Twilight at Mac's Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

two founding partners, looked as if he had been assembled from mismatched parts by unskilled labor. He stood a bit under five-ten, had a long, long trunk supported by stubby legs and required custom shirts with thirty-seven-inch sleeves. For eyes he had a pair of shiny black vibrant things that glared out from deep inside the two small dark caves they dwelt in.
    But most people, especially those in jury boxes, usually forgot what Mott looked like once he opened his mouth. He had a deep voice that would do anything: entreat, thunder, cajole, accuse, reason and even sing a remarkably bawdy parody of how they were hanging Michael Deaver in the morning.
    Mott’s principal asset, however, was his mind, which a respectable majority of the Washington legal fraternity, not all of them admirers, agreed was brilliant.
    He lived in an old three-story house in Cleveland Park with his thirty-six-year-old wife, Lydia, who was expecting their first child in July. Mott usually felt that he was as lucky as anyone deserves to be and it bothered him, although not very much, to discover he was almost envying the man who sat in the client’s chair across the desk.
    “I’m sorry I couldn’t make the services,” Mott said. “But I had to be in court all morning. And I’m very, very sorry that Steady’s gone.”
    “Thank you,” Granville Haynes said.
    “You sure as hell look like him, don’t you?”
    “So I’m told.”
    “I’ve sometimes wondered how it would be to go through life with Steady’s looks.”
    “It makes some people, especially women, mistrust you.” Haynes paused, didn’t quite smile and added, “At first.”
    “Then it’s just like being ugly, isn’t it?”
    “I never quite thought of it like that, Mr. Mott.”
    After a deep sigh, Mott said, “Better call me Howard. When I’m through with what I have to say, you may want to go back to ‘Mr. Mott.’ ”
    “Bad news?”
    Mott leaned back in his chair to study Haynes. “Depends upon your expectations.”
    “Nonexistent.”
    “That’s fortunate because Steady died broke—or damn near.”
    Haynes said nothing.
    “His principal assets consist of the farm near Berryville and a ’seventy-six Cadillac convertible with around forty-three thousand miles on it.”
    “Now comes the ‘but,’ ” Haynes said.
    “A realist, I see,” Mott said with a small approving nod. “ But the farm is only twenty acres and has a ramshackle 119-year-old house, a fair barn and two very fat mortgages. If sold, it might net twenty or even thirty thousand, once the two mortgages are paid off.”
    “He left it to me?”
    “To Isabelle Gelinet.”
    “Good.”
    “You know her, I understand.”
    “Since I was three and she was four. Or maybe it was the other way around. We grew up together for a time. Playmates. In Nice. Then Steady married stepmother number two and we moved to Italy.”
    “Sounds like a strange childhood.”
    “Different anyway,” Haynes said. “Does Isabelle know about the farm?”
    “Not from me, but Steady might’ve told her.”
    “What about his debts?”
    “Maybe two or three thousand around town and to American Express. Nothing major.”
    “I’ll take care of them.”
    “No rush.”
    “How’d he live?” Haynes asked. “I mean he hadn’t really worked at anything for two or three years, had he?”
    Mott inspected the ceiling. “I’m trying to decide how circumspect I should be.”
    “As much as you like.”
    Mott brought his gaze back down. “We did Steady’s taxes because he always said he wanted one-stop service. Our house CPA did them. Steady received a check for four thousand dollars every month from Burns Exports et Cie. in Paris. The check was always earmarked ‘For Consultative Services.’ ”
    Sounding more amused than surprised, Haynes said, “So old Tinker was carrying him.”
    “Out of what? Compassion? Moral obligation?”
    “Tinker Burns? Not quite.”
    There was a silence caused by Mott waiting to hear what