by Ross Thomas
There were also some comfortable-looking chairs, an immense carved desk, and behind it stood Dr. Asfourh who could have lost 150 pounds and still been overweight. He was as fat as the late King Farouk I and even looked something like him, which he didn’t seem to mind at all.
“You must be Mr. Padillo,” Dr. Asfourh said in that rolling bass that to me sounded a little like spring thunder. “There’s the Spanish in your eyes.”
“The rest is Estonian,” Padillo said, accepting Dr. Asfourh’s hand. “This is my partner, Mr. McCorkle.”
“Scot?” he said as he gave me his hand which was surprisingly small, but just as plump as I’d expected.
“Some,” I said. “There’s also some Irish and some English but it all goes back so far that nobody’s really sure.”
He spread his hands in an almost imploring manner. “Do sit down, gentlemen.”
It took Dr. Asfourh a little while to seat himself because he did it cautiously, as if not too sure that the oversized executive chair was as sturdy as it looked. He grasped its arms firmly and then lowered himself into it slowly and carefully, but with a curious kind of dignity.
I guessed that he was somewhere between forty and forty-five. It’s often hard to judge the age of those who are extremely fat. His head had turned itself into the shape of a big-bottomed pear because of the jowls that draped themselves from his chin line, almost obscuring his short neck, and making it seem difficult for him to smile because his mouth didn’t like handling all that weight. But he smiled anyway—almost constantly—and I noticed that his teeth were white and even and probably capped. From the roundness of his face jutted a nose that was thin and sharp and beaked. It went with his dark, bitter eyes that flickered as they moved.
“I am Egyptian by birth, as you have probably gathered. But by choice I am an American citizen.” He paused a moment as if brooding about that choice. “So. You are from Washington and you are here for what purpose—business or pleasure?”
“Mostly business,” Padillo said. “Mr. McCorkle and I have a restaurant in Washington.”
“Really? I have been in Washington on numerous occasions. What is it called?”
“Mac’s Place,” I said.
“Just off Connecticut?”
“That’s right,” Padillo said.
“Although I have not dined there, it was recommended to me. I do believe that the person who told me of it described it as superb. Is that true?”
“It’s better than most,” Padillo said. “Superb is a word that should be carefully used when it comes to restaurants.”
Dr. Asfourh nodded his agreement as he smoothed a few long strands of black hair. He was nearly bald and the hair that was left grew just above his ears and formed several long thin arches over his white scalp. It didn’t help much, I thought. He still looked bald.
“So. You are in San Francisco for what—a new chef? Perhaps a new maitre d’?” He didn’t give us a chance to answer because he furnished his own. “No, you would be looking for neither at the Arabian Knight. It is not, as you may have noticed, a first-class joint.” He smiled contentedly at his use of the phrase.
“We’re thinking of expanding,” Padillo said. “We’ve already looked into New York and Chicago. Now we’re considering LA. and San Francisco.”
“All restaurant towns,” Dr. Asfourh said, nodding his agreement again. “However, I am still at a loss as to why you’re here. Jack’s or Ernie’s would seem far more suitable.”
“We’re also looking for a friend,” I said.
“A friend?”
“He’s from the Middle East. From Llaquah.”
“Your restaurant was recommended to us as being a kind of informal headquarters for those from the Middle East,” Padillo said.
“From Llaquah,” Dr. Asfourh said. “Very few who come here are from Llaquah. But if they do, they always seem to be in transit. And they always want something. A free meal perhaps. A place to sleep. Even,” he said, looking at us carefully, “even sometimes a place to hide.”
“Do you provide that?” Padillo said.
Dr. Asfourh took a long cigar from the humidor on his desk and lit it carefully with a wooden match. “I have not always been a restaurant owner. In Alexandria I was a physician. A dedicated one, I might add. Perhaps too dedicated. I was forced to leave my country and emigrate to yours where I hoped to resume the practice of medicine. I then still entertained most of the ideals of my profession. Dedication again. However, because of some incredible stupidity on the part of my colleagues in the American Medical Association, I was not permitted to practice in the United States unless I undertook a long, tedious and fruitless training program. Am I boring you?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“To shorten my story, I refused to undergo the training and became an illicit abortionist. They were probably the happiest—and most profitable—years of my life.” He paused as if to think about them. Fondly. “My dedication sloughed away as my bank account grew. Now, at the behest of the local authorities, I have retired from all practice. I pass the time operating this place and coming to the aid of those from the Arab world who find themselves in San Francisco—and in trouble.”
“And you do all this out of compassion?” Padillo said.
Dr. Asfourh shook his head in what he may have hoped was a regretful manner. “I am afraid not, sir. As my dedication to humanity sloughed away it was replaced by other drives. Far simpler ones. Greed. And,” he said, patting his enormous belly, “gluttony. Now the services I render my kinsmen I render only for money.”
“Have you rendered any this evening to a short, plump, bald man from Llaquah?” Padillo said.
The doctor sighed. “It is difficult to remember.”
Padillo took out his wallet and laid it on the edge of the desk.
“It gets easier,” Asfourh said.
