Put a Lid on It Page 8

“Okay, Mr. Jeffords,” Meehan said. “Give me a phone number where what I reach is you and not a lot of machines and menus.”

  “I—Well…” Jeffords sighed deeply. “Do you have a pencil?”

  “Hold on.” To Goldfarb he said, “Can you write this down?”

  “Sure.” Out of the shoulderbag came pen and notepad.

  Meehan told Jeffords, “Say it now,” and put the phone by Goldfarb's ear. She wrote down the number, and then Meehan took the phone back, to say, “You're gonna pay to put Goldfarb up in a hotel—”

  “Damn,” Goldfarb said.

  “Of course,” Jeffords said.

  “—and we'll call you—What is this number you gave me?”

  “My cellphone, it's always on my person, not many people have that number.”

  “Screw up, Mr. Jeffords,” Meehan threatened, “and every telemarketer in the world is gonna have that number.”

  “Francis, I've been decent with you—”

  “Yeah, yeah. We'll call you in an hour, find out what your progress is.”

  “Fine. Do that. Fine.”

  Meehan hung up, and Goldfarb said, “I find I prefer the Goldfarb without the Ms.”

  “Me, too,” Meehan said. “Let's find you a room at my joint.”

  21

  GOLDFARB HAD TO go shopping for basics, so Meehan went to his room, looked at his list of reversed initials, and wondered what would turn out to have gone wrong with GW.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Woody there?”

  Pause: “Do I know that voice?”

  “Oh, Woody, harya!” Astonished to find somebody actually home, Meehan said, “I tell you what, I'll go on talking until you remember who I am. One of the ten thousand rules is, ears work better than eyes.”

  “Gotcha,” Woody said. “But you're inside. Why you calling me from inside?”

  “Because I'm outside,” Meehan said. “And before next Thursday I gotta do a little stunt that'll not only keep me outside but earn a couple dollars for me and a few friends. You wanna come along?”

  Woody had started by sounding phlegmatic; now he sounded as though he were talking through Jell-O: “How come you're out? You're out? How come?”

  “Well, Woody,” Meehan said, “I'd be happy to give you the whole story over a beer, if I thought you might be interested.”

  There was a long pause, while the Jell-O hardened, and Meehan had just begun to think Woody would never speak again when he said, “I can listen.”

  Hearing the suspicion in Woody's voice, Woody wondering if Meehan was a plant the way, in the MCC, Meehan had wondered if Johnson was a plant, Meehan said, “You say where and when.”

  “You're in the city?”

  “Where else?”

  “There's a video store on Third between Nineteenth and Twentieth,” Woody said. “They keep the porn in the back.”

  “Sure. What time?”

  “Let's see, it's five to four. How about four-thirty? That way we're in and out before the workers stop by on their way home.”

  Thirty-five minutes to get across town and down. “I'll be there,” Meehan said, and abandoned the rest of his list.

  The front windows of the video store were spread with posters of kiddy movies. Inside, the store was deep and narrow, lined with video boxes on shelves, more video boxes on carousels down the middle of the place, a bored grandmother seated on a stool behind a counter and cash register next to the door. There were no customers.

  The grandmother raised an eyebrow at Meehan but didn't speak, so he didn't either, but walked through to the back, where a closed dark red door with four smallish windows in it bore a sign ADULT. When Meehan opened this door, it chimed, like the Avon lady was coming, or somebody was coming.

  But there was nobody in this narrow gaudy back room but Woody, a bony glum-looking black-haired man, looking at his watch. “I'm not late,” Meehan said, shutting the door (it chimed again), “I'm exactly on time.”

  “You don't mind,” Woody said, “I pat you down.”

  Moving away from the windowed door, spreading his arms, Meehan said, “This is a weird place to do it.”

  “Safe sex,” Woody said, and patted Meehan here and there, not hard but thorough, looking not for weapons, as Meehan knew, but wires. Done, but looking unsatisfied, he stepped back, folded his arms, and said, “Tell.”

  “I was in the MCC—”

  “On a solid rap,” Woody said. “And federal. I heard about it. No way you're out.”

