The Washington Club Read Online Free Page B

won’t do that. I don’t believe you. You’re dramatising.’
    â€˜Claudia, I . . .’
    The line went dead.
Brilliantly handled, Hardy
, I thought.
Telephone diplomacy at its best
. I hit redial. The phone rang for a long time but she didn’t answer. The ice had melted in my drink; the Scotch was just a pale tint in the water and making it darker wouldn’t change anything. I tossed it off and set about cooking a bachelor dinner—salad with French dressing, pasta with pesto and grated cheese—living with those women had taught me something.
    I had a glass of wine with the food and poured another when I sat down with a foolscap pad to try to make some sense of the day’s information and events. With any luck I’d get through the night one drink under my limit. My no doubt simple-minded procedure is to list the names of the people involved, all the relevant information on them and to draw arrows between them all pointing in alldirections, noting on the shafts the things that connected them.
    Sometimes this can be time-consuming and cover many sheets. Sometimes laying it all out like this triggers brainwaves and stimulates  me to leaps of imagination. This time it took a few minutes and yielded virtually no results. I knew almost nothing beyond superficialities about Julius and Claudia Fleischman. I knew still less about Robert Van Kep, Wilson Katz and Judith Daniels. The only person I knew anything solid about was the new participant, Haitch Henderson. I had another entry on the pad—‘other man’, signifying the alleged accomplice of Van Kep. I drew an arrow between this entry and Henderson, but I didn’t think it was going to be anywhere near that simple.
    I finished the wine and no other thoughts came other than the obvious one—dig for details on all parties still alive and available. Being kind to my liver and waistline, I resisted the fifth drink and made coffee instead. The dishes went into a newly acquired dishwashing machine, a factory second with a scratch on the cabinet, bought cheap. I only ran it once a week and didn’t feel too bad about its environmental impact. As I waited for the coffee to perk I made a list of the things to do the next day. Top of the list was to fax Cy a contract and try to get a solid retainer out of him, despite being in the red. I’d have to tryto get that past Janine and the odds were evens at best.
    I drank coffee, had a shower and slopped around in a
sulu
someone had brought back for me from Vanuatu. I put on a cassette of the soundtrack from
Local Hero
and spent some time cleaning, oiling and checking the action of my Smith & Wesson .38. The gun was very dusty and dry from disuse and it felt heavy and awkward in my hand, but with Haitch Henderson in the picture, it seemed like a good idea to get familiar with it again. I handled it, picking it up, aiming it, lowering, swinging it around, gripping and re-gripping until it felt like something I might be able to use, if I had to. I rewound the tape and listened to ‘Going Home’ three times.
    Cy rang just before midnight.
    â€˜Good eats?’ I said.
    â€˜I forget already. What’s up?’
    I told him about Henderson and how badly I’d handled Claudia over the phone.
    He groaned. ‘What’s the good news?’
    â€˜There isn’t any. I’ll need to slot someone in to keep an eye on her, at least for a few days until I can do something about Henderson. That’s going to cost.’
    â€˜Do it. Tell Janine what you need up-front and I’ll okay it.’
    Well, that was good news for me at least. I gave Cy a run-down on what I’d be doing next and he told me he had a meeting scheduledwith the prosecutor. We agreed to keep each other fully informed.
    â€˜I suppose you’ve got one of those fucking foolscap pads all covered with doodles?’
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜And an arrow linking up Henderson and