by Ross Thomas
“I bet you would.”
“Would it be possible to do it alone?”
“No,” Padillo said and smiled. “No, it wouldn’t be possible at all. In fact, you can consider yourself lucky to talk to me in the presence of a witness. His name is Mr. McCorkle and he’s my partner.”
I was sitting in an easy chair with one foot dangling over an arm. I waved at them. “My pleasure.”
They nodded at me from the doorway, but they didn’t seem to be as friendly as before.
“Do you have any means of identification, Mr. Padillo?” Iker asked.
“No, I don’t,” Padillo said. “But come on in. Maybe we can work something out with a game of twenty questions.”
They came in. Padillo indicated the couch and they sat on it gingerly. Padillo eased himself into one of the arm chairs. His side still seemed to hurt.
“We’ve sent down for coffee,” he said and smiled another pleasant smile. “It should be here shortly.”
“You don’t have any identification?” Weinriter asked.
“None. Is that unusual? Of course, my partner here can identify me. If you can believe he’s who he says he is.”
“I have identity,” I said. “I know who I am.”
“I have an idea,” Padillo said. “I’ll be right back.” He went into the bathroom and came back holding an empty water glass. “Here,” he said to Iker and tossed him the glass. Iker’s reflexes were fast; he caught it.
“Don’t smudge the prints,” Padillo said. “If you run the prints on that glass through your computer downtown, you’ll find a full file on me. Incidentally, there’s a careful thumbprint on the bottom of the glass. It shouldn’t take long and that file on me goes back to when I was sixteen years old.”
Iker set the glass down carefully on the coffee table. “You don’t seem to care much for the FBI, Mr. Padillo.”
“Is that one of the questions you have to ask me?”
“No,” Iker said. “It’s just a comment.”
“You’ve been out of the country a long time,” Weinriter said.
“More than ten years.”
“You arrived here yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you enter the country, Mr. Padillo?”
“Baltimore.”
“You arrived by plane or ship?”
“Ship.”
“Which one?”
There was another knock at the door. This time I got it and it was the room-service man with breakfast. He wheeled the tray in briskly and had a cheery good morning for us all. “Told me there were only going to be two of you. Just two. But I brought cups for four. I always do. It’ll be just a moment now.” He snapped the leaves of the wheeled table into place, reached underneath and brought out the portable warming oven.
“Everybody wants coffee right now, I bet.” He was a short, bustling man with a rogue’s eyes and a leprechaun’s mouth. The mouth seemed to have an endless supply of chatter. He put four cups on the table and filled them. He put spoons in the saucers. “Coffee coming up, gentlemen. Nothing like a good cup to begin the day. Here you are, sir,” he said to Iker. Iker accepted the cup and looked as if he had compromised the Bureau. Weinriter got the next cup and the third and fourth went to Padillo and me. The waiter served sugar and cream. Padillo took cream; I accepted sugar. Iker and Weinriter were of sterner stuff and drank theirs black.
The room-service waiter bustled around some more, spooning the scrambled eggs and bacon onto plates, making sure the butter was cold, hard and unspreadable in its bed of ice, and that the toast was cool enough to eat. Then he presented the check with a flourish to Weinriter who looked embarrassed for a moment until I said, “The gentlemen over there will sign for it.” The waiter almost trotted over to Padillo who signed the check.
“You need anything else, you just call me, number forty-two,” said the waiter.
“You have a name?” Padillo asked.
“I’m Al, sir.”
“If we need anything, we’ll call you, Al.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I rose and walked over to the table on wheels. “You don’t mind if we go ahead?” I said to Iker and Weinriter. They shook their heads to indicate that they didn’t mind. Padillo sat across the table from me. He put some cold butter on his cool toast. I tried the eggs. They were quite good.
“Which ship, Mr. Padillo?”
“The Frances Jane.”
“Were you a passenger?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t on the passenger list.”
“I was traveling incognito. Look under Billy Joe Thompson.”
“May I see your passport?” Iker said.
Padillo picked up a piece of bacon, took a bite, and chewed it slowly. Then he took a sip of coffee. “I don’t have one.”
“How did you get on the ship without a passport?”
“They didn’t ask me for one. The Frances Jane is no cruise liner, friend. It’s a tramp.”
“What happened to your passport, Mr. Padillo?”
“I lost it.”
“Have you reported the loss to the State Department?”
“No. I didn’t think they would be interested.”
Weinriter tried some sarcasm. I felt sorry for him. “I think the State Department might be just a little interested in the loss of your passport, Mr. Padillo.”
After he borrowed a cigarette from me Padillo leaned back in the chair and looked at Iker and Weinriter. He took his time. “If you want to report the loss of a passport with the name Michael Padillo on it to the State Department, go ahead. They’ll have no record of it ever being issued. If I needed a passport, there’s an outfit in Detroit that would provide one in twenty-four hours along with a brand new driver’s license, a registration card, and a social security number that would check out just fine on the big computer in Baltimore. But you probably know all this and if you do, then you also know that my attorneys in Bonn have filed income tax returns for me for the last ten years and if you have any questions about those, you’ll have to get in touch with them. Now is there anything else?”