  “Exactly,” Meehan said. “Except, it's federal, and it turns out, there's some people connected to the president, he's running for election, these people are with him, helping—”

  “Meehan,” Woody said, “what the hell have you got to do with the president?”

  “They want me to steal something for him,” Meehan said. “He's got an evidence problem, just like a normal person, like you or me, and he needs a robber, so they look in the federal cans, they find me, make me the offer. I get this evidence, turn it over, they make my case go away, they can do that. Next week I'm supposed to go to juvenile court, plead guilty, sentenced to time served.”

  Woody frowned at him. Down inside there, he seemed to be thinking very hard, but not very fast. Finally he said, “How long I known you?”

  “Maybe seven, eight years.”

  “Here's the thing of it,” Woody said. “What you just told me there is the rankest bullshit, I wouldn't try that one on my four-year-old nephew, but it's comin outa you, and while you contain as much bullshit as anybody it isn't that kind of bullshit, not in all the years I known you. It just doesn't have the mark of your kind of invention, and why would you try such bullshit on me in the first place? What's in it for you? You aren't trying to entrap me, not with a story like that, you aren't making me any offers, so what is this shit?”

  “Well, it's the truth,” Meehan said.

  “Jesus Christ on a crutch,” Woody said. “If it isn't the truth, what the fuck is it? You can buy me that beer now.”

  22

  AT A BOOTH in a dim bar on Third Avenue, beginning to fill up with a mix of office workers and construction workers at the end of their workday, the two of them hunched over Rolling Rocks in the green bottles, Woody listened as Meehan told him the story, from Jeffords' laughable imitation of a lawyer to Meehan's flight back with Goldfarb. He left out the foreign spies because he didn't want to complicate the issue. At the end, he said, “They gave me a G, walking around money. They gave my lawyer a retainer check of six large. These people are Looney Tunes, but they're also serious.”

  “And you don't know what's in this package,” Woody said, “that they want you to get for them.”

  “I don't want to know,” Meehan told him. “I thought it over, and I hear it's a videotaped confession that's got the president worried, do I want to know what's on that tape? Do I want the president of the fucking universe worried about me?”

  “I see what you mean,” Woody said. “But if this stuff is just layin around, these people already have their hands on it, how can you be sure you got till next Thursday? Maybe they're gonna spring it tomorrow morning, for the Sunday talk shows.”

  “The CC people,” Meehan said, “seemed to think the October Surprise doesn't happen until later in October. The closer to the election, the more punch it's got.”

  “Well, that's true. And you talked to Leroy.”

  “He said if it's Burnstone, and now we know it is Burn-stone, he wants it.”

  “Did he say how much is in it?”

  “We didn't get into dollars,” Meehan said. “I had that CC guy breathing on me. If you want, why not call Leroy yourself ? Tell him I asked you to come in with me, ask him how much he thinks we'll make out of it.”

  Woody considered that idea, drinking beer out of the bottle, then shook his head. “Nah, forget it,” he said. “If Leroy's interested, there's gotta be enough in there that I'm interested, too. How big a string, do you think?”

  “I was guessing fo
ur,” Meehan said. “But I gotta see the place first, figure it out. Listen, you doing anything? Whyn't we drive up there tomorrow, give it the double-o?”

  “Maybe,” Woody said, slowly nodding. All around them, office workers were talking with construction workers, everybody hoping to get lucky. Woody and Meehan, in their own quiet cocoon, contemplated their options. Woody said, “You got a car?”

  “No, I got nothing. I was gonna be inside forever, remember?”

  “Part of me,” Woody said, “is still not getting over this. It's like you got a fairy godmother all at once, or a genie in a lamp.” He rubbed the Rolling Rock bottle, closed his eyes, intoned, “I wish I was outa the MCC.” He opened his eyes and looked at Meehan. “And here you are.”

  “So do you want to do it?” Meehan asked him. “Drive up tomorrow?”

  “You gonna rent a car?”

  “I can't, I don't have any credit cards, they get so antsy when you try to rent with cash. I figured, I go out to Kennedy, borrow one from long-term parking.”

