The Cold War Swap

by Ross Thomas

  Padillo turned and fired three shots at the light, which was still focused at the top of the wall. I got off three more in the same direction. The light went out and there was a yell. More shouts of command were coming from both our right and our left. There was another burst of machine-pistol fire. “Back to the car,” Padillo ordered.

  “I can’t move,” Symmes said.

  “Are you hit?”

  “No—I just can’t move.”

  Padillo slapped him sharply across the face. “You’ll move or I’ll kill you.” Symmes nodded and Padillo shoved me ahead. “You first.” I ran back to the building and down the passageway to the street. Max’s face, a white blob of pure fear, was peering out of the window. I jerked open the back door and held it for Symmes and Burchwood, who threw themselves in. Padillo paused at the entrance to the passageway and fired three shots. A machine pistol answered him. He darted around the front of the car and lunged for the door as Max raced the engine. Before he had the door closed the Wartburg was at its peak in low gear and Max was noisily wrestling it into second.

  “The garage, Max,” Padillo said. “It’s only a half a mile away.”

  “What happened?” Max asked.

  “They got lucky or Kurt’s people got careless. The bombs went off O.K. and they gave us the signal. We got to the wall and there was this blond kid—”

  “Very young?” Max asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That would be Peter Vetter.”

  “He was on top of the wall, pulling the second ladder up and making introductions, when a spare patrol dropped by. They shot him, and the ladder went with him. On the other side. Either Mac or I shot out the light, and we ran like hell.”

  “My God, my God,” Max murmured.

  Symmes buried his head in his arms on his lap and started to weep uncontrollably. “I can’t do any more,” he sobbed. “I don’t care what happens—I just can’t. You’re all awful, just awful, awful!”

  “Shut him up,” Padillo ordered Burchwood.

  Burchwood gestured helplessly. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Padillo said irritably; “just shut him up. Pat him on the head or something.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Symmes screamed.

  Padillo reached back and grabbed a handful of the long blond hair. He jerked Symmes’s head up. “Don’t flake out on us now, Jack.” His voice crackled harshly. His eyes seemed to burn into Symmes’s face.

  “Let go of my hair, please,” the blond man said with a curious kind of dignity. Padillo released him. Symmes slumped back into the seat and closed his eyes. Burchwood patted his knee tentatively.

  Max made the half-mile in two minutes. He pulled down a side street and honked the horn in front of a none-too-prosperous-appearing Autozubehbr. He honked the horn twice more and the grimy door slid open. Max drove the car inside. The door closed behind us. Max killed the motor and rested his head wearily on the steering wheel.

  “I’m like our friend in the back seat,” he said “I can’t do much more. It’s been a very long day.”

  A fat man, wearing dirty white coveralls and wiping his hands on a piece of waste, walked up to Max. “You’re back, Max?”

  Max nodded wearily. “I’m back.”

  “What do you want?”

  Padillo got out of the car and walked around to the fat man.

  “Hello, Langeman.”

  “Herr Padillo,” the man said. “I did not expect you back.”

  “We need a place to stay tonight—four of us. We also need food, some schnapps, and the use of a telephone.”

  The fat man threw the waste into a can. “The risk has increased,” he said. “So has the price. How long will you be staying?”

  “Tonight—maybe most of tomorrow.”

  The fat man pursed his lips. “Two thousand West German Marks.”

  “Where?”

  “There is a basement. Nothing fancy, but dry.”

  “And the telephone?”

  The man jerked his head toward the rear of the garage. “Back there.”

  Padillo took out his revolver and casually transferred it to his slacks waistband. “You’re a thief, Langeman.”

  The fat man shrugged. “It’s still two thousand Marks. You can call me some more names if it makes you feel any better.”

  “Pay him, Max,” Padillo said. “Then take those two down to the basement. Be sure Langeman gets you the food and schnapps. For that price, he can throw in some cigarettes.”

