Cast a Yellow Shadow (6 page)

“Nothing would be more enjoyable, but there is a deadline and once again I need your help.”

She sighed and put her cigarette out carefully. “This time I will charge you, Michael. In the past I have helped you for foolish sentimental reasons, but this time you will pay. The price: Spend one hour soon with an old friend and listen to her memories.”

“You would be paying me,” Padillo said. “It will be a rare privilege and we will do it quite soon.”

She looked at him and smiled slightly. “You even lie like your father. You are not yet married?”

“No.”

“Then I will be the matchmaker. You are a wonderful catch, and I will find you a rich bride.”

“I will be in debt to your ability as well as to your good taste.”

“Now, what is it that you wish to know?”

“I want to locate—today, if possible—three persons.”

“Are they in the States?”

“So I've heard.”

“Their names?”

“Philip Price, Jon Dymec, Magda Shadid.”

“A mixed bag, Michael,” she said in English. “An Englishman, a Pole, and Magda, half-Syrian, half-Hungarian. I didn't realize you knew her.”

“We've met. Are they in town?”

“Two of them are, Magda and Price. Dymec is temporarily in New York.”

“Can you get word to them?”

“l can.”

“Today.”

“Yes.”

“Just tell them I'm at the Mayflower, and that I'm calling my loan.”

“Do you know these persons, Herr McCorkle?”

“No. They're Mike's friends.”

“Take my advice. Keep it that way.” She turned to Padillo. “You know, Michael, that you have piqued my curiosity and you know that I will eventually learn everything.”

Padillo turned on the smile he used to charm old ladies and snakes. “In such affairs, Madelena, the fewer who know, the less the chance for future recriminations and shattered friendships. I promise you—at the earliest opportunity—”

“Ach! Michael, you have made your promises before, but the facts I've had to read in
Die Welt
or
The Times
or
Le Monde.
By the time you return, the news will be old. You know I like the details—the grisly parts that never get printed.”

“This time I swear to you—”

“I will do as you say. I will be in touch with Price, Dymec and Shadid. Since you know who they are, you know what they are, and I do not have to warn you. It is an exceedingly strange combination. Do they know each other?”

“I have no idea,” Padillo said.

“You are the common denominator then?”

“Yes.”

“And I should not mention one to another?”

“No.”

“Consider it done.” She rose. “I shall see you to the door.” She paused by Padillo and put her hand on his arm and turned to me. “Mr. McCorkle, the persons that Michael wishes me to reach are most dangerous and, I should add, most untrustworthy.”

Padillo grinned. “What she's trying to say is that they're crooks who would peddle their aunts. Mac doesn't know anyone like that, Madelena. He lives among those of noble thought and kindly deed.”

“His face makes you out a liar, Michael,” she said looking at me with clear dark eyes. “You have to travel a far distance to acquire a face like that.”

I bowed over her hand again and Padillo said: “I am in your debt.”

“And I in yours, my young friend. Do not forget your promise this time.”

“I could not,” Padillo said.

The maid opened the door for us and I asked her to call a taxi.

“Goodbye, Mr. McCorkle,” Senora Romanones said. “I like your suit.” I turned to say goodbye and the light caught her just right. She was wearing a simple blue dress and her face was shadowed so that lines had disappeared. It was a remarkably well-boned face with full lips and eyes that seemed almost Eurasian. She had been stunning at one time. Then the light started to change, and she began to pull the doors together. They closed before the illusion of young beauty vanished.

We waited outside for the cab. “She's getting old,” Padillo said. “It's funny, but she's one person who never seemed to age during all the years I've known her.”

“Does she know all the people she says she knows?”

“She knows everybody.”

“Maybe that's why she's getting old.”

SIX

I told the cab driver that we wanted to go to Mac's Place and for once I wasn't asked the address. That brightened the morning. We took Connecticut Avenue all the way and Padillo had a fine time trying to spot a familiar landmark. He didn't find too many. “There used to be a church there,” he said at the corner of Connecticut and N. “It was ugly as sin, but it had a lot of style.”

