63. Too Much Monkey Business

We parked a block away from the orphanage. By the time we got to St Margaret’s, it was coming up eight o’clock. There were four identical government sedans and two SWAT trucks marked FBI, just in case anyone was wondering. There was no van for command and control, maybe it would come with the cortège. The obvious presence of government agents was supposed to discourage any monkey business, politically motivated or otherwise. The government sedans were parked three-and-one across the street from the orphanage entrance. I figured the Feebs had the one parked nose to nose with the three belonging to the Secret Service, making it an overall tie at three vehicles each, if you discounted the armoured trucks’ obvious advantage.

Since we were supposed to be Feds ourselves, the right thing to do was to find the Senior Agent in the field, but it was risky. That was why we’d opted for Georgia State’s Bureau in our previous encounter with the Fake Feebs, whoever they had really been. On the way from the Cemetary, we’d clipped the ID badges to our lapel. Both the late Ms Snodgrass and Agent K had been out of the Vegas field office. That was in our favour at least.

Two guys were smoking by the front Secret Service vehicle. I went over to a guy who was standing a short distance away from another five agents, pressing at an ear-piece that was the wrong colour for his skin-tone.

‘Are you the Agent-in-Charge?’

‘Codeword is Lilywhite? Check? Do you read?’ He yanked the ear-piece out. ‘What do you want?’

I pointed at my badge, ‘Agent Kowalski, Las Vegas Field Office.’ I jerked a thumb at Sam. ‘This is Agent Snodgrass.’

Neither badge got more than a glance. ‘Just what are you doing here?’

‘Lillywhite? For Lila Radziwill? Who thinks up these codenames? A five-year old could work that one out.’

He stuck out a hand, ‘Supervisory Special Agent Washington. Damn’ right. I think some of the geeks in ITB are five years old, come to think of it.’ He let go of my hand and shook Sam’s, giving a little bow at the same time, like some ham actor in a black-and-white limey movie.

Washington straightened up. ‘Why are you here?’

‘She’s called Radziwill. Might be enough of a Kennedy connection for the communities in tin-hats from Oregon and Montana. We’ve had information from a Confidential Informant, it’s nothing, something to get a made guy off the hook. I like D.C. We came. I’m not allowed out of state on my own.’ I laughed to make sure he knew it was a joke. The smile slipped off SSA Washington, Stephen A.’s face.

‘Yeah, well. Stay out of the way. We’ll take care of it now.’

‘Ok. You need us, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?’ I said. We walked over to the railings around the parking lot.

‘Just what did that achieve?’ Sam’s face looked like brontide.

‘Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.’ I said.