“You tell me, sunshine.”
“Don’t worry about Tinker’s civil rights or liberties,” McCorkle told Haynes. “If you go knocking on his door in the small hours, he won’t open it unless it’s to tell you to buzz off.”
“Maybe he still thinks there’s such a thing as the right to privacy,” Erika said.
“Privacy vanished with the arrival of the driver’s license, the Social Security number and the credit card,” Haynes said.
“What about the right to be left alone?” she said.
“It no longer exists — if it ever did.”
“And you think that’s just wonderful, don’t you?”
“You haven’t a clue to what I think,” Haynes said.
“I think I’ll go home,” McCorkle said before his daughter could either reply or explode. He rose, looked at her and asked, “Coming?”
“You bet,” she said.
The four of them stood silently just inside the Willard lobby, waiting for Erika’s aging Cutlass to be brought around from the hotel garage. She stared at Pennsylvania Avenue through the glass door, ignoring the three men. They in turn ignored her silent rage.
When her car arrived, Haynes said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Why?” she said and pushed through the glass door.
McCorkle gave Haynes a small baffled smile and hurried after his ride home.
Padillo watched them go, turned to Haynes and asked, “Hungry?”
Haynes had to think about it. “Yes.”
“Let’s eat then.”
By 9 P.M. there were only a dozen or so diners left in Mac’s Place. The bar, however, was lined with drinkers, quietly stoking up for the Monday to come. Padillo chose a booth instead of his regular table near the kitchen. He and Haynes were just settling into it when Herr Horst slow-marched over to announce that Tinker Burns had been in twice, demanding to see either Padillo or McCorkle.
“Sober?” Padillo asked.
“Sober-mean.”
“Any message?”
“I believe he intends to do you both grave bodily harm.”
Padillo nodded, as if at old news, and asked, “What’s good tonight?”
“The duck,” Herr Horst said. “With wild rice and an exceptionally tasty cucumber and limestone lettuce salad.”
Padillo looked at Haynes. “You like duck?”
“Duck’s fine.”
“An aperitif, Mr. Haynes?” Herr Horst asked.
“A vermouth, please.”
Herr Horst looked inquiringly at Padillo, who said he’d like a sherry.
After the drinks were served and Haynes took his first sip of vermouth, he said, “Hamilton Keyes says he knows you.”
“He drops by now and then.”
“For conversation or food?”
“He likes to talk about wine, but never about his job or his wife.”
“What’s wrong with his wife?”
“Nothing — except that when I knew her a long time ago she was still Muriel Lamphier.”
“Lamphier as in Crown-Lamphier?”
Padillo nodded.
“What’s a long time ago?”
“Seventeen, eighteen years back.”
“What happened?”
“Why?”
Haynes smiled his inherited smile. “Just routine.”
“You seem a hell of a lot more routinely interested in Mrs. Keyes than Mr. Keyes.”
“I’m interested in money. It makes me curious. I’m especially curious about a guy who walks into my hotel room and in front of a witness offers me three quarters of a million for all rights to some memoirs that he hasn’t read and probably don’t even exist. He claims he’s offering me government money. Now I hear he’s married to the Lamphier in Crown-Lamphier, which used to make a third of maybe half of this country’s glass, but diversified into electronics, paper, solvents and, for all I know, catfish farming. The former Muriel Lamphier is major money. Keyes married it. You dated it. And my first question is did she and Steady ever have something going?”
Padillo shook his head. “The only connection I know of between her and Steady is that her husband was Steady’s last handler at the agency — or as much of a handler as Steady ever put up with.”
“How do you know that?”
Padillo was silent for a moment, trying to remember. “Isabelle told me.”
Haynes finished his vermouth and said, “Mind talking about it?”
“About Muriel and me?”
Haynes nodded.
Padillo hesitated, then said, “Well, why not? Back then she was twenty-four or twenty-five and I was in my forties. It only lasted a few months. She was a little too rich and a little too wild. The rich I might’ve handled but the wild was just so much bother. After it ended she went out to Los Angeles and fell in with what used to be called the wrong crowd. I think they all had something to do with films.”
“Did she want to act?”
“She had the looks, God knows. But I don’t think she really knew what she wanted. Then something happened in L.A. I don’t know what. Maybe she just got bored. So she came back here and went with the agency.” Padillo paused. “To her it was probably just something to do.”
“She have any qualifications?”
“Looks, brains, connections, sixty or seventy million dollars, good French, fair German and a degree in medieval history. You might say she and the agency made a tight fit.”
A waiter came over to serve the salad. Padillo asked Haynes whether he wanted his salad now or later. Haynes said now was fine.
“Twenty years ago,” Padillo said, “about fifty percent of our dinner customers ate their salads last. Now only ten percent do.”
“When I first got to L.A., some places were serving frozen forks with the salad.”
“Why?”
“I never asked.”
They ate in silence until Haynes finished, put down his fork and said, “What’d she do at the CIA?”
“She was a field hand in operations, which is where she met Keyes. He then seemed headed for one of the top slots, maybe even deputy director, but now he’s one of the might-have-beens. Karl the bartender keeps up with all this stuff and blames Keyes’s fall or decline on his bald head. It’s Karl’s theory that if two male candidates for anything have the same qualifications, the one with the most hair wins.”
“I’ve heard dumber theories,” Haynes said. “But not many.”
“Anyway, Muriel quit the agency in late ’seventy-four and married Keyes in ’seventy-five.”
“She wasn’t with it very long then, was she?”
“A couple of years at most.”
“Ever see her around?”
“The last time was four or five years ago at a Spanish embassy party. The ambassador’s sister and I were attempting a modified flamenco. Muriel came over to compliment us. After the ambassador’s sister drifted away, Muriel and I had a long chat about the weather.”
“She went from wild to tame?”
“So Isabelle said.”
“How would she know?”
“Remember Isabelle’s AF-P story that got killed?” Padillo said. “The one on Casey?”
Haynes nodded.
“While she was working on it, she decided she needed a sidebar on agency wives. Somebody suggested Muriel Keyes. After a lot of trying, Isabelle finally set up an interview and came away with forty-five taped minutes of what she called demure merde.”
The duck arrived and was served with more precision than flourish by Herr Horst himself. He waited until Haynes tasted it, looked up and pronounced it marvelous. Herr Horst, smiling contentedly, turned and marched slowly away.
“You told me you still had a copy of the story Isabelle wrote,” Haynes said, cutting himself another bite of duck.
“In the office.”
“Can I see it?”
“It’s in French.”