Twilight at Mac's Place (14 page)

McCorkle broke up the drunken two-blow bar fight just before the third punch
was thrown. He broke it up the way he usually did, by grabbing each man by an ear and holding him as far away as possible from his opponent.

Once he had them separated, McCorkle issued his standard injunction: “All right, gentlemen. I let go the ears when I see the car keys on the bar.”

The keys to a Jaguar landed on the bar first, followed by those to a Mercedes. Karl Triller, the bartender, scooped them up and said, “You guys can pick ’em up anytime after noon tomorrow.”

The two barroom fighters were both well regarded and highly paid K Street lobbyists in their mid-forties, who would have been prosperous, even wealthy, had it not been for their recent and very expensive divorces. For solace and comfort they had formed a two-man support group whose therapy consisted of drinking too much while reminiscing about the dimly remembered 1950s. For the past two months they had done much of their reminiscing in Mac’s Place.

The shorter of the lobbyists, who looked the way everyone thought a senator should look, and who was often mistaken for one by tourists, stood five-ten and weighed 182 pounds, very little of it muscle. He peered up at McCorkle with the old spaniel eyes that were his trademark and asked, “This mean we’re eighty-sixed?”

McCorkle turned with a sigh to Triller. “Let them nurse one more till their cab comes.”

“When the snow failed to cease,” said the taller lobbyist, drawling the words, “I fear we came down with a slight case of cabin fever.”

At six-four, the other lobbyist was so lean and weathered that strangers often assumed he must be from somewhere west of Cheyenne where he was probably called Slim or Hoot or even Tex—until they learned he was from Connecticut and had been called Nipsy by childhood friends and classmates at Phillips Academy and Yale. It was what most people still called him, even on slight acquaintance.

“Do me a favor, Nipsy,” McCorkle said. “The next time it snows, pick another cabin.”

There had been seventeen dinner cancellations because of the snow, which, as usual, had caused as much havoc in Washington as it would have in Palm Beach. After checking with Herr Horst, who informed him of three more cancellations, McCorkle made a circuit of the dining room, nodding at regulars but avoiding Padillo, who was listening over braised veal to the woes of a former girlfriend and recent widow with money problems and a son at MIT.

McCorkle was wondering whether the check Padillo would write her would be for $2,000 or $3,000 when a woman’s voice behind him asked, “Excuse me, sir, but do you work here?”

McCorkle turned to find himself confronted by a remarkably plain woman who wore tinted snow-wet glasses, no makeup, a knitted red cap and a long tan raincoat that years ago had lost its waterproofing. The coat ended just above her ankles, which were concealed by tan rubber boots. On her hands were knitted red gloves that matched her cap. The gloved hands clutched a package wrapped in heavy white paper and sealed with Scotch tape.

Guessing she was either an old twenty-five or a young forty, McCorkle replied that yes, as a matter of fact, he did work there.

“Then maybe you can help me,” she said.

“How?”

“It’s awfully complicated.”

“Maybe you’d like to sit down?”

She looked around nervously and McCorkle could see her eyes moving behind the tinted glasses. He guessed that her eyes were blue—not bright blue or dark blue, but plain old blue. She said, “I really shouldn’t because, well, I’m not dressed or anything and, you know, I wouldn’t feel—”

“There’s an office.”

She brightened. “I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable in an office.”

As he and the plain woman headed toward it, McCorkle noticed Padillo glance up. Once he and the woman were in the office and seated on opposite sides of the partners desk, McCorkle also noticed that she held the white package in her lap with her still gloved hands resting on top of it.

“You’re Mr.—?”

“McCorkle.”

“I’m Miss Skelton. Reba Skelton. I’m a professional typist and word processor and also do some calligraphy. You know. Invitations. Announcements. Things like that.”

McCorkle nodded.

“About a month ago, maybe a little more, a Mr. Steadfast Haynes asked me to type a single copy of a manuscript he’d written. I charge a dollar fifty a page, but if they want carbons, I get fifty cents per carbon copy. Except hardly anybody ever asks for carbons nowadays because, you know, it’s just a whole lot simpler and cheaper to have Xerox copies made.”

To keep up his end of the conversation, McCorkle said, “I suppose.”

“Well, the manuscript Mr. Haynes gave me was an awful mess. Some of it was typed—and single-spaced at that. Some of it was written in pencil. Some in ink—or with a ballpoint anyway. And he used all kinds of paper. Legal pads. Hotel stationery. Some cheap yellow stuff. Even pages from school tablets. It wasn’t, well, you know,
orderly
.”

Because she seemed to expect a response, McCorkle gave her an understanding smile.

“So that’s why I didn’t get it done on time. Because it was so, well, you know,
messy
.”

“When was it supposed to have been finished?”

“Eight days ago. He wanted it delivered to the Hay-Adams Hotel, but when I went there today, they told me he was dead.”

“He died a week ago Thursday,” McCorkle said.

“That’s what the hotel people said. So when I asked them where I could find Isabelle Gelinet because, you know, she was with him when he delivered the thing—”

“Delivered it where?”

“To my place in Hyattsville. Here.” She reached a gloved hand into the pocket of her raincoat, brought out a business card and handed it to McCorkle. It read: “Reba Skelton, Professional Typist, Word Processor & Calligrapher (Eleven Years Experience!), 4706 40th Ave., Hyattsville, MD, 20781.” There was also a telephone number with a 301 area code and, below that, a last line that boasted: “FAST! ACCURATE! PROMPT!”