  Max, Langeman and the two Americans moved toward a door at the end of the garage. I got out of the car and walked around it slowly. I was old and tired. My joints creaked. A tooth hurt. I leaned against the front fender and lighted a cigarette.

  “What now?”

  “You still have Maas’s number?”

  I nodded my head carefully. There was danger that it might drop off.

  “Let’s call him and see if he still wants to do a little business.”

  “You trust him?” I asked.

  “No, but have you got any better ideas?”

  “I ran out last night.”

  “His price was five thousand bucks—right?”

  “It was. It’s probably gone up, if I know Maas.”

  “We’ll dicker. Let’s see the five thousand Cook gave you.”

  I took the flat, wrapped package out of my coat pocket and handed it to Padillo. I remembered the exchange with Cooky in the hotel room. He hadn’t looked at my check; I hadn’t counted the money. Gentlemen scholars. I closed my eyes as Padillo ripped open the package. “Blank sheets of paper?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Cut-up newspaper.” I opened my eyes. Padillo tossed the newsprint into the can where Langeman had thrown the waste.

  “Cook knew you pretty well, Mac. He also didn’t seem to think you’d have the chance to spend the money.”

  “There’s one consolation,” I said. “There’s no doubt about the stop payment on the check.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Langeman’s garage was a twenty-by-forty-five-foot building with a grease pit; a couple of chain pulleys to hoist cars up; an oil-smeared, cluttered workbench that ran most of the length of the right-hand wall; and a small partitioned-off cubicle in the left rear that served as his office. He waddled toward us from the cubicle, counting a sheaf of Deutsch Marks and wetting his thumb every third or fourth bill. His once-white coveralls seemed to have picked up some more dirt and grease in the few moments he had been gone. He had also acquired a yellow-brown smudge on his wide flat nose, which somebody had broken for him at one time and nobody had yet got around to setting. His breath whistled through it with a bubbling sound that indicated he might do well to blow it once in a while.

  “I gave them some food and some schnapps, Herr Padillo.”

  “How about cigarettes?”

  “Cigarettes, too. Yes.” Langeman nodded his head vigorously and his three chins danced and lapped around his collar.

  “How do we get down to your cellar?”

  “Through my office: there is a trap in the floor and a ladder. It’s not much, but, as I said, it’s dry. There is also light. The telephone is in the office.”

  “We won’t be using it until around eleven.”

  Langeman bounced his chins around again in a nod. “Any time. I am leaving now and will return at eight hours tomorrow. I have two helpers who will arrive at that time. If you go out, I must send them on errands. The noise of the work here will prevent them from hearing you if you speak normally. For a toilet there’s a bucket.” He tucked the sheaf of bills into his coveralls and gave a slight shrug. “Not luxurious, but it’s clean.”

  “And expensive,” Padillo said.

  “There is the risk to consider.”

  “We’re acquainted with the risk. Suppose we have to go out tonight. How do we manage it?”

  “There is a door at the rear leading from my office. It will lock automatically as you close it. But to get back in is another p
roblem. You can have someone—Max, perhaps—posted by the door. But you must be back before eight hours tomorrow. My two helpers will be here.” Langeman paused and then asked carefully: “Would it not be dangerous for you to go out tonight?”

  Padillo let the question wander for a while in search of an answer before he said, “You weren’t paid to worry about us, Langeman.”

  The fat man shrugged. “As you wish. I am leaving now. The light in my office burns all night; the rest I turn off.”

  Without saying good night Padillo and I walked back to the cubicle. It contained a bill-strewn fourth- or fifth-hand oak desk, a swivel chair with a greasy-looking rubber pad, a wooden filing cabinet, and some automobile-repair catalogues. A light with a green shade hung from the ceiling. The telephone sat on the desk. The office had no window—only a door with a spring lock. A trap door that was in the corner not occupied by furniture was fastened against the wall with a hook and eye. A ladder led straight down. Padillo went first and I followed.