“Whom do you work for, Mr. Padillo?” Weinriter said.
“For myself. I help run a bar and restaurant.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then try it again.”
“Who sent you to Africa?”
“I was on vacation. It took my life’s savings, but it was worth it.”
“We have different information.”
“Hang on to it.”
“It says you were selling arms.”
“It’s wrong.”
“It’s a serious charge, Mr. Padillo. You seem to think it’s a joke.”
“It’s not very serious or you wouldn’t be sitting here just mumbling about it. You’d have a Federal warrant and I’d be on my way downtown. You don’t have a warrant and I suspect you’re working somebody else’s territory and if they find out about it, they’ll get all nervous and worked up and indignant again.”
“You mean?” I said as they used to say it on radio about three o’clock in the afternoon.
“The very same, Inspector,” Padillo said. “The notorious CIA.”
“That puts an entirely different light on the matter, doesn’t it, Reggie?” I said.
“You two are very funny,” Iker said. “You’re also a waste of time. We know about you, Padillo, and we know about your partner here. You’re right. There is a file on both of you. A thick one.” He stood up. Weinriter joined him. “I have the feeling that it’s going to get a lot thicker.”
They moved towards the door. Just as they had it open, Padillo said, “You forgot the evidence.” He tossed the water glass with the fingerprints. Iker used his reflexes again and fielded it nicely. He looked at it, looked at Padillo, and shook his head. He put the glass down on a table. “You two are very funny,” he said again.
When they left they closed the door quietly behind them.
FIVE
“The hotel probably had instructions to call as soon as I made an appearance,” Padillo said. “They just dropped by to make sure it was me. They’ll be back from time to time.”
“That casual visit could get Fredl killed.”
“I doubt it. They’re trained not to be spotted, but we can do without the social calls. We’ll move fast now.”
He walked over to the telephone and dialed a number. When it answered he spoke rapidly in Spanish. He was going far too quickly for me, but I could tell that he was speaking a classy Castillian. The conversation lasted about three minutes. Padillo hung up the phone and turned to me.
“We have an appointment in half an hour.”
“Is this the woman who likes her visitors all spruced up?”
He nodded. “She’s growing old, but she likes nice things. Money’s about the nicest thing she knows.”
“This one’s going to cost, I take it?”
Padillo shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think she’ll do it for sentiment. She was in love with my old man once, a long time ago.”
“In Spain?”
He nodded. “When he got killed in Madrid, she made arrangements to get my mother and me to Portugal and then to Mexico City.” Padillo’s mother had been a beauty from Estonia who had married a Spanish attorney. The attorney had been shot by the winners in 1937. Mother and son had gone to Mexico where she had supported them by giving piano and language lessons. She taught Padillo to speak six or seven languages perfectly before she died of tuberculosis in the early 1940’s. I don’t think he could play the piano. He had told me all this a long time ago in Bonn when we first met. It was this unique fluency with languages that had drawn him to the attention of the U.S. spy crowd.
“What’s your father’s old flame do now?”
“She keeps track of others who are still in my former line of work.”
“You know her well?”
“Very. I’ve seen her quite a few times over the years.”
“She won’t peddle what you know?”
“We won’t tell her what I know.”
We took a cab to a quiet neighborhood in Chevy Chase, just inside the District line, where Senora Madelena de Romanones did whatever she did for a living. It was a two-story house, built in the style of the ’thirties with a shingled roof and red brick that was painted white. The white paint was flaking a little, but they may have planned it that way. A screened porch was on the left and some large elms in the well-kept yard gave enough shade so that the porch looked as if it would be pleasantly cool in summer. I paid the cab and we walked up to the front door and rang the chimes. We could hear them sounding inside and a dog began to bark. It sounded like a small dog. A Negro maid opened the door.
“We wish to see Senora de Romanones,” Padillo said. “I’m Mr. Padillo; this is Mr. McCorkle.”
“Miz Romanones is spectin you,” the maid said. She unlatched the screen door and held it open for us. We went in and followed her down an entrance hall. She stopped at a pair of sliding doors and opened them. Padillo went through first.
The woman wasn’t as old as I had expected. She must have been around thirty when she was in love with Padillo’s father for she was no more than sixty now and in the dim light of the drawing room she could pass for fifty. She was erect in a wine-colored chair and smiled at Padillo as he crossed the room and bent over her hand. “May I present my colleague, Mr. McCorkle,” he said.
I bowed over her hand, too, and she said that she was enchanted. There was a network of ridged blue veins on the back of her hand that gave it a slightly arthritic look. The rings on her fingers I estimated at close to ten thousand dollars.
“You will join me in coffee, Michael; you and Mr. McCorkle?”
“Thank you.”
“You can serve the coffee now, Lucille,” she said to the maid who stood in the doorway.