“How much?”
One fat hand moved in a small circle. “I will pique your curiosity first. It tends to create generosity. He was accompanied by an Englishman, a tall, thin chap.”
“Go on,” I said.
“They needed a place of safety for the night. And part of the morning. I think that much should be worth a trifle.”
“How much is a trifle?”Padillo said.
“Shall we say a hundred?”
“Fifty.”
“Very well, fifty.”
Padillo pulled a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it across the smooth surface of the desk. The doctor looked at it and smiled happily.
“I gave them an address. For a price, of course.”
Padillo nodded. “What’s your price to give it to us?”
“Five hundred.”
“Two.”
“Perhaps four,” the doctor said.
“Three.”
Asfourh sighed. “I do so dislike haggling. Especially with women. That’s the only phase of being an abortionist that was distasteful. Three fifty.”
“Three twenty-five,” Padillo said.
The doctor closed his eyes and nodded. Padillo took three hundreds, a twenty, and a five from the wallet and waved them gently back and forth. The doctor opened his eyes and smiled at them. One hand started toward the bills, but Padillo said, “The address first.”
“Of course. It’s a bit south of here on Mina Street. Should I write it down for you?”
“I’d like that,” Padillo said. “You might also sign your name to it.”
The doctor shrugged, opened his desk drawer, took out a small, thick sheet of cream-colored paper, wrote the address, signed his name, and then smiled faintly as if he liked the look of his signature. He held out both hands, one to extend the paper and the other to receive the money. Padillo handed me the address as the doctor picked up the fifty-dollar bill from his desk, joined it to the other bills, and put them away in a pocket of his dark suit. He smiled again as if the feel of money made him happy.
Padillo and I rose and started to turn when the doctor cleared his th
roat as though there was something else that he would like to say, but wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up.
He looked at Padillo and then at me and then back at Padillo.
“I sold that information cheaply, gentlemen, very cheaply, indeed.”
“I don’t think it was cheap,” Padillo said.
“Demand always drives up the price.”
“What demand?”
The doctor clasped his hands comfortably across his belly. “That in itself seems to be worth something, don’t you think?”
“How much?”
“A hundred,” he said. “And this time, no haggling.”
Padillo turned to me. “Have you got it?”
“Barely.”
“Pay him.”
I took two fifties from my billfold and laid them on the desk. The doctor eyed them fondly.
“What demand?” Padillo said, his tone edged with harshness.
“Not fifteen minutes before you arrived, two other gentlemen were here inquiring about the mysterious stranger from Llaquah.”
“Did you give them the address?” I said.
“Of course not, Mr. McCorkle.” He paused to smile. “I sold it to them for five hundred dollars. They didn’t haggle at all.”
21
THE ADDRESS that Asfourh had given us was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth on Mina, a street that would have been an alley in any other town and didn’t go much of any place in San Francisco. It was a small grim street with small grim two-story houses and I had the feeling that small grim people lived in them.
Somebody chose white the last time the houses were painted, but it had been a cheap job and now the paint was going, the victim of weather, city grime, and what I assumed to be collective indifference.
The houses were built nearly alike with small bay windows. Some of the windows displayed discouraged-looking potted plants. Others had been turned into pathetic shrines that featured tinted terra-cotta statues of Jesus, Mary, and assorted saints. And some of the windows offered nothing but shades that were drawn all the way down. The house that we were looking for was one of these.
Padillo and Wanda Gothar stared at it carefully as I drove past it toward Sixteenth.
“Chicano,” Padillo said.
“The neighborhood?”
“This street anyway.”
“I thought nice folks called them Mexican-Americans.”
“Nice folks might,” he said, “but us Chicanos don’t.”
“Ah. You’re going to try to pass.”
“Something like that,” he said. “Go around the block and see how close you can park to that house.”
I parked on the sidewalk next to a no parking sign three houses down. The sidewalk was where everyone else in that block parked. I turned and watched Padillo take off his necktie and unfasten three of his shirt buttons. “You have any lipstick?” he asked Wanda.
“Of course,” Wanda said.
“Put it on. A lot of it. Mess up your hair, too. Look sloppy.” He turned to me. “Loosen your tie and look a little drunk. In fact, we’re all going to seem a little drunk. The Mex and his two gringo friends.”
“It so happens that I have the remains of a pint here which might lend a little verisimilitude.”
“Pass it around,” Padillo said, taking his automatic from his waistband and checking it quickly.
I took the pint from beneath the seat, uncorked it, and handed it to Wanda. She took a drink and passed it to Padillo who drank deeply and then poured some of the whisky into his palm and rubbed it on his lapels. He handed the bottle to me and since there wasn’t much left, only three or four swallows, I finished it off and felt some better. Not much, but some.
“You really think Kassim and Scales are still alive in there if Kragstein had a fifteen-minute lead on us?” Wanda said, running her hands through her pale blond hair, mussing it in vain, I thought, because she still looked pretty. Perhaps even beautiful.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Padillo said.
Wanda carefully applied some pale pink lipstick with three sure strokes. “You could tell me why you don’t think Kragstein and Gitner killed my brother.”
