The Cold War Swap

by Ross Thomas

  Maas smiled wanly. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. At least for a few hours. I need a place to sleep, and your couch here will do nicely. I shall be gone by noon.”

  “Fine. I’ll be with the cops by eleven hours. I’m not the silent type. I like to talk. I won’t mind telling them that you’re curled up on my couch in a tight little ball.”

  Maas spread his hands in apology. “But I’m afraid that’s impossible. As I said, much as I wish to accommodate you I’m afraid that I must stay here until noon. My appointment is not until then. It is safe here.”

  “It won’t be when I blow the whistle on you.”

  “You won’t do that, Herr McCorkle,” Maas said softly. “You won’t do that at all.”

  I stared at him. “You have a hole card, huh?”

  “I have sources, Herr McCorkle. Within the police. These sources have access to certain conversations, certain files. In one of these files was a copy of the report the police lieutenant filed this evening. You told what happened quite faithfully and in detail with one exception. You neglected to mention that your partner—Herr Padillo, is it not?—was also present. That, Herr McCorkle, was a serious omission.”

  “That won’t buy you bed and board here for two seconds. I’ll just tell them I forgot. I’ll even tell them I lied.”

  Maas sighed again. “Let me put it another way—and may I have another drop of your excellent whiskey?”

  I nodded. He got up and waddled across to the bar, again turning his back, and again I thought about the knife, the poker or the hammer lock. Or just a swift kick in the rear. And again I sat comfortably in my chair, watching the fat German drink my whiskey, the thought of violence heavy and distasteful, the guilt of inaction rationalized by a growing curiosity.

  Maas turned from the bar and went back to the chair. “As I said, it seems that I must put it another way. You failed to report that your partner was present at the lamentable affair. I could report this to the police through a telephone call—not even a disguised voice—just a word or two. That, in chess terms, is check.” Maas leaned forward in his chair, his round red potato face shiny and a little flushed from the drink and fatigue. “But this I know, too, Herr McCorkle. I know where Herr Padillo is going and why. And that, I think you will agree, is checkmate.”

  CHAPTER 6

  If it was a bluff, I decided not to call. I gave Maas a blanket, told him to go to hell, and went to bed. It wasn’t the most restful night I’ve ever had.

  Next morning I met Lieutenant Wentzel in his office. He seemed much the same. He sat behind a yellow oak desk that was decorated with a telephone, a blotter, and an in-and-out file that had nothing in either tray. He was wearing the same clothes except for a fresh white-on-white shirt and an apple-green tie. His fingernails were still clean and he had shaved again.

  He indicated the chair in front of his desk. Another man, whom I did not meet, sat in a chair by the window. He didn’t look at me. He looked out of the window. The view was the brick wall of some kind of factory or warehouse. He may have been counting the bricks.

  I made a statement to a stenographer Wentzel called in. I kept it short and as brief as possible. Wentzel excused himself, and I sat there in the chair smoking cigarettes and putting them out on the floor. There was no ash tray. The room was painted the same green that map makers use. The floor was of oiled dark-brown wood. The ceiling was dirty white. It was a room where a government’s work is done by the people it hires. It also had that sense of impermanency that most lowerechelon government offices have, probably because their occupants are on the way either up or down or out and they know that this job, this project, is only temporary. So there are no pictures of the wife and kids in the folding leather case, no personal items to make the office assume an air of permanency.

  Wentzel came back with the secretary as I was finishing a cigarette. He read my statement to me. I had made it in German, and it seemed longer, more detailed, pedantic and methodical than I had thought. It had the peculiar sound of your own voice coming out of another’s mouth.

  “So does that seem correct to you, Herr McCorkle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your employees, the bartender and the waitress, have already been with us and have made similar statements. Would you like to read them?”

  “Not unless they vary a great deal from mine.”

  “They do not.” I took the pen he offered and signed three copies. The pen scratched a little. I handed it back to Wentzel.

