“To whatever might happen.”
“You have a guide in mind?”
“Erika McCorkle.”
“Ah.”
“What’s ‘ah’ mean?”
“It means you’ll be taking along someone who knew Steady rather well, which might prove useful, and who is also attractive enough to make a pleasant drive even more pleasant.” He paused. “That’s what ‘ah’ means.”
Haynes ignored the explanation and said, “I’d like to retain you as my attorney.”
“I cost too much.”
“This would be strictly on an ‘in case’ basis.”
“In case you land in the shit.”
“Exactly.”
“That’d cost less but still too much. Go pillage some government agency for a few million, then give me a call.”
“What kind of shape is Steady’s ’seventy-six Cadillac convertible in?”
“You’re changing the subject again,” Mott said, his tone suddenly wary.
“Am I?”
“It’s in perfect shape,” Mott said. “Steady babied that car, even nurtured it.”
“Where is it?”
“I had a mechanic in Falls Church go pick it up. He’s the same one who’s serviced it for the past seven years.”
“What’s it worth?”
“It’s the last convertible Cadillac made—until they started making those fifty-thousand-dollar jobs in Italy nobody’ll buy. I guess Steady’s would bring at least ten or fifteen thousand. Maybe twenty.”
“You ever ride in it?”
“Twice, and salivated both times.”
“It’s your retainer.”
“You always strike at the most vulnerable spot?”
“Always.”
Mott sighed. “Okay. You have yourself a lawyer. Anything else?”
“What’s Mr. McCorkle’s home number?”
Mott reeled it off from memory.
“May I use your phone?”
Mott nodded at the phone on his desk, then asked, “Want me to leave?”
“What for?” Haynes said as he rose, went to the desk, picked up the phone and tapped out the number. It rang three times before it was answered with a woman’s hello.
“Erika?” Haynes said.
“Yes.”
“Granville Haynes. Do you know the way to Berryville?”
Chapter 14
After the taxi stopped in front of Mac’s Place, Haynes paid off the driver, got out and held the door open for a fiftyish U.S. senator from one of the western states—either Idaho or Montana, he thought—who was accompanied by a pretty woman in her late twenties.
The senator read, classified and dismissed Haynes with a practiced glance and a nod of thanks. But the woman noticed him the way many women did—with a slight start, as if struck by the notion that he must be somebody important, famous or at least rich. But a second glance, which she now gave him, produced the usual counterconviction that Haynes, despite his looks, was nobody at all. And as always, the reassessment caused more relief than disappointment.
Haynes held the taxi door for them until they were inside, closed it carefully and, after a faint smile from the woman, entered the restaurant to keep his midnight appointment with Michael Padillo. Although now 11:58 P.M. in Washington and the rest of the eastern time zone, it was, as ever, twilight at Mac’s Place.
This lighting, or lack of it, had been chosen by McCorkle and Padillo long ago after a series of unscientific experiments had convinced them that midsummer twilight—at a certain moment not too long after sunset, but well before moonrise—was precisely what was needed to flatter the features of customers over thirty, yet enable them to read the menu without striking a match. Customers under thirty, McCorkle had argued, would regard the gloom as atmosphere, maybe even ambience.
Haynes counted four solitary males at the long bar, all of whom bore the stamp of practicing topers. At widely
