by Ross Thomas
“Who wants you to kill Van Zandt? He’s an old man.”
“The two who approached me were from his cabinet. He’s arriving here in a couple of days to make a plea before the UN. First he’ll put in an appearance in Washington. There won’t be any royal treatment here—just an Assistant Secretary of State to meet him at the airport and a ride down Constitution Avenue. He won’t get near the White House.”
“What’re you supposed to do?”
“Pick him off with a rifle. They’re to set it up for me.”
“Won’t the old man get suspicious?”
“Hardly. It’s all his idea. He’ll be dead of cancer within two months anyhow.”
They liked to mention that Hennings Van Zandt was eighty-two years old and that he had been one of the first whites to be born in the country that he served as Prime Minister. He had watched it evolve from a virtually unexplored territory into a private preserve of the British South Africa Company, then into a colony, and finally into a self-governing country. Now he claimed it was independent, but Britain said it wasn’t and that its declaration of independence was tantamount to treason. Because of the chromium, the U.S. had made only gruff warnings about not recognizing the declaration.
“When they made me the proposition, they spelled it all out,” Padillo said. “I don’t know if it’s logical or not. All I know is that it could cause a hell of an uproar.”
According to Padillo the plan was to announce that Van Zandt was coming to the U.S. to plead his country’s cause before the United Nations. He would stop first in Washington for trade talks and for a try at countering the British anti-independence campaign.
“They’ve followed the civil rights action here,” Padillo said. “Van Zandt himself came up with the idea. He gets assassinated, the blame is placed upon an unnamed American Negro, and public opinion here does a flip-flop in support of Van Zandt and his government.”
“That’s tricky thinking,” I said, “but they sound like a tricky bunch.”
“They have it all mapped out. There’ll be almost no police or security protection for Van Zandt—nothing like what’s laid on for De Gaulle or Wilson. They’ll make sure that the Prime Minister is riding in an open car. When he’s shot, he becomes a martyr in America to the cause of white supremacy, which is about as good a way to go as any if you’re eighty-two, think like he does, and have a stomach that’s three-fourths eaten away by cancer.”
“Why did they pick you?” I said.
“They wanted a pro—someone who wouldn’t get caught—because they’re going to have unimpeachable eyewitnesses who saw a Negro with a rifle. They need someone who can make it down the elevator, out into the lobby, and across the street. They picked me.”
“Could you do it?”
Padillo held up his glass to the light and looked at it as if it contained an unfriendly cockroach. “I suppose so. I could do it and feel nothing. Zero. I think that’s what I’m most afraid of. It’s been getting a little empty. But say the word and I’ll do it and I won’t get caught and you might get your wife back.”
“Might?”
“She’ll be dead, of course, but they could let you live long enough to bury her.”
“You don’t think they’d like to have me walking around with all my inside knowledge?”
“Neither you nor Fredl nor me. The two who made me the proposition are to be the eye witnesses. If you include Van Zandt, that’s a conspiracy of three and that’s damned big for something like this.”
“With us, it’s six,” I said.
“That’s why they won’t want us around.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost three in the morning and the apartment seemed to be assuming the impersonal quality of one of the rooming houses that had once stood in its place. Padillo was sitting in the chair, his drink on the coffee table, his head in his hands. He seemed to be giving the rug a careful examination.
“I should have gone to Switzerland,” he said again.
“But you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t very smart. I must be getting old. I feel old.”
“You’re two months younger than I am.”
“So what do you want me to do? Go down to the FBI with you or take out my Husqvarna with the 7X scope and pop away at the old man?”
“If I go to the police, they’ll kill her,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want her killed. I don’t want me killed. I don’t even want you killed which proves how generous I’m getting now that the shock’s wearing off. But they’ll kill all three of us if you shoot him.”
“I can almost guarantee that they’ll kill you and Fredl,” Padillo said. “It might take longer for me, but then they’re not so much concerned about me because I’m not the kind to turn myself in for the murder of a visiting Prime Minister. They could take their time, but they’d put someone on it and some day I’d get careless or he’d get lucky.”
“They knew I’d figure it out,” I said. “They knew I’d realize that they wouldn’t want Fredl or me around after the assassination. They may know I’m not overly bright, but they must also know that I’m not that thick.”
Padillo took his head out of his hands and looked at me. “It’s your turn to get the drinks,” he said. “My side hurts.”
I got up and went over to the bar and mixed two more.
“They don’t think you’re thick,” he said. “They just think you suffer from something called hope—hope that they won’t kill Fredl if I kill Van Zandt, hope that they won’t kill you, and hope that you’ll be able to outsmart them. Hope even that they’ll change their minds and call it all off because it’s raining that day.” He paused for a moment. “But they believe that the only hope you really believe in is for me to kill him.”
“And you’d do it?”
“You call it.”
“There’s nothing else I can do.” I made it a statement, but I meant it as a question.
