Cast a Yellow Shadow

by Ross Thomas

  “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.”

  The bed was still too large, but I surprised myself and fell off to sleep quickly. I dreamed about Fredl as I expected, but it was a pleasant dream. We were in a canoe floating down a crystal stream on a warm June day and I was enjoying myself because I didn’t have to paddle too hard. We were having a fine time and I was sorry when the knocking on the door woke me up.

  I washed my face and brushed my teeth and went back into the livingroom. My watch said it was eight o’clock and only Sylvia was there. She was sitting on the couch, her feet tucked up under her.

  “Where’s Padillo?”

  “He went back to the hotel. He has to meet someone there at nine.”

  “Mush.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “May I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you. Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “He said it would help you pass the time. He called it fast time.”

  We sat there talking about not very much for an hour or so. Sylvia made some sandwiches and we ate those and then the phone rang. It was nine-thirty.

  I said hello and it was Boggs. “We have decided to give Dymec the letter,” he said. “It was not a unanimous decision. I was against it.”

  “It’s a good thing you lost. Is my wife there?”

  “Yes. But don’t try to make any more stipulations, Mc-Corkle.”

  “I didn’t make them. Dymec made them. He’s getting nervous. I don’t think he trusts you very much and I didn’t do anything to discourage him because I don’t trust you at all. Put my wife on.”

  “If anything happens to that letter—”

  “I know,” I said. “You’ve made your case often enough.”

  “I’ll make it again. Nothing must happen to that letter.”

  “Tell Dymec that. He’ll have it.”

  “I’ve told him.”

  “When will he get it?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “All right. Let me talk to my wife.”

  “You’ll talk to her when I’m quite through. The person who has this letter could conceivably sell it for a large sum. If this Dymec has any such idea, I suggest that you dissuade him.”

  “He wants the letter because he doesn’t trust you. We want it because we don’t trust you. You don’t want us to have it because you don’t trust us. I’m the new boy on the block and I don’t know too much about this kind of business, but it seems to be built on mutual distrust and unless each side has its own leverage, then the whole deal’s likely to go up in smoke. That letter is our leverage—and Dymec’s leverage.”

  “Let nothing happen to it,” Boggs said. “Here is your wife.”

  “Fredl?”

  “I’m here, darling. I’m all right and please try not to—”

  They cut her off. I was supposed to tip her off that we would try to break her out on Tuesday. I couldn’t see how I could tip her off with only a word or two. It didn’t leave much room for the secret code. I replaced the phone, then picked it up again, and dialed a number. I gave the operator Padillo’s room and he answered.

  “I just heard from Boggs,” I said. “He’ll give Dymec the letter.”

  “Did you talk to Fredl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tip her off. They don’t give me enough time.”

  “What did Boggs have to say?”

  “We lied to each other about mutual trust. Dymec seems to be playing the letter straight with them.”

  “I thought he would,” Padillo said. “It gives him a handle in case they get cute after it’s over.”

  “What now?” I said.

  “Mush just left. He’s getting the Winchester for Dymec.”

  “You know what you’re going to do yet?”

  “Most of it,” he said. “It depends on Price and Dymec and Magda. It still depends on who decides to jump where. I think I know.”

  “Anything more for tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll call the trio and tell them it’s set. That’ll give them the rest of the night and most of tomorrow to decide whose throat should be cut.”

  “I’ll keep Sylvia here,” I said.

  “That’s best. Say goodnight to her for me.”

  “I will. I’ll be down at the bar around ten tomorrow. That early enough?”

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to Sylvia. She was looking at me with her lips slightly parted, her brown eyes wide as if she t
hought that she might have been remembered in the will, but wasn’t really expecting too much.

  “Padillo said to tell you goodnight.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just that it would be best for you to stay here tonight.”

  “That isn’t much, is it?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t expect more.”

  “No, I suppose I really shouldn’t.”

  There wasn’t a great deal else for me to say so I went over to the bar and mixed a Scotch-and-water. Sylvia said she didn’t want one.