The maid said “Yes, ma’am,” and left. Padillo and I took two chairs that faced Senora de Romanones across an inlaid table whose curved legs ended in lions’ heads that held round glass balls in their mouths. The rest of the furniture was of the same period, whatever it was. Dark wood glistened with polish and use. The floor was covered with oriental rugs that overlapped and the dusty-rose walls were hung with somber oil portraits of family or friends or just strangers whose features were obscured by the dimness of the room. A Knabe piano was tucked into one corner. Its keys were exposed, its lid was open, there was sheet music on its stand, and it looked as if somebody might have been playing it just before we arrived. The outside world was kept out by drawn maroon velvet curtains. Sunlight probably did nothing for either the oriental rugs or for the fine network of lines in the face and neck of Senora de Romanones.
“It has been such a long time, Michael,” she said. “I despaired of seeing you again.” She had a curiously penetrating voice, not loud, but well-toned and full of command.
“It was three years ago in Valencia,” Padillo said.
“Do you speak Spanish, Mr. McCorkle?”
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
“His German is excellent,” Padillo said. “If you would prefer—”
She smiled slightly. “I remain cautious, Michael. So we shall speak German.”
“Usually, Michael, you come to see me only when you have some dreary task at hand.”
“I am grateful for the tasks, because they give me the opportunity to be with you.”
She laughed. “Give me a cigarette. The way you turn a compliment reminds me of your father. He was such an articulate man, although his politics was pathetic.”
“Yet you helped him many times, Madelena. And my mother.”
She waved the cigarette that Padillo had given her. “I helped him because I foolishly was in love with him despite the fact that he was married. I helped your mother because of you. I never liked her really. She was too beautiful, too intelligent, too good.” She paused for a moment and smiled. “Too much competition, I suppose.”
The maid came in with a tray containing a silver coffee service and some almost translucent cups. Senora de Romanones poured and the maid passed us the cups.
“That will be all, Lucille.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said and left, closing the double doors behind her.
“So how do you like it, Michael, my little not-quite-suburban nest?”
“I was surprised when I heard that you had left Madrid. I was even more surprised when I learned that you had come to Washington. I can see you in New York, Madelena, but not Washington.”
She waved her cigarette around again. She did it gracefully. “This, my dear young man, is where things take place nowadays. Once it was Berlin and once it was Madrid and once it was London. Now it is either Washington or Hong Kong. I think I much prefer Washington.”
“Business is good, I take it?”
“Excellent,” she said. “I’ve rediscovered many old friends here and I have made a number of new ones. There are some mutual acquaintances whom we could have great fun gossiping about sometime.”
“Nothing would be more enjoyable, but there is a deadline and once again I need your help.”
She sighed and put her cigarette out carefully. “This time I will charge you, Michael. In the past I have helped you for foolish sentimental reasons, but this time you will pay. The price: Spend one hour soon with an old friend and listen to her memories.”
“You would be paying me,” Padillo said. “It will be a rare privilege and we will do it quite soon.”
She looked at him and smiled slightly. “You even lie like your father. You are not yet married?”
“No.”
“Then I will be the matchmaker. You are a wonderful catch, and I will find you a rich bride.”
“I will be in debt to your ability as well as to your good taste.”
“Now, what is it that you wish to know?”
“I want to locate—today, if possible—three persons.”
“Are they in the States?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Their names?”
“Philip Price, Jon Dymec, Magda Shadid.”
“A mixed bag, Michael,” she said in English. “An Englishman, a Pole, and Magda, half-Syrian, half-Hungarian. I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“We’ve met. Are they in town?”
“Two of them are, Magda and Price. Dymec is temporarily in New York.”
“Can you get word to them?”
“l can.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
“Just tell them I’m at the Mayflower, and that I’m calling my loan.”
“Do you know these persons, Herr McCorkle?”
“No. They’re Mike’s friends.”
“Take my advice. Keep it that way.” She turned to Padillo. “You know, Michael, that you have piqued my curiosity and you know that I will eventually learn everything.”
Padillo turned on the smile he used to charm old ladies and snakes. “In such affairs, Madelena, the fewer who know, the less the chance for future recriminations and shattered friendships. I promise you—at the earliest opportunity—”
“Ach! Michael, you have made your promises before, but the facts I’ve had to read in Die Welt or The Times or Le Monde. By the time you return, the news will be old. You know I like the details—the grisly parts that never get printed.”
“This time I swear to you—”
“I will do as you say. I will be in touch with Price, Dymec and Shadid. Since you know who they are, you know what they are, and I do not have to warn you. It is an exceedingly strange combination. Do they know each other?”
“I have no idea,” Padillo said.
“You are the common denominator then?”
“Yes.”
“And I should not mention one to another?”
“No.”
“Consider it done.” She rose. “I shall see you to the door.” She paused by Padillo and put her hand on his arm and turned to me. “Mr. McCorkle, the persons that Michael wishes me to reach are most dangerous and, I should add, most untrustworthy.”
Padillo grinned. “What she’s trying to say is that they’re crooks who would peddle their aunts. Mac doesn’t know anyone like that, Madelena. He lives among those of noble thought and kindly deed.”
