AT ten the next morning I went out to call the galleries of Theodore Hew-Chatworth. Teddy picked up on the first ring. "We're closed. All day," he said, hanging up the phone. I called back. "Teddy, don't hang up." "Who is this?" "Max. Why are you closed?"
"It's none of your business. But since I've been dying to make your day, we were robbed."
O'Neill was probably right about his phone being tapped.
A half block to the east of the inn, the convenience store tacked on to a Shell station offered up an almost drinkable pot of coffee and microwav-able sausage biscuits. I bought one of each, plus a four-pack of lightbulbs, five cans of jumbo lighter fluid, a combination lock guaranteed to "beat the
bad guys every time," and a large spray can of air freshener. I was almost out the door when I remembered copy paper. A package of it sat all alone on a shelf, under a banner that read computer supplies.
Back in my room, I propped the bathroom window open and left the gas can sitting on the sill so it wouldn't stink the place up too badly. Then I started calling around to medical-supply stores until I found one in Northeast D.C. that sold those little pen-size drills emergency-room docs use to make holes in fingernails after they've been slammed with a hammer or in a door. While that was being delivered, I popped down to the Burning Dog next door, nestled among the half dozen people already slouched at the bar, and offered fifty bucks to the first person who could produce for me two live rounds of ammunition.
No one said anything. No one even looked my way. I wasn't surprised. Washington, D.C, might be the world's foremost provider of deadly weapons, but it's illegal to sell a single round of ammo inside the city limits, especially to a middle-aged cracker who wanders off the street. I left a fifty on the bar and went to the bathroom.
When I came back, a pair of nine-millimeter rounds were sitting on the bar and the fifty was gone. I did it five more times.
The medical-supply driver didn't seem to find it odd at all that a guy living in a whorehouse was ordering a pocket-size drill and paying cash for it, which was just fine with me. I sat by the window in my room, cradling the lightbulbs carefully in a pillowcase, and made a bb-size hole in the top of the glass. Next, I pried open the rounds, tipped the charge out onto a piece of creased paper, and used the crease to pour the gunpowder through the hole I'd just drilled. Then, ever so carefully, I removed the lightbulb over the sink basin in the bathroom, replaced it with my new one, and plugged the sink with its stopper.
An ice bucket or something similar would have helped with the next step, but since I didn't have one, I had to settle for the Gideon Bible, spread just enough to stand on end in the bottom of the sink basin. When that was stable, I filled the bottom of the basin with two inches of lighter fluid. Then I took a stack of the blank copy paper, stuffed it in a manila envelope,
rested that on top of the dry end of the Bible, and shut the bathroom door behind me.
When I was ready to leave, I used my new combination lock and the hasp already screwed into the jamb to secure the door behind me. You gotta love a hotel that encourages you to bring your own lock with you.