Cast a Yellow Shadow

by Ross Thomas

  Dymec reached behind his neck and produced a thinbladed knife.

  “Make him come to you,” Padillo said softly.

  “Who’s getting the advice?” I asked.

  “Mush.”

  Dymec came at him. The Negro jumped back slightly and Dymec’s concrete-colored face took on an earnest, thoughtful look. He turned slowly as Mush moved around him. Then he feinted and Mush tried for the right arm, but missed, and Dymec’s knife went through his coat and into his side. Mush looked surprised and knelt on the floor and opened his coat to look at what caused him to hurt so bad.

  Dymec picked up the rifle and ran quickly to the east edge of the building, glancing at his watch as he ran.

  “I thought Mush could take him,” Padillo said.

  I looked at my watch. It was forty minutes after two. “That leaves it up to us.”

  “No,” Padillo said. “Just me.”

  Dymec checked his rifle and aimed it between the posts of the chest-high railing. It made a comfortable rest. Padillo ran across the dance floor. Dymec heard him. He tried to get the rifle from between the posts, but Padillo hit him in the side with both feet. The rifle fell to the floor and Dymec was down on his hands and knees. He looked up at Padillo, said something, and jumped at him, his left hand out and stiff and extended. Padillo caught the hand, twisted and tried to throw Dymec, but the grey-faced man seemed to have anticipated it and drove his right hand hard into Pa-dillo’s left side. Padillo went white and started to bend over and Dymec aimed a kick at his head, but Padillo caught the foot and threw it upwards and Dymec fell. He fell hard, striking his head on the edge of the concrete railing. He lay still and his head was cocked at an odd angle. Padillo bent over Dymec and produced a cream-colored envelope from his jacket pocket. Then he straightened up and motioned to me.

  Mush was still on his knees in the middle of the dance floor and I herded Price towards him. Padillo was kneeling by Mush when we got there.

  “How do you feel?”

  “It’s not bad,” Mush said. “You stopped him?” His southern accent was gone.

  “Yes. You’re Treasury, aren’t you?”

  Mush nodded, his face screwed up in pain. “Narcotics Bureau.”

  “How’d you make me in Baltimore?”

  “There were just two of you supposed to be on that boat. They gave me a print-out on both of you. You weren’t five-foot, three-inches tall and fifty years old.”

  “They thought I might have the acid?”

  “One of you did.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Padillo said.

  Mush grimaced again. “You saw it?”

  Padillo nodded. “Those two who jumped you. One of them was carrying something. He dropped it. It must have been something you wanted.”

  “You’ll have to teach me that Juarez judo again. I didn’t seem to learn too well.”

  “You didn’t turn it in, did you?”

  “The acid?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mush stared at Padillo. “Not yet. You want a cut?”

  “Hardman said it would make a million dollars’ worth of sugar cubes.”

  “He was low.”

  “And that’s why there aren’t any Federal cops up here.”

  “That’s why,” Mush said.

  “O.K.,” Padillo said. “Now you’re a rich man and a hero, too. You keep the acid.”

  Mush opened his mouth wide and squeezed his eyes shut. The cut seemed to hurt. “I’m not keeping it,” he said. “I thought about it, but—” He shrugged and even the shrug hurt.

  “One thing,” Padillo said. “Are you really a Muslim?”

  “Maybe,” Mush said. “That acid would finance a hell of a lot of trips.”

  “What kind?” Padillo said.

  “To Mecca.”

  “But you’re going to turn it in?”

  Mush nodded. “I’m going to turn it in.”

  “O.K. You won’t be a rich man, but you’ll be a hero. Your story is that you found out about the assassination attempt through Hardman at the last moment. Then you shot him and took care of Dymec. McCorkle and I weren’t even near the place. Price helped you. All right?”

  Mush tried to stand and Padillo helped him up. “If I told it any differently, they’d start asking questions. I haven’t got much choice, have I?”

  “Not much,” Padillo said. “Some perhaps, but not enough to bother with.”

  “How about him?” Mush said, nodding towards Price.

  “He’ll be a hero, too, but quietly.”

  I took the .38 out of my pocket and put it in Mush’s hand. “This is what you shot Hardman with.”

  Mush looked down at the revolver. “I liked Hardman,” he said. Then he looked at his watch. “The man’s about due.”

  “Can you make it over to look?” Padillo said.

  “It’s not that bad,” Mush said.

  I helped Mush over to the east edge of the building. We looked down to the corner of Seventeenth and Pennsylvania. Traffic was light and the bright October sun made the Executive Office Building look a little less like an old grey ogre. On a new building at the southwest corner of the intersection, two men practiced putting on a roof-top green. Van Zandt’s party was only three minutes late. Two motorcycle policemen turned the corner at Seventeenth on to Pennsylvania. Behind them was a closed, black limousine followed by an open car with three men sitting in the rear seat. No crowds lined the sidewalk although a few people stopped to glance at the procession. Two other black cars followed the open convertible. Two more motorcycle policemen brought up the rear.

