Monument to Murder - Margaret Truman [111]
Brixton’s days of enjoying long walks had ended with his duty-related knee injury, which eventually affected every other joint in his body. Walking any distance was painful, although that hadn’t kept him from remaining mobile. Athletes were encouraged to “play hurt”; he’d adopted that approach and “lived hurt” the best he could.
The lure of getting in some exercise was appealing. He had the rest of the day to kill before going to Annabel’s Georgetown gallery, where he was to meet Mitzi Cardell. He looked out the window and saw that the fair weather of the past few days had held, good weather for a stroll, as abbreviated as it might be.
He’d brought with him to Washington one of two small handguns he owned and was licensed to carry, a Smith & Wesson 638 Airweight revolver that held five rounds of .38 special ammunition. He loved its small size and light weight, and how snugly it fit into his Fobus ankle holster. Actually, he disliked being armed since retiring from the police force. He’d seen enough death and mayhem caused by people carrying weapons to last him a lifetime. But he was also pragmatic enough to realize that his work occasionally took him into situations that made carrying a prudent move.
With the Smith & Wesson secured on his ankle, and dressed in gray slacks, a red-and-white-striped shirt, and a blue blazer, he went through the trendy hotel’s small, tastefully appointed lobby and stood outside among six large, alabaster nude female statues, replicas of the famous Shy Venus from the second or third century. He looked up into the face of one of the statues and whimsically wondered whether she would mind if he smoked. “You should wear something,” he told her. “You’ll catch a cold.”
He lit up, and after a few minutes of watching the passing parade he extinguished the butt in a sidewalk ashtray and headed off in the direction of Dupont Circle, four blocks away. The streets were familiar to him from having been a D.C. cop, and he enjoyed touching base with what had once been his home. Maybe his more sanguine view of the city he’d once hated had to do with knowing that he wouldn’t be staying long.
He didn’t have a destination in mind. He was content to walk at his own pace, stopping now and then to peruse shop windows when his knee or back protested, and moving on when the pain had subsided.
He bought a take-out cup of coffee and sipped it on a bench while enjoying another cigarette. He was anxious for the meeting that night. At the same time, he wanted to leave D.C. and go home. Funny, he thought, how he now considered Savannah, Georgia, his home. He was thinking of Flo and what she might be doing at that moment when a man joined him on the bench. Brixton nodded.
“Hi,” Emile Silva said. He wore a lightweight tan safari jacket, jeans, and sneakers. “Nice day, huh?”
“Yeah, it is,” said Brixton.
“You from around here?” Silva asked.
“No. Savannah, Georgia. You?”
“Not from here. Just visiting.”
Brixton turned from the stranger and finished what was left of his coffee. The street was chockablock with pedestrians, men and women in a hurry to get someplace, although when compared to New York they moved in slow motion.
Silva shifted on the bench, his eyes darting left and right, his right hand clutching the switchblade in the cargo pocket of his jacket. Too many people, he thought.
Brixton stood. “You have a nice day,” he said.
“Yeah, you, too. Say, I’ve got a question.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m only going to be here in D.C. until tomorrow and was wondering what other sights to take in.”
Brixton laughed. “I’m the last person to ask about that, but you can’t go wrong with the museums over on The Mall, or the Kennedy Center. I’m heading there now.”
“A museum?”
“The Kennedy Center. I used to go there years ago when I lived here. Have a good day.”
Brixton skirted a knot of people waiting to cross the street, hailed a passing taxi, and told the driver to take him to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As the cab navigated traffic, Brixton smiled. He found it amusing that a stranger had asked him to suggest