Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

We waited some more. Sylvia was on the couch with her feet tucked up under her. She held a cup and saucer. She had held them for twenty minutes. Padillo was at the other end of the couch. He was slumped back, his head resting against the cushions, his feet stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles. He smoked cigarettes and blew rings at the ceiling. When he wasn’t smoking, his mouth went into a line so thin that he didn’t seem to have any lips. I sat in an easy chair, my favorite one, and gnawed on a hangnail because it gave me something to do and because it was the most constructive thing I had done all morning.

The chimes rang at ten-forty-five and I got up, crossed the room, and opened the door. It was Magda Shadid and she was dressed for anything that one might have enough money to take her to at that time of the morning. There was a dark grey coat that felt like cashmere when she turned so that it could fall into my hands. Underneath the coat she was wearing a white and grey dress whose pattern was made up of large inverted Vs. The dress seemed to have been applied with care, layer by layer, handrubbed possibly, and no one could say that it wouldn’t have been pleasant work.

“Mr. McCorkle,” she said sweetly. “You look so very tired this morning.”

“Thank you.”

“Hello, Michael, how are you? Grim and morose as usual, I sec. And this must be — not Mrs. McCorkle, surely?”

“No,” Padillo said. “Magda Shadid, Sylvia Underhill.”

“How do you do,” Sylvia said.

“And what do you do for my very old friend Michael?”

“She leads and we follow,” I said.

Magda gracefully eased into one of the chairs, crossed her legs, and began to take off her gloves. She took them off carefully, and spent time loosening each finger.

“Then you know where Mrs. McCorkle is?” she said.

“Not yet, precious, but we will. Mac will explain it to you along the way.”

“Would you like some coffee?” Sylvia asked.

“I’d love some. Black, please, with loads of sugar.”

Sylvia rose and went into the kitchen.

“You always had an eye for the young ones, Michael, but I never knew you to make use of children.”

“She’s twenty-one,” Padillo said. “When you were twenty-one you were running three agents out of Munich, until you sold them piecemeal to Gehlen.”

“It was a hard winter. Besides, my sweet, I’m European. There’s such a difference.”

“Such,” Padillo agreed.

Sylvia came back in with the coffee. “That’s a stunning suit,” Magda told her. “Have you known Michael long?”

“Not long,” Sylvia said, “and the suit cost ten pounds six off the peg — that’s about thirty dollars.”

“Closer to twenty-nine,” Magda said. “I should warn you Michael has a way of using his friends — especially his old friends — that is sometimes quite disconcerting. Have you discovered this yet, Miss Underhill?”

“No, but then I don’t have all the years necessary to make me an old friend, do I?”

I gave that round to Sylvia on points and said: “When is Hardman due?”

“Any minute,” Padillo said.

“I take his Cadillac and Magda goes with me, right?” I said it for the benefit of Magda. We had gone over it a dozen times.

“That’s it.”

The telephone rang and I answered it. It was Hardman. “I’m about ten minutes away from your house, Mac, and I’m starting the conference call now.”

“Where’s Mush?”

“Right behind me.”

“And the trucks?”

“Big one’s already headin out there. Pickup’s right behind Mush.”

“We’ll be downstairs in ten minutes,” I said.

“See you.”

I hung up the phone and told them to get ready. I went into my bedroom and took a topcoat out of the closet. I put the revolver in its righthand pocket, picked up the knife from the dresser, snicked open the blade, felt the point to see if it was still sharp, closed it, and dropped it into the left-hand coat pocket. It would come in handy if someone had a string-wrapped package to open. We took the elevator down to the lobby where Magda, Padillo and I got off. Sylvia stayed on to continue down to the basement garage where her car was parked. Padillo turned just as he left the elevator and looked at her. She smiled — or tried to. He nodded his head. I couldn’t see whether he smiled or not.

“Take care, kid,” he said.

“You, too.”

The elevator door closed and the three of us walked through the plate-glass doors that opened on to the curved driveway. We waited only two or three minutes before Hardman’s Cadillac rolled up. It was a Coupe de Ville and long enough to satisfy anyone’s status cravings. Hardman was dressed in white coveralls with “Four-Square Movers” stitched in red thread across the back. The coveralls made him enormous. The Buick, driven by Mush, rolled up behind the Cadillac. The white pickup truck stopped at the curb. Tulip was driving.

“Keys in the car,” Hardman said to me. “Conference call’s gone through and everybody’s on.”

“O.K.,” I said. “You follow the girl’s Chevrolet. She should be coming out any minute.”

“We’ll be right behind her. Truck’s going to be in the alley.”

I opened the door for Magda and she got in. I walked around to the other side. Padillo was just getting into the Buick next to Mush. “Stay in touch,” he said.

“Don’t worry.”

I started the Cadillac, put the automatic gear into drive, checked the brakes, discovered I had power steering, and drove out into the street. Sylvia, driving the green Chevrolet, pulled out of the basement garage and the white pickup with Tulip at the wheel and Hardman beside him fell in behind her. I looked at my watch. It was eleven-fifteen. I picked up the phone and said hello. Padillo answered. He said: “Everybody check in.”

“I’m right behind the pickup,” I said. “We’re heading up Twentieth to Massachusetts.”

“This is Hardman. We right behind Missy’s Chewy. On Twentieth, heading for Massachusetts.”

“This Johnny Jay,” another voice came in. “Tulip’s drivin. We in the van and movin up Mass bout five minutes away from where we supposed to be.”

“All right,” Padillo said. “Hardman will serve as talker from now on. If he says move, you’ll move. It’s all yours, Hardman.”

The big man’s bass voice rumbled over the telephone. “I’ll give it to you as we go... turnin left on Massachusetts... now we’re at Sheridan Circle... we around the circle and straight on Mass... now we two blocks past the circle and about six blocks or so from where we’re goin...”

I drove with my left hand on the wheel and held the phone with my right. Magda leaned against the door and stared out through the windshield.

“Three blocks from where we’re goin,” Hardman said.

At the end of that block I turned right, then left into a driveway, backed up, and drove the Cadillac to the corner and parked it just in front of a stop sign. I could see Massachusetts Avenue traffic for two blocks each way. I cut the engine, lighted a cigarette, and kept listening to the telephone.

“Missy’s lookin for a place to park,” Hardman’s voice said. “She’s found one bout a block away... She’s parked O.K.... Now she’s gettin out and headin back for the place... Come in, Johnny Jay.”

“We right behind the house we supposed to be behind,” Johnny Jay’s voice said. “No action.”

“All right,” Hardman said. “It’s eleven-thirty now... Missy’s goin up to the door... She’s ringin the bell... Me and Tulip’s parked right in front across the street in a no-parkin zone... Man’s openin the door — thin white cat — she’s goin in. Now we don’t do nothin but wait. I’ll say somethin when somethin happens.”