  “You know him very well, don’t you?”

  “Padillo?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know him fairly well.”

  “Doesn’t he ever need anyone?”

  “Like you?”

  “Yes. Like me, damn it.”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

  “I did ask him.”

  “What did he say?”

  She was silent for a moment and when she spoke she seemed to be speaking to her hands which rested in her lap. “He said he didn’t have any more time to be lonely—that his time for being lonely had run out years ago.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Something I’m not sure I understand.”

  “What?”

  “He said that he casts a yellow shadow. What does that mean?”

  “It’s what the Arabs say, I think. It means he carries a lot of luck around. All bad.”

  “Does he?”

  “For others. For those who get too close.”

  “I don’t believe in luck,” she said.

  “That’s funny,” I said. “Neither does Padillo.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I met Padillo at the saloon the next morning at ten and we spent an hour doing some work that needed to be done if we were to continue in the business of selling liquor and food to people who already bought too much of both. We went over some invoices and Padillo made a couple of suggestions that would probably save us a thousand or so a year. We called in Herr Horst and talked about a waiter who kept forgetting to come to work.

  “I believe he drinks,” Herr Horst said, and added: “Secretly.”

  “It’s not much of a secret if you know about it,” Padillo said.

  “He’s a good waiter,” I said. “Give him one more chance, but tell him that’s just what it is.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Padillo said.

  “It makes me feel like a humanitarian.”

  “I shall speak to him,” Herr Horst said. “Again.”

  We discussed the week’s menu, decided to give a new wholesale produce dealer a try, went over the merits of two employee health and hospital insurance programs and decided on one, and agreed to run some small space advertisements in a concert program. It was more work than I had done in a week.

  Herr Horst left and sent us in some coffee by a busboy. Pa-dillo sat behind the desk of the office; I sat on the couch.

  “How’s your side?” I asked.

  “Better, but I should get the bandage changed before tomorrow.”

  “You want the doctor?”

  “No. I’ll let Sylvia do it.”

  “She’ll like that. She wants to do things for you.”

  “She’ll make someone a good wife.”

  “I think she’s been writing ‘Mrs. Michael Padillo’ just to see how nice it looks.”

  “I’m too old or she’s too young or both.”

  “She thinks you’re in your prime.”

  “I passed that ten years ago. I was an early bloomer. Now it’s only a few years away from one of those places with planned leisure activities.”

  “She’s a nice kid; you could do worse.”

  Padillo lighted a cigarette. “That’s right. I could, Mac, but she couldn’t.”

  He got up and walked over to the grey steel file and pulled a drawer open. He looked into it, seemed to find nothing that was interesting, closed it, and opened the second drawer. It was the absentminded, aimless action of someone who is thinking of other things.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said, and abruptly closed the file drawer.

  “Are we going somewhere or is it just a nice day?”

  “We’ll pay a visit to the roof garden of the Roger Smith.”

  “All right.”

  We told Herr Horst that we would be back and walked over to Eighteenth and up to K Street and down past where Mr. Kiplinger writes his newsletter, and crossed a street to the Roger Smith Hotel which rises eleven stories above the corner of Eighteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue. The United States Information Agency is just across the street at its faintly patriotic address at 1776 Pennsylvania.

  There are Roger Smith hotels in other towns such as Stamford, Connecticut, White Plains and New Brunswick. They cater to the tourist and the person who travels on a limited expense account. In Washington, visitors like the hotel because it’s only a block and a half from the White House and the rates are reasonable even during the Cherry Blossom Festival.

  We took the automatic elevator to the tenth floor, got out, and walked up a flight of stairs to some French doors that were fastened with a hook and eye. We undid that and stepped out onto the roof garden. On the Pennsylvania Avenue side a curved blue metal shield formed a shell for the orchestra which played for the dancers on summer evenings. The dance floor was of marble and chairs were stacked against the cube-like part of the roof which housed the elevator works. From the chest-high cement railing that ran around the roof you could look down Pennsylvania and see the grey mass of the Executive Office Building which once was considered plenty large enough for the State Department as well as the entire military establishment—now bursting the seams of the Pentagon.

