Twilight at Mac's Place (28 page)

“You really think my wife killed Tinker Burns?”

“She’d already done two. What’s one more? Besides, who else would’ve killed him?”

“Muggers,” Keyes said. “Old enemies.”

Haynes gave him a pitying look. “Since when do muggers or even old enemies leave six or seven hundred bucks in the victim’s wallet?”

“I’m surprised that Burns wasn’t more suspicious.”

“He was suspicious, all right,” Haynes said. “How the hell do you think I got a Xerox copy of the Undean carbon? Tinker Fed-Exed it to Howard Mott in an envelope marked, ‘Don’t Open Unless I’m Dead’ or something like that. And inside that envelope was a smaller one addressed to me and marked personal, and in it was the Undean memo.”

“So what’re you going to do with it?” Keyes asked, suddenly brisk and businesslike.

“That’s exactly what I need to talk to you about. I could give it to a certain homicide cop I know, a guy named Pouncy, and he could probably nail Muriel with it because he’s pretty smart and probably a damn good digger. I even thought that you and me oughta go talk to Muriel—maybe try and talk her into giving herself up.”

“Muriel wouldn’t agree to that,” Keyes said.

“No? Well, she’s sure gotta pay somehow for what she did. I mean, you can’t murder three people and expect to get away with it. What the fuck kind of civilization would that be?”

Keyes sighed. “I have the feeling we’re talking about money now.”

“Did I mention money? Even once?”

“How much?” Keyes made his question sound old and tired.

“Well, for a million I guess I could forget all about Muriel Keyes and the Undean memo.”

“A million in the morning and another million in the afternoon,” Keyes said. “This must be one of your more profitable days.”

“It could be,” Haynes said. “Except for one thing.”

“What?”

“There’s something in that Undean memo that still itches me.”

“What itches you, Mr. Haynes?”

“Call me Granny. Well, it’s when Undean writes about how Isabelle bought it. He goes into a lot of gruesome detail. But Isabelle got killed Friday afternoon and the
Post
only ran a couple of short graphs on it Saturday. You know: Woman Slain, Cops Investigate. When did you hear about it?”

“I think it came in late Friday afternoon on one of the wire services. Maybe UPI.”

“But would UPI give out her address and apartment number and the fact that her wrists and ankles were tied with coat-hanger wire? Or the fact that she’d been gagged? That’s the one that really bothers me. The gag. Because she sure didn’t have one in her mouth when Tinker and I found her. So how the hell could Undean write on Saturday that she’d been gagged when the cops didn’t even know it until two
P.M
. Saturday when they found the gag in the trash and ran tests on it.” Haynes paused, stared at Keyes and said, “You must’ve figured out what it means, Ham.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, shit, it means Undean didn’t write the memo, that’s what.”

“Then who did?”

“The killer, that’s who.”

“Muriel?”

“You know something, I just changed my mind about Muriel. Here’s how I figure it now. If you wanta forge something with a typewriter, you gotta be careful. So I think whoever forged the memo used Undean’s office typewriter at Langley—probably used it while Undean was down at the Willard offering me fifty thou for Steady’s manuscript. I think the forger made an original and a carbon, then destroyed the original. And after the forger got through killing Undean Sunday, the carbon was slipped under the old guy’s desk blotter where the cops’d be sure to find it—if Tinker Burns hadn’t found it first. And like I said, that memo nailed Muriel for Isabelle’s murder plus all that mess in Laos. So why would she write it, much less leave it for the cops to find?”

“Finally, a good question,” Keyes said.

“So maybe Muriel didn’t kill anybody. Wonder why I didn’t think of that before? But if I’m finally thinking straight, then you’re the only one who could’ve forged that memo on Undean’s typewriter out at Langley. So I guess you killed him. And if you knew about that gag in Isabelle’s mouth, you must’ve stuffed it there, right? Either you or old Horse Purchase, who must’ve held her while you straightened out the coat hangers. Or was it the other way around? Never mind. And when poor old Tinker tried to blackmail you, what happened to him is kind of obvious. Jesus, Ham, you’re a real menace.”

