Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

He had bought the house the day Richard Nixon resigned and furnished it the following Saturday morning by walking through an upscale furniture store out on Wisconsin Avenue and pointing to floor samples that could be delivered that same afternoon. He had wound up with a lot of leather, tweed, teak and pine stuff that McCorkle told him made the downstairs look like a psychiatrist’s waiting room. Padillo had replied that that was exactly how he wanted it to look.

The only memorable pieces in the house were the dining room’s refectory table, reportedly four hundred years old, and the intricately carved mahogany sideboard that Padillo used as a bar. A young candy heiress, now more than twenty years dead, had given him the refectory table as a birthday present. He had bought the sideboard from a former first secretary at the Finnish embassy who needed the money to pay off some poker debts.

Padillo returned with the drinks, carrying two in his left hand and one in his right. He served McCorkle first, then Haynes and said, “What makes you so sure Steady’s memoirs don’t exist?”

“You saw the so-called manuscript I left in your safe?”

Padillo nodded as he sat back down in the leather chair, but McCorkle said, “I never saw it.”

“Three hundred and eighty-odd mostly blank pages,” Padillo said.

“That should miff the lady with the Sauer,” McCorkle said.

Haynes said, “Let’s come back to her.”

McCorkle shrugged. “No hurry.”

After tasting his drink, Haynes said, “When Erika and I reached Steady’s farm yesterday, his ex-wife was there. The fourth and last one. Letitia Melon. You two know her?”

“We know Letty,” Padillo said.

“But not well,” McCorkle added.

“She was locked in a hall closet under the stairs, bound and gagged.”

“She hurt?” Padillo asked.

“No.”

“Who’d she say did it?”

“Two guys with grocery sacks over their heads. She said they were already in the house when she got there.”

McCorkle asked, “Why was she there?”

“Because of Steady’s horse. She claimed she was worried nobody was looking after it.”

“Why do I get the impression you don’t believe her?” Padillo said.

“Because after she left I called Howard Mott. He told me Letty’d called him right after Steady died to remind him of the horse. Mott told her not to worry, that he’d take care of it, and he did.”

“Where’s the horse now?” McCorkle said.

“Dead.”

“How?”

“Shot. Either by Letty or the guys with sacks over their heads.”

“Why would she shoot him?”

“Why would they?”

Padillo said, “Then what?”

“I reported the dead horse to the sheriff, who seemed to be a member of Steady’s fan club. Then Erika and I searched the house, looking for a true manuscript.”

“You told her what you were looking for?” McCorkle asked.

“Why not?”

McCorkle frowned first, then shrugged and said, “Go on.”

“Erika discovered a new version of the manuscript in Steady’s computer. This new version reads just like the one I left in your safe except for one thing. Instead of three hundred and eighty-odd blank pages, this one has line after line and page after page filled with just one word: endit — spelled e-n-d-i-t. I think of it as the long version of the false manuscript. The woman with the Sauer got the short version.” He smiled slightly at McCorkle. “It would be awfully neat if she were Letty Melon in disguise.”

“It wasn’t Letty” McCorkle said.

“Tell me about her — whoever she was.”

“I didn’t see her hair,” McCorkle said, “because she wore a red knit cap pulled down almost to her eyebrows. I didn’t see her hands because she wore red knit gloves. I didn’t see her feet because she wore rubber boots. I can’t tell you much about her build because she wore a man’s old London Fog raincoat, probably with a zip-out liner. I know it was old because the waterproofing was gone — maybe dry-cleaned away. That leaves her face. She wore yellow-tinted glasses and her eyes were a blue that could’ve come from contacts. She had a regular nose, mouth, chin and no makeup. She had two voices. One was her flibbertigibbet voice. Her other voice was the convincer — uninflected, exact, experienced. It and the Sauer made me do exactly what she said I should do.”

“No scars, moles or tattoos?” Haynes said.

“No, but she did have nice skin,” McCorkle said. “Very few lines and no wrinkles — although she could’ve rubbed her face with Preparation H just before she came through the door. That can tighten things up for an hour or two.”

“She had two walks,” Padillo said. “One was shy and one was bold. She used the shy walk when she came in — a pigeon-toed shuffle, almost clumsy. On the way out: long strides, graceful, even athletic.”

“How old was she?” Haynes asked.

“More than thirty,” McCorkle said. “Less than fifty.”

Haynes finished his drink and turned away from McCorkle to put it down on a side table. Still turned away, he asked, “How’d she know the manuscript was in your safe?”

McCorkle winked at Padillo and said, “That’s been bothering me. It’s been bothering me so much that when I woke up this morning the first thing I asked myself was: Who knew I’d put the thing in my safe?”

“I knew,” Haynes said. “You knew.” He indicated Padillo with a nod. “And so did he.”

“Did Mott know?” Padillo asked.

“He knew I had the manuscript. He didn’t know it was in your safe.”

“Remember when I got out of the cab Friday afternoon and mistook you for Steady?” McCorkle said. “You were headed for Howard Mott’s office empty-handed.”

Haynes nodded.

“The next time I saw you was at the bar — just you, me, Tinker Burns and Karl. And by then you were carrying that folded-over grocery bag.”

Haynes again nodded.

“But when you left with Erika, you weren’t carrying anything. A fairly observant person might’ve noticed this and concluded you’d left the grocery bag with me for safekeeping.” McCorkle paused to sip his drink. “Safekeeping suggests a locked box of some kind. Maybe even a safe.”

“Someone had a tail on him,” Padillo said.

“Maybe,” Haynes said. “I wasn’t in Howard Mott’s office more than ten minutes before he got a call. By then he’d handed me all those blank pages. The call was from a lawyer, some ex-senator who wants to buy all rights to Steady’s memoirs for an anonymous client. He offered one hundred thousand. On my instructions, Mott told him I wanted five hundred thousand because I claim to know where I can raise enough offshore money to turn Steady’s life into a film I’d write, direct and star in. Mott may even have told him I was going to produce it.”

“What’d the ex-senator say?” McCorkle asked.

“He moaned and groused, then said he’d have to consult his client and get back to Mott on Monday. Tomorrow.”

“Any other offers?” Padillo said.

“One.”

“Who from?”

“After Isabelle was killed,” Haynes said, “and after I’d talked to the cops and was up in my room at the Willard, a guy from the CIA dropped by and offered me fifty thousand.”

“Sight unseen?” McCorkle said.

“Nobody seems to want to read the thing,” Haynes said. “They just want to bury it. I told the CIA guy about the hundred thousand I’d just turned down, then gave him the same crap about turning the memoirs into a feature and finished by telling him my new asking price was seven hundred and fifty thousand.”

“What’d he say when he recovered?”

“He seemed pleased — in a strange kind of way.”

“Heard from him since?” Padillo said.