Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

We climbed the stairs to the shabby office and unlocked the door and went in. It still had its echo of sallow little men talking fast over a battery of telephones. “Try the chair behind the desk,” I said. “You can put your feet up.”

Padillo placed the attaché case on the desk and tried my suggestion. I took one of the folding chairs that faced the door. We waited only three minutes until someone knocked. Padillo said come in and it was Magda Shadid. She wore a light wool coat which she took off so we could see her rust-colored knit dress.

“You look beautiful,” Padillo told her.

She smiled at him and then at me. “Do you like it? I wore it just for you.”

“It accents your best features,” he said.

“They’re still available for closer inspection.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And you, Mr. Sad Face, wouldn’t you like to be cheered up? You look so sad.”

“He’s just hung over,” Padillo said.

She moved over to me and ran her hand through my hair. “I could cheer you up.”

“Watch out. I bite when I’m hung over.”

She had extremely dark eyes and if the makeup she used around them was intended to make them seem merry and wicked, it was successful. “That might be interesting,” she said, “if you don’t bite too hard.”

“I think you’ve got the message across, precious,” Padillo said. “Why don’t you sit down and cross your legs and be decorative.”

“It’s all so dirty here. Why can’t we meet some place that doesn’t look like a doss house?”

“For what you’re getting paid, you can’t complain about the accommodations.”

“Paid for what though, Michael?”

“We’ll get to that. Tell me, what do you do with all your money?”

“I invest it in Israeli bonds,” she said, opened her purse, and took out a cigarette. I let her light her own.

Dymec was the next to arrive. He said hello and sat next to Magda; his large capable hands rested calmly on his knees. He sat straight in the metal chair and gazed at nothing. He seemed to have spent a lot of time waiting and knew not to rush it.

Price was last, arriving a few minutes after Dymec. Padillo had been right. Price was tweedy. He wore a grey and black suit that looked as if it needed a shave, a wide maroon wool tie, and grainy brown brogues with thick soles. He put a plaid hat on one of the vacant chairs as he said hello and sat next to Dymec.

“For the benefit of you two,” Padillo said, nodding his head at Magda and Price, “they accepted Dymec as the substitute. They’ve inspected him and they agreed to the price — seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“And we’re to get partial payment today,” Price said.

“That’s right.”

Magda dropped her cigarette on the floor and ground it out with her shoe. It was interesting to watch her ankle wiggle. “I believe my portion of seventy-five thousand will be $18,750 which is most generous, considering the fact that I have yet to do anything except meet in shabby offices and listen to your dreary threats. You have never been overly generous in the past, Michael — with anything. I believe I’ll have to earn my share. So what do I have to do that’s going to be worth that lovely sum?”

“You’ll help us get Mrs. McCorkle away from whoever’s got her.”

“I see. And how do I do that?”

“You walk up to a door, knock on it, and when somebody comes — and they will, because you’re a woman — you’ll produce a gun and tell them that you wish to see Mrs. McCorkle. If they don’t believe you, you may have to use the gun. Your job will be to get them to open up.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“Then I’m to be your stalking horse.”

“Something like that, except you could play a more active role.”

“Such as shooting someone.”

“You don’t have to kill them.”

“Just shoot them,” she said sweetly.

“That’s right.”

“For $18,750.”

“No. You’re forgetting the fourteen thousand. For $32,750 — which is a great deal of money for shooting anybody in this country.”

“How do you propose to find out where they’re keeping his wife?” Dymec asked.

“We’re still working on it.”

“Any luck?” Price said.

“None so far.”

“If you don’t find her, what then?” Magda said.

“Then you don’t get paid the last half of $18,750. You get the first half for just being on call.”

“All right,” she said. “I accept.”

Padillo turned to her and said in a quick, hard voice: “You’re forgetting something, Magda. You’re not accepting, you’re doing what I tell you to do because you don’t have any choice. I could make you do it for nothing, except that I’ll pay to keep your efficiency up. When you’re free, you tend to get sloppy.”

He turned to Price and Dymec. “Before. you two start talking about whether you accept or not, what I’ve told Magda holds, true for you both: you’re here because I told you to be here. The money is to keep your interest up and to keep you from getting any ideas about pulling a cross.”

Price waved a hand as if he were brushing away a lazy fly. “It’s all been so vague till now, you know. A chap does wonder a bit.”

“All right,” Padillo said, “you can quit wondering. Here’s how it works: Magda, McCorkle and I will be going after McCorkle’s wife while you two pull the fake assassination. We don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing because we don’t know where she is yet. That’s the loose part of the operation. It has to be. Your part isn’t.” He paused and lighted a cigarette.

“The whole point,” he continued, “is to get Mrs. McCorkle back. The secondary phase is to expose the Van Zandt crowd to ridicule — to disclose that they paid out seventy-five thousand dollars to have their own Prime Minister shot and that they paid it to con men.”

“That’s a bit thick,” Price said.

“When it doesn’t come off,” Dymec said, “what do you expect them to do: run down to the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint?”

“Your American is getting better, Dymec.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re going to get cold feet, Dymec.”

“Why?”

“Suppose you actually carried out the assassination. What guarantee do you have that you’d get the rest of the money? None. What guarantee do you have that the Africans simply wouldn’t tip off the law to start looking for you? If you told the law that they hired you, who’d believe you? Especially you. And what difference would it make?”

He paused again. “So here’s what you do, Dymec. You ask them for a letter spelling out the details of their agreement with you. The whole thing. And that letter is to be on their official stationery, signed by Van Zandt, and bearing the official seal. It also has to be witnessed by Boggs and Dar ragh.”

“My God!” Price said.

Dymec looked skeptical. He looked the way I felt. “How would such a letter help?”

“Insurance, man,” Price said. “If they wrote a letter stating that they had hired you to assassinate their Prime Minister, that letter would be priceless. Of course they’d pay up to get the letter back.”

“They’re not that stupid,” Dymec said.

“Have they any reason to doubt that you’re going to kill Van Zandt?” Padillo said.

Dymec looked at him calmly. He had a fine face for poker. “None.”

“All right. You’re taking all the risk. You’d like to share a little of it. You’d like to make sure you get paid. When the Prime Minister’s dead, and you’re paid, they get the letter back.”

“I could copy it — there are a number of machines that can do that.”

“Not with the official wax seal on it,” Padillo said.