Cast a Yellow Shadow (17 page)

“Friend, I won't lie to you,” he said. “I need a drink bad.”

“So do I,” I said, and gave him fifty cents and he God-blessed me and moved on down the street. There seemed to be a little more spring to his step. I wondered where he bought his drinks after the bars were closed. A cab came by and the driver looked me over carefully before he stopped.

“Can't be too careful down here,” he said. “You can get all sorts of loonies.”

He chattered away some more about the hardships of a cab driver's life, but I didn't listen. I was brooding about my own troubles. He let me out at my apartment building and I pretended not to notice the car with the two men that was parked across the street.

I got off the elevator and opened my door. Padillo and Sylvia Underhill were sitting on the couch. She looked a little flustered, but Padillo seemed calm enough as he wiped away the lipstick.

“I'll knock next time,” I said and crossed over to the bar. When I had the drink I moved over to my favorite chair and sat down. “You kiddies have a good evening? Your chaperones are across the street.”

“The teeny-boppers on M Street seemed to enjoy themselves,” Padillo said. “How do we avoid them?”

“I keep raising the prices,” I said. “They think they're being exploited.”

“How'd your session go?” he asked.

“Fine. Just fine,” I said. “Dymec's crossing us. Boggs left first. Dymec stayed for five or ten minutes. When he left I peeked and saw him get into Boggs's car.”

Padillo nodded. “I thought he would. The other question is whether Magda or Price will cross with him.”

“You expected him to go over?”

“Five minutes after I made him the proposition, he was on the phone.”

“With whom?”

“With whoever's running him for the Poles and then with the Africans.”

“I thought you'd doubled him.”

Padillo smiled. “I did. But this is too good. He can't pass it up. They'll tell him to go ahead and get rid of the old man. The propaganda value to them is as much or more than it would be to Boggs and Darragh. He wouldn't tell his Resident about me. He can't or he'd expose his moonlighting for the U.S. He probably said that he was indirectly approached and wanted instructions. The information alone will keep them smiling in Warsaw for days. If it comes off, they'll be even happier.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “not every day, of course, but sometimes you might just give me an idea of what you're up to.”

“I did,” he said. “I told you to keep Dymec there for ten minutes or so after Boggs left. If you'd let them leave together, they'd have thought you were setting them up. This way it's their own idea.”

“What if I hadn't looked out the window?”

“I'd have been disappointed in you.”

“But it wouldn't have mattered?”

“Not really. Of the three of them, I figured Dymec for the cross although Magda is also a likely candidate. He'll probably swing her over to make sure we don't get to Fredl.”

I put my drink down carefully on a coaster and lighted a cigarette. “So of the three people you brought in, two of them are going to cross us.”

“I told you we couldn't do it alone. If I couldn't have counted on at least one of them crossing, I wouldn't have brought them in.”

“Perhaps you'd better tell him?” Sylvia said to Padillo.

He turned and smiled at her. “You think so?”

“Don't bother,” I said. “It's pleasant here in the dark.”

“They have a saying in my country,” she said. “When the lion is coming at you, you make a plan. We made one tonight.”

“I made it,” Padillo said. “Like most of my plans, it involves someone else's neck being risked.”

“Whose?”

“Sylvia's”

“For what purpose?”

“So we can find out where they're keeping Fredl.”

“It's a wonderful plan,” Sylvia said. Her face seemed to glow with excitement. With most of her lipstick on Padillo's collar, she looked younger than twenty-one. She looked about fifteen.

“You conned her,” I said to him.

He nodded. “That's right.”

“What does she have to do that might get her killed?” I turned to the girl. “Don't let him kid you with that casual understated manner of his. If he says there may be slight danger, you can bet on the roof falling in. If he says you'll risk your neck, it means that you'll actually have to stick it into the noose, let them spring the trap, and hope somebody will catch you before you drop. He doesn't have any safe plans. He thinks everyone carries the same rabbit's foot he does.”

“I know,” she said softly. “But it's a good plan.”

“It's not that good,” Padillo said. “It's just the only one we've got.”

“And it puts us on to Fredl?”

“It should.”

“All right,” I said. “Let's hear it.”

“Sylvia goes to the trade mission and tells them that she knows all about the deal to kill Van Zandt.”

“And then they kill her. That's not bad.”

“They won't kill her.”

“They killed her father.”

“I'm not saying they're not hard enough to kill her; they're just not smart enough.”

“What if one of them has an inspiration?”

“That's the chance she'll take.”

“Right through the noose, kid. Just like I told you.”

“I know them,” she said. “I know what they are. But they won't kill me while Van Zandt's around.”

“He didn't seem too particular about my wife.”

“But they wouldn't do it at the trade mission,” she said. “They don't butcher their pigs in their homes.”

“So they take you someplace else,” I said. “They take you to where they're holding Fredl.”

“That's it,” Padillo said.

“And we follow along in the Stingray with the top down.”

“Hardman.”

I ran a hand through my hair and felt how thin it was getting, but who wants fat hair? “I haven't got anything better. When does it all happen?”

“Tuesday morning,” Padillo said.

“Hardman can't do it alone.”

“No.”

“Who'll be with him—Mush?”

“We'll need Mush.”

“I want to meet whoever's with Hardman.”

“So do I,” Padillo said.

“How many do you think he'll need?”

“Three.”

“He can get them, but this is going to cost.”

“It's my tab,” Padillo said. “If that's important.”

“It isn't.”

“Why Tuesday morning?”

“One, because they won't have time to kill Sylvia. They'll have to get rid of her and they'll probably take her straight over to where Fredl's being held and leave her. Two, because you'll have to figure out some way to tip Fredl off the next time you talk to her.”

“I'll think of something.”

