“From whom?”
“The British. He tells them that I’m planning the attempt, they tell him to take me out, and he does. They’ll give him a bonus.”
“What then?”
“He hooks up with Dymec to do the assassination for real.”
“Now you can tell me that this is all in keeping with the master plan. The one you have written down on the back of a match book.”
“More or less.” He walked into the kitchen with the cup and saucer. When he came back, I asked him: “What’s the less part?”
“I hadn’t planned on making a hero out of Price. But now we’re going to have to.”
Nineteen
Sylvia Underhill walked in from the bedroom before Padillo could tell me the rest of the master plan — or make it up — I was never sure which. He stopped talking and we both said good morning.
“I heard you with someone and I thought I’d overslept,” she said. She was wearing a blue wool suit with big white buttons and the warm glow on her face seemed a little radiant to be the result of just six hours’ sleep.
“An old acquaintance dropped by,” Padillo said. “He couldn’t stay long.”
“May I cook breakfast?” she asked.
“Just toast for me,” I said.
“That’ll be fine,” Padillo said.
“Do you mind if I scrounge an egg or two?” she asked. “I’m famished.”
“It’s all in the refrigerator.”
Padillo followed her into the kitchen and stayed there until she came out with the toast, some more coffee, and bacon and eggs for her. There was a dining area, but we ignored it and used the coffee table.
“We have the meeting at eleven this morning,” Padillo told the girl. “I want you to stay here. I want the door locked and bolted. I don’t want you to let anyone in but McCorkle or me. No exceptions. If the phone rings, don’t answer it.”
“When should I expect you back?”
“About three — after we meet with Hardman and the people he’s bringing.” He looked at his watch and turned to me: “We’d better be going. I left your car in the garage downstairs. You want to use it?”
“We may as well.”
“Put the chain lock on when we leave,” he told Sylvia. Padillo picked up the black attaché case and we went out. He waited until he heard the lock slide into place.
“That wouldn’t stop anyone who really wanted in,” I said.
“But it would slow them down long enough for her to get that .25 out of her purse.”
The car was running well and I cut down to M Street and turned left, past St. Matthew’s Church where they held the services for Kennedy, and then around Scott Circle and under Thomas Circle and down Massachusetts Avenue to Mount Vernon Place and right on Seventh Street. Our progress was slow because of church traffic, but we finally found a place to park in Chinatown and walked back to Seventh.
We climbed the stairs to the shabby office and unlocked the door and went in. It still had its echo of sallow little men talking fast over a battery of telephones. “Try the chair behind the desk,” I said. “You can put your feet up.”
Padillo placed the attaché case on the desk and tried my suggestion. I took one of the folding chairs that faced the door. We waited only three minutes until someone knocked. Padillo said come in and it was Magda Shadid. She wore a light wool coat which she took off so we could see her rust-colored knit dress.
“You look beautiful,” Padillo told her.
She smiled at him and then at me. “Do you like it? I wore it just for you.”
“It accents your best features,” he said.
“They’re still available for closer inspection.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And you, Mr. Sad Face, wouldn’t you like to be cheered up? You look so sad.”
“He’s just hung over,” Padillo said.
She moved over to me and ran her hand through my hair. “I could cheer you up.”
“Watch out. I bite when I’m hung over.”
She had extremely dark eyes and if the makeup she used around them was intended to make them seem merry and wicked, it was successful. “That might be interesting,” she said, “if you don’t bite too hard.”
“I think you’ve got the message across, precious,” Padillo said. “Why don’t you sit down and cross your legs and be decorative.”
“It’s all so dirty here. Why can’t we meet some place that doesn’t look like a doss house?”
“For what you’re getting paid, you can’t complain about the accommodations.”
“Paid for what though, Michael?”
“We’ll get to that. Tell me, what do you do with all your money?”
“I invest it in Israeli bonds,” she said, opened her purse, and took out a cigarette. I let her light her own.
Dymec was the next to arrive. He said hello and sat next to Magda; his large capable hands rested calmly on his knees. He sat straight in the metal chair and gazed at nothing. He seemed to have spent a lot of time waiting and knew not to rush it.
Price was last, arriving a few minutes after Dymec. Padillo had been right. Price was tweedy. He wore a grey and black suit that looked as if it needed a shave, a wide maroon wool tie, and grainy brown brogues with thick soles. He put a plaid hat on one of the vacant chairs as he said hello and sat next to Dymec.
“For the benefit of you two,” Padillo said, nodding his head at Magda and Price, “they accepted Dymec as the substitute. They’ve inspected him and they agreed to the price — seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“And we’re to get partial payment today,” Price said.
“That’s right.”
Magda dropped her cigarette on the floor and ground it out with her shoe. It was interesting to watch her ankle wiggle. “I believe my portion of seventy-five thousand will be $18,750 which is most generous, considering the fact that I have yet to do anything except meet in shabby offices and listen to your dreary threats. You have never been overly generous in the past, Michael — with anything. I believe I’ll have to earn my share. So what do I have to do that’s going to be worth that lovely sum?”
“You’ll help us get Mrs. McCorkle away from whoever’s got her.”
“I see. And how do I do that?”
“You walk up to a door, knock on it, and when somebody comes — and they will, because you’re a woman — you’ll produce a gun and tell them that you wish to see Mrs. McCorkle. If they don’t believe you, you may have to use the gun. Your job will be to get them to open up.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Then I’m to be your stalking horse.”
“Something like that, except you could play a more active role.”
“Such as shooting someone.”
“You don’t have to kill them.”
“Just shoot them,” she said sweetly.
“That’s right.”
“For $18,750.”
“No. You’re forgetting the fourteen thousand. For $32,750 — which is a great deal of money for shooting anybody in this country.”
“How do you propose to find out where they’re keeping his wife?” Dymec asked.
“We’re still working on it.”
“Any luck?” Price said.
“None so far.”
“If you don’t find her, what then?” Magda said.
“Then you don’t get paid the last half of $18,750. You get the first half for just being on call.”
“All right,” she said. “I accept.”
Padillo turned to her and said in a quick, hard voice: “You’re forgetting something, Magda. You’re not accepting, you’re doing what I tell you to do because you don’t have any choice. I could make you do it for nothing, except that I’ll pay to keep your efficiency up. When you’re free, you tend to get sloppy.”
He turned to Price and Dymec. “Before. you two start talking about whether you accept or not, what I’ve told Magda holds, true for you both: you’re here because I told you to be here. The money is to keep your interest up and to keep you from getting any ideas about pulling a cross.”