At 2;09 A.M., Haynes came into view, walking north along the east sidewalk of Connecticut Avenue. By 2:11 A.M., Haynes had reached the designated streetlight. He knelt down, as if to tie a shoelace, rose, turned around and walked south, retracing his steps.
The blue van reappeared twenty seconds later. Again, the driver didn’t stir from behind the wheel. Counting once more by thousands, Padillo had reached 16,000 when the van sped away from the curb and north on Connecticut.
Padillo waited four minutes, then started his aging Mercedes coupe’s engine and drove south. He stopped at the stone lion at the south end and west side of Taft Bridge. Haynes opened the passenger door and got in.
“Where to?” Padillo asked.
“The Madison.”
“It was a blue Ford van,” Padillo said as he drove away. “It was too dark to read the license plate and I couldn’t tell whether the driver was a man or a woman, but whoever it was never left the wheel. So there had to be at least two of them.”
“You have a map light?” Haynes asked.
Padillo switched it on.
Haynes held a plain three-by-five-inch card to the light. The card contained four lines of typing. Haynes read them aloud:
“ ‘Hamilton Keyes, Saigon, South Vietnam, 8-3-72 to 6-1-74.
“ ‘Muriel Lamphier, Vientiane, Laos, 10-2-73 to 4-15-74.
“ ‘Gilbert Undean, Vientiane, Laos, 2-13-68 to 5-1-74.
“ ‘Steadfast Haynes, no official trace, repeat, no official trace.’ ”
“You spent three thousand for that?” Padillo said.
“Right.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I’m going to ask Tinker — among other things.”
“Want me to help you ask him?”
“No need.”
“I think I will anyway,” Padillo said.
Thirty-four
Padillo, leaning on the counter, stared thoughtfully at the Madison Hotel front desk clerk and managed to make a quiet suggestion sound like a death threat. “Why not. call him, tell him we’re here and see what he says?”
The clerk swallowed, nodded, picked up a phone, tapped out a room number and listened to the rings. After what Granville Haynes guessed was the fourth ring, the clerk said, “This is Edwards at the desk, Mr. Burns. Sorry for the disturbance, but a Mr. Padillo and a Mr. Haynes insist on seeing you.”
Pressing the phone tightly against his ear, as if to muffle the shouts and curses, the clerk closed his eyes and began nodding almost rhythmically. He finally stopped nodding, opened his eyes and said, “I understand perfectly, Mr. Burns.”
After replacing the phone, the clerk looked first at Haynes, then at Padillo and said, “He says come up at your own risk.”
Tinker Burns opened the door of his room, stepped back and silently watched Haynes enter, followed by Padillo. Haynes looked around the room, as if comparing it to his own at the Willard. After crossing to the bathroom, he switched on its light, gave it a quick inspection, switched the light off, turned, walked past Burns again, still ignoring him, picked out a chair and sat down. Padillo chose a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Tinker Burns inspected the seated Padillo first, then Haynes. He nodded, as if at the answer to some troublesome question, tightened the belt of his white terry-cloth hotel bathrobe, went on huge bare feet to the small refrigerator, took out a can of beer, opened it, drank deeply, belched loudly and sat down on the bed.
“Let’s hear it, Tinker,” said Haynes.
“You just did,” Burns said, and belched again. “But now you’ve got me repeating myself.”
Padillo rose, went to the refrigerator and removed two miniatures of Scotch whisky. He located a pair of glasses and used them to pour two drinks. He gave one drink to Haynes and returned to his own chair with the other. Once seated, Padillo tasted the whisky, looked at Burns and said, “I called Letty Melon just before we got here. She was still up.”
“Still up and still smashed, right?”
“Not too bad,” Padillo said.
“Bet you told her how I hired those two dummies who tied her up and all. Schlitz called and told me you and McCorkle’ve got Steady’s manuscript. But that didn’t make any sense because you guys wouldn’t tell those two morons even if you did have it, which you don’t.”
“Herr Horst said you came looking for me,” Padillo said. “Twice.”
“I was just pissed off enough to wanta find out what you and McCorkle were up to.” Burns paused, drank more beer and said, “I finally figured out you were up to nothing.”
“Letty was awfully talkative,” Padillo said. “But she got even more so after I told her that Schlitz and Pabst were working for you.”
“Told you about that fake manuscript, did she?” Burns said.
Padillo answered with a nod. “But then she began telling me about that phone call you got in Paris just before Steady died. And that’s when I turned her over to Granville.”
“I didn’t believe her,” Haynes said. “At first.”
“Don’t blame you.”
“It was a crazy story, Tinker, all about an old friend of yours who’s now some big shot and wants a peek at Steady’s memoirs just to see whether he’s mentioned. Letty says that if you can swing that for him, this same very important somebody will provide you with access to an end-use certificate that’ll let you dump all that left-behind Vietnam ordnance you’ve got rusting away in those Marseilles warehouses.”
“Letty remembers pretty good,” Burns said. “Even when she’s deep in the sauce.”
“I believed some of what she told me,” Haynes said. “I believed the part about your getting a call in Paris before Steady died. But I don’t believe it was from anyone you knew.”
“I don’t give much of a shit what you believe, Granny.”
“I think the call was from somebody who wants to read Steady’s memoirs — maybe even buy them. I think you got the call because you’d known Steady forever and this same somebody thought you could arrange it somehow. I think you told this somebody you’d give it a try. But before you could, Steady died on you. I think this same somebody is still willing to pay you a lot of money for either the memoirs or just a peek at them. So you flew over here for the burial to see what could be salvaged. I also think that’s why you went to see Isabelle at her apartment.”
Haynes paused, as if to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. “There’s something else I think, Tinker. No, I’m convinced of it. I’m convinced that if you hadn’t smelled money, there’d’ve only been three of us at Arlington: Isabelle, Undean and me.”
Burns rubbed his chin with a big hand as he studied Haynes, The palm of his hand made a slight rasping sound as it scraped across bone-white bristles.
“Know something, Granny?” Burns said. “I didn’t think anybody young as you could be so fucking sanctimonious. Steady was dead. D-e-a-d. You must know what dead is. Christ, you were in the trade. Steady never expected me to show up for his funeral any more’n I’d expect him to show up for mine. But I went anyhow and why I did’s none of your fucking business.”
“How much did he offer you, Tinker?” Padillo said. “This someday who called you in Paris?”
“Did somebody call me?” Burns said.
Haynes leaned forward, elbows resting on knees, both hands holding his barely tasted drink. His face suddenly seemed to acquire harsher planes and darker shadows. His stare grew bleak and his voice made each word sound like a slap.