Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“Loaded?”

McCorkle looked at Haynes curiously. “Of course.”

“Handy, too,” Haynes said. “Third drawer down underneath the sweaters.”

“Forget it then.”

“I’ll think about it,” Haynes said. “Will Erika be there?”

“Probably.”

“What do I tell her?”

“Tell her you’re sorry.”

“For what?”

“For all your faults,” McCorkle said.

Darius Pouncy, the homicide detective-sergeant, didn’t get around to McCorkle until after the body of the man identified as Horace Purchase was removed from the lobby of the Willard Hotel. By then it was 11:33 A.M. and Pouncy, after announcing he was hungry, invited McCorkle to join him for what the detective promised to be “a little light lunch.”

In the hotel’s glittering Expresso Cafe, Pouncy ordered a large bowl of lentil soup and what turned out to be an enormous ham sandwich. McCorkle confined himself to a Beck’s beer and a cup of the soup, which he found to be quite good.

Pouncy apparently didn’t like to let conversation interfere with his food. He ate silently and quickly with precise movements and frequent, even delicate use of his napkin. McCorkle thought the detective had the best table manners he had seen in years. When Pouncy finished his ham sandwich, he called the waitress over, ordered a cappuccino for dessert and urged McCorkle to join him. McCorkle said he would have another bottle of Beck’s instead.

After the cappuccino came, Pouncy took a sip, leaned back in the booth and examined McCorkle. “Mac’s Place, huh?”

McCorkle nodded.

“Ate there a couple of times. Had us some real fine rack of lamb for two and, the second time, a hell of a roasted rolled pork.”

“I hope you’ll come again.”

Pouncy nodded, as if he would have to think about it, and sipped his cappuccino. After putting the cup down, he said, “Understand you tripped him, stomped his hand, kicked his piece away, then kicked his face in. That right?”

“Yes.”

“You know who he was?”

“I knew he’d just shot Mr. Warnock.”

“But you didn’t know who Purchase was?”

“No.”

“But Warnock knew.”

“He called him by name.”

“What’d he say exactly — Warnock?”

“He said, ‘Hey, Purchase.’ ”

“And that’s when Purchase shot him, trotted by you, and you tripped him?” Not waiting for an answer, Pouncy examined McCorkle curiously and asked, “Aren’t you getting on up there in years to be pulling damn fool stunts like that?”

“Want me to promise never to do it again?”

Pouncy smiled. “Warnock works for you, right?”

“Not quite. My partner and I retained his firm to provide security for a friend of ours.”

“Granville Haynes?”

“Yes.”

“Granville doesn’t seem to be up in his room,” Pouncy said. “You think Warnock might’ve been keeping an eye on an empty nest?”

“I think Mr. Haynes may have decided to go somewhere more secure.”

“Where’d that be?”

McCorkle shrugged.

“Moving your shoulders up and down like that could mean, ‘I don’t know,’ ‘Who cares?’ or ‘None of your beeswax.’ Which?”

“It means he could’ve gone to see his lawyer, a friend or to another hotel.”

“But you’re pretty sure Granville was the target Purchase wanted to hit?”

“I assume so.”

“Lemme tell you a little about Horse Purchase and who he really was. Horse started killing folks for a living when he was nineteen years old. But it was all legal then because he was with Special Forces in Vietnam. When Horse got killed here today he was forty-five. He went to Vietnam in ’sixty-three and stayed on till ’sixty-nine. After he came home and got out of the Army, he went into the killing business as an independent contractor.”

“Who hired him?”

“Folks that could afford it. The street says he charged fifty thousand a job and tried to do at least two a year. He got half up front and the rest on completion. They say he never had a dissatisfied customer and I’d say you’re awful lucky to be alive, Mr. McCorkle.”

“You’re probably right.”

Pouncy finished his cappuccino, sighed his appreciation and said, “Ever know a Mr. Gilbert Undean?”

“No.”

“What about Isabelle Gelinet?”

“I knew Isabelle.”

“Tinker Burns?”

“I know Tinker.”

“Seen him recently?”

“Not since Friday, but my partner had a phone call from him Sunday. Yesterday.”

“Then he’s probably still alive,” Pouncy said. “Reason I say that is because Mr. Undean and Miss Gelinet were both murdered and Tinker Burns discovered their bodies. Now, there were only four mourners — I reckon they were mourners — at the burial of Steadfast Haynes on Friday and here it is Monday and half of ’em are already dead. What I’m getting at, Mr. McCorkle, is that I sure hope I don’t get another call from Tinker Burns telling me he’s just stumbled across the body of Granville Haynes.”

“I hope not either,” McCorkle said.

“If you see Mr. Burns, you mind telling him he oughta call me?”

Pouncy paused. “Might even put it a little stronger than that.”

“You try his hotel?”

“Been trying all morning. He’s not there.”

“If I see him, I’ll tell him,” McCorkle said. “Is that it?”

“Just about,” Pouncy said and looked at his watch. “I got a few more questions but they’re not gonna take much more’n thirty or forty-five minutes.”

McCorkle leaned back in the booth, took out his cigarettes, lit one and said, “Maybe I’ll have some cappuccino after all.”

When Granville Haynes slipped out of the Willard Hotel through its rear F Street exit, he was surprised to find the temperature had shot up into the mid-fifties. The mild weather, along with its accompanying sunshine, convinced Haynes that he should walk to McCorkle’s apartment, which he remembered was in either the 2200 or 2300 block of Connecticut Avenue.

Haynes’s route took him past the Treasury Building and the White House and the Old Executive Office Building to Seventeenth Street where he turned north. By the time he reached the Mayflower Hotel it had clouded over and the temperature had dropped into the mid-forties. Long accustomed to southern California’s weather, Haynes decided his choices were to take a cab, buy a coat or freeze to death.

Haynes spotted a Burberry shop at the intersection of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Inside, he asked to see a topcoat. The saleswoman said she thought he would look marvelous in a trench coat. Haynes said he would prefer something a little less dashing. She showed him a lamb’s-wool topcoat with raglan sleeves. The lightweight wool had a pattern of small brown and beige houndstooth checks. Haynes tried the coat on without asking its price, looked at himself briefly in a mirror, said he would wear it and handed her an American Express card.

He walked the rest of the Way to McCorkle’s old gray stone apartment building on the west side of Connecticut Avenue. He reached the building at about the same time Darius Pouncy began asking McCorkle the first of the “few more questions” that would continue for another twenty-six minutes.

Haynes examined the key McCorkle had given him and noticed it was one of the tricky Swiss kind that had “pimples and craters” rather than teeth, and which couldn’t be duplicated, at least not in the United States. Haynes wasn’t sure about Switzerland.

McCorkle had said his apartment number was 405. Haynes reached it after a ride up on an obviously new Otis elevator. He knocked on the door. When there was still no answer after he knocked a second and third time, he used the Swiss key to let himself in.