  Woody did a click thing with his teeth, suggesting he didn't think much of that idea. He said, “I got a cousin, I can usually borrow the car, I'll give her a call.”

  “Even better,” Meehan agreed.

  Woody pulled crumpled paper and a stub of pencil from his pocket. “Where are you?”

  “Crowne Royale Motor Home,” Meehan told him, “on Ninth.” He reeled off the place's phone number, and said, “I'm in room three-eighteen.”

  “I'll call you in the morning,” Woody said. He finished his beer, and at last looked around the bar, saying, “Anybody here we could love?”

  23

  LEAVING WOODY IN conference with a zoftig female construction worker, Meehan went back to the Crowne Royale, room 318, to find the message light blinking on his phone. He retrieved, and heard Goldfarb's recorded voice: “Call me, I'm in five-twenty-three.” So he figured out how to dial room-to-room, and she answered right away, saying, “Was the MCC worse than this?”

  “You're kidding,” he said. “This is heaven.”

  “I'm dying of boredom here,” she said. “I've got nothing around me, none of my books, my food, nothing.”

  “You've got your own TV and a window and a soft bed and an unlocked door,” Meehan told her, “and no bad-smelling felons sharing your space. Be grateful.”

  “All right, I'm grateful,” she said, not sounding it. “I talked with Jeffords.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He's taking the shuttle up, he wants to take us to dinner.”

  “Instead of solving the problem?”

  “We'll ask. Do you have any better clothes?”

  “I don't have any clothes,” he said. “This isn't the life I was gearing up for.”

  “Good,” she said. “Meet me in the lobby.”

  “Why?”

  “You've given me a purpose in life,” she said. “I'm gonna dress you.”

  “Nice jacket,” Jeffords said, when they walked up to his table.

  The last two hours had been difficult for Meehan. Several of the ten thousand rules had to do with not being the center of attention. Nevertheless, Goldfarb had taken him down to Macy's, which was open late because it was Friday, but where they were somewhat limited in their choices because he couldn't pick out—or, more accurately, she couldn't pick out—anything that had to be altered. He needed to buy items he could start using right away.

  Still, it worked out. When they left Macy's an hour later, he was carrying two big shopping bags in which were folded two nice pairs of wool slacks, light gray and dark gray, and a nice sports jacket, bluish gray, and two nice dress shirts, white and dark blue, and a nice pair of black shoes with laces, and four pairs of nice black socks. Oh, and a necktie, for God's sake, in maroon and black rectangles.

  So here he was, in a hushed midtown restaurant at eight P.M., following a tuxedoed maitre d' to the snowy booth where Jeffords awaited them, and Meehan was in his new duds. Where he'd had choices, he'd gone for light gray and dark blue, and the first thing that happened, even before they sat down, Jeffords complimented him on the jacket. Instead of solving the problem?

  “Thanks,” Meehan said. “Goldfarb picked it out.”

  “Well, of course,” Jeffords said. “She's your legal adviser.”

  Goldfarb slid into the booth, Meehan followed, and the maitre d' bent to ask what they wanted to drink. Goldfarb gave a six-word order in which the only word Meehan understood was “vodka.” He looked over at Jeffords and saw in front of him a short thick glass containing ice cubes, a clear liquid, and a little shingle of lime rind. So maybe he wouldn't order a beer after all, but straight rye also didn't seem quite the thing. “I'll have the same as her,” he said, and the maitre d' bowed and went away.

  “And here we all are,” Jeffords said, with a bright look around the table.

  Goldfarb cut to the chase: “When can I go home?”

  Jeffords beamed at her. “Right after dinner, if you want.”

  She lit up, sparkling behind those monster eyeglasses. “I can? They're gone?”

  “Out of your life,” he assured her. “Not out of mine yet, unfortunately, but definitely out of yours.”

  “What about the hotel room I took?”

  “Pay for it, send me the bill, we'll reimburse.”

  “But I don't have to stay there.”

  “Not unless you really want to.”

  “Ha ha,” she said.

  Meehan said, “Tell me about it.”

  Jeffords was so goddam bland. “The problem's gone away,” he said. “Isn't that enough?”

