Ill-Gotten Games (2 page)

“Very funny, Truitt,” Drayco said. A crow squawked from a nearby branch, and Drayco could have sworn it was saying, “The joke’s on you.” The crow was right—Drayco had no way of knowing whether one of the figurines or anything was buried in the hole.

More of the Rachmaninoff ring tones on Drayco’s cell phone silenced the crow, and Drayco realized it was an hour since the last clue. He cursed under his breath before he answered. “Yeah, it’s Drayco.”

Same voice, same purr. “Hello again, dear Drayco. Or perhaps I should call you Scott. Do you mind if I call you Scott?”

“Right now, Truitt, you could call me the Tooth Fairy, as long as you clue me in on what game you’re playing.”

“It’s a game I made up. It has two players and I call it Drayconian Hide and Seek. Did you figure out the first clue?”

“If you’re referring to the black hole I discovered in the middle of a physics playground, then yes.”

“Very good. I’m impressed. Care to try again?”

Truitt hung up, and Drayco took that as a sign to check his e-mail. Yep, a new quatrain.

On all things relative,

Albert was perceptive.

Immortalized in bronze,

And weighing two squared tons.

Another physics in-joke. Drayco checked the time. It would take at least twenty minutes to the National Academy of Sciences back in the heart of D.C. Thanking his lucky stars it wasn’t the height of tourist season, he was able to reach his target in record time and pulled into a parking slot being vacated by a Yellow Cab.

“Hello, Albert,” Drayco walked up to the statue and patted the head. He checked behind Einstein’s larger-than-life bronze torso, underneath a thicket of evergreens, combing through the wet prickly branches. Nothing unusual, unless you counted the shiny worn surface on Einstein’s lap where countless children sat and had their picture taken. Drayco fought the temptation to hoist himself up and do the same.

Instead, he strolled over to a bench across from the statue, literally beating about the bushes surrounding the bench. Then he spotted the telltale hole, identical to the last one.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me what Truitt looks like these days?” Drayco looked at Einstein, who continued to look bored. “Didn’t think so.”

The surviving Artserve guard was able to describe the attacker’s odd getup. The fedora, dark glasses, ZZ-Top beard and hair, all seemed clichéd attempts at a disguise. A separate witness claimed to have seen Truitt and the bratty Odom together days before the heist, and her description indicated Truitt hadn’t bothered to hide his trademark black-and-white ponytail and ankh-shaped chin scar. Was Truitt simply too tired to go through the charade anymore?

Baskin had pressed Odom in court on being seen with Truitt, and Odom managed to keep a straight face when he’d said he had no idea who Truitt was and must have bumped into him by accident while getting coffee at Murky’s. Right. As if Odom would stoop to get his own cup of java, when he could send his chauffeur.

Drayco looked around, but again, no sign anyone was watching other than the ubiquitous D.C. pigeons. Maybe they were in cahoots with the College Park crow. He pulled out his phone to call the courthouse. It was near ten-thirty, break time. Jurors consumed large quantities of coffee before the opening session, and no attorney wanted a squirming jury.

Drayco’s timing was spot-on, and it was nice to have something go right for a change. Baskin, on the other hand, was not happy. “Either give me good news or shoot me now, Drayco, because I’ve had it up to here with Odom.”

Drayco had sat in on some of the sessions, so he knew what Baskin was up against. Baskin had put Odom on the stand in hopes he’d crack under the pressure and admit he was behind the theft of the figurines, if not the murder. But Odom was quite the actor, with Matthew McConaughey looks, deflecting Baskin’s questions in a boy-next-door “Who me?” fashion. In contrast, Baskin’s client, poor Manuel Parrack, had an eye that twitched as if winking, and a tendency to sweat so much, he didn’t have stains under his armpits, they were more like sweat lagoons.

Drayco hoped he sounded as sympathetic as he felt. “I’m not sure it’s good news, but I’ve been in contact with Truitt. He’s digging up his buried treasure one by one and taking me along for the ride. I’m not sure why he picked today, unless he thinks you’re going to win the case soon.”

Baskin huffed. “He’s probably just gloating. Hell, if I were him, I’d have handed the stolen figurines over to Odom, gotten my money and taken a Caribbean vacation. Or if he’s double-timing Odom, fenced the goods myself.”

