Росс Томас - Twilight at Mac’s Place

“ ‘Dear Granny: Here’s a carbon of a memo that Gilbert Undean wrote to his personal file and I found underneath his desk blotter out in Reston after I’d called the cops to tell them he was dead. I thought I could make a few bucks with it but since you’re reading this, I guess I made a mistake. The Big One. Ha. Ha. Anyway, do what you want to with it but play it smarter than I did and remember it’s a carbon and that somebody has got the original. If you need help, you can figure out from the memo who to ask. So long. Tinker.’ ”

A long silence followed. Mott finally ended it by clearing his throat and saying, “I don’t think Erika and I should hear any more. In fact, we may’ve heard too much already.”

“Okay,” Haynes said.

“I want to ask one question,” she said.

Haynes nodded.

“When he said you’d know who to ask for help, who did he mean?”

“Padillo,” Haynes said. “Who else?”

It was easier to find the sender than an open service station after midnight. But Haynes finally found one far out on Georgia Avenue, almost to Silver Spring, where the old Cadillac made a hit with the two young black attendants and a gaggle of equally young kibitzers, who offered a steady stream of advice, if not assistance.

Haynes pulled into the full-service bay and got out. He almost had to shout to make himself heard over the extra-loud boombox rap. After he asked one of the attendants to fill it up, check under the hood and make sure the tires were okay, Haynes began his search for the sender by running an exploratory palm beneath the fenders. When the attendant, who now had the hood up, asked in a near shout what he was looking for, Haynes shouted back, “Rattles.’

He found the sender stuck up underneath the left rear fender. It was the ZC–II model, made in Singapore, and much favored by DEA agents — at least by the several Haynes had met in Los Angeles. Back behind the wheel of the Cadillac, he showed the transmitter to Erika, who examined it curiously. “This the stick-on magnet?” she said, touching its smooth, dark gray side.

“Right.”

“What’ll you do with it?”

“Send it on its way.”

“How?”

“That cab in the self-service bay?”

She looked and nodded.

“Let’s go ask how much the fare is to Dulles. You do the asking.”

They got out of the Cadillac and started toward the middle-aged cab-driver who was putting 87 octane into his two-year-old Chevrolet Caprice sedan. Erika went first. Haynes followed, using a white handkerchief to wipe fender grime from his hands.

“Excuse me,” Erika said to the driver.

He nodded at her, neither friendly nor unfriendly. Haynes dropped the handkerchief and knelt to retrieve it. The driver gave him a glance, then looked back at Erika.

“I need to go to Dulles to meet someone coming in on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, and I was wondering how much the fare is?”

Still kneeling, Haynes pressed the sender up against the taxi’s frame just as the driver said, “This time of night I can’t go out there for less’n sixty.”

Haynes rose as Erika smiled ruefully and said, “That’s what I was afraid of. Sorry.”

“So ’m I, lady.”

She turned to Haynes. “Sixty.”

“Jesus,” Haynes said.

They went back to the Cadillac. Erika got in while Haynes handed a twenty to the attendant, who wanted to know the year of the Cadillac’s manufacture.

“ ’Seventy-six,” said Haynes.

“True slick,” said the attendant and handed Haynes his change.

Looking frequently into his rearview mirror, Haynes turned either west or south every few blocks until he found himself on Nebraska Avenue Northwest, nearing Connecticut Avenue. He turned south on Connecticut and stayed on it. They rode in silence until they reached Calvert Street and were halfway across Taft Bridge. It was then that Erika spoke.

“If you came this way because you’re thinking of dropping me off at Pop’s, forget it.”

“You’ll be safer there.”

“If I wanted safe, prince, I’d’ve taken one look at you and passed.”

“You like getting shot at?”

“No, but it’s a lot more interesting than looking for a job.” She paused. “You want to know what I really like?”

“What?”

“I like eating seventeen-dollar room-service cheeseburgers at the Willard and matching smarts with smooth numbers such as the elegant Mr. Hamilton Keyes and shrewd shitkickers like Sheriff Shipp-with-two-p’s, who’s probably twice as bright as most of the guys I ever met. I like checking into out-of-the-way motels and dining on Hershey bars and Ritz crackers. I like Lydia Mott’s full-belly policy and Howie Mott’s brains and Pop’s studied forbearance and Padillo’s panther walk. I like watching you switch from Mr. Manners to Hardcase Haynes of Homicide and back again. But most of all, I like us in bed.”

She paused and added, “You just passed my house.”

“I know.”

“Are we turning around?”

Haynes shook his head.

“Where’re we going — Baltimore?”

“To the Willard.”

“What happened to Baltimore?”

“To hell with Baltimore,” Haynes said.

Haynes inserted the plastic card-key into the slot and opened the door to his room at the Willard. He stepped back out of habit to let Erika enter first, but changed his mind and held out a cautionary right hand. He slipped the hand into the pocket of his topcoat and wrapped it around the butt of McCorkle’s revolver. Then he went in.

There was one light on and it came from a lamp that illuminated the easy chair occupied by Hamilton Keyes, who rose gracefully and said, “I’d almost given you up.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Haynes said.

Keyes parried the thrust with a small polite smile and said, “Good evening, Miss McCorkle.”

“I think evening’s long gone,” she said.

Keyes nodded his agreement and turned back to Haynes. “I apologize for my intrusion, but something’s come up. If I could’ve reached anything other than Howard Mott’s answering machine, I wouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Before you ask him what’s come up,” Erika said, “ask him how he got in.”

“Hotel security let him in,” Haynes said. “After he gave them a brief lecture on how the nation trembles for my safety.”

“I was rather convincing,” Keyes said as he sat back down. “And they were rather anxious not to have another dead body littering their hotel.”

Haynes turned and went to the refrigerator. He opened it and went down on one knee to inventory its contents. “Drink, Mr. Keyes?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Erika?”

“A beer would be good.”

Haynes removed two Heinekens and poured them into a pair of glasses. He handed one to Erika, who was now seated in an easy chair and separated from Keyes by the lamp. Holding his own glass in his left hand, Haynes sat on the bed, facing Keyes. He slipped his right hand back down into the topcoat’s pocket and asked, “What came up?”

Keyes tugged at the vest of his gray worsted suit that had a tiny herringbone weave. He wore a gold watch chain across the vest, but no Phi Beta Kappa key. Haynes assumed the key was lying forgotten in some top bureau drawer.

After the vest was to his liking, Keyes said, “One might say the level of anxiety came up. Or rose. We’d like to advance the meeting to ten tomorrow morning instead of ten Wednesday morning.”

“Who had the anxiety attack?”

“My betters.”

“What about the money?”

“That’s been arranged.”

“So everything remains the same — except the date?”

“Precisely.”

“Then it’s okay with me,” Haynes said. “But I may have to drive out to Mott’s and pound on his door to let him know about the new time.”