said. “I worked in the operations section, but I wasn’t a spy; I just worked with spies. I was an administrator.”

“Was it exciting?” Genevieve asked.

“Sometimes it was dull as dishwater,” Irene replied. “And sometimes it was way too exciting. It was kind of fun doing work that nobody knew about, only the people you worked with. It was sort of like a club.” She held up her glass. “May I have another of these?”

“Of course,” Stone said and went to the freezer for the bottle. He came back and poured both Irene and Harry a drink.

“Did you ever work with that guy who killed all those people?” Holly asked. “I forget his name; something about a Teddy Bear.”

Stone tried to keep a straight face. “I know the one you mean,” he said. “He got blown up in an airplane explosion.”

“Oh, yes,” Irene said. “Teddy Fay. Teddy worked with people all over the Agency; he was a technical expert. I knew him, but mostly ten or fifteen years ago.”

Harry chimed in. “What does a technical expert do?”

“All sorts of things: communications, documentation, weapons-you name it.”

“I would have liked to do something like that,” Harry said wistfully. “After you’ve been in the home improvement business for a few years, there aren’t any surprises; one kitchen or bathroom looks pretty much like all the others.”

“You make it sound boring, Harry,” Stone said. “Was it?”

“Well, not really. Once I was doing well enough to hire people it wasn’t so repetitive. After that I just went around and worked up estimates, then inspected the work. I like to think I had a reputation for quality.”

“That’s hard to come by these days,” Stone said. “I did most of the work on the renovation of my house, and every time I hired somebody else, I had to watch them like a hawk to make sure the work got done right.”

“You’re good with your hands, then?” Harry asked.

“You’re pretty good with your hands, too, Harry,” Irene said, leering at him.

Harry seemed embarrassed.

“My father was a carpenter and a cabinetmaker and a furniture builder, to his own designs,” Stone said. “I worked in his shop part-time as a kid.”

“You can learn a lot from the right man,” Harry said.

“He started out by slinging his tool kit over his shoulder and going around, door to door, in Greenwich Village, asking people if they had any odd jobs. He could fix anything. I still have some of the furniture he made.”

“I would have liked to know him,” Harry said. “I admire people like that.”

“Irene,” Genevieve said, “is it true that the CIA can listen in on just about anybody’s phone conversations and read their e-mail?”

“You’re thinking of the National Security Agency,” Irene said. “They’re the electronics wizards. Most of what the Agency does is just collect information, sort it and analyze it. Of course, there are actual spies, some of them in embassies around the world, pretending to be diplomats, others out on their own spying on people and cultivating sources in foreign governments and societies.”