Capital Treasures

"Got it," the security guy answered.

"Hi, guys, this is Vice detective Hardesty," he barked into the intercom. "This is my apartment. I recognize you. You're Andre DuCard's guys. We're talking now on a running video of you two, with the video feeding back to police headquarters. Whether it gets erased or not depends on what you do and say right now. What are you ringing my chimes for?"

"We were told this was where a rent-boy, Toby Drake, lives," one of the guys said into the speaker. He was sounding nervous. He hadn't expected to be talking on tape to a hardboiled and powerful Vice unit detective, but he was too dumb not to try to do what he was sent to do.

"He does. He's my rent-boy."

Hardesty looked at Toby, who gave a pained expression at hearing that. Hardesty realized that was going too far in his relationship with Toby, but he hoped Toby realized it was said for a purpose to get these goons to back off.

"He's not here," Hardesty continued speaking into the intercom. "What does DuCard want to talk to him about?"

"Umm, I think we were supposed to talk to him direct."

"Well, that's not going to happen. You go back to DuCard and tell him I'm standing between him and Drake. He wants to talk to Drake, he talks to me first. In fact, I think he and I need to meet and talk before any of this goes further. We need to talk about side operations, for instance. You go back and tell him that. You ain't gettin' in here today. You tell DuCard to talk to me. It might do him some good. And tell him that what he might have wanted to talk to Drake about is by the boards now. Whatever he had to reveal that gave DuCard the vapors is in the system already—and not from Drake. Got that? He—and you—are to leave Drake the hell alone. He's not part of any of this."

They didn't answer. But they didn't stay around either.

"What was that all about?" Toby asked.

"If Liu sent you those photos and they have him and his camera now, DuCard knows who the photos were sent to. I want you to go to ground until I get this fixed up."

"I don't know if I can—"

"I know that you can. For now, I want you to move over to Paul's apartment, if he's home. I'll make some calls, including to your escort agency. It shouldn't take long, but I need to talk to DuCard. Go pack—and call Paul to make sure he can take you in. Trust me on this. Oh, and resend those photos from David Liu to my phone."

Toby didn't argue, which wasn't necessarily a good sign, and Hardesty understood that it wasn't. After he has resent the photos he went off to pack. Paul was a neighbor who lived down the hall from them and, being actively gay and highly cooperative, was the nearby hideout of choice, when needed. He was in his early sixties, but he was a very well-preserved former male model, tall and trim. He was a personable, rugged Western type, having starred in a series of TV cigarette commercials in the sixties, and, miraculously was still alive because he'd never smoked. Most notable about Paul, though, was that he had a ten-inch dick with which he drove the boys wild and he was a very good friend of Hardesty's and Toby's. He could be counted on to hide and protect. That didn't mean he refrained from using if the guy let him.

As Toby was packing and between phone calls Hardesty was making, he got a call directly from Deputy Police Chief Jackson Davis. "I want to give you a heads up that I'm taking another case from the investigating unit and giving it to you, at least for now, because I think it's connected to the DuCard mess I've assigned to you."

"Burglary again?"

"Yes, but more. Homicide is involved. A jewelry heist, but the victim is dead this time—and she's a biggie. Susie Win. She was seen at a concert last evening with one of DuCard's rent-boys, and she was found today on her bedroom floor with her safe empty and jewelry listed on her inventory list missing. Go to the Watergate Complex. You'll be met in the lobby by your partner, Whitehall. I called you at work first but you weren't there."

Hardesty didn't miss the sting in the tail there. Where his attention went was to how quickly and totally what he was learning from Toby's contact today was melding with the case load the police official who seemed so anxious to dump on Andre DuCard was handing to him. And thus far he couldn't argue with Davis's reasoning. He made one more telephone call, made sure Toby got to Paul's apartment, and went out to drive to the Watergate Complex.

* * * *

Hardesty gave the steering wheel of his Hummer H3 a pound as he headed to the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River from Crystal City toward the Watergate on the District side. He'd screwed up and it was only after a visibly displeased Toby had walked out of the apartment for the short trip up the corridor to Paul's apartment that he fully realized how badly he had done so.

