Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“I say, ‘Hold on a second’?”

“No, goddamnit, you don’t say that. I’ll tell you what to say in a moment.”

In the brief silence that followed, Haynes pictured Howard Mott rummaging in the pigeonholes of his old rolltop oak desk, searching for the secret password.

Mott came back on the phone with a question. “What’s the date — the twenty-ninth?”

“Right.”

“Okay. New Hampshire is alphabetically the twenty-ninth state. So you say, ‘Concord.’ ”

“Which is its capital.”

“State capitals are the code of the month.”

“State capitals and dead actors,” Haynes said. “Then what?”

“Then you’ll have thirty seconds to explain what you want.”

“Who are these nuts?” Haynes asked.

This time it was Mott who sighed. “You don’t want to know, Granville, and they don’t want to know who you are. Think of them as misguided do-gooders. Very expensive misguided do-gooders.”

“Okay,” Haynes said. “What’s the number I call?”

Mott spoke the number slowly, then repeated it even more slowly and hung up without saying good-bye. Haynes put down the hotel room phone, took the elevator to the lobby, got two dollars in quarters from the cashier, went to a pay phone, dropped in fifty cents, which he knew to be too much, and tapped out the number Mott had given him.

After two rings a man’s recorded voice murmured the number Haynes had just dialed. At the beep, Haynes said, “Warren Oates,” read off the number of his pay phone and hung up.

Two minutes later the pay phone rang. Immediately after the first ring, Haynes picked it up and said, “Concord.”

A woman’s voice said, “You got thirty seconds.”

“I want to know where and exactly when four CIA employees were stationed in nineteen seventy-three and ’seventy-four. Their names are Hamilton Keyes, Steadfast Haynes, Muriel Lamphier and Gilbert Undean.”

“Spell ’em,” said the woman’s voice.

After Haynes spelled them, she said, “We can work a whole lot faster if you know if they were stateside or overseas.”

“Overseas. Maybe Laos.”

“Okay. No sweat. What’s the time now?”

Haynes looked at his watch. “Eleven thirty-three.”

“Bring three thousand in fifties and twenties—”

“Where the hell am I going to get that at this hour?”

“That’s your problem. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Three thousand in a sealed envelope. Connecticut and Woodley Road. Northeast corner. Second streetlight north. There’ll be a big old yellow brick at its base. What you want’ll be under the brick. Leave the money envelope in its place. Got it?”

“What time?”

“Two-eleven A.M. exactly. If you don’t leave the money, I guarantee it’ll get messy.”

She hung up. Haynes pressed down on the pay phone hook, released it, dropped in another fifty cents and tapped out a different number. The voice that answered said, “Mac’s Place. We’re closed.”

Haynes recognized the voice of Karl Triller, the head bartender. “This is Granville Haynes. Padillo still around?”

“Hold on,” Triller said.

A few moments later, Padillo came on the line with, “You need some thing, right?”

“I need to cash a check for three thousand in twenties and fifties. Can you handle it?”

“If you hurry.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Haynes said.

Seated on his side of the partners desk, Padillo counted $3,000 into three $1,000 piles as Haynes watched. After looking up and getting a nod from Haynes, Padillo took a plain No. 10 envelope from a desk drawer, placed the $3,000 inside and handed it to Haynes unsealed. Without recounting the money, Haynes ran his tongue over the envelope’s flap and sealed it.

Padillo put Haynes’s check and a thin leftover sheaf of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds into a steel cash box, closed its lid, rose and put the box in the old safe.

“You didn’t lock it,” Haynes said.

“The cash box? We lost the key. But then we decided if a thief opens the safe, a cash box won’t present any problem.”

After closing the old safe’s door and giving the combination a couple of spins, Padillo turned to Haynes and said, “Need a lift?”

“I can get a cab.”

“I think you need a lift.”

“I don’t want to keep you up.”

“I don’t sleep much anymore.”

Haynes smiled. “Well, maybe I could use a lift at that.”

At 1:17 A.M., Padillo dropped Haynes off at Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street, then continued out Connecticut for five blocks before he turned around, drove back down the same broad street and parked on its west side only thirty yards up and across from the streetlight where money would be swapped for information.

At 2:03 A.M., a dark blue Ford panel van stopped in front of the streetlight. Padillo couldn’t tell whether the driver was a man or a woman. But when the driver didn’t stir from behind the wheel, Padillo assumed someone in the van’s rear was making use of the sliding door. Counting by thousands, Padillo timed the transaction at less than thirty seconds because he had just reached 28,000 when the Ford van pulled away.

At 2;09 A.M., Haynes came into view, walking north along the east sidewalk of Connecticut Avenue. By 2:11 A.M., Haynes had reached the designated streetlight. He knelt down, as if to tie a shoelace, rose, turned around and walked south, retracing his steps.

The blue van reappeared twenty seconds later. Again, the driver didn’t stir from behind the wheel. Counting once more by thousands, Padillo had reached 16,000 when the van sped away from the curb and north on Connecticut.

Padillo waited four minutes, then started his aging Mercedes coupe’s engine and drove south. He stopped at the stone lion at the south end and west side of Taft Bridge. Haynes opened the passenger door and got in.

“Where to?” Padillo asked.

“The Madison.”

“It was a blue Ford van,” Padillo said as he drove away. “It was too dark to read the license plate and I couldn’t tell whether the driver was a man or a woman, but whoever it was never left the wheel. So there had to be at least two of them.”

“You have a map light?” Haynes asked.

Padillo switched it on.

Haynes held a plain three-by-five-inch card to the light. The card contained four lines of typing. Haynes read them aloud:

“ ‘Hamilton Keyes, Saigon, South Vietnam, 8-3-72 to 6-1-74.

“ ‘Muriel Lamphier, Vientiane, Laos, 10-2-73 to 4-15-74.

“ ‘Gilbert Undean, Vientiane, Laos, 2-13-68 to 5-1-74.

“ ‘Steadfast Haynes, no official trace, repeat, no official trace.’ ”

“You spent three thousand for that?” Padillo said.

“Right.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I’m going to ask Tinker — among other things.”

“Want me to help you ask him?”

“No need.”

“I think I will anyway,” Padillo said.

Padillo, leaning on the counter, stared thoughtfully at the Madison Hotel front desk clerk and managed to make a quiet suggestion sound like a death threat. “Why not. call him, tell him we’re here and see what he says?”

The clerk swallowed, nodded, picked up a phone, tapped out a room number and listened to the rings. After what Granville Haynes guessed was the fourth ring, the clerk said, “This is Edwards at the desk, Mr. Burns. Sorry for the disturbance, but a Mr. Padillo and a Mr. Haynes insist on seeing you.”

Pressing the phone tightly against his ear, as if to muffle the shouts and curses, the clerk closed his eyes and began nodding almost rhythmically. He finally stopped nodding, opened his eyes and said, “I understand perfectly, Mr. Burns.”