Padillo examined his glass for trespassers again. “Maybe I’m getting the DTs,” he said, “or maybe it was my African vacation. I’ve got the habit of looking for strangers.” He took a swallow of the drink. “There’s one thing that can be done,” he said.
“What?”
“Try to get her back before they kill her.”
“It’s a big town,” I said, “and there’s half of Virginia and Maryland to consider. Where do I start, a block away or fifty miles away? Should I just call up their embassy or trade mission or whatever it is and ask if I could speak to my wife for a moment before they do her in?”
“The trouble with the Van Zandt crowd,” Padillo said, “is that they don’t care much for majority rule, especially if the majority happens to be black and its members live in places that make Mississippi look like Happy Valley. The Van Zandt people are a little cracked maybe, a little over-imaginative, but they’re not dumb. They’d probably keep Fredl where you wouldn’t think of looking for her.”
“In the briar patch, Br’er Fox?”
“Exactly, Br’er Rabbit.”
“In a Negro district.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“There’re only about a couple of hundred thousand places where she could be.”
“We can look or we can sit around and drink some more Scotch.”
“What do you suggest?”
“This Hardman,” Padillo said. “How well do you know him?”
“Well enough. He’s a regular customer of mine and I’m a regular customer of his.”
“I didn’t know you were using.”
“Just some slow horses.”
“He know Fredl?”
“Fairly well. He likes her. She once did a story on him.”
“You’re seeing him tomorrow?”
“At one-fifteen.”
“That’s one appointment. We’ll make another for ten in the morning.”
“With whom?”
“With somebody who can put me in touch with three debtors.”
Padillo grinned. “Their lives. I’m calling the loans tomorrow.”
FOUR
I was awake by seven that morning. I was in our big double bed which featured the high intensity lamps whose bulbs seemed to burn out every other day or so. I awoke with the feeling that I had something important to do and I thought of asking Fredl what it was until I remembered that she was gone. The bed seemed far too grand for one person. When we placed the special order for it, we had three purposes in mind: making love, sleeping and reading. It had served admirably, except for the reading, and that was because of the lamps that kept going out at odd times. They used the same kind of bulbs that are used in the taillights of cars and I wondered if I shouldn’t lay in a supply from the corner gas station. It might be cheaper.
It was something to debate and it took a while to decide that I should buy only one bulb as a trial. I cast around for some other trivial problem to resolve and Vietnam came to mind. But I soon gave up on that and lay in the big bed and stared up at the off-white ceiling and thought about Fredl. You can grieve when someone dies. But when someone is near death, and there is the chance that you might prevent it if you make the right decision, anxiety takes over. I fumbled on the table by the bed for a pre-breakfast cigarette which I didn’t want and wouldn’t enjoy but perversely lighted. I continued to lie in the bed and smoke the cigarette and make important decisions. I decided to go to the FBI. A few moments later I decided to let Padillo shoot the Prime Minister. When I began to plan my arrival at the White House where I would dramatically dump my problem into the lap of a concerned but admiring President, I got up and went into the bathroom.
I looked at the face in the mirror and blew some smoke at it, but the smoke came out the wrong way and I started coughing. It was either lung cancer or emphysema. Probably both. The coughing finally went away and I could look in the mirror again. The face that was there said, “You stink, McCorkle.” I nodded wearily and turned on the shower.
When I was dressed in my bankers’ grey flannel with the carefully muted chalk stripes that were supposed to take ten pounds off my weight, I headed for the kitchen. On the way, I knocked on the door of the guest bedroom where I could hear Padillo stirring. At least he didn’t whistle. In the kitchen I heated water for the instant coffee. I was drinking my first cup when Padillo came in wearing his Good Will clothes. I indicated the boiling teakettle and the coffee and he nodded and mixed a cup. He sat down at the table and sipped it.
“You have a couple of suitcases worth of clothes hanging in a closet down at the Mayflower,” I said.
“Fredl?”
“She had everything in your apartment in Bonn packed and shipped over. Most of it’s in storage, but she kept out some stuff. She says you have better taste than I do.”
“She has the reporter’s eye.”
“You’re also half-owner in a saloon not too far from here which you might like to drop in on someday.”
Padillo stirred his coffee carefully and then lighted a cigarette. It was probably his first that morning. “I have no claim, Mac.”
“Some people might not think so, but you spent about ten years of your life running the one we had in Bonn when you weren’t out chasing Helmut Dantine or whoever. And where else would you get a job at your age?”
“That’s a thought. What’s the setup?”
“It seats about one-twenty not counting the bar. I brought Karl over as head bartender and Hen Horst is maitre d’ and I upped his cut to six per cent of the net. He’s worth it. We’ve got twelve waiters, two cocktail girls, busboys and the kitchen help run by a better-than-fair chef whom I found in New York. He’s better than fair when he’s sober anyhow, which is most of the time. The waiters are on a split shift. We open at eleven-thirty and close at two a.m., except midnight on Saturday because then it’s the Sabbath which we don’t stay open for.”
“Are we making money?”
“It’s not bad. We can go over the books later.”
“Who’s the crowd?”