  “I assume you have not heard from the man Maas.”

  “No.”

  Wentzel nodded. He seemed neither surprised nor disappointed. “Your colleague, Herr Padillo. Was he overly concerned about yesterday’s incident?”

  There was no sense in being trapped, “I haven’t talked to him yet. I imagine he will be concerned.”

  “I see.” Wentzel stood up. I stood up. The man in the chair by the window remained seated, absorbed in the brick wall.

  “If further developments occur that concern you, Herr McCorkle, we’ll be in touch.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And should the man Maas make any attempt to reach you, I am sure you will let us know.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  “So. I believe that is all we need. Thank you.” We shook hands. “A uf wiedersehen.“

  “Auf wiedersehen,” I said.

  “Auf wiedersehen,” said the man in the chair by the window.

  Maas had been curled up asleep on the couch when I left my apartment that morning. For all I knew, he was still there. It was not yet noon, the time for his appointment. I walked out of the police station in downtown Bonn, around the corner, and into a Bierstube.

  I stood at the bar with the rest of the morning drinkers and had a glass of Pils and a Weinbrand. I looked at my watch. It was eleven twenty-five. My appointment with Wentzel had taken less than twenty minutes. The Weinbrand was gone, but my beer glass was almost full. I decided on another brandy. “Noch ein Weinbrand, bitte.“

  “Ein Weinbrand,” the bartender droned, and placed it before me with a flourish and a murmured “zum Wohlsein.“

  It was time for sober reflection, for cunning and for foxylike wiliness. Here was McCorkle, the friendly saloon-keeper, pitted against some of the most fiendish minds in Europe. Maas, for example. He would have a fiendish mind. I thought of the short fat man and couldn’t bring myself to dislike him, much less hate him. If I had worked at it, I probably could have found some excuses for his behavior. Then there was Padillo, off to God knows where. How well did I know Padillo? No better than the brother I never had. There were a lot of questions whose answers seemed not to lie in the bottom of a glass, so I went out into the street, got into my car, and headed for Godesberg.

  The routine of opening the place, checking the menu, going over the accounts, and writing up purchase orders occupied the next half hour. Karl was at the bar, a trifle morose.

  “I never lied to the fuzz before.”

  “You’ll get a bonus.”

  “A lot of good that’ll do me in jail.”

  “You’re not going to jail. You’re not important enough.”

  He ran a comb through his long blond hair. God knows who he was trying to look like that week. “Well, I’ve been thinking it over and I don’t see why we have to lie about Mike.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” I asked. “Have you been gassing with the help again?”

  “I took Hilde home last night and she was upset and started asking questions.”

  “Was that before or after you laid her? I told you to keep away from the help. You’re part of management.” That made him feel good. “If she says anything again, just tell her Padillo’s got woman trouble.”

  “That’s no lie,” Karl said.

  “Tell her he’s out of town because of a jealous husband. Tell her anything, but keep her quiet. And keep out of her pants.”

  “Ah, Christ. I told her already, but she’s still worried.”
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  “Tell her some more. Look, I’ll tell you what. In Berlin I met this guy who knows where you can pick up a 1940 Lincoln Continental. It’s in Copenhagen. It was shipped over just before the war and the owner hid it from the Krauts. You get Hilde off my back, and I’ll finance it for you.”

  Karl was an old-car nut. He subscribed to all the magazines. He was driving a 1936 three-window Ford coupe that he had bought from an American GI for fifteen hundred DM. I think he was applying its eleventh coat of hand-rubbed lacquer. It had an Oldsmobile engine and could easily outdrag my Porsche. If I had offered him a gold mine, he wouldn’t have been more pleased.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “No. I’m not kidding. I ran into an Air Force captain who told me about it. The guy wants a thousand bucks or it. When this thing cools down I’ll give you a thousand bucks and you can run over and bring it back by ferry. It runs O.K., he said.”