“Yet he stuck around. And neither partner-in-crime has betrayed the other. Odom’s probably so cocksure, he doesn’t think ratting out Truitt is necessary. But Truitt on the other hand—his motives are less clear. It’s like he’s protecting Odom.”

“Well, Drayco, do what you have to. Humor Truitt, play along, join him in a little song and dance. One good break is all we need.”

Drayco was no stranger to pressure. In fact, he thrived on it, since adrenaline spurts did wonders for sharpening the brain like a pencil point. For all his bluster, Baskin was much the same, one of the reasons the duo got along so well despite the
Midnight Cowboy
references whenever the two stood side-by-side.

Baskin’s perfect record might be at stake, but Drayco knew that wasn’t what kept Benny up at night. It was the constant fear an innocent person might be convicted, and Baskin hadn’t been able to stop it. Like Baskin’s uncle Daniel, in jail eighteen years for the rape of a teenage girl until DNA evidence later cleared him. And now, too, like Manuel Parrack?

Drayco was tired of sitting around waiting to play by Truitt’s rules. He flipped through his mental file of Truitt hideouts, and trusting his gut instinct, headed toward the most likely of the lot, down East Capitol Street far from the trendier Southeast Waterfront. “Urban blight” didn’t begin to describe the rows of rundown and abandoned buildings with bars on the windows in this area, where the principal decor consisted of nailed plywood.

He pulled up in front of what used to be a laundromat, although the chipped pink paint now read LA…D…MAT. The windows were cracked in places and covered inside with green and blue polka-dot sheets and hanging beads that would have felt at home in the hippie days of the ’60s.

The building belonged to a middle-aged divorcee who’d succumbed to Truitt’s mysterious charm and let Truitt hang out there after she closed the laundromat. His source also told him Janet Archbold, a friend with Truitt’s laundry lady, lived in the townhouse next door where she had a manicure side business.

The woman who answered the door wasn’t what he was expecting. Hazel eyes contrasted with long black hair surrounding a face that would have been at home in the desert Southwest. Although she wouldn’t win any beauty contests, not a bad thing in Drayco’s opinion, she reminded him of a dancer friend of his, all arms and legs and grace.

She sized him up. “I don’t think you’re here to get your nails done. You’re too well-dressed for this neighborhood, and—” she looked over his shoulder to the curb, “you’re driving an unmarked car that screams ordinary so loud, it has to belong to a cop. How am I doing?”

Drayco looked down at his nails, then held out his hands. “I’m told I look good in maroon, and that Camry is leased. And I’m not a cop.”

She smiled. “Private?”

“I investigate things, yes.”

“Did my ex-husband send you? Because if he did, tell him he’s barking up the wrong piñon tree. I’m not living with anyone and I didn’t get secretly remarried in Vegas.”

“Piñon tree? You must be from northern Arizona.”

“Originally.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not here on behalf of your ex-husband. I want to talk to you about your neighbor.”

“If you mean Gina from the laundromat, I haven’t seen her since it closed.”

“Have you seen a man coming and going?”

She hesitated. “A skinny fellow with a black-and-white ponytail? Yeah. He keeps to himself, and I like it that way.”

“Why?”

“Most people give off vibes, you know? I don’t believe in auras or that touchy-feely crap, but I do know the Cairn terrier down the street growls at that man every time it sees him. With everybody else, the dog’s a lovepig.”

“I hope my vibes aren’t bothering you.”

She shook her head. “You don’t hear me growling, do you? Still, you want something other than maroon nail polish.”

Just as she had sized him up, Drayco scanned her face and body language, looking for signs as to how far she’d trust him. “I’d like to get inside that laundromat. Neighbors often leave house keys with each other in case of emergencies, so I’m hoping Gina left one with you.”

“This pony-tailed man. Not one of the good guys, I take it?”

“Not one of the worst, but bad enough.”

She stood there for a few moments, biting her lip. Then she turned on her heel and disappeared into a back room, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor. He was beginning to get concerned she’d bailed on him after five minutes had passed, but the sounds of clicking heralded her return. She grabbed his hand and pressed a large gold key into his palm.

“On one condition,” she said.

“And that is?”

