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.