Cast a Yellow Shadow

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The call came while I was trying to persuade a lameduck Congressman to settle his tab before he burned his American Express card. The tab was $18.35 and the Congressman was drunk and had already made a pyre of the cards he held from Carte Blanche, Standard Oil, and the Diner’s Club. He had used a lot of matches as he sat there at the bar drinking Scotch and burning the cards in an ashtray. “Two votes a precinct,” he said for the dozenth time. “Just two lousy votes a precinct.”

“When they make you an ambassador, you’ll need all the credit you can get,” I said as Karl handed me the phone. The Congressman thought about that for a moment, frowned and shook his head, said something more about two votes a precinct, and set fire to the American Express card. I said hello into the phone.

“McCorkle?” It was a man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Hardman.” It was a soft bass voice with a lot of bulldog gravy and grits in it. Hardman, the way he said it, was two distinct words, an adjective and a noun, and both got equal billing.

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