Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“Heard about Steady Haynes?” Padillo asked.

“I hear he died broke and the government had to bury him.”

“He left a little something,” Padillo said.

“Debts?”

“His memoirs.”

Warnock yawned. “I’ll wait for the paperback.”

“Remember Isabelle Gelinet?” Padillo said. “I sent her to you when she was still with AF-P and researching a story on old Bill Casey. She said you were helpful.”

“What about Isabelle?”

“She helped Steady write his memoirs.”

“She’s also dead,” Warnock said. “Somebody drowned her in her bath and before you ask me how I know what wasn’t in the papers, I’ll tell you it was Tinker Burns who found her and ’twas him who told me.”

“Tinker in the market for some protection?” Padillo asked.

“Old Tinker and I go back a few miles, we do,” Warnock said. “He made a nice bit of money off me, as well you know.”

“Off the IRA,” Padillo said.

“ ’Twas one and the same.”

“Then.”

Warnock shrugged. “That’s right. Then.”

McCorkle said, “After you defected from the IRA—”

“I never defected,” Warnock said. “I deserted.”

“Right. After you deserted and went into business, I seem to remember you sent out a rather fancy announcement.”

“All it said was that Warnock and Associates were a new security consultant firm, specializing in antiterrorism.”

“Wasn’t there a line at the bottom in italics about ‘Twenty Years Experience with the IRA’?”

“The best fucking credentials I could have,” Warnock said.

“What I’ve always been curious about,” McCorkle said, “is who were the associates in Warnock and Associates back then? One day, Harry, you’re a room-and-a-half office on the wrong side of Fourteenth Street and three weeks later you’re half a floor at Nineteenth and M. Who furnished the clout? Bill Casey? The National Security Council. The Saudis?”

“If you’re looking to hire me, Mr. McCorkle, sir, I’ve got many a fine reference you’ll be able to examine once a fee is agreed upon.”

“We are in the market for some security stuff,” McCorkle said.

“Is it your place you want swept then?”

“We’re concerned about Steady’s kid,” Padillo said. “Except he’s no kid. Thirty-two or — three. Around in there. Steady left him the copyright to the memoirs. And the kid, Granville, has decided to sell them to a private collector instead of trying to get them published. He’s asked us to sort of look after him until the memoirs are sold.”

Warnock gave his six associates a warning stare. “You’re not hearing a word of this, are you?”

Mr. Coors said, “No, sir. Not a word.”

Looking first at McCorkle, then at Padillo, Warnock said, “The kid wants you to baby-sit him?”

“To mind how he goes,” Padillo said.

“A bit of money involved, is there?”

“Three quarters of a million,” McCorkle said. “At least. Maybe more.”

The surprise that raced across Warnock’s wide pink face quickly changed into shock and then into anger. “What the fuck did Steady know that’s worth that?” he demanded. “He was never in on the real shit. He was always farting about in Africa or the Middle East or Central America — or out there in Southeast Slopeland doing his truth-juggling act. So what shocking revelations does old Steady have to tell? The CIA ran drugs, did it? Well, who the fuck cares? That they did in the Congo’s Lumumba, or had him done, along with maybe three or four dozen others over the years? So what? That they’ve kept a prime minister, a premier, a king or two and God knows how many other despots and satraps on their payroll? Who gives a shit? Christ, this country of yours lets some half-baked light-colonel run its so-called foreign policy out of the White House annex and when he’s caught, you turn him into a fucking hero. So why’d anyone give a good goddamn about the memoirs of a nobody called Steady Haynes? And what could old Steady possibly invent half as dirty as what’s really happened? And who the fuck’ll pay three quarters of a million for it?”

Warnock glared up at the ceiling, as if the answer might be written there. He then brought his glare down to aim it first at McCorkle, then Padillo. “It just doesn’t parse.”

In a very quiet voice Padillo said, “What do you care whether it parses or not?”

Cocking his head to the left, Warnock leaned back in his chair to study Padillo. The examination went on long enough for the bright red in his face to vanish, replaced by its normal pink. “Well, now, Michael, you struck a nerve, you did. And you’re right, of course. All I care about is how much you’re willing to pay me.”

“Your going rate,” McCorkle said. “Less the usual professional discount.”

“No discounts to the trade,” Warnock said, still staring at Padillo.

“I had to try,” McCorkle said.

“So who’s the package to be, Michael? Steady’s kid, what’s his name, Granville?”

“McCorkle and I are the package,” Padillo said. “If anybody comes for Granville, they’ll have to go through us. But McCorkle’s gone soft and I’ve lost a step, so to get to us, Harry, they’ll have to go through you.”

Utter skepticism spread across Warnock’s face and crept into his tone. “When’ll you know for certain that it’s on?”

“Tomorrow,” McCorkle said. “Tuesday at the latest.”

“Who’s the opposition?”

“We don’t know.”

“Foreign or domestic?”

“We don’t know that either,” Padillo said. “Does it matter?”

Warnock smiled. “Would I be telling you if it did, Michael?”

The trunk lid of the Mercedes coupe was open and one of the thieves, bent over, was rummaging around inside. The other thief, half in, half out of the open passenger door, was rifling the glove compartment. Padillo automatically noticed the slit in his car’s convertible top and berated himself for not having switched to the steel top on November 1.

He waited as McCorkle, ducking low, slipped around the rear of four parked cars and came up behind the thief at the open trunk. McCorkle glanced back, got a nod from Padillo, took three long quick steps and slammed the trunk lid down on the thief’s back. The thief yelled. He yelled a second time when McCorkle raised the trunk lid and slammed it down again. There was a third yell when McCorkle, using the rear bumper as a stepping-stool, sat on the trunk lid, all 221 pounds of him.

At the first yell, the thief rifling the glove compartment had backed hastily out of the car’s open right-hand door and turned, only to run his right cheek just below the eye into the point of a Swiss Army knife’s longest blade. The thief crossed his eyes, trying to see what kind of knife it was, but gave up when Padillo used the knife point to turn him around until he faced the car.

“Hands on the roof, feet spread, just like always,” Padillo said.

When the thief hesitated, Padillo touched the knife point to the back of the man’s neck. “If you try anything brave or dumb, the knife’ll go in exactly four centimeters and, unless I miss, you’ll be a vegetable. If I miss, you’ll be dead.”

The thief leaned against the car, moved his feet back and spread them apart. Padillo searched him quickly and found a .25-caliber Beretta semiautomatic in an ankle holster. As Padillo rose, the thief in the trunk yelled something that may have been a plea. McCorkle replied by bouncing up and down once on the trunk lid.

Padillo closed the Swiss Army knife and returned it to his pocket. He then touched the muzzle of the Beretta to the back of the leaning thief’s neck and said, “Now turn around and tell him what I’ve got.”