Padillo got up and crossed over to the bar. “Scotch?”

“Fine.”

“Sylvia?”

“Nothing, thank you. Could I make some coffee?”

“It's instant.”

“It was fine this afternoon.”

She went into the kitchen and ran some water into the kettle. Padillo crossed the room and handed me my drink.

“Can you think of anything better?” he asked in a low voice.

I shook my head no. “How much charm did you have to turn on?”

“She's a nice kid. I don't want anything to happen to her. Or to Fredl.”

“But there's a damned good chance.”

“Yes.”

“What did you have in mind if she hadn't turned up?”

He smiled, but there was nothing bright or warm in it. “Magda,” he said.

“The same thing?”

“Very similar, but with one difference.”

“What?”

“Magda would get killed.”

“I don't think I need the details.”

“I didn't think you would.”

Sylvia came in with her cup of coffee. She sat beside Padillo on the couch.

“If either of you think that you're using me, I want you to forget it,” she said. “I've known these people all my life and I suppose I was brought up to hold them in contempt, but never to underestimate their viciousness. I've seen them do horrible things to people in my country—really shocking, awful things, and I've heard descriptions of worse.” She turned to Padillo and her eyes looked directly into his. “I may be naive about many things, about you in particular, but I am not naive about them. I know them and I know the risk I'm taking. I was sent here by people who are the last chance that my country has, to do what I could. This seems to be the best I can do and I plan to do it.”

“All right,” Padillo said. “We'll go ahead. The first thing is to get in touch with Hardman. Where do you think he'd be?”

“God knows,” I said. “Let me try that Cadillac of his.” I picked up the phone and called the mobile operator and gave her the number. There were a few beeps and buzzes and then his voice came on.

“Hard-man here,” he said.

“This is McCorkle.”

“How you, baby?”

“Fine.”

“What you hear bout Fredl?”

“That's why I called. Where are you?”

“Cruisin around on upper Fourteenth. You home?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to come over?”

“I think it would be a good idea.”

“Be there in fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“You alone?”

“Betty's with me. Be okay? She'll keep her mouth shut.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and turned to Padillo and Sylvia. “He'll be here in fifteen or twenty minutes. He's bringing Betty.”

Padillo nodded. “She probably knows all about it by now anyway.”

“Is there anybody in town who doesn't?” I asked.

SEVENTEEN

Hardman was wearing a double-breasted camel's hair coat and alligator shoes. When he took off the coat you could admire his dark green cashmere jacket, his fawn-colored slacks, and the yellow ascot that he wore at the throat of a pale green velour shirt. He was everything the well-dressed numbers man should be and I asked him how Trueblue Sue had done in the fourth at Shenandoah.

“Out of the money, baby, I'm sorry to say.”

I introduced Hardman and Betty to Sylvia Underhill. I took Betty's mink and hung it up carefully, the way five thousand dollars should be hung up. Padillo mixed them a drink and they sat in two easy chairs. Betty was wearing some kind of black-and-white-striped bellbottomed lounging pajamas that either were going to be the rage that year, or the year after.

“What you got going?” Hardman said.

“We think we've got a plan to find Fredl,” I said, “but we're going to need some help.”

“Keep talkin.”

I let Padillo tell it. He told it quickly and concisely. Hardman didn't interrupt or say anything until Padillo stopped talking.

“Four could probably do it,” Hardman said. “Me and three others. We pick 'em up out on Mass Avenue and then trade off on the tail job. We can use phones to stay in touch. But you ain't got no idea where she's gonna go?”

“None.”

“Need a moving van then.”

“Why?” I said.

“You get four colored boys pulling up before some house in a white neighborhood and getting out of two cars and moving up to that house and you got law. Especially if you have to rush out of there with two white girls. But with a moving van, us dressed in white coveralls, and maybe a pick-up truck for the wheel man—one of those fancy jobs that don't carry much and are built like a sedan almost, it could work okay.”

“Can you get the three you need?” Padillo said.

Hardman looked down at the toe of his right shoe and polished it against the back of his left leg. “This ain't gonna be no cheapie.”

“We'll take care of the money,” I said.

“Might run you high—ten, fifteen thousand. That includes any—well, any accidents that might happen.”

“Make it fifteen thousand and if it costs any more we'll take care of it,” Padillo said.

“Hardman looked at Betty. “What you think, honey?”

“You use Mush, Tulip and Nineball, it cost you that.”

“I was thinking of them.”

“We need Mush for something else,” Padillo said.

“We get Johnny Jay then,” Hardman said.

“We want to stay in touch with you from the time you pick Sylvia up until the time you're done,” Padillo said. “Will phones work?”

“We set up a conference call and keep it goin till we're done.”

“Operators listen in?” I asked.

“Ain't the operators you have to worry about. Those mobile phones are seventy-five-man party lines. You get an hour's worth of calls a month for six dollars. After that it's about thirty cents for ten minutes and after that ten cents a minute.”

“Can you make a conference call?” Padillo said.

“Sure.”

“And keep it going for as long as you want?”

“You payin for it; you can talk for hours.”

“Then what we say can't make any sense.”

“That shouldn't be hard.”

“What about getting the phones installed?”

Hardman sighed. “I already got one in mine, so you can use my car. Mush got one in his. That takes care of two. We gonna have to get two more—one in the truck and one in the pickup. That'll cost us a little. Have to get a man to juggle some orders at the telephone company, but I know the man to get hold of.” He paused and looked at his shoes again. “Have to get the trucks and get them painted, think up a name for the moving company, call it Acme or something like that. How about Four-Square?”

“Fine,” I said.

“How many you think's gonna be in this place we gotta get Fredl and Missy here out of?” Hardman said.