Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

“He’s going to be with me — if that’s O.K.”

“Sure,” Hardman said. “I told him to expect something. You know exactly what you gonna need him for yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Uh-huh. Mush come pretty high.”

“If he’s as good as he thinks he is, I’ll pay it.”

“You wanta make your own deal with him?”

“It’s up to you. What’s your cut?”

Hardman studied the floor for a moment. “Just make the whole package fifteen thousand. I’ll take whatever’s left over.”

“Then I’ll make my own deal with Mush. I’d like to see him tonight.”

“Where at?” Hardman said.

“My hotel — he’s been there before.”

“What time about?”

“About nine.”

“He be there.”

Hardman rose from his chair and moved to the door. “You reckon this’ll about do it?”

Padillo nodded. “Keep in touch.”

“I aim to.”

“The money will be ready in the morning,” I said.

He waved his huge hand. “I’ll pick it up around noon and come by for lunch.”

“It’ll be on the house.”

Hardman laughed. “I was countin on that.” He waved goodbye and left and his 240-odd pounds seemed to shake the building as he bounded down the steps.

Padillo stared at the desk blotter until Hardman’s footsteps couldn’t be heard any more and then he said: “You trust him, huh?”

“What am I supposed to say: ‘With my life?’”

“I don’t know. We’ve been talking some awfully big money and he’s putting in an awfully small chit.”

“Maybe he’s got something else in mind.”

Padillo quit staring at the desk blotter and looked at me. “Maybe,” he said. “If he does, you’re going to have fun on Tuesday when you have to decide whether you like the way his mind works.”

We drove back through the slow Sunday afternoon traffic to my apartment, where we put the car into the basement garage and took the elevator up to the floor where I lived. I rang the chimes and when there was no response I unlocked the door and opened it as far as the chain would permit.

“It’s all right, Sylvia,” I said. “You can let us in.”

I closed the door so she could take the chain off and we went in. She had cleaned things up: The pillows were fluffed, the ashtrays were empty, the dirty dishes and cups were out of sight, presumably in the dishwasher. I didn’t look, but I was sure that the beds had been made. She was earning her keep.

“How did your meetings go?” she asked.

“All right,” Padillo said. “They understand what they have to do.”

“Is it the same as we talked about?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“I would,” I said. Padillo said he would, too.

She brought two cups in and we sat in the livingroom and drank them. I had always liked Sundays in that apartment with Fredl. They were quiet, lazy days littered with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Star and built around long, large breakfasts with endless cups of coffee. If we got up early enough, I would turn on the radio to a semi-country music station that played a full hour of uninterrupted fundamentalist hymns. Fredl got so that she could harmonize fairly well with “Farther Along” and “Wreck on the Highway.” Later, I would switch to WGMS and she would read me the cattier comments from the Washington papers’ society columns and add her own observations about those whose names were making news. On fine afternoons she sometimes would drag me out for a good German walk or, if it were raining, we might go to the Circle Theater and watch a double feature of bad old movies and eat a half-gallon of buttered popcorn. There were other variations of Sunday, equally prosaic, equally unplanned. Sometimes we just read or wandered around the National Gallery. Once in a while we would take the air-shuttle up to New York and walk around Manhattan, have a couple of drinks and early dinner, and fly back. Sundays were ours, unshared, and we had grown fond of them. I found myself not caring much for this particular Sunday. I found myself missing my wife and worrying about where she was and what she was doing and how she felt. I found myself feeling useless and futile and not overly bright.

“When do I get to hit somebody?” I asked Padillo.

“Edgy?”

“It’s growing. Maybe I should bite on a bullet.”

“There’s no cure,” he said.

“What do you do?”

“To keep from screaming?”

“Yes.”

“I make silent yells.”

“Does it help?”

“Not much.”

“It doesn’t sound as if it would.”

“But it takes a while to figure out how to do it.”

“What’s scheduled for the rest of the afternoon — or is this free time?”

“Nothing scheduled.”

I rose. “I think I’ll take a nap. A nightmare would be better than this.”

Padillo looked at me and frowned. “You’re still calling it. You can bring in the law.”

“I’ve thought about it, but I think we’ve gone too far. I’m not even sure they’d believe us. I’m not even sure that I do.”

“You can still do it up until tomorrow,” he said. “After that it’ll probably be too late.”

“If I’d called in the cops, Fredl would be dead now. This way she’s still alive. But the odds seem to be shifting. It’s getting complicated and tricky and too many people are in on it. Why not get a few more? Why not just call the FBI, tell them to put some of their bright young men on Darragh and Boggs, find out where Fredl is, and go in and get her? That sounds simple. It sounds easy. Just a phone call. It sounds so easy that there must be something wrong with it.”

“Not much,” Padillo said. “First they’d have to take you in and you’d have to answer a few questions. You could tell them about Darragh and Boggs and Van Zandt. That would be a little tricky, because they have diplomatic immunity, but the FBI could check it all out — in maybe twenty-four hours or so. Then you could tell them about Magda and Price and Dymec and they could check that out — whether they’re double agents or not. My ex-employers would be glad to let them know within a week or so. Then there’s Hardman and Mush and that crowd. You could tell the cops about Hard-man. They know a lot already, but you could tell them more. Hardman and Mush wouldn’t mind, except that they might get a little miffed at you. Not much. Just enough so that you’d keep looking over your shoulder for a long time to come. And during all this, Fredl is sitting out there with a kill order on her that’s probably set on an hour-to-hour basis with a deadline for sometime around Tuesday afternoon. But you’re right. You might be able to get her out with help. And then both of you would be around for a week to enjoy the reunion.”

“Who would it be?”

“You can almost take your choice,” Padillo said. “I’d bet first on the Africans and then on Dymec and Price. Hard-man’s people would get a high rating, too. You know too much and you’re in too deep, Mac.”

“They would remember,” Sylvia said. “Darragh and Boggs — all of them. I know what kind of memories they have.”

I sighed. “I said it was too simple. All my ideas are too simple, but that’s because I’ve tried to live an uncomplicated life in a world full of nuts. I should know better. I thought that selling food and drink would be simple, but I should have known better about that, too. You have a full house and you turn somebody away and they turn out to be the parents of Jesus Christ.” I got up and headed for the bedroom. “Pound on the door around six,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be tired of my nightmare by then.”