  We stared down at the small parade. “Right about now would be perfect,” Padillo said.

  “Not much wind,” Price agreed.

  Mush said something in Arabic.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “From the Koran again,” Padillo said. “‘Wheresoever you be, death will overtake you, although you be in lofty towers.’”

  I could see Van Zandt clearly now, even from eleven stories up. Darragh was next to him. I didn’t recognize the man on the other side. Boggs was driving. Van Zandt wore no hat and his long white hair floated around his head in the breeze created by the open car. He turned his face up to the building where we stood. The car slowed. I waved at him. Darragh was looking up now and I waved at him, too.

  Neither of them waved back.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  We left Mush to take credit for spoiling the assassination and brought Price with us to the parking lot where we got Hard-man’s Cadillac out.

  “Which way?” I said.

  “Where does the British Resident live, Price?”

  “That’s not part of it,” he said.

  “It is now.”

  “You’ll ruin it.”

  “Not when he sees the letter.”

  “I’ll get the letter to him.”

  “I’d feel better if I did it.”

  “You don’t seem to trust Price,” I said.

  “Do you?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Where’s your Resident?”

  Price sighed. “He lives near American University.” He recited an address.

  “Will he be home?”

  “He’s always home. He’s writing a book. He’s an historian.”

  I drove to the address that Price gave us. It was a quiet, tree-shaded street with large, middle-aged houses set well back from the street. Two mothers pushed strollers filled with plump children down the sidewalk in the mild afternoon air. The number Price gave us was a white frame house that had two stories, a wraparound porch, and an indeterminate architectural style. I suppose it could have been called comfortable. Parking was no problem in that neighborhood and I pulled the car up to the curb next to a large tidy pile of autumn leaves. The yard in front of the house had a lot of shrubbery and flower beds and its occupant seemed to have spent rime taking care of things.

  We walked up to the house, climbed the four steps of th
e porch, and rang the bell. A man opened the door.

  “Well,” he said when he saw Price. Then he repeated it: “Well.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Price said.

  The man nodded. He was about fifty and wore a grey, woolen sweater that buttoned up the front, dark grey slacks and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses that covered mild eyes that were almost the color of his sweater. He was also a little fat.

  “Well,” he said for the third time. “Perhaps you should come in.” He didn’t seem overly concerned about whether we did or not.

  He held open the screen door and Price went in first followed by Padillo and me. When we turned around, the man was holding a gun. It wasn’t aimed at us; it was just held so that we could see it.

  “I don’t suppose this will be necessary,” he said and moved the gun a little.

  “No,” Price said.

  “Then I shall put it away.” He walked over to a small table that held a lamp, opened a drawer, and put the gun in it. He turned to us again.

  “Perhaps you should introduce your friends,” he said to Price.

  “Padillo and McCorkle,” Price said. He didn’t bother to tell us who the man in the sweater was. The mild eyes behind the glasses widened slightly when Padillo’s name was mentioned.

  “Well,” the man said, “do sit down.”

  We were standing in the livingroom which was filled with chairs and sofas and the usual bric-a-brac. A fire burned in the fireplace at one end of the room. Padillo and I sat in two easy chairs; Price and his employer, I suppose, sat side by side on a couch.

  “Michael Padillo,” the man in the sweater said.

  “I’m in your book,” Padillo said. “I want out.”

  “Yes,” the man said and reached into his sweater pocket and pulled out a pipe. He didn’t need it really. He had the worn sweater and the comfortable house and the burning fireplace. He didn’t need the pipe to complete the scene. We waited while he filled it and lighted it and put his wooden matches in an ashtray.

  “In my book, you say.”

  “Stan Burmser told me about it,” Padillo said. “You know Stan?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Stan said you gave it to Price and I know you gave it to Price because he tried the other night and missed. Didn’t you, Price?”

  Price didn’t say anything. He looked at the carpet.

  “How did Burmser know?” the man said.

  “He’s doubled one of your people. He didn’t say which one.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’ve got a trade for you. This for getting out of your book.” Padillo produced the cream-colored envelope and handed it to me. “I want McCorkle to read it first.”

  I read it. The letter was signed by Van Zandt and witnessed by Boggs and Darragh. It had an official-looking red wax seal on it. It said that certain persons had been engaged to “effect my assassination” and that “this was done to create a proper climate for understanding the problems that confront my country.” There was more to it, but those were the key phrases. I handed the letter to the man in the sweater.

  He read it and the kindly, professorial manner almost vanished.