“First Presbyterian. There was some talk about having it classified as a national monument or something, but nothing came of it. The offer was too high for the elders to ignore.”

“Predestination, I suppose.”

“Something like that. Maybe God intended it to be a parking lot.”

I told the driver to let us off across the street from the saloon. “You can drink it all in,” I told Padillo. We got out and he gave it a long appraising stare. “Nice,” he said. “Real nice.”

It was a two-story building of vaguely Federal lines that had been built a century before. It was constructed of brick that I'd had sandblasted to its original texture. Black shutters flanked the windows which were criss-crossed with moulding that held small diamond-shaped panes of glass. A grey and black canopy ran from the door across the sidewalk to the street. The name, “Mac's Place,” was white on black at the end of the canopy in appropriately discreet letters.

We crossed the street and went through the two-inch thick slab door. “We're still saving on electricity,” Padillo said when we were inside.

It was dim all right, but not so dim that the thirsty couldn't find their way to the bar that ran down the length of the left-hand side of the room. It was a good bar to sit at or to lean on. There were the usual tables and chairs and carpeted floor, but the tables were far enough apart so that the diners could wave their elbows around and talk above a whisper without being overheard.

“What's upstairs?” Padillo asked.

“Private dining rooms. They'll hold from six to twenty people.”

“That's a good touch.”

“It's paying off.”

“What's the nut?”

I told him.

“What did you do last week?”

“About fifteen hundred above it, but it was an exceptional week.”

“Is Horst here yet?”

We walked over to the day bartender. I introduced him to Padillo and then asked him to find Horst. The thin, ascetic man marched quickly in from the kitchen where he probably had been holding fingernail inspection. He blinked and almost lost a step when he saw Padillo, but recovered quickly.

“Herr Padillo, it is very good to see you,” he said in German.

“It's nice to be back, Herr Horst. Things go well for you?”

“Very well, thank you. And with you?”

“Quite well, thanks.”

“Herr Padillo will resume his active partnership, Herr Horst,” I said. “Would you inform the rest of the staff?”

“Of course, Herr McCorkle. Permit me to say, Herr Padillo, that it is very good to have you back.”

Padillo smiled. “It's good to be with friends again, Herr Horst.”

Horst beamed, and I prayed that he wouldn't throw us a Nazi salute. He settled for a stiff military bow and an almost imperceptible clicking of the heels. He had been a captain in the German Wehrmacht during World War II. He was Prussian and I suppose he once had been a party member, but neither Padillo nor I had ever inquired. He was an excellent
maitre d'
with a phenomenal memory for names who provided a continental touch and kept the help properly awed.

Padillo asked me where Karl was. “Up on the Hill,” I said. “He's fallen for Congress. He comes on around five and spends his days keeping a box score on legislation.”

Padillo looked at his watch. “It's eleven-thirty—”

“I was just going to suggest it,” I said. “Would you do the honors?”

Padillo went around the bar and said: “What'll it be, pal?”

“A martini.”

“Extra dry, pal?”

“Extra dry is twenty cents extra,” I said.

“Another good touch. What do we charge for a regular martini?”

“Ninety-five cents—ninety-eight cents with tax.”

“What's it do to the tips?”

“Builds them. There aren't as many dimes and nickels around, so they usually leave two-bits. The two cents' change is a sting to conscience.”

Padillo mixed and poured the martinis and slid mine across the bar. It was brimful but none was spilled. I tasted it. “You haven't lost your touch.”

Padillo came around to the customer's side and we sat at the end of the bar and watched the early drinkers arrive. They were the ones with luncheon dates at twelve who arrived fifteen minutes early for a couple of quick ones.

By twelve-thirty we were taking up valuable space so I led Padillo back through the kitchen, introduced him to the chef, and then we went farther back to the small room that I called the office. It had a desk and three chairs and a filing cabinet. There was also a couch that was fairly comfortable about three o'clock in the afternoon.

