Page 15 of Shall We Tell the President? (Kane & Abel 3)

“I heard Stames come up on Channel One, on his way to Woodrow Wilson Medical Center, to ask a Father Gregory to go to the Greek. It was a long shot, of course, but I remembered that Stames was a Greek himself, and it wasn’t hard to trace Father Gregory. I just caught him as he was about to leave. I told him the Greek had been discharged from the hospital and that his services would no longer be needed. And thanked him. With Stames dead, no one is likely to follow that one up and, if they do, they won’t be any the wiser. I then went to the nearest Greek Orthodox church and stole the vestments, a hat, a veil, and a cross and I drove to Woodrow Wilson. By the time I arrived, Stames and Calvert had already left. I learned from the receptionist on duty that the two men from the FBI had returned to their office. I didn’t ask for too much detail as I didn’t want to be remembered. I discovered which room Casefikis was in and it was simple to reach there unnoticed. I slipped in. He was sound asleep. I cut his throat.”

The Senator winced.

“There was a nigger in the bed next to him, we couldn’t take the risk. He might have overheard everything, and he might have given a description of me, so I cut his throat too.”

The Senator felt sick. He hadn’t wanted these men to die. The Chairman had showed no emotion, the difference between a professional and an amateur.

“Then I called Tony in the car. He drove to the Washington Field Office and saw Stames and Calvert coming out of the building together. I then contacted you, boss, and Tony carried out your orders.”

The Chairman passed over a packet. It was one hundred one-hundred-dollar bills. All American employees are paid by seniority and achievement; it was no different in the criminal world.

“Tony.”

“When the two men left the Old Post Office Building, we followed them as instructed. They went over Memorial Bridge. The German passed them and managed to get well ahead of them. As soon as I realized they were turning up onto the G.W. Parkway, as we thought they would, I informed Gerbach on the walkie-talkie. He was waiting in a clump of trees on the middle strip, with his lights off, about a mile ahead. He turned on his lights and came down from the top of the hill on the wrong side of the divided highway. He swung in front of the Feds’ car just after it crossed Windy Run Bridge. I accelerated and overtook on the left-hand side of the car. I hit them with a glancing sideways blow at about seventy miles an hour, just as that damn-fool German hit them head-on. You know the rest, boss. If he had kept his cool,” Tony finished contemptuously, “the German would be here today to make his report in person.”

“What did you do with the car?”

“I went to Mario’s workshop, changed the engine block and the license plates, repaired the damage to the fender, sprayed it, and dumped it. The owner probably wouldn’t recognize his own car if he saw it.”

“Where did you dump it?”

“New York. The Bronx.”

“Good. With a murder there every four hours, they don’t have a lot of time to check on missing cars.”

The Chairman flicked a packet over the table. Three thousand dollars in used fifties. “Stay sober, Tony, we’ll be needing you again.” He refrained from saying what assignment number two would be; he simply said, “Xan.” He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. All eyes turned to the silent Vietnamese. His English was good, though heavily accentuated. He tended, like so many educated Orientals, to omit the definite article, giving his speech a curious staccato effect.

“I was in car with Tony whole evening when we got your orders to eliminate two men in Ford sedan. We followed them over bridge and up freeway and when German swung across path of Ford, I blew both back tires in under three seconds, just before Tony bounced them. They had no chance of controlling car after that.”

“How can you be so sure it was under three seconds?”

“I’d been averaging two-point-eight in practice all day.”

Silence. The Chairman passed yet another packet. Another one hundred fifties, twenty-five hundred dollars for each shot.

“Do you have any questions, Senator?”

The Senator did not look up, but shook his head slightly.

The Chairman spoke. “From the press reports and from our further investigation, it looks as if nobody has connected the two incidents, but the FBI just aren’t t

hat stupid. We have to hope that we eliminated everybody who heard anything Casefikis might have said, if he had anything to say in the first place. We may just be oversensitive. One thing’s for certain, we eliminated everybody connected with that hospital. But we still can’t be sure if the Greek knew anything worth repeating.”

“May I say something, boss?”

The Chairman looked up. Nobody spoke unless it was relevant, most unusual for an American board meeting. The Chairman let Matson have the floor.

“One thing worries me, boss. Why would Nick Stames be going to Woodrow Wilson?”

They all stared at him, not quite sure what he meant.

“We know from my inquiries and my contacts that Calvert was there, but we don’t actually know that Stames was there. All we know is that two agents went and that Stames asked Father Gregory to go. We know Stames was on his way home with Calvert, but my experience tells me that Stames wouldn’t go to the hospital himself; he’d send somebody else—”

“Even if he thought it was a serious matter?” interrupted the Chairman.

“He wouldn’t know it was a serious matter, boss. He wouldn’t have known until the agents had reported back to him.”

The Chairman shrugged. “The facts point to Stames going to the hospital with Calvert. He left the Washington Field Office with Calvert driving the same car that left the hospital.”

“I know, boss, but I don’t like it; I know that we’ve covered all the angles, but it’s possible that three or more men left the Washington Field Office and that there is still at least one agent running around who knows what actually happened.”

“It seems unlikely,” said the Senator. “As you will discover when you hear my report.”

The lips compressed in the heavy jaw.

“You’re not happy are you, Matson?”

“No, sir.”

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