“Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for a manuscript after all,” she said. “Maybe we should be looking for a hotel claim check clipped to the sun visor. Or microfilm that was tossed into the glove compartment. Or maybe—”
“You going to put that coat on or not?”
She looked down at the polo coat she was still holding, slipped into it quickly and said, “Let’s go.”
Haynes went out the motel room door first, stopped, stared and said, “Well, shit.”
The exterior light above the room’s door shined directly down onto the Cadillac’s flat front tire. The left one. Erika glanced at it and said, “No big problem.”
“Not if there’s a spare.”
They hurried to the rear of the car, where Haynes unlocked the trunk lid. There was a spare. He also found the jack and the lug wrench. He handed the wrench to Erika and said, “You can start on the lugs while I get the spare out.”
She nodded and went back to the flat tire. Haynes watched as she knelt, used the chisel end of the lug wrench to pop the hubcap off with one deft blow and started loosening the wheel nuts.
Haynes unscrewed the big butterfly nut that anchored the spare. With the aid of the trunk’s interior light, he noticed that the spare’s tread apparently had never touched the ground. After wrestling the heavy wheel out of its well, he stopped, balancing it on the lip of the trunk, and stared down into the wheel well at the thick, slightly curved manila envelope that the never-used spare tire had been resting on.
When Erika McCorkle returned from her mission to McDonald’s, bearing two Big Macs, two large fries and two large coffees, she found Granville Haynes still sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds, still wearing his topcoat and still staring at the unopened manila envelope that lay on the opposite bed. The .38 Chief’s Special in his right hand was still pointed at nothing in particular.
“I thought you’d be starting Chapter Three by now,” she said, placing the food on the desk.
“I didn’t open it.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted a witness.”
“Now that you have one, what do we do first — eat or open it?”
“Let’s open it,” he said, put the revolver back in his topcoat pocket and reached for the twelve-by-fourteen-inch envelope. After weighing the envelope and its contents by hefting it in the palm of his right hand, Haynes said, “Around three hundred and seventy-five pages.”
“How d’you know?”
“Because it weighs about three times as much as a screenplay for a feature and they usually run one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty pages.”
“Open it, for God’s sake.”
Haynes used a forefinger to rip the envelope’s flap. He removed a 2½-inch-thick manuscript, quickly flipped through it and looked up at Erika, “No blank pages,” he said.
“I noticed.”
He turned to the last page. “Three hundred and seventy-four.”
“You were close.”
“So I was.”
“How d’you want to work it?” she asked.
“Work what?”
“Do we eat first, read first or do both at the same time?”
“Let’s eat first,” he said. “Then I’ll start reading and hand you each page when I’m done.”
“You read fast?”
“Very.”
“Good,” she said. “So do I.”
Forty-one
At 8:32 P.M. that Monday, just as Granville Haynes and Erika McCorkle reached page 102 of Mercenary Calling by the late Steadfast Haynes, a procession of invisible dignitaries was being led by Herr Horst through the twilight at Mac’s Place.
After the stately, if imaginary, procession came to a halt, Herr Horst gave two newly arrived diners one of his whiplash nods and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Pouncy. How nice. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of your company since June of last year. June fourteenth, I think it was.”
A flattered Detective-Sergeant Darius Pouncy used gruffness to conceal pleasure. “Didn’t make a reservation.”
Herr Horst smiled. “We’ve just had a cancellation. Will a booth be satisfactory?”
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
“Please,” Herr Horst said and led them slowly across the dining room that was unusually crowded for a Monday night. At the booth, a choice one, Herr Horst helped the Pouncys out of their coats, which he deposited in the waiting arms of a busboy. As he handed them menus, Herr Horst complimented Mrs. Pouncy on her dress, causing her to beam, and asked whether they would care for something from the bar.
Pouncy quickly ordered an extra-dry martini straight up, but not quickly enough to avoid his wife’s disapproving glare. She asked for a lime-flavored Perrier, if such were available. Herr Horst assured her it was.
At the bar, Herr Horst handed the drinks order to a waiter, picked up the bar phone and tapped two numbers. When McCorkle answered, Herr Horst said, “Sergeant and Mrs. Pouncy. No reservation. I gave them the number three booth.”
“Comp their drinks and take their orders yourself,” McCorkle said. “He likes his food, by the way.”
“I know,” Herr Horst said a little stiffly. “And if he should ask for you?
“I’m available.”
“And Padillo?”
“Also.”
“Very good,” Herr Horst said, ending the call.
After a thoughtful and detailed discussion of the menu with Herr Horst, Sergeant Pouncy ordered grilled squab on a nest of green beans for himself and fettuccine with strips of Norwegian salmon, tomatoes and blanched garlic for Mrs. Pouncy. By the time the food was selected, Mrs. Pouncy and Herr Horst were such friends that he even convinced her to have a glass of wine with her fettuccine. Sergeant Pouncy announced that he didn’t usually drink wine either, but maybe Herr Horst could recommend a glass of something to go with the squab. Herr Horst said he was confident that he could.
By 9:36 P.M. the Pouncys had finished their dinner, turned down dessert and were waiting for their coffee. In the Bellevue Motel, Erika McCorkle and Granville Haynes had just reached page 233 of Mercenary Calling. Neither had spoken for almost two hours except when Haynes occasionally said, “Here,” when he handed her a new page.
McCorkle and the Pouncys’ coffee arrived together. After being introduced to Mrs. Pouncy, McCorkle agreed to join them for an espresso. He found Ozella Pouncy to be an unusually handsome woman still a few years shy of forty. She wore a beige silk dress that complemented her olive-brown skin, whose shade, McCorkle thought, was almost that of true sepia. He noticed that she also had enormous gentle-looking eyes and a wide, surprisingly stern mouth. McCorkle decided that if she wasn’t exactly formidable, she was at least stalwart and obviously her husband’s self-appointed protector, although he couldn’t help but wonder why she thought Pouncy needed one.
After the espresso arrived, Pouncy said, “That was one of the ten best meals I’ve had in a year.”
“Then I’m not only pleased but flattered,” McCorkle said.
“If you hadn’t dropped by, I was fixing to ask for you.”
“Any special reason?”
“That partner of yours around?”
McCorkle nodded. “Somewhere.”
“Then maybe you oughta invite him to join us because what I’ve gotta say concerns the two of you and he might as well hear it firsthand.”
When McCorkle hesitated, Pouncy said, “Don’t worry about Ozella here. I tell her everything.” He gave his wife a fond look. “Well, damn near everything. Helps keep my head on straight.”
“I can imagine,” McCorkle said, called a waiter over and asked him to relay an invitation to Padillo.