He had taken immediate charge and given directions on what Toby would do in the dilemma that had presented itself, punctuated by the attempted visit by Andre DuCard's goons. That had made the physical threat to Toby obvious. He had received photos from David Liu that were damning to DuCard's business. They plopped the issue directly in Hardesty's case-load lap and should, by rights, take Toby out of danger as just a conduit that no longer needed to be plugged up to prevent the evidence from getting into the hands of the authorities. But DuCard didn't know that, so the threat to Toby existed. Hardesty had taken immediate, unilateral action to protect Toby. Toby also knew that too, but that Hardesty took full command pointed to the weakening of what had been the strong link in the unlikely chain that held the cop and the young male whore together.

Hardesty hadn't presented the dilemma and allowed Toby to work out for himself the inevitable path they needed to take. Hardesty had swept through, taken control, and not permitted Toby to make the right decision on his own. Hardesty had asserted senior-partner status. That Toby had understood this was clear in the expression and his coolness while he prepared to move to Paul's apartment. Hardesty could call DuCard off and he'd do that, although he'd want Toby out of the way for a while anyway to ensure DuCard didn't do something stupid. But what could he do to make it better with Toby?

Turning on the blue light on the roof of the Hummer en route to show he was on duty and on call, he pulled into the entrance of the Watergate Complex garage. The riverside complex solidly owned its place in history as the scene of the 1972 Democratic Party headquarters burglary that had set off the resignation of a U.S. president, Richard Nixon, and it still was one of the most prestigious addresses in a city running on prestige. He flipped open his ID and was flagged in. He found a visitor's spot and made a call before going up to the lobby of the building Susie Win's apartment was in.

"Hi, it's me. You in place and making nice-nice with Paul?" he asked when, thankfully, Toby took the call.

"Yes. I'm settling in now," Toby said, by which he meant he was sitting on Paul's lap, both of them naked, and had just lowered himself on the former cigarette commercial stud's cock. Paul liked to take his helpfulness in personal services, Paul and Toby got along famously in sexual relations, and Toby never could resist sheathing a ten-inch cock. Paul, still movie star handsome and trim, was second only to the Washington Monument in phallic magnificence in the nation's capital.

"I think we should talk about where you go from here for a few days, a week or so. I can smooth this over given a little time."

"Yes," Toby answered, waiting for where this was going.

"What do you think? Do you have any ideas?" Hardesty asked. This was the danger point. How this went might very well upset the delicate balance in their relationship. Hardesty had an answer of his own, but he needed to see if Toby could get to that answer and retain full control for himself.

"Yes, I've given it some thought already," Toby answered. "I could see if the escort agency can give me some short-term work out of Washington."

"That sounds like a plan," Hardesty said, giving a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he'd thought as well. Now, to continue over the delicate ground. "So, you'll call? They might need some reason to make sure it happens, and I think you might need some backup there. You could go to the top and put it to Justine—and tell Justine that I could fill her in on the need. I could go talk to her if I had an appointment. Best to be covered in person rather than by phone or e-mail. No trail that way. I'm not sure, but I think this includes some internal police issues as well."

"Sure, I'll call Justine. If she can see you, I'll e-mail a time and place to you. Nothing else to give it context."

"Great. Thanks, Toby. This will blow over. We're good?"

"Sure," Toby said, a bit too breezily, though, for Hardesty's comfort, before their link was disconnected.

Glen Whitehall was in the lobby of the Watergate apartment house to show Hardesty the way to Susie Win's apartment, but after giving Hardesty the apartment number, he said, "Sorry. I can't go up with you. The top brass has thrown us all out of the apartment and sworn us to secrecy."

"The top brass?" Hardesty asked.

"Yep. Jackson Davis showed up, took one look, told us all to button our lips and he'd find out if we didn't, and sent us away."

"Davis showed up himself? He's up there?"

"Yep," Whitehall answered.

"What's so secret?"

Whitehall made a closing gesture across his mouth and said, "Button your lips, the big man said. You need to be surprised on your own or he'll be after my tail. I'll wait down here in case you are still on the case after you've been up there and you need me to do anything without knowing why I'm doing it. This is way above my paygrade."

"You know I'd tell you more if I could," Hardesty said. "Not that I'm told much more than you are."