“I jacked up the prices and they seem willing to pay for the service and the food. Not much tourist stuff except from the conventions. Some press, some Capitol Hill types, some military, some business and public relations operators, association executives, bored housewives, and a lot of repeat trade from customers we had in Bonn. That embassy crowd moves around together and they like to show off their German.”
“Can it run itself?”
“As long as Horst is around.”
Padillo nodded. “What’s the suite at the Mayflower for?”
“For you. It’s in your name. It was Fredl’s idea, although basically I’m thoughtful and kind, too. She didn’t take to the idea of the Rhine eels nibbling at you so when we got the postcard, she suggested the suite. It’s been a good idea because we’ve been able to help people out when the town’s jammed. It’s also a logical business expense. Even Internal Revenue agrees. And you had to have a Washington address.”
I suppose we talked about business because we didn’t want to talk about Fredl or what might happen to her, but the words I said to Padillo were said by rote, as if I were an economics professor lecturing to a dull freshman class on a warm spring day.
We had another cup of coffee and Padillo asked: “You usually get up this early?”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“Worried?”
“Near panic, but not there yet. Just near.”
He nodded. “I don’t blame you. It’s just as well we got up early; there’s a lot to be done.”
“Where do we start?”
“I’d say at the Mayflower. We have to go calling this morning and the lady we’re calling on used to be particular about the way people dressed.”
“How’s your side?”
“It’s sore,” he said. “But it isn’t deep. I’ll get some stuff and change the bandages this afternoon.”
I put the dishes in the sink and turned off the stove and we rode the elevator down to the lobby.
“It goes to the basement,” Padillo said. “What’s down there?”
“The garage.”
“Attendant on duty?”
“No. You park your own.”
“They probably went in and came out that way. With Fredl.”
“Probably.”
“What are you driving, something flashy?”
“A Stingray. Fredl remained loyal. She has a Volks.”
“Do you really need a car?”
“Not really, but I suffer from self-indulgence.”
“How do you get to work?”
“Walk.”
“How far is the Mayflower from here?”
“Walking distance, but considering your enfeebled condition, we’ll take a cab.”
We found a cab and crept the six blocks to the Mayflower, our driver snarling at the lousy driving of the stream of stern-faced government employees. The government employees snarled back. Eight-fifteen in the morning in Washington is not a happy time.
“Bastards gonna make me late for work,” our driver said as he pulled up front of the hotel.
“Where do you work?” I asked.
“Department of Agriculture.” He didn’t seem to expect a tip but I gave him a quarter anyway and he bulldozed his way out into traffic and started snarling at his fellow employees again.
I introduced Padillo to an assistant manager of the hotel. I didn’t make any excuses for the clothes or the three-day beard. If they didn’t like a bum for a guest, we would find another hotel. But the assistant manager didn’t blink and gave Padillo a warm welcome. I asked that breakfast for two be sent up and we caught the elevator.
It was a two-room suite, neither plain nor fancy. It looked as if it had had its share of parties and most of the exposed wooden surfaces were covered with glass or had been finished in drink- and cigarette-resistant plastic. Padillo walked over to the closet and opened it. There were several suits, a couple of ja
ckets, some slacks, a sweater and a light top coat.
“She picked out the ones I like best,” he said.
“There are shirts and socks and stuff in a drawer. I think I remember a shaving kit, too.”
He found what he needed and disappeared into the bathroom. When he came out he was wearing a white oxford-cloth shirt with a black knit tie, a single breasted suit of a soft grey herringbone weave, and black pebble-grained plain-toed oxfords.
“With that tan you look as if you’re just back from Miami.”
“I was thinking of a mustache, but it would make me look too dashing.”
“You’ll do fine with our young matron crowd.”
Padillo looked around the room. There wasn’t much to see: a couch, a coffee table, three easy chairs, a television set, the usual writing desk with a glass top, two or three straight chairs, some lamps, a rug with a spastic floral pattern, and some pictures on the wall that pretended to represent the seasons in some bucolic land that the artist only half remembered. I also counted eight ashtrays.
“Home,” Padillo said.
“How long has it been now?”
“More than ten years.”
“And you get knifed the minute you step off the boat.”
“It wasn’t till then that I was sure I was really back home.”
There was a knock at the door and I told Padillo it was the breakfast. He opened the door, but it wasn’t breakfast; it was a pair of young men who looked friendly and confident and as if they’d like to be helpful. One of them smiled and asked for Mr. Padillo.
“I’m Mr. Padillo.”
“I’m Charles Weinriter and this is Lee Iker,” one of them said. He was the taller by an inch. “We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” They both produced the folding black books that contained their identification and passed them to Padillo just like it says to do in the regulations.
Padillo looked at his watch. Fredl must have placed it in his shaving kit. He hadn’t been wearing it earlier. “It took you about twenty minutes to get here from the time the hotel called,” he said. “That’s quite good considering the traffic.”
“We’d like to talk to you a few minutes, Mr. Padillo,” Weinriter said.
