by Ross Thomas
“I remember him,” Padillo said.
“Well, the poor fellow simply couldn’t bear to keep the adventure to himself. Went back and told his wife the whole thing after making her swear a black oath of secrecy.”
“But she talked?”
“Of course.”
“To whom?”
“To her sister—my wife.”
Padillo got up and walked around the room. “Can we order some liquor up here?” he asked me.
“Just pick up the phone and tell room service to send up a fifth and some ice.”
He picked up the phone and placed the order. Then he turned to Underhill again.
“You said you saw me in Lomé—from a distance. Why were you in Lomé?”
“I was keeping an eye on the pair that approached you. Mr. Padillo, I must again stress that ours is a small white community among some two million natives. There are a number of us who are determined that the entire country shall not be plunged into social and economic chaos because of the stubbornness and hatred and even cruelty of other whites. We have collected a sum of money—some of us donated savings, others of us mortgaged property—and we intend to use this fund to prevent that old fool Van Zandt from becoming a martyr. If you were to kill him, it would send us headlong into a blood bath. I’m a professor of Romance languages at our university, so I may not be skilled at the proper way to go about conducting such negotiations as these, but I am prepared to offer you seventeen thousand pounds not to kill Van Zandt. It may not be as much as they are offering, but it is all we could raise. If you reject our offer and accept the assassination assignment, then I must discover a way of killing you.”
“Why don’t you just go to the police?” I said. “Or to the FBI. Has everybody stopped taking from them?”
“That must be an Americanism,” Underhill said.
“Sort of,” Padillo said.
“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t been to your police or FBI because we simply don’t want them—or anyone in your government—to learn about the plot right now. It’s weird enough as it stands, but if your government were to discover the details, they would approach the Prime Minister when he arrives. He would deny the entire thing, and that would be the end of it.”
“You see, gentlemen, we want the attempt to be made, but we want it to fail. Even more important, we must obtain proof that the plot was hatched, directed and paid for by Van Zandt and his supporters. We are prepared to offer you the seventeen thousand pounds to do this for us, Mr. Padillo—and Mr. McCorkle, of course.”
“Your friends in Lomé made a similar proposition,” Padillo said. “They said they’d kill me if I didn’t assassinate the Prime Minister. They made that promise after I turned down their previous proposition involving a sum of dollars which amounted to somewhat more than you’re offering.”
Underhill nodded his head. “Yes, they’re a bloodthirsty lot. I must confess that I have no idea about how I’d go about doing it. Killing you, I mean. What is their latest offer?”
“They’ve offered to kill my wife if Padillo doesn’t kill Van Zandt,” I said. “They’ve kidnapped her.”
“Dear me. That does put you in an awkward position, doesn’t it?”
There was a knock on the door and Al, the room-service waiter, bustled in with the bottle of Scotch, the glasses and the ice. He wanted to know how we were and we told him we were fine. Padillo signed the check and Al went out the door trailing a string of “Thank you, sirs” behind him. I poured the drinks and asked Underhill if he wanted ice in his. He said no.
“Mr. Underhill,” Padillo said. “I have no intention of killing your Prime Minister.”
“Delighted to hear it. Although I must say that you have a most impressive record in that sort of thing.”
“What makes you think so?”
“There was this chap from Berlin who looked us up and offered to sell us the same information that he’d sold Van Zandt’s people. Charged us two hundred pounds. Lord knows how much Van Zandt and that crowd paid. The information was about you—a rather extensive dossier, I should add. Mr. McCorkle was mentioned, too. You owned a restaurant together in Bonn, I believe.”
The conversation was skittering from topic to topic. Either Underhill was a first rate dissembler, or he had one of the least organized minds I’d run across. I tried to get back on a pertinent course. “Mr. Underhill, do you have any idea who has my wife and where they may be keeping her?”
“I can probably make a very good guess as to who has her. There’s a chance that I can give you some information as to where she’s being held. But it would seem that’s a rather good bargaining point for me, wouldn’t you say?”
“I suggest that you not bargain with Mr. McCorkle about his wife,” Padillo said.
“No, I suppose not. It’s a terribly cruel thing to do.”
“But not as cruel as what Mr. McCorkle will do to you if you don’t tell him.”
“Who has her?” I said.
“Wendell Boggs and Lewis Darragh, most probably.”
“Who are they?”
“One’s Minister of Transport; the other’s Minister of Home Affairs. They’re the ones who met with Mr. Padillo in Lomé.”
“You’re saying that two of your cabinet Ministers have my wife?”
“Probably did the kidnapping, too. They’re both fairly young chaps—about your age. Quite capable of anything really. I know they’re both here in the country.”
“Do you know where they are staying?”
“They have a secret house here in Washington, I understand. I was given the address, but it’s with my gear at the hotel. Afraid I can’t remember it. Have a terrible memory for figures and things like that.”
“How did you learn about the house?”
“My wife told me. Boggs is my brother-in-law, you know. His wife and mine are sisters and my sister-in-law thought that Wendell was heading for grief so she confided in my wife. Wendell apparently tells his wife everything, poor fellow. I wrote the address down because I knew I would forget it and it possibly might prove useful.”
