“We happen to know that your partner, Mr. Padillo, was here yesterday when the shooting took place.”
“Yes.”
“I think you can talk frankly with us,” Burmser said.
“I’m trying to.”
“We’re not so much interested in the man who got killed: he was a small-time agent. We’re more interested in the man he met here. A Herr Maas.”
“What about him?”
“You met him on the plane coming back from Berlin yesterday,” Burmser recited. “You struck up a conversation and then offered him a ride to your restaurant.”
“I told all that to the police, to Lieutenant Wentzel.”
“But you didn’t tell Wentzel that Padillo was here.”
“No; Mike asked me not to.”
“I supposed you know that Padillo occasionally does some work for us?”
I took a long drink. “How long have you been in Bonn, Mr. Burmser?”
“Two and a half—three years.”
“I’ve been here thirteen, not counting my time with MAAG. Look in your files. You should know how this place was opened. I was blackjacked into taking Padillo on as a partner. I’m not sorry I did. He’s a damn good man when he’s not studying airline schedules. I know he works for one of your outfits, but I never asked which one. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to get tangled up in
I think Hatcher blushed a little, but Burmser kept boring in. “We’re concerned about Padillo. He was to catch a flight yesterday. To Frankfurt. And then from Frankfurt to Berlin. But he went to Frankfurt by train; he wasn’t on the flight to Berlin.”
“So he missed a flight.”
“This was a very important flight, Mr. McCorkle.”
“Look,” I said. “For all I know he was on Flight 487 to Moscow with a connection to Peiping. After he got the plans, he was to disguise himself as a coolie and take a sampan down to Hong Kong. Or maybe he met a broad in Frankfurt, bought himself a couple of fifths of Martell, and shacked up in the Savigny. I don’t know where he is. I wish I did. He’s my partner and I’d like him back. I never got used to the idea of being in business with a guy who caught more planes than a traveling salesman. I’d like him to get out of the spook business and help write up the menus and order the booze.”
“Yes,” Burmser said. “Yes, I can understand all that. But we have reason to believe that this man Maas had something to do with the fact that Padillo missed his flight to Berlin.”
“Well, I think your belief is founded on faulty reasoning. Maas was at my place at four o'clock this morning carrying a brief case and a Luger and drinking my Scotch. When I left shortly before eleven he was still there snoring on my living-room couch.”
Maybe they send them through a special school where they are taught not to express surprise or emotion. Perhaps they stick pins in each other and the one who says “ouch” gets a black star for the day. They showed no more surprise than if I had told them that it was nice this morning, but it looks like rain this afternoon.
“What did Maas say to you, McCorkle?” Hatcher asked. His voice was flat and not particularly friendly.
“I told him why I was going to boot his ass out and then he told me why I wasn’t. He said he knew where Mike was going and why and that he’d let the Bonn police know that plus the fact that Mike was here when the shooting took place unless I let him spend the night. What the hell—I let him spend the night.
“He said he had an appointment at noon today. He didn’t say where, I didn’t ask.”
“Was there anything else—anything at all?”
“He thanked me for the Scotch and I told him to go to hell. That’s all. Absolutely all.”
Hatcher started to recite. “After Padillo arrived at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff he had a glass of beer. Then he made a phone call. He spoke to no one in person. He then went to the Savigny Hotel, where he checked into a room. He went up in the elevator and stayed in his room for eight minutes and then came down to the bar. He sat down at the table of a couple who have been identified an American tourists. This was at eight-fifteen. At eight- thirty he excused himself and went to the men’s room, leaving his cigarette case and lighter on the table. He never came back from the men’s room, and that’s the last trace we’ve had of him.”
“So he’s disappeared,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? Just exactly what is it you want?”
Burmser ground his cigarette out into the ash tray. He frowned, and his tanned forehead developed four deep wrinkles. “Maas is important to Padillo,” he said in the voice of the patient teacher to the mayor’s retarded son. “First, because only he—besides us—knew Padillo was to catch that plane. And, second, because Padillo did not catch the plane.”
He paused and then continued in the same patient voice. “If Maas knows of the particular assignment that Padillo is on, then we want to call it off. Padillo is of no use on it. His cover is blown.”
“I take it you’d like him back,” I said.
“Yes, Mr. McCorkle. We would like him back very much.”
“And you think Maas knows what happened?”
“We think he’s the key.”
“O.K., if Maas drops by, I’ll tell him to call you before he calls Lieutenant Wentzel. And if Padillo happens to give me a ring, I’ll tell him you’ve asked after his health.”