McCorkle dropped the card into a desk drawer and asked, “What’d the hotel say when you asked for Miss Gelinet?”

“Well, they went all, you know, funny. And then they told me she was dead and right after they told me that, they went all snotty and said if I wanted to know anything else about her, I’d have to ask the police. So I left and went to a pay phone and called them.”

“The police?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Well, they pretended they didn’t know anything about any Isabelle Gelinet and kept transferring my call from one person to another until finally they transferred me to a Sergeant Pouncy, who was colored—”

“How could you tell?”

“Well, you can just, you know,
tell.
”

“I didn’t know that,” McCorkle said. “So what’d the sergeant say?”

He said the Gelinet woman was, let’s see, the subject of an ongoing homicide investigation. And then he wanted to know who I was and why I wanted to talk to her and all that. And I, well, I just hung up on him.”

“Good thinking,” McCorkle said. “But why come here?”

“Because I’m looking for Mr. Haynes’s son.”

“Granville?”

“Yes. At least that’s what he’s called in the manuscript.”

“I still don’t understand why you’d expect to find him here.”

“Well, after I hung up on that Sergeant Pouncy, I started thinking. So I called the Hay-Adams back and told them a fib. I told them I was Miss So-and-So with American Express and that we had some outstanding charges on Mr. Steadfast Haynes’s account and wanted to know who was handling his estate. I was talking to the hotel accounting people this time, and they weren’t nearly so snotty as those stuck-up things on the desk.”

“When did you talk to the accounting people?”

“Today. Just before noon.”

“What’d they tell you?”

“They told me to call his lawyer, Howard Mott. So I called his office right away, even if it is Saturday, but by then it was beginning to snow and nobody answered. So I looked up his home number and called that, but he wasn’t there. I did get to talk to Mrs. Mott and told her I was looking for Granville Haynes and she was very nice. She told me to try the Willard Hotel and, if young Mr. Haynes wasn’t there, maybe somebody at Mac’s Place might know where I could find him.”

McCorkle leaned back in his chair and studied the woman in the red knitted cap. “You’re quite a detective, Miss Skelton.”

“What I am, Mr. McCorkle, is broke.”

“You want me to give Granville a message?”

“No, what I’d like you to give him is this.” She lifted the white package an inch or so off her lap.

“That’s the typed manuscript?”

“Plus all the original stuff. And my bill’s right on top where he can’t miss it. Three hundred and eighty-two pages at a dollar fifty a page comes to five hundred and seventy-three dollars.”

“Granville’s out of town,” McCorkle said. “But he’ll probably be back later today.”

“Will you see him then?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you make sure he gets this?” Again she lifted the white package a few inches from her lap.

“Yes, I can do that,” McCorkle said, anticipating the expression on Haynes’s face when confronted with yet another true copy of Steady’s memoirs.

“I’d hate to see it get lost or misplaced or anything,” she said. “It’s the only copy.”

“I just happen to have a safe.”

“Oh, wow! A safe would be great!” she said, obviously relieved. “Could you also give me a receipt?”

McCorkle nodded, rose and went to the old safe. “What’d you think of it?” he said, giving the combination a turn.

“Of what?”

“The manuscript.”

“Oh, well, I thought it was awfully complicated. All those different countries and funny foreign names. I don’t follow the news much anymore and—” She stopped when McCorkle tugged open the old safe’s door.

“Please turn around, Mr. McCorkle,” she said in a new voice that McCorkle found cold and hard and full of authority.

Instead of turning, he said, “I know that voice. That’s the one they always use when there’s a gun in their hand.”

“It’s a thirty-two-caliber Sauer semiautomatic with a one-shot silencer,” she said.

McCorkle slowly turned around and took in the small semiautomatic with its four-inch silencer. The gun was aimed at his chest, a fairly large target. She held it in a gloved right hand that showed no sign of a tremor. The sealed white package that had been on her lap was now on the partners desk.

“There’s no money in the safe,” he said. “Although you’re welcome to look.”

“But there is a brown paper sack in there. I want you to take it out and place it on the desk. I want you to do that now.”

“Maybe I keep a gun in the safe.”

“Maybe you do.”

McCorkle faced the safe again and removed the brown paper sack that contained the mostly blank manuscript Howard Mott had given to Granville Haynes. McCorkle turned yet again, went slowly over to the desk and placed the sack on it.

“Now pick up the package I brought,” she said.

“And after I pick it up?”

“You lock it in the safe.”

“Sort of a trade, right?” McCorkle said and picked up the white package.

“Right.”

“Now we take it to the safe,” he said as he turned and went back to the old Mosler. “Now we place it just inside.” Slowly, almost tenderly, he put the package inside the safe. “Now we close the safe’s big door.” When that was done, he gave the combination a spin and asked, “So now what do we do?”

“You’ve locked a bomb in your safe,” she said in the same matter-of-fact voice. “It’s powerful enough to blow the safe door and do considerable damage to your office and anyone in it. But the bomb is easily disarmed. All you need to do is remove the package from the safe, unwrap it carefully and lift off the lid. It will then be disarmed. That should take you approximately three minutes. You may wish to look at your watch now because the bomb is timed to go off exactly”—she glanced at her own watch—“three minutes and twenty-two seconds from now.”

McCorkle, still at the safe, his back still to her, looked at his watch and said, “Good-bye, Miss Skelton.”

“Good-bye, Mr. McCorkle.”