“Does he know?”
“He knows.”
“Will he tell me?”
“I have no idea.”
“What about Erika?”
“I think she suspects.”
“Should I ask her?”
“You can ask anyone you want to.”
“Will she tell me?”
“I don’t think so,” Padillo said.
Padillo gave the Madison’s drowsy doorman twenty dollars to let them park the old Mercedes coupe in front of the hotel’s Fifteenth Street entrance, where the big glass doors allowed them to watch the bank of pay telephones near the elevators. After they waited five minutes, Padillo said, “Maybe he used his room phone after all.”
“And leave a record of the phone number on his bill?” Haynes said. “Tinker’s way too cagey for that. Let’s give him another ten minutes.”
After two minutes of silence, Padillo said, “That was a nice performance you gave.”
Haynes smiled at the praise. “You mean the way I let my paranoia peep shyly forth?”
Padillo nodded. “You must’ve drawn on your time with the L.A. cops. I say that because half the cops I ever met were paranoid.”
“Half the cops,” Haynes said, “and all the actors.”
Thirty seconds later Tinker Burns came out of one of the two elevators they could see from the car and headed for the pay phones. Burns had dressed quickly and was wearing only a shirt, pants, shoes, but no socks. As he neared the pay phones, he hesitated, looked around, made a quick tour of the virtually empty lobby, then went back to the phones and dropped coins into one of them.
With Padillo’s powerful binoculars now up to his eyes and the long-memorized three-across-and-four-down Touch-Tone phone pattern firmly in mind, Haynes read off the seven numbers that Burns tapped as Padillo jotted them down on the back of an envelope.
“Four. Six. Five. Nine. One. Nine. One.”
“You’re sure?” Padillo said.
“Christ, no.”
“Good. I’d be a little edgy if you were.”
They watched Burns talk and listen for two minutes and thirteen seconds by Padillo’s watch. Burns then hung up and reentered the same, still waiting elevator. As its doors closed, Padillo said, “Any ideas?”
“About how we find out who belongs to 465-9191?”
Padillo nodded, started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
“Tonight?” Haynes asked.
“Why not?”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
Padillo glanced at him. “Are you much of a mimic?”
“Try me.”
“Do Tinker Burns.”
Haynes closed his eyes, breathed deeply two times, opened his eyes, deepened his voice, gave it a rough edge and bellowed, “Okay! That’s it! Now get the fuck outta here before I call security!”
Padillo smiled. “Perfect.”
They made the call from Padillo’s Foggy Bottom house. Haynes made it from the wall phone in the kitchen with Padillo on the living room extension.
After Haynes tapped out the 465-9191 number, it rang four and a half times before it was answered by a man’s sleepy mumbled hello.
“Tinker Burns again,” Haynes said. “There’s one more thing I forgot to tell you.”
“Mr. Burns, this is twice tonight that you’ve robbed me of sleep,” said the voice that once again reminded Haynes of soothing syrup. “I assure you we can discuss it, whatever it is, when we meet tomorrow morning. And now, sir, good night.”
The connection was broken. Haynes put the wall phone back on its hook and went into the living room. Padillo turned from the extension and said, “Well?”
“One, he’s a lawyer. Two, he’s an ex-U.S. senator. Three, he’s the guy who’s been talking to Howard Mott about buying all rights to the memoirs for some anonymous client. And four, he’s obviously from way down south.”
“Near Mobile,” Padillo said.
“Is that a guess or do you know him?”
