Free Twilight at Mac's Place by Ross Thomas Page A

guys in Century City who use Federal Express to send scripts from the tenth to the thirty-sixth floor by way of Memphis. So Isabelle buzzes him up. He knocks at her door. She opens it on the chain and sees this guy with a clipboard and a Federal Express packet he’s fished out of the trash can. She opens the door all the way and winds up dead in the bathtub.” Haynes paused. “How’d you get in?”
    “When I pulled up in the limo there was an old couple coming out who held the door for me. Isabelle’s door was unlocked.”
    “A limo’s almost as good as being from Federal Express. You don’t expect a killer to take one to work. Although there were two guys in L.A. who used to hire limos whenever they decided to go stick up a bank.”
    “Know what I think?” Burns said.
    “What?”
    “I think it’s got to do with that book she and Steady wrote.”
    “Must be some book.”
    Burns turned to give Haynes his coldest stare. “The difference between you and me, kid, is I’ve got a damn good idea of what Steady did over the years. How he did it and who to. Who paid him and how much. And last, but as sure as hell not least, who told him to go do it.”
    “What about lately, Tinker? Fifteen, ten, even five years ago is ancient history.”
    “You’re forgetting it’s a brand-new administration.”
    “No, it’s not. It’s a succession.”
    “But the guy who took the oath last Friday was DCI when certain people at Langley went after Steady back during the Ford administration. Jesus. It was like a vendetta. Let’s all jump up and down on Steady Haynes. Then it stopped. All of a sudden. It was just like Steady gave the rug a jerk. Just a little one—know what I mean?”
    “Thirteen or fourteen years ago is the Ice Age.”
    “Yeah, but what you’ve got now is the first Director of Central Intelligence ever to be President, which they don’t seem to mention much anymore. So maybe Steady decided it was time to give the rug another jerk, harder this time, just to see what’d happen. So he checks into the Hay-Adams with Isabelle and tries to fix himself up with choice seats at the North trial. He’s advertising, that’s what he’s doing, because you know damn well Steady’s not gonna pop for the Hay-Adams when Isabelle’s got a free-for-nothing pad up on Connecticut.”
    “Advertising what?” Haynes said.
    “That he’s got something to sell.”
    “His book?”
    “What else?”
    “And after he died, you think Isabelle decided to solo?”
    “How the hell you think she got him buried at Arlington? Remember when I asked her if she’d blackmailed them into it? And she said, ‘Of course.’ I was kidding. She wasn’t.”
    “Tell me something, Tinker. Do you think you’re in Steady’s book?”
    “What the fuck kind of question is that?”
    “The kind you should avoid answering,” Haynes said.
     
    Just before leaving Mac’s Place, Haynes had called United Airlines to have the bag he had left in its care sent to the Willard. When the rented gray limousine dropped him at the hotel, after first depositing Tinker Burns at the Madison, Haynes was pleasantly astonished to discover the bag had been delivered.
    A Latino bellhop was dispatched to collect it from the checkroom. Haynes used the time to inspect the restored lobby that boasted a concierge desk that resembled a flower petal built out of rich-looking yellow marble. There was also a long, long corridor or promenade that led off the main lobby and seemed to go on forever. A bellhop later told him it was called Peacock Alley and went all the way to F Street. Both it and the lobby boasted big comfortable-looking chairs, convenient tables and a near jungle of potted palms growing out of glazed Chinese pots.
    It all looked like old expensive stuff or like new old stuff that was three times as expensive. Haynes thought a fifth of the lobby must have been dipped in gilt. There was an abundance, maybe even a wealth of intricate plaster moldings. Huge milky