  “Is it real?” he demanded.

  “It’s real,” Padillo said.

  “When was the attempt to be made?”

  Padillo looked at his watch. “A half-hour or so ago.”

  Padillo told him what had happened. “When it comes out, though, it comes out this way: The plot was foiled—that’s a good word, isn’t it?—by the British Secret Service or MI 6 or whatever you want to use, aided by Mustapha Ali, a member of the Black Muslims.”

  “Come off it, Padillo,” Price said.

  “That’s the way it comes out,” Padillo said.

  The man in the sweater tapped the cream-colored letter on the coffee table in front of him and looked at Padillo. “All right. It’s a trade.”

  “What happens next?”

  “We’ll give our Ambassador to the UN time enough to draft a speech. When is the old man due in New York?”

  “Tomorrow,” Price said.

  “Will he go?”

  “He knows that someone now has that letter.”

  “Does he know who?”

  “No.”

  The man in the sweater took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. “Well,” he said again. “There’s much to be done.” He rose. The rest of us rose too. “I think you’d better remain here, Price,” the man said.

  He walked with us to the door. “You’re no longer working for Burmser, Mr. Padillo?”

  “No.”

  “Have you considered other employment?”

  “No.”

  “Would you be interested?”

  “I don’t think so,” Padillo said. “I’m retired.”

  “If you change your mind, please let me know,” the man said. “We perhaps don’t pay as well, but—”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Padillo said.

  “Do,” the man said.

  We went through the door and out into the afternoon air. The man in the grey sweater watched us from behind his screen door. He stood there and tapped the cream-colored letter against his left thumb until I opened the car door and got in.

  “I have to meet my wife,” I said to Padillo.

  He looked at me and grinned. “Think she’ll be on time?”

  The next time I saw Michael Padillo was three days later. He was standing at the bar listening to the lameduck Congressman. The Congressman had a large pile of money next to his drink. “Strictly cash from now on,” he was telling Padillo. “Credit cards are an inflationary danger.”

  “A threat to the economy,” Padillo said, excused himself, and walked over to me.

  “Fredl’s joining us for dinner,” I said.

  “Good. How is she?”

  “She’s all right.”

  “Still angry?”

  “She’s about over it.”

  “It was a tough story to have to sit on.”

  The story about the assassination attempt had made a splash and Fredl had fumed as she read it and watched it unfold on television. Great Britain’s Ambassador to the United Nations had made a rouser of a speech, waving the letter in evidence. Van Zandt had fled back to his country and his cabinet had resigned. There was some more talk about economic sanctions. Mush was something of a curiosity in the press for a few days and his cover as a narcotics agent was broken. He resigned several days later, the papers said, “to devote his full time to the Black Muslim cause.” The British Secret Service received a discreet pat on the back and a few editorials wondered how the FBI had been keeping itself busy. Near the end of the third day, the story was dying.

  Padillo and I went over to the bar and Karl moved down to serve us.

  “The Congressman’s back, I see.”

  “He’s thinking of running again next term,” Karl said. “I discouraged him.”

  “I’ll try a vodka martini,” I said. Padillo said he would too. Karl mixed the drinks and served them. “Congress adjourned today,” he said.

  “That’ll leave your mornings free.”

  “You can go back and read about the eighty-nine or so that you didn’t have the chance to hang around,” Padillo said.

  Karl shook his head gloomily. “It’s not the same,” he said and moved on down the bar to a customer.

  Padillo shifted his drink around on the bar, making the pattern of a small oblong box.

  “They came back. Not Burmser; it was a new pair. New to me anyway.”

  I looked into the mirror. There was nothing to say yet.

  “Sylvia said to say goodbye,” he said.

  “I thought she might stay.”

  He picked up his drink and inspected it. “That was mentioned.”

  “But you discouraged it.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did they come back? The pair, I mean.”

  “This afternoon. I’ve been restored to the good-graces category.”
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  “What about you and Sylvia?”

  “We talked.”

  “About what; your yellow shadow?”

  “That was mentioned.”

  “Some days you talk too much.”

  Padillo sighed and tasted his drink. “Some days I think you’re right.” He paused and looked into the mirror. “I may not be around for a few weeks.”

  I nodded. “Where’ll you be?”

  He almost smiled, but didn’t quite make it. “I think someone’s looking for her husband.” I turned and Fredl had just come through the door. She paused and glanced around and when she saw me, she smiled. There were a great many things I would do for that smile.

  “Where’re you going to be?” I said again.

  Padillo sipped his drink. “Out of town,” he said.

  I left the bar and Padillo and walked quickly towards Fredl. I didn’t bother to notice the color of his shadow.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1967 by Ross Thomas

  cover design by Jason Gabbert

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