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

Padillo was the fine old partners desk, which dominated the small office. McCorkle sat at the desk and Haynes on a brown leather couch that looked as if it had been designed to encourage long naps. The rest of the furniture included some chairs, a four-drawer steel filing cabinet, a Mosler safe manufactured the same year McCorkle’s father was born, and a wall calendar still turned to December 1988.
    “So,” McCorkle said, took a small silverish square from his jacket pocket and started peeling it open. He removed an equally small square of something that looked very much like putty, eyed it with obvious loathing and popped it into his mouth.
    “I know two-and-three-pack-a-day guys who switched to Nicorette gum,” Haynes said. “They don’t miss smoking at all. I also know junkies who don’t miss heroin as long as they have an assured supply of methadone. Some of the guys on Nicorette go to two or three doctors for extra prescriptions because they’re chewing thirty or forty pieces a day, which is about the same number of cigarettes they smoked. The main difference is that cigarettes cost about nine cents apiece in California but the nicotine gum costs them forty or forty-five cents a chew.”
    McCorkle, still chewing, said, “You preach a nice sermon.”
    He opened a desk drawer, took out a piece of blue Kleenex, spat the nicotine gum into it, wadded the tissue into a ball and dropped it in a wastebasket. After opening the desk’s center drawer, he took out a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls, lit one, inhaled deeply, blew the smoke out and said, “I’m well aware of the surgeon general’s opinion.”
    Haynes rose, crossed to the desk and placed the brown grocery bag on its top. McCorkle blew some smoke at the bag and said, “I’m fairly sure that’s not eggs, bread and the milk.”
    “It’s a manuscript.”
    “A novel?”
    “A fairy story. Steady’s memoirs.”
    “Well, he did live a full life. Does he tell all?”
    “There seems to be some concern about that.”
    “And you want to do what—park it here for a day or so?”
    Haynes agreed with a nod, then indicated the old safe. “Does that thing work?”
    McCorkle rose, picked up the paper bag and went to the safe. He pulled its door open, placed the bag inside and closed the door, locking the safe and spinning its dial. “The combination’s my birthday in case I get hit by a truck.”
    “And who else knows your birthday?”
    “The IRS, the State Department, the Social Security folks, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the bank, the doctor, the dentist, my wife, two or three close friends and probably any reasonably clever thief who was hell-bent on opening it up.”
    Haynes nodded, as though satisfied, and asked, “Where can I find Isabelle?”
    “You try the Hay-Adams?”
    “She checked out.”
    “What about the farm in Berryville?”
    “No answer although I’m not sure she’s had time to get there yet.”
    “Is that where she was going?”
    “I don’t know.”
    McCorkle returned to the desk, sat down, picked up the telephone and tapped out a number from memory. Haynes guessed the call was answered two and a half rings later.
    “It’s McCorkle, Sid. I need our D.C. billing address for Gelinet, Isabelle.”
    He put the cigarette out in an ashtray, took a ballpoint pen and a scrap of paper from the middle drawer of the partners desk and wrote down the address.
    “Phone number?”
    McCorkle also wrote that down; thanked Sid, the accountant; hung up the telephone and handed the scrap of paper to Haynes. “Connecticut Avenue.”
    Haynes looked up from the address. “Thirty-eight hundred block?”
    “You remember Washington?”
    “It’s been a while.”
    “Remember Taft Bridge on Connecticut—the one with the lions?”
    Haynes nodded.
    “It’s a little more than a mile north of the lions on the right. Anything else?”
    “I need a hotel.”
    “Cheap, moderate, expensive, what?”
    “Different.”
    “Go to the Willard. You’ll