by Ross Thomas
“Quiet day?” I said.
“Very quiet,” she said.
“Nervous?” Padillo asked.
“Only a little.”
“We have to go out for a while but then we’ll come back and keep you company the rest of the day,” he said.
At four Padillo and I went downstairs and waited for Hard-man and Mush. They were on time and I got into Hardman’s Cadillac and Padillo went in Mush’s Buick. We drove to the corner and the Buick turned right. Hardman turned left. He picked up the telephone that hung from his dashboard and signaled the operator. He drove with his left hand and held the phone to his ear with his right.
“This is YR 4-7896. I want to set up a conference call with the following numbers.” He read off three more numbers with the YR prefix. “That’s right, operator, soon as possible.”
He hung up the phone and we drove on, heading towards Georgetown.
“We going any place in particular?” I asked.
“Just cruisin,” he said. “Any place special you wanna go?”
I couldn’t think of any place and told him so.
We were on Wisconsin Avenue heading north towards Nebraska when the telephone buzzed. Hardman picked it up and said: “This is YR 4-7896. Thanks, operator.” He handed the phone to me. “She says the call’s ready. Tell ’em who you are and where you are.”
“This is McCorkle on Wisconsin and T,” I said. “We’re heading north.”
“This is Padillo. We’re on Connecticut and S Streets, heading north.”
“This is Tulip. We’re on Georgia and Kennedy Streets, heading south.”
“This Johnny Jay at Fourteenth and Columbia Road. We turnin on to Fourteenth and heading south.”
“Hold on,” I said and turned to Hardman. “They’re all coming in fine.”
“Tell ’em to keep talking and to meet us at Nebraska and Military Road in twenty minutes,” he said.
“That’s going to take some driving for a couple of them.”
“That’s what they paid to do.”
“Meet us at Nebraska and Military Road in twenty minutes. That will be four-forty p.m. Let me know if you’ve got it.”
“This is Padillo. I understand. We’re heading there now.”
“This is Johnny Jay. Shit, man, I’m gonna have to fly.”
“This is Tulip. I’ll be there.”
“They’ve got it,” I told Hardman.
“Tell ’em not to hang up.”
“Don’t hang up—keep the call going.”
We drove down Wisconsin and turned right on Nebraska. We hit a long red light at Connecticut, crossed and drove slowly down Nebraska until we got to Military Road. A white moving van drove past us, followed by a white pickup truck. Both had “Four-Square Moving Company” painted on their doors. Mush’s Buick turned out of a side street. He waved at us and I waved back.
Hardman reached for the phone. “All right,” he said. “We can knock off now. Take ’em back where you got em.” He signaled the operator and told her the call was through.
“They seemed to work fine,” I said.
“They’ll be fine tomorrow.”
He drove me back to my apartment. “Anything else tonight?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“See you in the morning then.”
“Where’ll you be if something comes up?”
“This phone or Betty’s.”
“O.K. See you tomorrow.”
I waited until Mush drove up and let Padillo out and we rode up the elevator together. Inside the apartment, Sylvia put a new bandage on Padillo, I mixed three drinks, and we turned on the television set and watched the six-thirty news. There was nothing about Van Zandt.
At seven Padillo telephoned Madga Shadid, Philip Price, and Jon Dymec. He gave them their final instructions in brief, concise sentences.
He came back to the couch and sat down next to Sylvia. “Did you call the police today?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“They have anything?”
“No. They’re still unable to locate the car that struck Dad.”
“Did they want you to do anything else?”
“No. When I was there I made arrangements to have him sent home.” She said it without faltering.
“Are your people expecting to hear from you?”
“I sent a cable to mother and charged it to this telephone. I have the charges,” she said to me. “I’ll repay you.”
“Forget it.”
“Do you still have that automatic?” Padillo asked her.
“Yes.”
“Take it with you tomorrow. Can you hide it some place—in your brassiere or something?”
She flushed slightly. “Or something. Will I need it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just want you to have it.”
The telephone rang and I answered it.
“You can talk to your wife, McCorkle.” It was Boggs.
“Fredl?”
“I’m on now, darling.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m just getting so tired and I—”
They cut her off again. Boggs came back on. “Is Padillo there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Is everything ready for tomorrow? You have the correct times?”
