Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [85]
“Ready?” he asked, scooping up the phone messages she’d brought and shoving them into a pocket of his tan safari jacket.
She opened the door to the suite and led him down the hallway to the elevators. They rode down in silence. He informed the desk clerk that an emergency had come up and that he had to check out. He paid with his credit card, and they went out of the River Inn into the muggy night. He led her to where he’d parked the car, handed her the key, pulled her close, and kissed her long and hard on the mouth. When they disengaged, he said, “Tell you what. When this is over—and we’re talking a week, two at the most—we’ll take a nice long vacation, just the two of us. Anyplace you say.”
“Okay. Not Israel, not D.C.”
“Now, go on, go home. I’ll keep in touch. I’ll call when I can.”
“Okay.”
He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, tilted her face up to meet his, and said, “Come on now, get rid of that deer-in-the-headlights look and give me a smile.”
She obliged.
“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,” he said, opening the driver’s-side door to allow her to slip behind the wheel. She started the engine, switched on the lights, and turned to him.
“You look so sexy in those glasses,” he said, causing her to laugh. He closed the door and watched her drive away, the car’s red taillights disappearing in the thick cloud that seemed to have suddenly descended on the area called Foggy Bottom.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Timothy Stripling stopped at a supermarket on his way home from Virginia to pick up items for the apartment—orange juice, English muffins, fruit salad, a quart of milk, and a package of Good Humor toasted almond pops, his favorites. He put his purchases away, got out of his suit, and took a fast shower. With a towel draped around his midsection, he went to his bedroom closet, opened the safe, and removed from it his two registered handguns, a 9-millimeter Tanarmi parabellum model with a fifteen-shot magazine, and a customized, snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum, made considerably smaller than its original version and popular with undercover cops. After examining them, he loaded the Smith & Wesson, returned the Tanarmi and ammunition to the safe, took a shoulder holster that hung among his suits, slipped the Smith & Wesson into it, and went to the kitchen. There, with a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s on the table next to the holstered weapon, he went through the ice cream and the materials contained in a dog-eared manila file folder.
Earlier that evening, when Stripling entered the Grill at Clyde’s in Tysons Corner, Gertrude Klaus, one of many assistant attorneys general in the Parmele administration, was at the bar sipping a colorful drink with a pink parasol protruding from it. She looked different this night from the first time he’d met her. Her retro hairdo had been replaced with a softer, more natural and modern look; the severe suit she’d worn during their first meeting had been discarded in favor of a multicolored sheath.
“Hello, Gertrude,” Stripling said, sidling up next to her. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She turned and said, “Mr. Stripling,” as though reading his name from a list.
Stripling said to the bartender, “A perfect Rob Roy, straight up.” And to her: “You’re buying, I’m told.”
She laid cash on the bar, swiveled on her bar stool, and indicated with a nod of her head that they were going to a booth in a secluded end of the Grill. She received her change, left what Stripling considered an inadequate tip, and carried her half-consumed drink to the booth. He followed, admiring the sway of her hips on the way. She slipped into one side of the booth, he into the other. A waitress delivered his Rob Roy.
“You look different at night,” he said, raising his glass.
She didn’t return the toast. Instead she sat and stared at him.