  It was a twelve-by-twelve room with a seven-foot ceiling. A fortywatt bulb provided the illumination. Burchwood and Symmes sat on a gray blanket against one wall, chewing on some bread and meat. Max sat on another blanket opposite them, a bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand.

  “There’s a blanket and there’s the food and cigarettes,” he said. A foot or so of sausage and a part of a loaf of bread sat on a newspaper on the floor. Four packages of cigarettes, an East German brand I had never heard of, were stacked next to them.

  I sat down on the blanket and accepted the bottle from Max. It was unlabeled. “What is it?”

  “Cheap potato gin,” he said. “But it’s alcohol.”

  I took a swallow. The liquor burned all the way down, clawed at my stomach, bounced a couple of times, and started to move around warmly. “Christ!” I said, and passed it to Padillo. He took a swallow, coughed, and handed it back to Max.

  Max set the bottle down on the newspaper. “There’s food.” I looked at it without interest, trying to make up my mind whether to risk another swallow of the potato gin. I decided against it and opened one of the packages of cigarettes, lighted one, and passed the pack to Padillo, We coughed over the tobacco for a while.

  “What do you brilliant people plan to do now?” Burchwood asked. “Drag us through another mess like this evening?”

  “Something like that,” Padillo said.

  “And I suppose we’ll be shot at again,” Symmes said, “and you’ll get mad and take it out on us.” He seemed to assume that he wouldn’t get hit.

  “If it doesn’t work this time, you won’t have to worry about another try,” Padillo said. “In fact, you won’t have to Worry about much of anything. None of us will.”

  He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours before you call, Mac. You and Max might as well get some sleep. I’ll stay up.”

  Max grunted, wrapped himself in his blanket, and rested his head on his arms, which he laid across his raised knees. Padillo and I sat on the blanket and leaned against the wall and smoked. Burchwood and Symmes followed Max’s example.

  It was slow time. I went through a what-in-hell-am-I-doing-here cross-examination, then shifted into a small orgy of self-pity, and finally just sat there and planned the saloon’s menus, day by day, for the next five years,

  “It’s eleven,” Padillo said.

  “Let’s go.”

  We climbed up the ladder and I dialed the number that Maas had given me. It answered on the first ring. “Herr Maas, please,” I said.

  “Ah!” the familiar voice said. “Herr McCorkle. I must say that I have been anticipating your call—especially since the accident this evening. That was you, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one was hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Very good. Herr Padillo is with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, then, I assume that you wish to conclude the business arrangement that we discussed day before yesterday?”

  “We’d like to talk about it.”

  “Yes, yes, negotiations would be in order, especially since there are five now that Herr Baker has joined you. Of course, this makes my original proposal subject to review. You understand that the first cost estimate—”

  “I don’t need a sales talk,” I cut in. “Suppose we meet so we can get down to cases.”

  “Of course, of course. Where are you now?”

  My hand tightened on the telephone. “That’s a stupid question, coming from you.”

  Maas chuckled over the telephone. “I understand, my dear friend. Let me propose this: I would assume that you are within a mile of where this evening’s—uh—accident—yes, accident—occurred?”

  “All right.”

  “I suggest a café—where I am known. It has a private room in the back. It should be within walking distance of where you are now.”

  “Hold on,” I said. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and told Padillo.

  He nodded and said, “Get the address.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Maas told me, I repeated it, and Padillo wrote it down on a scrap of paper on Langeman’s cluttered desk.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Would midnight be convenient?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “There will be three of you?”

  “No, just Herr Padillo and myself.”

  “Of course, of course; Herr Baker must stay with your two American guests.”

  “We’ll see you at midnight,” I said, and hung up.

  “He knows Cooky was with us, and he thinks he still is,” I told Padillo.

  “Let’s let him think it for a while. Wait here and I’ll get some directions from Max.” Padillo climbed down the ladder and was back in a few minutes. Max followed him.