“I go with you. It’s my neighbor and friend and although you have a nice face, I don’t know you. Besides, it will look less suspicious if we’re together.”

Still uncertain whether Drayco had been set up, he started to tell her no, but she yanked the key back. “I mean it. That’s the only way.”

“I could break and enter.”

“But would any evidence hold up in court? My way, I’m legally inviting you to join me. All nice and aboveboard.”

She did have lovely sable-colored eyes, and when she batted those long eyelashes at him, he knew he was going to give in. He was a sucker for bright, intelligent eyes. As they walked to the laundromat, he asked, “So what’s a nice Native American girl who likes Thai cooking, Celtic folk music, Mehndi tattoos and gardening doing in a ratty D.C. neighborhood?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You put me to shame. You got all that in a few minutes?”

“You have a box from a Thai spice company on your table, there’s a picture behind the door of you holding a Celtic harp, and surprisingly for a manicurist, you aren’t wearing nail polish, probably due to the harp-playing, but it allows dirt under your nails to show. As for the Mendhi, although I don’t see a tattoo design on you,” Janet blushed, and Drayco tried not to let his imagination run wild as to where she might have painted the design, “I saw henna powder tucked inside a bookcase. A woman of international tastes.”

“I guess that’s what drew me to D.C. in the first place, the multicultural feel. That and my ex-husband’s job. It was great until he ran off with his secretary. His male secretary.”

Having kept the key anyway, she was the one to unlock the front door to the laundromat, basically a long rectangular box with a small bathroom and one lonely futon covered in psychedelic fabric. In place of the former washers and dryers were gaping holes in the floor. The most striking feature, if you could call it that, were the hundreds of pictures covering the walls—graphic war montages, bloody crime scenes and detailed articles, hung in rows.

They walked around looking at the frames, and Drayco started feeling guilty for bringing Janet along, after all. He couldn’t remember a more disturbing collection of materials. They were in chronological order, dating from the Vietnam War through Charles Manson to the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Gulf War and the present.

The newest additions were clippings from
The Washington Post
about the figurine heist and the murder of the Artserve guard. One of the clippings mentioned the questioning on the witness stand of Odom, with that paragraph highlighted in yellow. If Drayco had ever questioned the link between Truitt and Odom, which he hadn’t, this was a sign he and Baskin were on the right track.

But the picture that interested Drayco the most was a snapshot of three men in G.I. uniforms, arms around each other’s shoulders as they smiled for the camera. Drayco had seen enough photos of the younger Truitt to recognize him as one of the men in the snapshot, but the man to Truitt’s right also looked familiar. And he was pretty sure the third man was someone else he knew well.

“Do you have a copy machine?” he asked his companion.

“One of those combo jobs that prints, scans, and fixes you supper. Would that do?”

“Yeah. I’d like to make a copy of this one.” He removed it from the wall and laid it on the futon. Then he ducked into the bathroom, barely big enough to fit one person in addition to the toilet and sink. There was a deep windowsill which held a cardboard box with a wig, fake beard and mustache, spirit gum, bald skull caps and several containers of theatrical makeup. He was disappointed not to spy the ZZ-Top getup, although that was probably buried in a landfill by now.

The sink had a leak with a small puddle underneath, although it wasn’t dripping, nor were there beads of water on the pipes. Drayco turned on the hot water faucet. Nothing. But when he turned on the cold water, the leaky valve started dripping again, adding to the puddle. Truitt was here recently.

The pair made their way back to Janet’s building, where she printed him a copy of the photo, then they both returned to the laundromat long enough to re-hang the original. She’d offered to do it herself later, but he didn’t want her over there alone in case Truitt returned.

“That’s very sweet of you,” she’d said, when he explained his reasoning. “But I can take care of myself.”

He smiled at that. “No doubt, but it does a male ego proud to play the knight in shining armor. You helped me get my quota this week.”

“Any time you need to get your quota, give me a call. And if you ever do decide to get your nails done, I’m your gal.”

Although he’d known some men on Capitol Hill who’d had manicures, and one or two in the FBI (although they’d never own up), he wasn’t the type. Still, the thought of the very appealing Janet lavishing care on his hands for the better part of an hour didn’t seem such a horrible idea.