  “Not for me, it isn't,” Meehan said. “They were looking for me because they wanted to know what's the maguffin. Well, I don't know what's the maguffin, but I know where's the maguffin, and they gotta know I know that much, so why won't they come blundering into my caper, leaving electric tape on doors and handcuffing people to sinks?”

  “It's dealt with,” Jeffords insisted. “Your part is dealt with.”

  “Tell.”

  Jeffords sighed, and then was rescued temporarily by a waiter, bringing their drinks. These two were also clear liquid and ice cubes in short thick glasses, but instead of the page of lime skin they contained a gold sword-shaped toothpick impaling two big green olives. “Ahh,” said Goldfarb to her drink, so Meehan smiled at his, waiting for the waiter to go away.

  Which he did, to be immediately followed by another one, bringing them menus the size of placemats, then hanging around to tell them tonight's specials, which involved a whole lot of words to let them know that tonight they could also have tuna, salmon, or lamb chops. Finally, he went away, and Meehan said, “Tell.”

  “Wait till we order, Francis,” Jeffords said. “Or we'll just be interrupted a lot.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Goldfarb lifted her glass. “Success,” she said.

  Jeffords lifted his. “Cheers,” he said.

  Meehan lifted his, finding it surprisingly heavy. “Evil to our enemies,” he said.

  “I'll drink to that,” Jeffords said, and they all did, Meehan learning to his surprise that he seemed to have ordered gasoline diluted with olive oil.

  “You know, Francis,” Jeffords said, “it's too bad you didn't have that nice jacket and tie when we were first traveling together.”

  “I'm sorry if I was an embarrassment,” Meehan said.

  “No, that's not what I meant,” Jeffords said, and waiter number two came back to take their order.

  Meehan wanted to know why the lamb chops were so special tonight, so that's what he asked for, and when Goldfarb wanted a nice mesclun salad to start he decided he did, too.

  “And the wine list,” Jeffords said. “This will only take a minute,” he assured Meehan.

  A little longer, not much. Waiter number one came back, with a leather-bound book, larger than the menus, that looked as though you should say Mass out of it, and Jeffords paged through it awhile, the waiter hovering, then said, “I think bin two
-seventy-one,” and the waiter said, “A very nice choice,” and went away.

  “Do we have to wait for the tasting,” Meehan asked, “and the pouring, and the food arriving, and more water in the water glasses, and the drinks glasses being taken away, and some more wine pouring, and—”

  “All right,” Jeffords said. “All right, you're right. You remember our first flight down to Norfolk.”

  “Sure.”

  “There were two people with us on the plane. Howie Briggs, remember?”

  “I remember Cindy better,” Meehan said, “but sure.”

  “Howie Briggs thought you looked a little strange to be on that plane,” Jeffords said, “which is why it's unfortunate you weren't dressed then as you are now. When he saw the plane's owner at Hilton Head—”

  “Arthur,” Meehan said. “Briggs didn't mention a last name.”

  “Very good,” Jeffords said. “Yes, Arthur.” His mouth turned down. “Arthur is a very large contributor to the president's campaign,” he said, “which gives him close access to much of what we're doing. We now learn—Yes, that's it,” he told the wine bottle next to his face, and held one finger up for Meehan to wait.

  When next he could speak, he said, “We now learn that Arthur, through various multinational business connections, has, what shall I say, divided loyalties. Conflicts of interest. There are other elements, offshore, about which he feels as strongly as he feels about the reelection of the president. Perhaps more strongly.” He looked uncomfortable, fiddled with his wineglass, said, “It seems there's a combined Egyptian-Israeli intelligence task force in this country at the moment, attempting to influence the election. Been here for months. Spending money.”

  Goldfarb said, “Foreign power brokers always try to horn in on our elections, guarantee themselves a piece of the pie. It's like lobbying.”

  Jeffords nodded. “Yes, exactly. When Howie Briggs described Francis to Arthur, wondering why such scruffy people should get nice rides on Arthur's private jet, Arthur made inquiries.”

  “Because you weren't controlling the situation,” Meehan said. “As I already pointed out.”