“Where are you staying?”
“At the LaSalle—it’s just across the street.”
I made my voice slow and my tone measured. “Let’s go across the street and up to your room and find the address.”
“Could we then discuss my plan to botch up the attempt on Van Zandt’s life?”
“We’ll talk about it,” Padillo said.
“I don’t know what you usually get for a job of work like this, Mr. Padillo, but seventeen thousand pounds is a great deal of money in my country.”
“It is in any country,” Padillo said, holding the door open.
We took the zebra-striped cross walk at Connecticut and De Sales. Underhill walked slightly ahead of us at a brisk pace, puffing on his pipe, his thin arms swinging. Padillo moved more slowly, wincing slightly.
“The cut bothering you?” I asked.
Padillo started to say something but the car came out of the space in front of the drugstore and was going at least thirty-five when its bumper caught Underbill’s knees and its hood found his chest and slammed him to the pavement. Padillo, slightly behind me, caught my arm and jerked me back. But it wasn’t necessary. The green Ford missed me by at least two feet. It rolled over the thin grey man who taught Romance languages and who had no idea as to how he would go about killing someone. Its left rear wheel rolled over his head. The car picked up speed, slowed for a corner at L Street, turned right and disappeared. A man seated by the driver looked back once.
Padillo ignored the pain in his side and moved quickly to Underhill. A crowd formed and everyone was saying “get an ambulance,” but nobody did anything about it. The pipe that Underhill had been smoking lay a foot from what had been his head. Its ashes were spilled on the pavement.
Padillo knelt by the body and his hands went quickly through the pockets. He glanced up at the circle of faces that stared down at him. He picked out one. “Call an
ambulance,” he said to a young man. “He’s still alive.” The man turned and ran towards the drugstore. Padillo rose and backed into the crowd. I was next to him. We turned and walked down the street towards K, away from the crowd.
“I got his key,” Padillo said.
“Let’s try it.”
The LaSalle hotel is about one-third commercial offices, one-third transients, and the remaining third permanent guests who like living downtown. There are no chairs in the small lobby and no one watches who takes the automatic elevators. We took one and got off on the seventh floor and followed the numbers down to the end of the hall. Underhill had a nine-dollar room that had twin beds, an air-conditioner and a television set that was old enough not be be able to get the UHF stations. His worn pigskin suitcase was in the closet along with another tweed suit and an old Burberry raincoat. Their pockets contained nothing; neither did his suitcase.
Padillo went through the bureau drawers while I investigated the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. It had a badger hair shaving brush, soap, a toothbrush and paste, some dental floss, a set of military hairbrushes, and a comb with some grey hairs in it. The items were all neatly arranged. Underhill may have had a cluttered mind, but he kept his personal effects tidy.
Padillo found the address we were looking for in a bureau drawer. It was written in a small black Leathersmith notebook which listed Underbill’s wife under the line that read: “In the event of an accident please notify:” I copied the address in Washington that we wanted and Padillo ran through the rest of the notebook quickly. “There’s nothing else that seems to be of any use,” he said and tossed it back in the drawer. “I did find this,” he added. He held up an envelope-shaped briefcase and unsnapped it for me. It was packed with five-pound British notes done up neatly in bundles and the label on each bundle said that it contained five hundred pounds.
“The seventeen thousand,” I said.
“Probably.”
“Shall we take it?”
“Better us than the Van Zandt crowd,” Padillo said. “We can get it back to his wife who’ll know where it came from.”
“She seemed to know everything.”
“At least she knew about the address of the secret house. What was it?”
“The 2900 block on Cambridge Place, Northwest.”
“You know where it is?”
“Vaguely. It’s in Georgetown.”
“That’s hardly a Negro district.”
“Not for the past thirty-five years or so.”
“We’d better go back to my place and see if I’ve had any calls.”
We took the elevator down and crossed Connecticut. On the other side of the street, just across from the Mayflower, a pair of D.C. Accident Investigation cars were drawn up to the curb, their red and white lights blinking and circling. Two policemen were asking questions of some persons who kept shaking their heads as if they knew nothing. Another policeman was measuring something with a tape, and another one was sprinkling sand or sawdust on what looked to be a wet spot on the pavement. Evelyn Underhill had been taken away. I found myself wondering if it had been his first trip to the United States.
We rode the elevator upstairs and as Padillo opened the door with his key we could hear the telephone ring. He crossed the room, answered it, and turned to me. “It’s for you,” he said.
I said hello and the voice on the other end said: “You don’t seem overly concerned about the continued well-being of your wife, Mr. McCorkle.” It was a voice that just escaped being British. It was closer to an Australian or a Cape Town accent.
“I’m concerned,” I said. “Do you have my wife?”
“Yes, we do. Until now she has been quite comfortable. But you have been disobeying our instructions, Mr. McCorkle. Those instructions were quite explicit.”
“Let me talk to my wife.”
“You were instructed to tell no one about Mr. Padillo’s assignment.”
