Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

As the sheriff paused to turn a page, Keyes said, “Then what?”

“Mr. Burns asked the person with the skis which house was Mr. Undean’s. But the person replied with a headshake and continued up the street.”

“Person?” said Keyes.

“Mr. Burns claims he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman because the person was wearing sunglasses, ski mask, knitted cap, parka, ski pants, gloves and, of course, ski boots.”

“Tall, short, what?”

“Medium.”

Keyes sighed and gave the sheriff a go-ahead nod. Resuming his report, the sheriff said Tinker Burns rang the deceased’s doorbell repeatedly. When there was no response, Mr. Burns tried the door, found it unlocked and entered the house, discovering the victim’s body on the third floor in a small bedroom converted into a study. Upon questioning, Mr. Burns admitted making five calls from the dead man’s telephone. These calls were confirmed by the telephone company. The first call was to the Willard Hotel. The second and third calls were to numbers in the District of Columbia. The fourth call was to 911 and the final call was to the home of the lawyer, Howard Mott, also in the District.

“Who got the second and third calls?” Keyes asked.

Again, the notes were consulted. “The second call was to an establishment called Mac’s Place and the third, was to a Mr. Michael Padillo,” the sheriff said, rhyming Padillo with Brillo. “Know him?”

“I believe he owns half of Mac’s Place,” Keyes said. “A saloon.”

The sheriff made a careful note of that before disclosing that a subsequent investigation turned up two observant housewives who independently confirmed what Burns had said about encountering the ski person.

“The neighborhood watch and ward society?” Keyes said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Keyes said. “Where’s Burns now?”

“We let him walk.”

“You check him out with D.C. homicide?”

The sheriff, not taking his eyes off Keyes, closed his notebook and carefully stored it away in a breast pocket. “Should I?”

“Merely a suggestion,” said Keyes and went on to outline how the Fed eral government trusted that Fairfax County would handle the body of Gilbert Undean, his effects and any publicity concerning his death.

In a Wendy’s on the Leesburg Pike, Howard Mott sipped coffee and reading upside down, watched Tinker Burns write a check for 2,000 pounds on a Knightsbridge branch of Barclays’ Bank in London.

“I prefer dollars,” Mott said.

Burns finished signing Tinker to the check and looked up. “Why the fuck didn’t you say so? Cash okay?” He reached into a pants pocket of his gray suit and brought out an impressive roll of hundred-dollar bills.

“Cash is definitely not okay,” Mott said. “I’ll take the pounds instead.”

“What’s wrong with cash?” Burns asked as he added his surname to the check.

“Cash is becoming virtually illegal in this country,” Mott said. “Dope has tainted cash and inflation has debased it. A one-hundred-dollar bill is now worth what three tens were fifteen years ago, but nobody likes to accept hundreds because it’s claimed that ninety percent of them bear a faint residue of cocaine. That may well be bullshit, of course. But it may also be true, especially when you consider that our five percent of the world’s population snorts, smokes or injects eighty percent of the world’s dope.”

Burns grinned, tore out the check and handed it to Mott. “Sounds like the IRS is auditing your ass.”

Mott folded the check and stuck it into his shirt pocket. “The cost of a continuous IRS audit is factored into the fees we charge our clients, who, for the most part, are alleged embezzlers, con men, mountebanks, swindlers and malefactors of great and medium wealth. My firm’s task is to keep them out of jail or, failing that, secure them the most lenient sentences possible. Grateful clients often wish to pay in cash. But we insist upon certified checks drawn on reputable domestic banks.”

Burns’s grin grew wider. “What’s my uncertified check for two thousand quid buy me?”

“Bought, not buy,” Mott said. “It bought you temporary release from the clutches of the Fairfax County sheriff, who’ll be anxious to ask you a few hundred more questions once he finds out you discovered the body of Isabelle Gelinet.”

“When that happens, I want you representing me.”

“I’m awfully expensive.”

“And I’m kind of rich. It’s a perfect match.”

“There could be a conflict of interest.”

“Who with?”

“I already represent Granville Haynes.”

“What’s representing Granny got to do with representing me?”

“You can answer that far better than I.”

Tinker Burns again produced his checkbook. “Would a five-thousand-quid retainer clear up that conflict-of-interest question?”

Mott shook his head. “Tell you what. When the sheriff hauls you in again, give me a ring and we’ll try to work something out.”

“That a guarantee?”

“A guarantee suggests a refund,” Mott said. “We’ll call it a promise.”

Outside the Wendy’s, Mott was unlocking the door of his wife’s Volvo sedan when Tinker Burns, the door of his rented Jeep Wagoneer already open, turned and said, “What’s the best way to Middleburg?”

Mott turned around slowly to stare at Burns for several seconds. “You don’t want to go to Middleburg.”

“Why not?”

“The snow.”

“I got four-wheel drive and snow tires. Besides, a lot of it’s melted by now.”

Mott examined Burns for another five seconds before giving directions. “Straight out the Pike till you get to Leesburg. Then south on U.S. Fifteen till you hit U.S. Fifty. West on Fifty for seven or eight miles and you’ll be in Middleburg.”

“Thanks,” Burns said, got in the Wagoneer, started its engine and drove off as directed.

After watching him leave, Mott went back into the Wendy’s and located the pay phone next to the men’s toilet. He briefly considered the ethics of his decision, then looked up a name and phone number in his pocket address book and used a phone company credit card to place a long-distance call to Letty Melon, the former Mrs. Steadfast Haynes, at her 360-acre horse farm near Middleburg, Virginia.

At a little past 5 P.M. that Sunday, Hamilton Keyes stood at the large window of his library, staring out at the snow-blanketed garden and wondering what it would be like to go outside and build a twilight snowman. Finding it to be a mild temptation, easily resisted, he instead took a long swallow of his iced vodka and, without turning, made an announcement.

“After I resigned yesterday they offered to make me an ambassador.”

Muriel Keyes was sitting on the odd-size leather couch, wearing gray slacks, white Reeboks, a turtleneck of black silk and holding a Scotch and water. The announcement made her slosh a little of her drink onto a burled-walnut parsons table.

Using a paper napkin to mop up the spilled water and alcohol, she said, “You resigned?”

Keyes turned from the window. “I believe we’ve arrived at one of our ghastly need-to-know times.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do believe we have.”

“There’s a catch, of course,” Keyes said as he crossed the room and sat down. They now sat exactly as he and Gilbert Undean had sat on the previous Friday evening: Keyes in the leather armchair and his wife in Undean’s spot on the couch.

Keyes had another quick swallow of his drink, then made an exploratory pass over his bald head with the palm of his left hand and said, “The catch goes by the name of Steadfast Haynes.”

“Who died.”

“But who, before dying, managed to finish his memoirs, entitled Mercenary Calling .”