“We have everything,” I said.
“Well,” he said and his voice trailed off. For once he seemed at a loss for something to say. “I don’t suppose I should wish you good luck,” he said finally.
“I don’t think so.”
“Yes, well—goodnight then.”
I hung up the phone.
“Boggs,” I said.
“Fredl all right?”
“Yes. I suppose so. She’s tired.”
“What did Boggs want?”
“He wanted to know whether he should wish us good luck.”
TWENTY-THREE
The alarm rang at eight Tuesday morning and I turned it off and put my cigarette out in the big ceramic tray that was on the night table next to the bed. The tray had thirty-seven butts in it. I had counted them twenty minutes earlier. I had awakened at three and for a while just stared up into the darkness until I knew that sleep was at an end and that I had five hours to spend with myself. The prospect of my company was never less pleasing. I was a bore. I talked too much and listened too little. I was opinionated and self-indulgent. I had no insight, but plenty of self-pity. I had a tendency to blame others for the mistakes I made. I was growing old. I drank too much.
On that I lighted another cigarette and got up and went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth again and drank a glass of water and stared into the mirror for a while. I didn’t see anyone I wanted to know so I went back into the bedroom and turned on the high-intensity lamp, picked up volume two of Mr. Pepys’s diary, and tried to get interested in how he was making out with the chambermaid. After fifteen minutes my mind wandered and I put the book aside. I lay in the bed and smoked another cigarette in fearless defiance of all rules of health and personal safety. I stared up at the ceiling with the light on and after a while I tried it with the light off. It didn’t make much difference.
The time passed that way, neither slower nor faster than usual, half in the dark, half in the light, and by the time the alarm rang, it was done and I had battled through another night without resorting to Dr. Sinatra’s prescription of whatever it takes—pills, prayer or a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I got dressed more slowly than usual because I felt a decade or two older than usual and went into the livingroom where Padillo was sitting on the couch drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette that he didn’t seem to enjoy. I said ‘uh’ and he came back with a snappy ‘guh’ and I went on into the kitchen and poured water on top of a teaspoon of instant coffee.
After the first cup, I tried a second.
“That belly gun,” Padillo said by way of greeting.
“Uh-huh.”
“You have
any rounds for it?”
“No.”
“Here.” He took out a box of .38 shells and put six on the coffee table. I got up and went into the bedroom and got the gun out of my topcoat pocket. I came back and picked up the shells from the table, flipped the cylinder open, and loaded it, just like they used to do at the Criterion Theater on Saturday afternoon.
“You don’t think I’ll need any more than six?”
“If you need more than six, it really won’t matter.”
Sylvia Underhill came in and said good morning and asked if we would like her to prepare some breakfast and we said no. She was wearing ivory pumps and a woolen suit of periwinkle blue that had a nubby weave. She smiled at both of us, but Padillo got a little extra in his, and I started wondering when someone would smile at me like that again. She looked pretty and smart and very young—not at all as if she were going out to badger the members of a trade mission.
After her breakfast and more coffee for Padillo and me, we went over what each of us was supposed to do. I grew more nervous each time we went over it, but Padillo and Sylvia discussed the steps as if they were planning Fun Night at the Elks’ Club. We went over it until I came down with a fit of yawning and then we stopped.
“White night?” Padillo asked.
“Close to it.”
He looked at his watch. “Magda should be here shortly.”
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 abo
ut 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.”
I rested the telephone on my shoulder and rolled down the window and threw my cigarette out. I had to turn on the key to roll down the window. They were electric.
Magda stirred in the corner. “Now?” she asked. “Is this when I get my briefing?”
“Now,” I said. “The little blonde is from the same country as Van Zandt. Her father got run over in downtown Washington last week. Her father knew about Van Zandt’s plans to get himself killed. It doesn’t matter now how he found out. The little blonde’s job is to go into the trade mission, and threaten to spill the whole mess. We’re betting that they’ll move her someplace where they can keep her out of sight and out of hearing. We’re betting that they’ll move her to the same place where they’re holding my wife.”
“Padillo,” she said. “It’s got all the nastiness of something he’d propose—using someone else’s neck.”