Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

“Hurt?” I asked.

“Like hell,” he said.

“You moved real pretty. What tipped you off?”

“You get a good look at them?”

“No.”

“I did when I was right across the street from them.”

“Recognize anyone?”

“Not the one at the wheel. Just the passenger.” The elevator stopped at my floor and we got out and walked quickly down the hall. I put the key in the lock and turned it.

“Who was it?”

“Our British cousin,” he said. “Philip Price.”

I was watching Sylvia Underhill tape a new bandage to Pa dillo’s side when the phone rang. I answered it and a male voice asked for Mr. Michael Padillo. I passed him the phone and he talked briefly, mostly in monosyllables, and then hung up.

“That was one of our friends from the FBI,” he said. “They’re getting tired of sitting around the lobby of the hotel, so they called Iker and asked him what to do. He suggested that they call here. I told them to go home.”

“How does that feel?” Sylvia asked.

Padillo looked down at the bandage. It was a neat job. “Much better, thank you.”

He picked up his shirt and started putting it on. He only winced slightly when he poked his left arm through the sleeve.

“You may as well stay here tonight,” I said. “If Price is looking for you—” I let the sentence trail off.

“He won’t be looking any more tonight.”

“Do you think he knows that you saw him?”

“I doubt it. He was counting on surprise and didn’t know I was curious about who was in the car. He’ll show tomorrow when we split the money — if we get it from Boggs.”

“He said he’d have it.”

“I’ll call the trio tomorrow and set the meeting for eleven at Seventh Street,” Padillo said. “Price will be there, tweedy as hell, and looking as if he’s just come from communion.”

“Only one more thing,” I said.

“Why did he take a shot at me?” Padillo said.

“That occurred to me.”

“Somebody must have told him to.”

“Who?”

“I could give you a list.”

“You have no idea?”

Padillo shook his head. “None.”

I stood up and looked at my watch. “It’s now three-thirty of a Sunday morning. There are extra toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet. You can argue about who gets the couch if you want to, or work out your own sleeping arrangements. I’m no gentleman. I’m using my own bed.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Padillo said. Sylvia suddenly became busy putting the adhesive tape and the gauze back in the first aid kit.

I walked over to the bar and poured myself a drink. “I’ll say good night. The alarm will be set for eight. With luck, I won’t hear it.”

I went into the bedroom, stripped off my clothes, and sat on the edge of the bed and smoked a cigarette and sipped the Scotch. I set the alarm and put out the cigarette. It had been a long, hard day. I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. When I opened them again the alarm was ringing and I realized I had to get up and start all over again.

It hardly seemed worthwhile.

I stood in the shower for ten minutes and let the hot water beat on my neck. Then I turned it off. I didn’t try the cold although they say it opens your pores. I didn’t care whether mine were open or closed. Shaving was a problem, but I got through it without cutting anything important, and after I brushed my teeth, I congratulated myself again on the fact that they were all mine. There were a couple of nice gold crowns, far back, but essentially they were the original equipment. I combed my hair, which seemed to take less and less time each day, and then there was nothing else to do but get dressed and meet the new day which would probably be worse than yesterday but better than tomorrow.

Padillo was dressed and sitting on the couch holding a cup of coffee and a cigarette when I crossed the livingroom towards the kitchen.

“The water’s hot,” he said.

“Uh.”

I poured some on top of the coffee, put in a spoonful of sugar, and stirred. I picked up the cup and saucer and went back into the livingroom and sat down carefully. I tried the coffee.

“They’ve got it foolproof,” I said. “It’s impossible to make a good cup.”

“Uh.”

“She still asleep?”

“I think so.”

“How’s your side?”

“Stiff.”

“How was the couch?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

I didn’t have any more questions. Padillo got up and walked into the kitchen and made himself another cup of coffee. The door chimes rang as he came back into the living-room. I got up and opened the door. It was the thin man who had let us into the trade mission, still wearing his black suit and his grave manner.

“Mr. Boggs asked that I deliver this,” he said and handed me a brown paper sack, the kind that you bring the week’s groceries home in. I took it, unfolded the top, and looked inside. There was a lot of money inside.

“Do you want me to sign anything?” I said.

The thin man permitted himself a smile. “That won’t be necessary. Mr. Boggs said he himself would deliver the remainder.”

“Thank Mr. Boggs for me.”

“Yes, sir,” the thin man said and turned to leave. I closed the door.

“What is it?” Padillo asked.

“Money. A whole lot of money.”

I walked over to the couch and handed him the sack. “They didn’t have time to get it wrapped.”

He took the sack and dumped the money on the coffee table. It was in fifty and one hundred-dollar bills and it seemed to give off a nice glow.

“You want to count it?” Padillo said.

“It’s a little early for me; I doubt if I could get past nineteen.”

Padillo leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes tightly. His left hand moved to his side. “Ouch,” he said.

“You didn’t put much feeling into that.”

“There should be $37,500 there.”

“All right. I’ll count it.”

The fifties were in packets of one thousand dollars. There were fifteen of them. The hundreds were wrapped up in two-thousand-dollar packets, eleven in all. There was some loose change consisting of two one-hundred-dollar bills and six fifties that made up the remaining five hundred.

“It’s all here,” I said. “You want me to divide it into three tidy piles?”

Padillo sat up and his face was pale beneath his deep tan. “Half in one pile, split the remainder. It’s a two-one-one cut remember.”

I did some mental arithmetic. “The bills are the wrong size. A fourth would be $9,375.”

“Do the best you can,” Padillo said, his eyes still closed.

I went back into the kitchen for another cup of coffee while Padillo pulled the telephone over and started dialing. He had only to speak a few words to complete each call. By the time I got back into the livingroom he was finishing his last one. He put the phone away.

“That was Price,” he said.

“How’d he sound?”

“Sleepy, but greedy.”

“And the other two?”

“They’ll be there at eleven.”

I indicated the money on the table. “What shall we do with it?”

“Have you got a briefcase?”

“I’ll get it.” I went into the bedroom and pulled an attaché case out of the closet. Someone had given it to me years ago and for a while I had tried to think of someway of using it, but had finally given up and just put it away. It was a black leather case with solid silver fittings. If I’d been in some other line of work, I could have carried my lunch in it. I handed the case to Padillo.

“You have any rubberbands?”

“Fredl saves them. She puts them on the kitchen doorknob.” I got three off the knob, gave them to Padillo, and he snapped them around the stacks of money and put the bills into the briefcase and closed it.