  “You’ll loan me the dough, huh?”

  “If you keep Hilde quiet.”

  “Sure, sure. What color is it?”

  “Mix the Manhattans.”

  Karl wandered off in a happy daze and I sat down at one of the tables and lighted a cigarette. I thought about having a drink but decided against it. The time was a little after noon, too early for customers. I began to count the cigarette burns in a four-foot square on the left side of my chair. Then I counted them on the right side. There were sixteen in all. I thought about how much a new carpet would cost and decided it wasn’t worth it. There was a firm in town that patched carpets, putting in little plugs of almost matching fiber over the burns. The drinks spilled would make the patches blend quickly enough. I decided to give them a ring.

  I heard the door open from the street and saw the flash of sunlight as two men came in. One was vaguely attached to the U.S. Government. I didn’t know the other. They didn’t see me sitting there at the table, off to their left. They made the usual remarks about the catacombs as they made their way to the bar.

  They ordered beer. When Karl served it, the one I had met asked, “Is Mr. McCorkle here?”

  “He’s sitting right over there, sir,” Karl said.

  I turned around in my chair. “May I help you?”

  They picked up their drinks and came over. “Hell, McCorkle. I’m Stan Burmser. We met at General Hartsell’s.”

  “I recall,” I said, and shook hands.

  “This is Jim Hatcher.”

  We shook hands.

  I asked them to sit down and called to Karl to bring me coffee.

  Nice place you have here, Mr. McCorkle,” Hatcher said. He had a clipped, brisk voice that sounded like upper Michigan. I was probably wrong.

  “Thanks.”

  “Mr. Hatcher and I would like to have a talk with you,” Burmser said. He sounded like St. Louis. He looked around the room as if a dozen people were trying to catch his words.

  “Sure,” I said. “We have an office in back. Just bring your drinks with you.”

  We got up and paraded single file back to the office, which was a small room containing a desk, three filing cabinets, a typewriter, and three chairs. There was also a calendar of more than usual interest supplied by a Dortmund brewer.

  “Sit down, gentlemen,” I said, lowering myself into the chair behind the desk. “Cigarette?” Burmser took one. Hatcher shook his head. Then we all sat back sipping our drinks with Burmser and me blowing clouds of smoke toward Hatcher. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Haven’t seen much of you around the embassy circuit,” Burmser said.

  “A saloon makes a hermit out of you.”

  Hatcher was apparently convinced that we had observed enough of the social amenities. “The reason we’re here, Mr. McCorkle, is to discuss with you what happened here yesterday.”

  “I see.”

  “Perhaps our identification would help.” They both produced little black identification books, and I read them one at a time. It wasn’t the CIA. It was better—or worse—depending upon your point of view. I passed them back.

  “How can I help you?” I said pleasantly.

  “We happen to know that your partner, Mr. Padillo, was here yesterday when the shooting took place.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you can talk frankly with us,” Burmser said.

  “I’m trying to.”

  “We’re not so much interested in the man who got killed: he was a small-time agent. We’re more interested in the man he met here. A Herr Maas.”

  “What about him?”

  “You met him on the plane coming back from Berlin yesterday,” Burmser recited. “You struck up a conversation and then offered him a ride to your restaurant.”

  “I told all that to the police, to Lieutenant Wentzel.”

  “But you didn’t tell Wentzel that Padillo was here.”

  “No; Mike asked me not to.”

  “I supposed you know that Padillo occasionally does some work for us?”

  I took a long drink. “How long have you been in Bonn, Mr. Burmser?”

  “Two and a half—three years.”

  “I’ve been here thirteen, not counting my time with MAAG. Look in your files. You should know how this place was opened. I was blackjacked into taking Padillo on as a partner. I’m not sorry I did. He’s a damn good man when he’s not studying airline schedules. I know he works for one of your outfits, but I never asked which one. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to get tangled up in I Spy”

  I think Hatcher blushed a little, but Burmser kept boring in. “We’re concerned about Padillo. He was to catch a flight yesterday. To Frankfurt. And then from Frankfurt to Berlin. But he went to Frankfurt by train; he wasn’t on the flight to Berlin.”

