night, Mac?”
“Yes.”
“Tell anyone else?”
“No.”
“What have they got on you, Cook?” Padillo asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean what has the opposition got on you—what kind of blackmail? What have you done that’s so bad that you’d kill a man like Weatherby? And you killed him: nobody else could have, because nobody knew he was going there except you and Mac.”
“You’re nuts. I just don’t want to get killed going over that wall.”
“I think you’re a sleeper, Cook. I think they’ve just been waiting to use you for something like this.”
“You’re rambling,” Cooky said.
“No. You’re not doing it for money: you’ve got enough. Not out of conviction: you don’t have any. It could only be blackmail. What was it, Cook? Pictures?”
“We’re going to turn ourselves in,” Cooky said, but his voice didn’t have much conviction.
“No easy way,” Padillo said. “You’ll have to make us.”
Cooky looked as if he wanted to say something else but changed his mind. He seemed to shrug, but his shoulder dipped quickly and his hip rolled. The gun was almost pointing at Padillo when Cooky’s nose disappeared and the ugly red blotch opened in his throat. Then Cooky’s gun went off and the bullet smacked into the floor. Padillo had fired twice. The shots slammed Cooky back over a chair. He was dead by the time he fell from the chair to the floor. The gunpowder smell was sharp and metallic and my ears rang. My hands still rested on the table, the palms grew wet, and I felt the sweat gather in my armpits. Padillo shook his head in a gesture of embarrassment or disgust and stuck the revolver back in his waistband.
“I just outdrew the fastest gun in East Berlin,” he said. “Except that he was drunk.”
“It all went a little quickly for me,” I said.
“Search him, Max. Keep the money; burn the rest.”
I got up and walked over to one of the cots and got a blanket. I threw it down by the body. “You can cover him up with this,” I told Max.
Padillo walked around the table, bent, and picked up Cooky’s Smith and Wesson. He looked at it curiously. “Mine shot high,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve used it.”
“Well?” I said.
Padillo poured himself a glass of vodka. Then he poured two more for Max and me. He held his glass with both hands and looked down into it. “If you go back far enough, you can dig up something in his past that he thought was God-awful—that he didn’t think he could live with.” Padillo sighed and took a swallow of his drink. “Maybe that’s why he drank too much and lied too much and chased the girls. And, after a while, maybe he blamed it on everything.
“He was sauced when he came to see me one time. He didn’t show it, but he never did very much. Until now. He told me that he knew what I was up to and that if I ever needed any help, just to let him know. But he told you that. Cook also said that he had certain connections and so forth. He talked in circles, but it was enough for me to know that I was blown. I kidded him along. Did he tell you that one of his girl friends told him about me?”
“Yes.”
“They may get drunk and they may talk in the sack, but they didn’t know about me. The only way Cook could have found out on our side was from Burmser or Hatcher—or you. And none of you would talk. He had been tipped off by somebody in the opposition; and if he was tipped off, then he had to be working for them.”
“Not for money,” I said.
“No, but because they knew all about his horrible secret, whatever it was. Maybe he was drunk when it happened, or maybe he got to be a lush afterward. It doesn’t matter now. I had you get him to have the place swept because I wanted to keep tabs on him. When he showed up with you here, I was certain that he was in on it somehow. Maybe they were impressed with the way he could handle a gun.”
“He was gay,” Symmes said dully. “Maybe you think it’s silly, but we can tell. We have to be able to tell.”
“There’s one expert’s opinion,” Padillo said.
“One thing bothers me. Cooky had to get rung in on this, but I called him myself.”
“Why?”
“To borrow five thousand.”
“And who said you needed five thousand?”
“Maas—and the light dawns clearly. Maas set up the tunnel deal so I would have to call Cooky for the money.”
“Don’t sell your fat friend short,” Padillo said. “He just might have a tunnel. I’d be willing to bet that Cook set the deal up with Maas. Cook was the only source that you could get that much money from in a hurry. I’ll bet another buck that he was sitting by his phone, the money in his briefcase, just waiting for you to call. I don’t care how much he has on deposit: getting five thousand dollars out of Deutsche Bank at four in the afternoon is damn near impossible.”
“But why kill Weatherby?”
“It gave him the excuse to tag along, for one thing; and he may have been given instructions to kill him if he
