Twilight at Mac’s Place

Five

Standing at the very end of the long line, McCorkle rearranged his expression into one of terminal boredom and used a foot to shove his ancient one-suiter toward customs at Dulles International Airport. For years he had been convinced that a bored look, when combined with a suit and tie, made the perfect match to the U.S. Customs Service’s profile of the innocent traveler.

Still looking bored, McCorkle watched two Federal dogs, both mutts, sniff out a pile of luggage for drugs. He continued to watch the dogs when a roving uniformed customs inspector appeared at his elbow and said, “Nice flight?”

“Not bad.”

“Could I see your passport?”

McCorkle turned and began the search, slowly patting his pockets with no sign of panic. He finally removed the passport from his hip pocket, the last one left, and handed it over, trusting that his carefully unhurried search was another hallmark of innocence.

The inspector opened the passport and leafed through it. “Frankfurt, huh?”

“Frankfurt,” McCorkle agreed.

“Business or pleasure?”

“Neither. My wife’s brother died. We went to his funeral.”

The inspector glanced around as if hoping to discover a Mrs. McCorkle. “She stayed on?”

“There was some family business to clear up.”

“Your wife’s first name, Mr. McCorkle?”

“Fredl.”

“Eine gute Deutsche Hausfrau, ja?”

“Washington correspondent for a Frankfurt paper.”

“You’re kidding. Which one?”

After McCorkle told him, the inspector nodded approvingly and said, “The serious one.”

“Profoundly so.”

“And what do you do, Mr. McCorkle?” the inspector asked, his eyes pricing the five-year-old gray worsted Southwick suit McCorkle had bought on sale at Arthur Adler’s.

“I run a saloon.”

“In Washington?”

“Right.”

“What’s it called?”

“Mac’s Place.”

“Ate there once,” the inspector said. “Not bad.” He looked down at the passport again, read the name “Cyril McCorkle” aloud and looked up with a smile. “Bet everybody calls you Mac.”

“You win.”

The inspector bent down, marked the old suitcase with a piece of chalk, straightened and handed McCorkle a slip of paper that was the treasured laissez-passer. “Take the express line, Cyril,” the inspector said. “And welcome home.”

McCorkle later blamed his sunglasses for having caused the case of mistaken identity in front of Mac’s Place just after he paid off the taxi, picked up his old suitcase and turned. Although his eyesight in recent years had gone from near perfect to good to the stage where he now needed reading glasses, McCorkle refused to wear prescription sunglasses because he couldn’t remember, offhand, ever having read a book all the way through in the sunshine. And since he felt the need to blame something, he blamed the sunglasses for causing him to mistake the man who came out of Mac’s Place for the late Steadfast Haynes.

“It was a quarter past three or a little earlier,” he said as he later recounted the incident to Padillo. “And he was in the shade and the sun was just low enough to stab me right in the eyes. So when I looked away from the sun into the shade, there he was — same tennis-pro build, same walk that makes you wonder when he’ll start tap-dancing and that same face.”

“But a face at least twenty-five years younger,” Padillo said.

“Not if you’re half blind from the sun and looking into deep shade through dirty dark glasses. So what I saw were the same moves, height, build — plus a face that shade, sunglasses and memory were adding twenty-five years to.”

“The world’s most honest face,” Padillo said.

“I always felt it was those flag-blue eyes.”

“Plus the resolute chin and that most serene brow.”

“But somehow you knew nobody could be as honest as Steady looked,” McCorkle said. “So just before you started edging away from him, he’d grin that god-awful kid’s grin that could melt rocks.”

“And also make you want to believe everything he said.”

“Another mistake,” McCorkle said. “How big a tab did he run up?”

Padillo shrugged. “A few hundred dollars that we might as well eat.” He paused, obviously curious. “So what’d you say to him?”

“Well, since I didn’t know he was dead, I said, ‘How the hell are you, Steady?’ ”

Granville Haynes said, “I’m afraid he’s dead, Mr. McCorkle.”

McCorkle put the old suitcase down, removed his dirty sunglasses, stared at Haynes and said, “When?”

“About a week ago. A stroke.”

“Then you’re... Granville, right?”

Haynes nodded. “We buried him earlier today. At Arlington.”

“I’m very sorry” McCorkle said. “I didn’t know. I would like to have been there.”

“Thank you. Tinker Burns flew in. Isabelle Gelinet was there. And some guy from Langley.”

“I know Padillo would’ve gone except—”

Haynes interrupted him with a smile. “He told me.”

McCorkle found the smile to be an exact and uncanny replica of the one the late Steadfast Haynes had so successfully employed. “How long will you be in town?”

“A day or two. I have to see a lawyer whose office seems to be in this same building.” He looked up. “They just built it over and around you, didn’t they?”

“We were lucky,” McCorkle said.

“The lawyer’s name is Mott. Howard Mott. You know him?”

“He’s one of our landlords.”

“What’s he like?”

“I don’t know how he is on probate,” McCorkle said, “but if I ever got in a real jam, he’s the one I’d call.”

Haynes smiled his inherited smile again. “Sounds like Steady’s lawyer, doesn’t it?”