  “So he missed a flight.”

  “This was a very important flight, Mr. McCorkle.”

  “Look,” I said. “For all I know he was on Flight 487 to Moscow with a connection to Peiping. After he got the plans, he was to disguise himself as a coolie and take a sampan down to Hong Kong. Or maybe he met a broad in Frankfurt, bought himself a couple of fifths of Martell, and shacked up in the Savigny. I don’t know where he is. I wish I did. He’s my partner and I’d like him back. I never got used to the idea of being in business with a guy who caught more planes than a traveling salesman. I’d like him to get out of the spook business and help write up the menus and order the booze.”

  “Yes,” Burmser said. “Yes, I can understand all that. But we have reason to believe that this man Maas had something to do with the fact that Padillo missed his flight to Berlin.”

  “Well, I think your belief is founded on faulty reasoning. Maas was at my place at four o'clock this morning carrying a brief case and a Luger and drinking my Scotch. When I left shortly before eleven he was still there snoring on my living-room couch.”

  Maybe they send them through a special school where they are taught not to express surprise or emotion. Perhaps they stick pins in each other and the one who says “ouch” gets a black star for the day. They showed no more surprise than if I had told them that it was nice this morning, but it looks like rain this afternoon.

  “What did Maas say to you, McCorkle?” Hatcher asked. His voice was flat and not particularly friendly.

  “I told him why I was going to boot his ass out and then he told me why I wasn’t. He said he knew where Mike was going and why and that he’d let the Bonn police know that plus the fact that Mike was here when the shooting took place unless I let him spend the night. What the hell—I let him spend the night.

  “He said he had an appointment at noon today. He didn’t say where, I didn’t ask.”

  “Was there anything else—anything at all?”

  “He thanked me for the Scotch and I told him to go to hell. That’s all. Absolutely all.”

  Hatcher started to recite. “After Padillo arrived at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff he had a glass of beer. Then he made a phone call. He spoke to no one in person. He then went to the Savigny Hotel, where he checked in
to a room. He went up in the elevator and stayed in his room for eight minutes and then came down to the bar. He sat down at the table of a couple who have been identified an American tourists. This was at eight-fifteen. At eight-thirty he excused himself and went to the men’s room, leaving his cigarette case and lighter on the table. He never came back from the men’s room, and that’s the last trace we’ve had of him.”

  “So he’s disappeared,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? Just exactly what is it you want?”

  Burmser ground his cigarette out into the ash tray. He frowned, and his tanned forehead developed four deep wrinkles. “Maas is important to Padillo,” he said in the voice of the patient teacher to the mayor’s retarded son. “First, because only he—besides us—knew Padillo was to catch that plane. And, second, because Padillo did not catch the plane.”

  He paused and then continued in the same patient voice. “If Maas knows of the particular assignment that Padillo is on, then we want to call it off. Padillo is of no use on it. His cover is blown.”

  “I take it you’d like him back,” I said.

  “Yes, Mr. McCorkle. We would like him back very much.”

  “And you think Maas knows what happened?”

  “We think he’s the key.”

  “O.K., if Maas drops by, I’ll tell him to call you before he calls Lieutenant Wentzel. And if Padillo happens to give me a ring, I’ll tell him you’ve asked after his health.”

  They both looked pained.

  “If you hear from either, let us know, please,” Hatcher said.

  “I’ll call you at the Embassy.”

  They not only looked pained but they seemed embarrassed.

  Hatcher said, “Not at the Embassy Mr. McCorkle. We’re not with the Embassy. Call us at this number.” He wrote it down on a leaf from a notebook and handed it to me.