"Yeah, I know. It sticks in the craw, but I know it's not you holding back."

"So, we're good?"

"Yes, we're good."

"That's more important than anything going on upstairs," Hardesty said. This seemed to go down smoothly with Whitehall, and Hardesty took the elevator upstairs.

Ten minutes later he was standing by Susie Win's body on the apartment master bedroom floor beside Jackson Davis. They were the only two people in the apartment at this point, although one forensics team had come and gone. They'd come before Jackson Davis arrived and left very soon thereafter. He was holding the film they took in his hand.

"Well, this is awkward," Hardesty said, looking down at the body. Win had been beaten pretty badly and her nightgown had been ripped away. It was questionable whether she'd been molested. Hardesty thought not. The beating seemed to have been more from shock and disgust than lust. "Who do you think knew?" Hardesty asked.

"Not many. I ran it by Boyd, who knows where all of the bodies in this town are closeted, but he didn't know. He snorted at me." Boyd Bartlett was the chief of police in Washington, D.C., and had been for twenty years. To be able to hold that position here for that long you had to be a very clever politician and to have the blackmail files of a J. Edgar Hoover.

"That's actually a nice-sized dick. I wonder how he—or she; did it?—hid it all these years. Do you think the general knew what he'd married?"

"Yeah, I'd think so," Davis answered. "So, what's missing and should help us find the bastard is a ruby and gold necklace—impressive enough to be worn by an empress. She was wearing it last night at the Kennedy Center. We got these photos from the Post. She's wearing the necklace in the photo that belongs in that case over there and the open safe in that bookshelf. Any jewelry that was in there is gone. He didn't take any paper."

"He?" Hardesty asked.

"Can you see a woman beating anyone down like this? No, she woke and fought him. He beat her and then when he found out she was a transvestite—that she had a dick—he beat her harder—to death—out of disgust."

Hardesty understood there were those who had that reaction; he wasn't one of them. People were what they were or what they wanted to be, if they had the money and guts to make a change. He looked around the room. "I see there are a couple of security cameras. When your guys arrive, they should be able to get a picture of what went on here."

"The cameras have been checked, I'm told. No film. And they don't live feed anywhere. Just for looks, I guess."

"That's strange. Why would there be cameras at all if they weren't functional?" Hardesty said, but, looking at Davis, he realized that this wasn't a path the deputy chief wanted followed. What was strange, he realized, was that someone had already been permitted to check if Davis wanted to shuffle the department's forensic team out and bring his own in. It made Hardesty wonder if there had been footage after all—or, more likely, there was tape but Davis wanted to see it himself before anyone else to make sure it supported the narrative he preferred.

Davis jumped in on a switch from the cameras back to the photograph. "I know who we're looking for. That's why I called you in. Look at the photo. See who escorted the guy—I can't bring myself to say 'her'—to the concert last night."

So, Davis was the kind of guy who didn't accept the Susie Win's of the world, Hardesty thought. Tough on him.

Hardesty had seen what Davis was talking about in the Post photograph. David Liu was standing beside Susie Win in the photo. What caught his attention, though, was that, next to them, stood Toby Drake with a man who evidently was the Italian photographer who was Toby's date for the night. Hardesty knew Davis had seen Toby too and knew what the relationship was between Hardesty and Toby. The man probably thought this was another chit Davis would be holding over Hardesty's head to keep him on the team.

"That rent-boy is from Andre DuCard's stable," Davis said. "I have my own forensic team on the way to write this up my way. I've talked with Boyd and he's talked with Win's executor. There apparently are no close relatives. They've agreed to keep this aspect of Susie Win under wraps—to just move ahead with a quick cremation. The coroner is on board with writing the autopsy report we all want. This is the political capital of the world. We can get this done. My team will collect fingerprints. I know what they'll show, but I want you on DuCard's tail now. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Hardesty said. He wondered if Davis's team would lay the fingerprints Davis wanted here if they weren't already here. He rightly took the "Do you understand?" as Davis's good-bye, and he left the apartment and went to the garage to fetch his Hummer.

When he got there, he saw that the passenger door was slightly open. He approached with caution. It didn't look like there was any damage, which, to him, meant nothing was taken—that something was deposited. He hoped it wasn't a bomb. He loved this Hummer.