  Everything was painted red and yellow and blue on the roof and it had the air of a party that had come to an unpleasant end. Padillo and I leaned on the cement railing and looked down the avenue.

  “It would be an easy job,” he said. There was a clear view to Seventeenth and Pennsylvania where Van Zandt’s car would make its turn. The cement banister would even provide a convenient gun rest.

  “Has he looked it over?” I asked.

  “Dymec?”

  “Yes.”

  “He came up yesterday. I talked to him last night after Mush brought him the rifle.”

  “What does he have?”

  “What he wanted. The Winchester model 70.”

  “Why did he want it so early?”

  “His real reason is probably that he wants to zero it in. The excuse he gave me is that he wants to decide how to conceal it when he brings it up here.”

  “Have you figured out how you’re going to stop him?”

  Padillo looked down at the avenue again. “I think so,” he said. “It depends on what happens tomorrow when you go after Fredl.”

  “Have you arranged where everybody meets tomorrow?”

  Padillo leaned against the rail and nodded. “Hardman picks you and Magda up at eleven. Then you, the pickup and the moving van follow Sylvia out to the trade mission. Mush and I will be moving around in his car—in this general area. Price waits in the lobby from two until Dymec goes up to the roof.”

  “That’ll be around two-thirty.”

  “The official tour leaves the trade mission at two. You’ll go in after Fredl and Sylvia around one-thirty, I’d say. That should give you time to get down here.”

  “You want anyone else to come with me—Hardman?”

  “No.”

  I looked at my watch. “I have to go to the bank. Hardman’s coming by for lunch—and for the money.”

  “O.K. I wired Zurich yesterday. They’ll transfer some funds. They should be here tomorrow.”

  We walked down the stairs to the tenth floor and took the elevator down. We caught a cab to my bank. I wrote out the check and winced at its size and then took it over to a vice-president so that I could get it cashed without fuss. He didn’t like to see that much money go out, but he got it rounded
up and handed it to me in a thick manilla envelope.

  “Real estate transaction, Mr. McCorkle?” he asked knowingly.

  “The cards were bad,” I said and walked away from the thoughtful look that appeared on his face.

  “You can ride shotgun,” I told Padillo and we walked back to the restaurant. Hardman was waiting for us in the office. “Sorry I’m late,” I told him and handed over the envelope.

  He undid the clasp and looked inside and said “my, my” and stuck the envelope in the wide pocket of his camel’s hair polo coat.

  “Can’t stay for lunch, baby,” he said. “Too many things moving.”

  “Got time for a drink?”

  “Make time for that.”

  I picked up the phone and ordered three martinis. “You want Scotch?” I asked Hardman.

  He shook his head. “Martini’s fine.”

  “Phones going in O.K.?” Padillo asked him.

  “Man’s working on ’em right now.”

  “When will he be through?”

  Hardman looked at his watch. “Couple of hours—about three’d put us on the safe side.”

  “Can we set up a trial conference call for four?”

  “Don’t see why not. Lemme think. That’d be my car, Mush’s, and the pickup and the van.”

  “Right.”

  “Mush and I’ll pick you up where?”

  Padillo looked at me. I shrugged. “Mac’s apartment,” he said. “We’ll be outside at four.”

  “Be there,” Hardman assured us.

  The drinks came and Hardman told us what he had been doing. The pickup and the van had been painted; he’d got four white sets of coveralls; the phones were going in, and Tulip, Johnny Jay, and Nineball were staying sober. We went over the time that he should pick Magda and me up the next morning and he said that he had it all straight.

  We finished the drinks and followed Hardman out into the restaurant. He left and we moved over to the bar and watched the customers get rid of their weekend hangovers. I said hello to some regulars and introduced Padillo. We stayed at the restaurant until three-thirty and then went to my apartment. I opened the door with a key and then waited for Sylvia to take the chain off the lock.