I sat down behind the desk. “I'm going to call Fredl's office and tell them she won't be in for a few days. Can you think up any good excuses?”

“Flu? Bad cold?”

“You're very good.” I called and talked to Fredl's bureau chief and assured him it was nothing serious and promised to give her his best wishes for a speedy recovery.

“What now?” I asked.

“The tough part. We wait.”

I walked over to the file and opened a drawer. “You may as well learn where I buy the hamburger,” I said. For the next hour we went over the books, the peculiarities of our suppliers, the menu, and the help and their individual problems. I showed Padillo how much money we owed, to whom, and whether they allowed two per cent off if bills were paid before the tenth or the fifth of the month. “I ran on that two per cent discount the first three months,” I said. “I won't buy now unless I get it.”

On the way through the kitchen I had told Herr Horst to bring Hardman back to the office when he arrived. At twenty minutes after one there was a knock on the door. “Herr Hardman is here,” Horst said. When he stepped through the door Hardman seemed to cut the small room's living space in half.

“Hi, Mac. How you doin, baby?” he asked Padillo.

“Fine.”

“You lookin good. That's a nice suit,” Hardman said as he sprawled on the couch and cocked his eighty-five dollar black calf shoes on one of the chairs. I noticed that the shoes didn't turn up at the toes.

“Care for a drink?” Padillo asked.

“Fine with me,” Hardman said. “Scotch-and-water.”

“How do we get it?” Padillo asked.

“Simple,” I said and picked up the telephone and dialed one number. “Two martinis; one Scotch-and-water—the good Scotch,” I said.

We made some idle talk until the waiter came with the drinks. Hardman took a long swallow of his. “You lookin rough, Mac. Mush say somethin wrong when you go home last night. Say somethin wrong with Fredl.”

“That's right.”

“She didn't split on you?”

“No. Somebody took her away. She didn't want to go.”

The big brown man nodded his head slowly. “Now that's bad,” he said. “That's real bad. What you want me to do?”

“We don't know yet. I guess we want to know whether you want to do anything.”

“What you mean guess, man? Hell, Fredl's my buddy. Here,” he said to Padillo, “look what she wrote about me in this Frankfurt,
Germany,
paper.”

“Show him the original,” I said. “He reads German and it's more impressive.”

“Uh-huh,” Hardman said, taking a Xeroxed copy of the article from his inside jacket pocket. “Read this right here.”

Padillo read it quickly or pretended to. “That's something,” he said, handing the article back. “That's really something.”

“Ain't it though.”

Before Hardman arrived, Padillo and I had discussed how much we should tell him. We decided that a fourth or even a half of the story would sound phony. We told him the entire thing—from Padillo's original contact with the Van Zandt people in Lomé to the note that was waiting for me when we got home the night before. We didn't tell him about Senora de Romanones.

“Then it wouldn't do no good for you to just go ahead and shoot this mother?”

“No.”

“And you can't go down to Ninth and Pennsylvania and see the FBI?”

“No.”

“Why don't I go down? These African cats don't know me.”

“I wouldn't bet on that,” Padillo said.

“Man, I'll just make a phone call, know what I mean? If you got the Feds down there, that we all payin good money for, we might as well use them. I ain't got nothin against law workin for me.”

“Okay,” Padillo said. “Suppose you call the FBI—or Mc-Corkle or I call them from a phone booth. We say something like this: Prime Minister Van Zandt is coming to town and his cabinet wants me to shoot him to create sympathy for their independence. That's just my opening line. But they're trained to take complaints. They say: ‘All right, we've got that, Mr. Padillo. Can you just give us a few more details?' Yes, I say, it seems that they've kidnapped my partner's wife—Fredl McCorkle—and unless I shoot the Prime Minister, they'll dispose of Mrs. McCorkle. That's about it, fellows, except that it's going to take place next Friday between two and three p.m. at the corner of Eighteenth and Pennsylvania just across the street from the United States Information Agency.”