Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

Padillo held up the cocktail shaker and looked at it. “I’m not really. Let’s have one more and then have some lunch.”

“All right.”

He mixed the drinks and poured them. “Funny about Price,” he said.

“How?”

“He wants the letter, but that alone won’t keep him off my back.”

“What else?”

“How many times did he shoot at me last night?”

“Twice.”

“He missed twice. Five years ago he wouldn’t have missed once. Three years ago he would have been dead if he had. You notice I didn’t shoot back.”

“I took it for a sporting gesture.”

Padillo grinned. “Not quite. My hand was shaking too much.”

We walked over to Harvey’s on Connecticut Avenue and had lunch there which was no better nor worse than the lunches they had been serving for the past 108 years. Afterwards, we drove back to Seventh Street, found a parking place, and climbed the stairs to the office with the folding steel chairs and the dust-covered desk. I asked Padillo how his side was and when he said it bothered him I offered him the chair behind the desk. I turned another chair around so that it would serve as a footrest and we sat there in the drab office on a Sunday afternoon and waited for the gangster men to arrive.

They arrived on time, at two p.m. Hardman brought them in, three Negroes of different shades of brown, all dressed in quiet, conservative dark suits, white shirts, muted ties and highly-polished shoes. He introduced us to them and then told us who they were.

“This Johnny Jay,” he said of a tall, thin man with dark skin, a bleak look, and wide mouth with thick rubbery lips. He looked to be about thirty-one or two. He nodded at us, took out a handkerchief, dusted off one of the folding chairs, and sat down.

“This here’s Tulip,” Hardman said, indicating a man with a dark pitted face, a wide, stocky build, and curiously delicate-looking hands that flitted around like thick butterflies, lighting first on his lapels, then down to check the flaps on his jacket pockets, then the trouser pockets, then up to his head to smooth a hair back into place, and then to the knot of his blue and maroon striped tie.

The last man that Hardman introduced was a mulatto, a sleek-skinned, handsome lad whom he called Nineball. Nine-ball wore a double-breasted suit of dark grey flannel, a white shirt with a tab collar, a neatly knotted green and black foulard tie, and a well-clipped mustache. He wore them all well and gave us a friendly smile when Hardman mentioned his name.

“These the men you gonna be workin with,” Hardman told them. “They also the men who gonna pay you two thousand dollars to do whatever needs to be done like I told you, and I don’t want no mess-ups.”

“I’ll have the money for you first thing in the morning,” I said. “As soon as the banks open.”

Hardman took out his ostrich billfold and opened it so he could read something he had written on a notepad.

“Gonna cost you $10,247 for the whole thing. Six big ones for my three friends here, a thousand each to rent the moving van and the pickup, a thousand into the hip pocket of the man at the phone company to get them phones in first thing in the morning, a thousand to get the two cars painted, and $247 for expenses like uniforms and a couple of other items.”

Nineball spoke up. “We gonna have to zap anybody?”

“Not if we can help it,” Padillo said.

Nineball nodded and said: “But it just possibly might be necessary.”

“It possibly might,” Padillo said.

“How you got it planned now?” Hardman asked.

“There’s one thing about those figures you were reeling off,” I said.

“What?” Hardman said.

“There’s no cut for you.”

“We get around to that later.”

Padillo leaned forward from his chair behind the desk and rested his arms on the blotter. I noticed that he had dusted it off. “It works like this,” he said. “You’ll be outside the trade mission on Massachusetts Avenue by eleven-thirty on Tuesday morning. You’ll be parked so that you have a clear view of the house. If there’s a rear entrance, whoever’s in the big truck will cover that. At precisely eleven-thirty a young white girl will go into the trade mission. She’ll be driving a new green Chevrolet with D.C. plates. At eleven-thirty you’ll start your four-way conference call. I assume that Hardman’s going to be in the pickup so he’ll originate the call. If that girl’s not out of that place by noon, you go and bring her out.”

He waited. There were no questions. Hardman cleared his throat and said: “I’ve told ’em about that part, baby. I also mentioned that there’d be a bonus in it if they gotta go in.”

“That’s right,” Padillo said.

“Who’s gonna be drivin my car?” Hardman said.

“McCorkle. The woman you met at Betty’s will be with him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“McCorkle will be parked a couple of blocks away from the mission on a side street. When that girl is brought out of the mission, both the pickup and the moving van will follow whatever car they take her in to wherever they take her. McCorkle will be following a block or two behind. You’ll be telling him where you’re going by means of the conference call.”

Padillo paused and lighted a cigarette and offered them around. Nobody took one. “When the car that has the girl arrives at wherever it’s going, you’ll wait until they take her in — I’m guessing it will be they — and come out and leave. Then McCorkle here and the woman will move up to the door—”

“You don’t know what kind of door yet?” Tulip asked.

“We don’t even know what section of town it’ll be in,” Padillo said. “But the woman and McCorkle will move up to the door of whatever it is. They’ll be looking as much as possible like new tenants who are accompanied by their movers — you four.”

“Uh-huh,” Hardman said.

“The woman will ring the bell or knock on the door or whatever. When it’s opened, you move up behind them fast because that’s when you go in.”

“They gonna let us in like that?” Nineball asked. “Just cause she asks them to?”

“She’s not gonna ask them, baby,” Hardman said. “You ain’t seen this little old gal. She’s gonna have a gun aimed right at that mother’s belly. Right, Mac?”

“Right,” I said.

“When you’re inside,” Padillo went on, “your main job will be to get Mrs. McCorkle and the girl out safely and fast.”

“You talking about that little old gal we followed there now,” Hardman said. “You ain’t talking about the one who’s handling the gun.”

“No. Mrs. McCorkle and Sylvia Underhill are the ones who have to get out fast. The other one can usually take care of herself.”

“And in this house, that we don’t know where it is, will be where the trouble is?” Johnny Jay said.

“That’s right. That’ll be the trouble.”

“Whatta we do with the women after it’s over?” Nineball asked.

“Take ’em to Betty’s,” Hardman said. “Then you hang around a while outside, make sure nobody’s comin in after em.”

Hardman looked around the room. “You got any questions, you better ask them now.” They looked back at him, their faces impassive. Hardman rose. “O.K., I’ll be in touch with you later this afternoon,” he told them. “You got things to do so you might as well get doing them.”

They got up and nodded at us as they filed out of the room. Hardman watched them leave, then turned to Padillo and me.

“They O.K.?” he asked.

“They look fine,” I said.

Padillo nodded.

“Where you gonna be, baby, while all this fun’s going on?”

“At the hotel,” Padillo said.

“You mentioned Mush yesterday.”