It wasn't a bomb. The grocery store plastic bag on the passenger seat contained Susie Win's ruby and gold necklace and matching earrings. There was assorted other major jewelry items in the bag as well. Hardesty figured out that these were the pieces of what was taken in the burglary that couldn't easily be pawned once it had been associated with a murder.

There was a note as well. It said, "It was a Peter Trace setup. Tony admitted it. The murder wasn't a mistake. It was to set me up. As you suggested, let's meet. Call me." The note wasn't signed, but there was no mistake who it was from: Andre DuCard. The detective also wasn't surprised by the claim it was a setup, or that the setup would be by Peter Trace. He'd had some inkling of this by how hard Jackson Davis had been pushing the DuCard scenario upstairs.

This was getting more dicey by the moment. It was time to check with his source in the Trace operation. But first, he needed to offload this fortune in jewelry and start establishing some backup.

* * * *

Hardesty drove to police headquarters, greeted Larry at the front desk, and nodded to a raised-eyebrows Glen Whitehall further on. But he kept moving—to Captain Crane's office. The captain, a handsome, squared-away black man, thankfully, was alone in his office. He's eyebrows went up too as he saw what Hardesty hauled out of the grocery store bag he was carrying. The captain rose from his desk, shut the door, and ushered Hardesty to a seat in front of his desk.

"I wondered when you'd need some help," he said. "Is this about our new deputy police chief?"

"Partially," Hardesty said, pulling the bits and pieces of evidence of something or other from his various pockets.

After a long confab, he left the captain's office, with Crane reaching for his phone. Whitehall stood up from his desk as Hardesty approached, but he was waved down again. "I'll bring you in on this as I need you and if I can get away with using you," Hardesty said, "but I'd like to keep you safe and out of it, if possible. Trust me on this, partner."

Whitehall chose not to say anything. He picked up a file on his desk, opened it, and pretended to be reading it. The look of concern didn't leave his face.

Hardesty paused at Larry's desk. "Captain Crane told me to ask you to research the openings at the chief level of cities far away from here, Larry. Could you do that for him?"

"Is he thinking of trying to change jobs?" Larry asked.

"We're hoping it doesn't come to that," Hardesty said, and then he'd left the unit. He'd stopped in the hallway to make the first of two calls. He'd continue with this, but it was time that he moved Toby up in priority. He made a cellphone call to a house in Kalorama, in northwest Washington, D.C.

"This is Vice detective Hardesty," he said. "Please put me into contact with Justine." When Justine came onto the line, which was within the minute, Hardesty having that level of clout and regard in his world, he didn't have to make a request.

"Toby called, and we fortuitously have the right assignment for him for a few days in Europe," Justice said. "I hope that meets with your need. We're already working on the travel arrangements—for as soon as possible."

"Yes, it does, thanks," Hardesty said to the manager of the Toby Drake's exclusive premier male escort agency. "But I need to talk to you on another, related matter—face to face and in private, if possible. When and where can you be available?"

"I'm always available to you, doll, as are any of the men here. I'm in Kalorama. You can come by any time today. I'll be here. I rarely leave here."

"Thanks, Justine, you're a lifesaver."

"As I said, I could be anything you like." There was a cackle on the other end of the line and then it went dead.

His second call was to Andre DuCard, and the rapidity with which the call went through to him personally told Hardesty DuCard was anxious to talk to him.

"I didn't order anything like that, Hardesty," DuCard said as soon as the connection was made. "I was a setup, I tell you. The jewelry heist, yes, but not the other part. And it wasn't just because Tony is rapidly antigay and got a nasty surprise the woman had a dick. When I wrung him out, he admitted he isn't really my guy. He's working for Peter Trace. You gotta believe me on this one. I gave the jewels over, didn't I?"

"I don't see that you had a choice on the treasure," Hardesty said. "Those rocks are radioactive now that they are connected with the death of a very important person, who the public isn't going to know had a dick, by the way, and you need to keep it that way."

"Gotcha on that. I'm not surprised."

"It was Tony? Tony Petrocelli?"

"Yeah, Petrocelli. You gotta believe he whacked that whatever it is for someone else, not me."