“And you’re certifiable,” Keyes said as he reached down as if to adjust his seat either forward or backward.

The McCorkle Chief’s Special appeared in Haynes’s right hand. “Bring it up by the barrel, Mr. Keyes. Very, very slowly, if you don’t mind.”

Keyes froze in his slightly bent-over position, peering at the traffic ahead, his eyes barely above the top of the steering wheel. Finally, Keyes’s left hand came into view, its thumb and three fingers holding a small .25-caliber Beretta semiautomatic by the barrel.

Haynes switched his revolver to his left hand and poked its muzzle into Keyes’s right ear. Haynes’s right hand reached for the Beretta. Once he had it, he slipped it into his topcoat’s right-hand pocket, then removed the revolver from Keyes’s ear.

“Mr. Keyes, I suggest we go around the block very slowly, then back down Connecticut and over to your house, where we’ll have a talk with Mrs. Keyes.”

“About money?”

“Possibly.”

“Who were you?” Keyes said as he turned right off Connecticut to circle the block.

“When?”

“During the last twenty-five or thirty minutes?”

“Well, that was old Hardcase Haynes of Homicide.”

“I didn’t much like him.”

“I’ve now reverted to what a friend has called my Mr. Manners role.”

“I don’t like him either,” said Hamilton Keyes.

Trailed by Haynes, Hamilton Keyes entered his living room at 11:28
A
.
M
. to find
McCorkle and Padillo seated side by side on a couch, eating liverwurst-on-rye sandwiches and drinking pale ale.

Muriel Keyes sat across from them in an easy chair, a glass of what looked like Scotch and very little water in her right hand, a cigarette in her left.

Hamilton Keyes stopped to glare first at Padillo, then at McCorkle. Haynes didn’t stop and kept moving until he could press the revolver in his topcoat’s right pocket against Keyes’s back. Keyes ignored the pressure, turned to his wife and asked, “Why are they here?”

She smiled at him reassuringly. “They’re trying to keep me out of jail, darling.”

“What a pleasant way to say they’re blackmailing us.”

McCorkle looked at Haynes and said, “How much are we asking?”

“I mentioned a million,” Haynes said.

McCorkle nodded contentedly. “Not a bad morning’s work.”

Padillo put down his glass, rose and went over to Keyes. “Can you understand me, Hamilton?”

“I can understand you perfectly, despite having been subjected to the ravings of this loony who’s now poking his gun into my back.”

“He means me,” Haynes said.

Padillo studied Keyes. “Okay. If you can understand me, let’s go somewhere private and I’ll explain just how deep the shit you’re standing in really is.”

“I think I might be better at that than you, Michael,” Muriel Keyes said.

“All right. Fine.”

“Come on, darling,” she said. “We’ll go in the library and talk.”

Keyes sighed and looked around the nicely furnished room, as if estimating the damage his guests had done. “Well, why not?” he said, turned and headed toward the library. She followed him in, closed the door and turned the key in a sturdy-sounding lock.

Padillo turned to Haynes, who still stood in the center of the living room, his hands in his topcoat pockets. “How’d it go?”

Haynes shrugged. “He’s tough.”

“If you want to know somebody else tough,” McCorkle said, “spend an hour or two with Muriel Keyes.”

“Think there’s a case?” Padillo said.

“With a lot of work, they might get him indicted,” Haynes said. “But I’d lay six to five against conviction. Anyway, I think he’s decided to go nuts.” He glanced around the room and asked, “Any chance of a drink?”

Padillo went over to press the ivory-colored wall button. The Salvadoran maid materialized and Padillo asked if she could provide their new guest with a double measure of Scotch whisky. She said it would be her pleasure.