“We’ve told no one,” I said. “I want to talk to my wife.”
“You talked to Underhill.”
“I can’t help who comes into a hotel room.”
“What did Underhill want, Mr. McCorkle?”
“He wanted to stay alive for one thing. Just put my wife on the phone.”
“Did you tell him about Mr. Padillo’s assignment?”
“We didn’t have to tell him; he already knew. Somebody’s wife told him; maybe it was yours. Now can I talk to mine?”
“Does Mr. Padillo plan to carry out his assignment? I must again caution you, we are deadly serious.”
“Yes,” I said. “He plans to carry it out, but only if I talk to my wife and find out whether she’s still alive.”
“Very well, Mr. McCorkle, you may say hello to Mrs. McCorkle.”
“Fredl—are you all right?”
“Yes, darling, I’m all right; just terribly tired.” Her voice was quiet, almost resigned.
“I’m doing everything I can. Mike’s here.”
“I know. I heard.”
“Are they treating you all right?”
“Yes, they’re treating me fine, but—” And then her voice broke off and she screamed and the man’s voice came back on the phone.
“We have treated her well, up until now, Mr. McCorkle. You see, we really are in earnest.”
Then he hung up.
EIGHT
I stood in the room and held the phone in my hand and stared at it. Then I put it back where it belonged and turned to Padillo. “They made her scream,” I said. “They hurt her somehow and made her scream.”
He nodded and turned away to look out the window. “They won’t keep it up. They did it for effect.”
“She doesn’t scream much,” I said. “She didn’t scream just because they turned a mouse loose in the room.”
“No. They hurt her. They probably twisted her arm, but they won’t keep on doing it. They have nothing to gain. She doesn’t know where we hid the emeralds.”
“I don’t think I can just sit here much longer.”
“We have to wait,” he said.
“I’d like to wait while I’m doing something.”
“You’re cracking,” he said. “That’s doing something.” He walked over to where I stood by the phone. “You may as well memorize this: Either they’ll kill her or we’ll get her loose, but we can’t do that if you crack because she didn’t get to take her nightie.”
“If I’m cracking, it’s because I believe them. I’m impressed. My wife’s screams have a certain effect on me. I’d believe them if they said they were going to nominate her Miss Department of Commerce.”
“We wait,” Padillo said and his voice was like the snap of a whip. “The waiting’s part of their pressure. It’s hard and they know it’s hard and they also know that her screams will make you jumpy about any rescue plan we come up with. But if we don’t come up with one, she’s dead. And you and I aren’t good enough to operate by ourselves. Maybe a few years ago, but not now. We need help. We have to wait for that help.”
“We wait,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “We wait.”
I forced myself to mix a drink and turn on the television set and watch a program that asked a panel of scruffy housewives to guess the total cost of a hydroplane, a home printing press with three fonts of type, a case of suntan oil, and a year’s supply of cream of potato soup. I guessed $29,458.42. I guessed it aloud, but a woman from Memphis won with a guess of $36,000. I would have liked to have the printing press.
“You watch television much?” Padillo asked.
“Some,” I said. “It’s like China. If you ignore it, it just gets worse.”
Padillo tried pricing the next batch of goodies and placed a poor third, well behind a blonde from Galveston and a grandmother from St. Paul. The grandmother won a motor scooter, some electric stilts that looked interesting, a scholarship to a photography school, a four-foot world globe, and a Japanese sports car. Padillo said he would have liked to have the globe.<
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The telephone rang and I switched off the set as Padillo answered. It seemed to be long distance and after the operator made sure it was Padillo, she let him say hello. Then he listened. After he was through listening he said: “I’m calling that loan you have with us. I have to call it today.” He listened some more and then said: “Good. I’ll expect you at this address.” He gave the address on Fairmont street where Hardman’s girl friend lived. Then he said goodbye and replaced the phone. “That was Jon Dymec calling from New York. He’s at La Guardia and just missed the shuttle. He’ll catch the next one.”
Within the next half-hour the phone rang twice and each time Padillo repeated his terse conversation. He didn’t have to argue or explain or cajole. All he did was to mention that he was calling the loan.
“Friends of yours?” I asked.
“Hardly.”
“Who, then?”
“Agents I have known. Dymec is a Pole and works for Polish intelligence. He’s got a UN cover, but spends most of his time in Washington. The girl Magda Shadid works for both Hungary and Syria, and they both probably know it but keep her on because she’s inexpensive and they don’t have too many secrets that they give a damn about not sharing anyhow. The last one, Philip Price, is British and uses a soft-drink company as his cover.”
“What’s the handle you have on them?”
“I doubled all three of them. They all work for Uncle Sam now.”
“And if they don’t go along, you’ll tattle to their original employers.”
“That’s it—except that I don’t leave myself quite that open. There are the usual envelopes that our lawyer in Bonn would mail. It’s old, but it works.”
“Didn’t he think you were dead? He told me how sorry he was that you were.”
“I told him to. I called him from Switzerland.”
“He was my lawyer, too,” I said.
“He’s very discreet, isn’t he?”