Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“I told you. I was jealous.”

“You didn’t tell me” McCorkle said.

She frowned, staring at him. A moment later the frown vanished and she said, “Right. It wasn’t you. It was Granville Haynes I told. This afternoon.”

“You told him you were jealous of Isabelle because of her and Steady?”

The frown returned. “Not of her and Steady.” She looked at Padillo. “Of Isabelle and you.”

Padillo stared at her as his right hand dipped automatically into his shirt pocket, seeking the cigarettes he had abandoned five years ago. “Christ, kid,” he said. “Isabelle and I ended it when you were thirteen, maybe fourteen.”

Although her expression seemed to be one of pity, there was only scorn in Erika McCorkle’s voice when she said, “You have no idea, do you?”

“Of what?” Padillo said.

“Of what vicious daydreams a lovesick thirteen-year-old can have when the man she’s in love with is fucking somebody else?”

Nodding calmly, Padillo said, “Go on.”

“With what?”

“With why it’s all your fault.”

“Because I used to daydream about it and — and, oh God, I’m so sorry she’s dead.”

McCorkle leaned toward his daughter. “Erika, may I say something?” he asked in a gentle voice.

She nodded.

“This is the silliest goddamn conversation we’ve ever had.”

It was as if he had struck her. First came the surprise, then the hurt and finally the anger. “You guys can’t even remember what it was like being thirteen.”

“Thank God,” McCorkle said.

“It hurt.”

“Everybody hurts at thirteen,” Padillo said. “They hurt so much they later write books about it. The same book. Over and over. But you’re a long way from thirteen.”

“And you’re suddenly more—” She stopped and began again. “I’m sorry. I guess the shock brought on the silly talk. Poor Isabelle. When I was thirteen she was everything I wanted to be and now that she’s dead I just can’t accept it.”

“You and Haynes talked about her?”

Erika nodded. “He told me how they used to go skinny-dipping when they were six or seven, around in there, and I told him how I’d daydreamed about her drowning in the Anacostia but he said there wasn’t much chance of that because she was a damn fine swimmer and — aw, hell, Pop, can we go home now?”

“What a great idea,” McCorkle said.

It was the first time the Burma analyst, Gilbert Undean, had been to the house of the courtly Hamilton Keyes. The house was in the exorbitantly priced Kalorama Triangle whose isosceles tip points south, just touching Dupont Circle, with legs formed by Connecticut and Massachusetts and a base that rests on a slice of Rock Creek Park to the north.

Located on California Street between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth, the house had been bought by Keyes’s rich wife, the former Muriel Lamphier, while he was in Tegucigalpa on agency business. Keyes had always hated surprises and was furious when told of the purchase upon his return. But because it was Muriel’s money and because, from the first, they had agreed it was impossible and unnecessary to live on his government salary, Keyes said only that the house looked “terribly impressive,” letting Muriel interpret that any way she liked.

She chose to interpret it as a compliment of sorts, but seemed less interested in the house itself than in how cunningly she had outwitted a K Street lawyer, who had been trying to buy it for an unnamed South American — a Colombian, she suspected — but dropped out of the bidding after she topped his final offer with one of $535,000.

Ten years later the same K Street lawyer, now representing a Japanese industrialist, offered the Keyeses four times their purchase price, which they turned down with what each confessed was a certain amount of smug satisfaction.

Gilbert Undean, a widower, lived in Reston, Virginia, and seldom ventured into the District unless it was unavoidable. Although he had made no definite appointment to see Keyes, Undean still felt he was running late, especially after he took Connecticut Avenue out to California Street only to discover he couldn’t make a left turn — at least not there. After wandering around for fifteen minutes he finally got onto California and found the Keyeses’ house.

It was of enormous size but austere design that made it resemble what a talented six-year-old might draw if given a ruler. The giant three-story Georgian house was built of red brick with white trim and dark gray shutters that matched the slate of its dormered roof.

Softening the stern lines was a stand of fine old trees. Although it was now too dark to be certain, Undean would have been surprised if the trees weren’t elms. He was very surprised when Muriel Keyes herself answered the doorbell. Undean had been expecting a maid and hoping for a butler.

She held out her hand, gave him a memorable smile and said, “Mr. Undean. How nice to see you again.”

Her grip was firm, her hand was warm and she used the firm warm grip to guide him over the threshold and into a foyer with a marble floor, releasing him only after he was safely inside.

“Ham’s in the library,” she said with another one of her remarkable smiles.

“Not late, am I?” Undean asked, trying not to stare at the almost perfect face that featured a pair of soft warm gray eyes. The gray of her eyes complemented the natural frosting in her dark hair and almost matched the color of her cashmere sweater. It was the way she filled out the sweater that made Undean recall a tag of agency gossip, corridor stuff, that had Muriel Keyes, then Muriel Lamphier, taking a Hollywood screen test on a bet, but turning down a role they had offered her. Guessing that she was now forty or maybe even forty-two, Undean found himself almost basking in her soft warm glow of utter confidence, which, he suspected, came from old money, prudently invested.

Muriel Keyes assured Undean that he wasn’t at all late and led him down the nicely proportioned entry hall and into a living room stuffed with antiques. She glanced back, smiling again, as they crossed the living room and entered a smaller room that had a wall of books, most of them still in their shiny dust jackets.

“It’s Mr. Undean, Ham,” she said.

Hamilton Keyes rose from a desk that wasn’t nearly so fine as the one in his office, thanked his wife with a smile, nodded at Undean and said, “You want something?”

“To drink, he means,” Muriel Keyes said before Undean could misinterpret the question.

“No, thanks.”

“It’s been so nice to see you, Mr. Undean,” she said, smiled again and left.

“I’m having a Scotch,” Keyes said, moving to a silver tray that held bottles and glasses. “Sure you won’t join me?”

“I’m sure,” Undean said and took in the rest of the room while Keyes poured his drink. It was a long narrow room with the desk at one end. The desk faced away from French windows that overlooked a garden lit with low-wattage orange lamps. Against a wall was a brown leather couch that was too wide for two but not quite wide enough for three. A leather armchair matched the couch.

There were also a burled walnut coffee table, some reading lamps on more walnut tables, a few pictures and a fine oriental rug of some kind that covered at least a third of the gleaming quarter-sawn oak floor. With his drink now in hand, Keyes used it to motion Undean to the odd-size couch and chose the armchair for himself.

“How high’d you have to go?” Keyes asked, once they were seated.

“The limit. I went to fifty and Haynes turned it down. He says somebody else had already offered him a hundred thousand that he also turned down. He says he knows where he can raise some offshore development money—”