Haynes, his topcoat now draped over a chair, had nearly finished his whiskey when he heard the library door being unlocked. Muriel Keyes came out and turned back to lock the door from the living room side. When she turned again she was aiming a Sauer semiautomatic at the living room in general.

“I know that gun from somewhere,” McCorkle said.

She moved slightly so that the Sauer was aimed at him. “Hamilton wants five minutes or so to collect his thoughts,” she said. “I think he should have the time.” She turned yet again until she was aiming the Sauer at Padillo. “Then you can go in, Michael, and explain how deep the shit really is.”

Haynes glanced at his watch and thought about edging toward the topcoat with its armory of two pistols. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. McCorkle sipped his ale. Padillo kept his eyes on Muriel Keyes.

It seemed like a long five minutes, especially after another fifteen seconds were tacked on at the end. It was then, exactly fifteen seconds after the five minutes were up, that they heard the muffled gunshot in the library. Muriel Keyes walked over to a table and placed the Sauer on it.

“You can all go in now,” she said.

McCorkle didn’t move. Padillo kept staring at Muriel Keyes. Then Granville Haynes opened his eyes, looked at her and asked, “Why’d you bid against yourself? That was you on the phone with the senator, wasn’t it—the mystery bidder?”

She nodded. “I was trying to help buy him an ambassadorship. Somewhere in the Caribbean. He thought he might enjoy it.”

Haynes rose, moved over to the library door, unlocked it and went in. He came out less than a minute later and said, “Through the roof of his mouth and out the top of his head. He used a forty-five Colt. It’s messy.”

“What’d you say to him, Muriel?” Padillo asked.

“I told him I had cut off all his money but he didn’t seem to believe me.”

“Must’ve changed his mind,” McCorkle said.

Padillo looked at Haynes. “He leave a note?”

Haynes shook his head.

Padillo switched his gaze back to Muriel Keyes. “Then you have a lot to be grateful for, Muriel. If he’d written the right note, you could be halfway to jail.”

She seemed honestly puzzled. “I wonder why he didn’t?”

When no one answered her question she turned and went into the library to make sure, McCorkle later claimed, that Hamilton Keyes was really dead.

Two days later, at 3:14
P.M
. Thursday, Howard Mott received a call from Granville Haynes, who said he was phoning from Dulles International.

“It’s about that million dollars, Howie.”

“I was wondering whether it had slipped your mind.”

“How much will taxes and your fee take—forty, forty-five percent?”

“Forget my fee. After all, I have my storied Cadillac. But state and Federal taxes’ll take about forty percent, maybe a little more.”

“Find a small liberal nondenominational freshwater college and set up a scholarship fund with whatever’s left.”

“Could be some rather nice tax relief for you in that.”

“That occurred to me,” Haynes said.

“What do you want to call it?”

“The Steadfast Haynes Scholarship Fund for Propaganda Analysis.”

“You’re making me cry,” Howard Mott said.

On Friday, which was exactly a week to the day after they had buried Steadfast Haynes at Arlington, McCorkle waited outside customs and immigration at Dulles International. The flight from Frankfurt was an hour late and he had been waiting for almost ninety minutes.

He finally saw her, the tall woman with the helmet of gold-gray hair that looked almost like platinum. Then her enormous eyes found him, as did her smile, which he suspected he couldn’t live without.

She hurried toward him, carrying only the large shoulder bag she always carried, which was her sole luggage no matter how long or far the journey. McCorkle found himself trotting toward her. They kissed, hugged, then kissed again.

It was after the last kiss that Fredl McCorkle looked around and asked, “Where’s Erika?”

“Out of town.”

“Where’s out of town?”

“California.”

“Where in California exactly?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Doing what?”

“Visiting a friend.”

“Does the friend have a name?”

“Granville Haynes.”

“Would this Granville Haynes be any relation to Steadfast Haynes and, please God, let him say no.”

“His son.”

“When’s Erika coming home? Next week?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Next month?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What happened, McCorkle?”

“Well,” he said, “that’s a long and rather curious story.”