  “It’s about nine blocks from here, Max says. He’ll stay on the door until we get back. Our two friends are sleeping.”

  The café was ordinary-looking. We had made the nine blocks from Langeman’s garage in fifteen minutes, passing down dark streets, encountering only a stray pedestrian or two. We stood across the street from the café in the doorway of an office building of some kind.

  Maas arrived on foot at fifteen minutes until midnight. Three men had come out of the café separately since we had begun our watch. Maas had been the only one to go in. Nobody else came or went during the remaining quarter-hour.

  “Let’s go,” Padillo said.

  We crossed the street and entered the café. The bar was immediately in front of the door. To the left of the door were three booths. The rest of the café was taken up with chairs and tables. A couple sat at one. Three solitary drinkers brooded into their beer and a coffee drinker read a newspaper. The barkeep nodded at us and said good evening.

  “We are expecting a friend to meet us,” Padillo said. “Herr Maas.”

  “He is already in the back—through that curtain,” the barkeep said. “Would you like to order now?”

  “Two vodkas,” Padillo said.

  I led the way through the main room and pushed aside the curtain. Maas, still clad in his heavy brown suit, sat facing us at a round table. A goblet of white wine rested in front of him, next to a new brown hat. He rose when he saw us.

  “Ah! Herr McCorkle,” he gurgled.

  “Herr Maas, Herr Padillo.”

  Maas gave Padillo’s hand the standard shake and bustled around, pulling out two chairs for us to sit on. “It is a real pleasure to meet you, Herr Padillo. You are a man of considerable reputation.”

  Padillo sat down at the table and said nothing. “Have you ordered drinks?” Maas asked. “I have told the bartender to give you the best. It is my treat.”

  “We ordered,” I said.

  “Well, it has been a busy, busy day for you, I would say,” Maas said.

  We said nothing and the bartender came in through the curtain and deposited our drinks on the table. “See that we’re not disturbed,” Maas ord
ered.

  The bartender shrugged and said, “We close in an hour.”

  He left and Maas picked up his wineglass. “Shall we drink to a successful venture, my friends?”

  We drank.

  Padillo lighted a cigarette and blew some smoke up into the air. “I think we can get down to business now, Herr Maas. What’s your proposition?”

  “You have seen the map I gave Herr McCorkle?”

  “I saw it: it could be anywhere. Or it couldn’t be at all.”

  Maas smiled blandly. “It exists, Herr Padillo. It does indeed. Let me tell you something of its history.” He paused to take a sip of his wine.

  “It has romance, treachery and death. It is quite a fascinating melodrama.” Maas sipped at his wine again, produced three cigars, offered us each one, smiled understandingly when we refused, put two of them back into his pocket, and lighted his own. We waited.

  “Back in September of 1949, a sixty-two-year-old widow whom I shall call Frau Schmidt died of cancer. Frau Schmidt left her single valuable possession, a somewhat-bombed-scarred three-story house, to her favorite son—Franz, I think I shall call him—a mechanical engineer who worked at that time for the American Army in West Berlin. Housing was at a premium in both East and West Berlin, so Franz moved his family, consisting of himself, his wife, and a four-year-old son, to his late mother’s house. It was old, but it had been well built back in 1910 or 1911.

  “There was virtually free passage between the East and West Sectors in those days and Franz Schmidt continued to work for the Americans. On the weekends he renovated the house. He received a small subsidy for his efforts from an agency of the East Berlin government. By 1955, Herr Schmidt was working for a private consulting engineering firm in West Berlin. Without much difficulty he managed to remodel his house completely, from basement to roof, installing new plumbing and even electrical-heating apparatus. It became his only hobby. Sometimes, I understand, Herr Schmidt considered moving to West Berlin, but he would have suffered a tremendous loss on his house and as long as he could travel freely from the East to the West Sector he saw no real reason to move.