“When you come out of that house, you may know.”
She turned to look at him. “You’re still not sure, are you?”
“I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
“Is there anything else you trust?”
“Sure,” Padillo said, “my feelings.”
“Strange,” she said. “I didn’t think you had any.”
It looked as if it might go on for the rest of the night, so I said, “It’s getting late. If it’s going to be done, let’s do it.”
“All right,” Padillo said. “I’m the Mex pimp. I’m looking for a room where the three of us can have fun.”
Wanda swore in German. I thought she did it quite well. Padillo ignored her. “Both of you just follow my lead. If they don’t want to let us in, we go in anyway, so keep whatever you’re shooting with handy.”
“It’s not what I’d call a carefully laid plan,” Wanda said.
Padillo grinned at her. “Yet there’s much to be said for the rewarding freshness of improvisation.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said, “let’s go.”
The house had no front yard. It was flush with the sidewalk and its bay window bellied out over it for a foot or so. The door was to the left of the window at the top of three wooden steps. Padillo slouched toward it and I followed, a little unsteadily, my left arm around Wanda who clutched her purse to her breasts, one hand inside of it, her finger probably on the trigger of the Walther PPK.
Padillo was leaning toward the door, his left palm resting on its jamb. He banged on it with his right fist. When no one answered, he banged again and in Spanish yelled for the crazy goats to open the door.
That got a response. The door opened about ten inches and a sleek young male head with a welter of long black, carefully combed hair popped out and yelled at Padillo to shut up. Padillo became all charm. He could do that when he wanted to. This time his charm was a little tipsy, but it was still there. In quick, idiomatic Spanish accompanied by a number of leers and gestures, he described what he wanted—a room where he and the two gringos could have fun. The young man with the long black hair looked at us with distaste. I nibbled Wanda Gothar’s right ear. She smiled at the young man. He seemed to want no part of us until Padillo started to wave a twenty-dollar bill under his nose. The young man looked at us again, grimaced, shrugged, said something to Padillo in Spanish that I didn’t catch, and then jerked his head toward the interior of the house.
Padillo started to go in first, but the young man blocked his entrance until the twenty-dollar bill changed hands. We followed Padillo into a hall. To the right was the living room with its bay window. The young man waved his hand toward it and told Padillo, “Go in there and wait. Someone will come to attend you.”
“How long, friend?” Padillo said.
“Only a few minutes.”
“That could be a long wait without something to drink.”
“It will cost extra.”
“The large foolish fat one will pay.”
They were speaking Spanish, but it was simple enough for me to follow and I saw no cause for Padillo to be quite so graphic. He turned to me and said in a carefully accented voice, “We will all have a leetle drink, no? But it will cost.”
“How much, pal?”
He shrugged. “Ten dollar.”
“We oughta have a hell of a lot of little drinks for that,” I said, but fumbled in my pocket, took out a crumpled wad of bills, and extricated a ten with all the careful concentration of a drunk. Padillo took it and handed it to the young man who tucked it away in a pocket of his tightfitting bell-bottomed black jeans. He wore a white nylon see-through shirt that was open to the waist so we could all admire the coiled rattlesnake that was tattooed on his hairless chest. He was all of nineteen and cute as a young scorpion.
The living ro
om wasn’t much. A large, color TV set was the principal attraction surrounded by a miscellany of furniture, most of it worn. There was a round oak table with four chairs at the end of the room near a door which led into the kitchen. We sat at the table.
“I’m going to argue with whoever comes in,” Padillo said. “I’m going to insist on seeing the young punk again. When they both come back, we take them.”
I nodded at him. Wanda Gothar didn’t nod nor did she say anything. She merely sat at the table, the purse on her lap, staring at the door and looking a little impatient and a little prim, as if wondering why the tea were late.
They came in fast, quite fast, the slim young one with the tattooed chest and the other one, bigger, older, and mean-looking. They separated quickly; the young one remained by the door and the other one, the mean-looking one, almost sprinted across the room. We didn’t move, primarily because of the revolvers that each of them pointed at us. We stared at the two men and they stared back. The younger one with the see-through shirt started to say something, perhaps Put your hands up or Keep them where they are, but he never got it out because Wanda Gothar shot him in the chest, right through the head of the tattooed rattlesnake.
The man with the mean look turned to stare at the younger one. He had an opportunity to note the surprise that flitted across the young man’s face before pain moved in, twisting the features into a caricature of agony that stayed there as he crumpled to the floor.
The older man started to turn back toward us, but Padillo was already across the room. His automatic slashed at the man’s right wrist and the man’s revolver flew away and I remember hoping that it wouldn’t go off when it landed. The man yelled and grabbed his wrist and started to look around wildly, but then decided that there was nothing half so interesting as the automatic that Padillo held three inches away from his nose. The man had to cross his eyes to focus on it.
I looked back at the young man on the floor and the agony had gone from his face. He looked relaxed now. Relaxed and dead. Wanda Gothar wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she examined the hole that she had shot through her purse. It wasn’t a big hole and she seemed to be wondering whether she could have it repaired.