“Very wet,” I said, “and he didn’t like Rhinelanders.”
“A home-town boy, I take it?”
“Very.”
“Drink?”
“Just some coffee.”
Hilde, a cocktail-hour waitress, came up and ordered a Steinhaeger and a Coke for Herr Maas and the man he came to Bonn to meet. They were the only customers in the place.
“Who’s your friend?” Padillo asked, nodding toward Maas.
“A fat little man who carries a big fat gun. He says his name is Maas.”
“I don’t care for guns,” Padillo said, “but I care less for the company he keeps.”
“Know him?”
“Just who he is. Vaguely attached to the Jordanian Embassy.”
“Trouble?”
“Something like that.”
Karl slid my coffee over to me.
“You ever hear of a seven-layer mint frappe?” he said.
“Only in New Orleans.”
“Maybe that’s where this chick was from. She comes in at lunch and orders one. Mike never taught me to make no seven-layer mint frappe.”
“A seven-layer mint frappe,” I said automatically. A war orphan, Karl had picked up his English just outside the Army’s huge PX in Frankfurt, where, in his early teens, he had made a precarious living by buying cigarettes from soldiers and selling them on the black market. He was a good bartender, but his grammar needed a little polish. His Americanese had virtually no German accent.
“So what did you do?” I asked.
He didn’t get the chance to say. Padillo grabbed me by the left shoulder, kicked my legs out from under me, and slammed me to the floor. I turned as I fell and glimpsed the pair of them, faces covered with white handkerchiefs, running toward the table where Maas and his friend sat. They fired four shots and the sound hurt my sinus cavities. Padillo had fallen on top of me. We got up in time to see Herr Maas darting out the door, his shabby brief case banging against his fat legs. Hilde, the cocktail waitress, stood frozen in a corner, a tray forgotten in her hand. Then she screamed and Padillo snapped at Karl to go over and shut her up. Karl, pale under his sun-lamp tan, moved quickly from around the bar and began talking to the girl in what he intended to be soothing words. They only seemed to make her more upset, but she at least stopped screaming.
Padillo and I went over to the table where Herr Maas and his late friend had sat. The friend was sprawled back in his chair, his eyes staring fixedly at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open. It was too dark to see any blood. He had been in life a small, dark man with smooth black hair that was combed straight back in a pompadour with no part. His features were sharp with a hooked nose and a weak chin that seemed to have been in need of a shave. He may have been quick in his movements, volatile in his talk. Now he was just dead—only a dummy that presented problems.
Padillo looked at him without expression. “They’ll probably find four slugs right in his heart in a two-inch group. They seemed like pros.”
I could still smell the shots. “You want me to call the Polizei?”
Padillo looked at me absently and gnawed some on his lower lip. “I wasn’t here, Mac,” he said. “I was down in Bonn having a beer. Or up on Petersberg checking the opposition. Just so I wasn’t here. They wouldn’t have liked me to be here, and I’ve got to catch a plane tonight.”
“I can fix it with Hilde and Karl. The kitchen help’s still on their afternoon break, aren’t they?”
Padillo nodded. “We’ve got time for a quick one before you call.” We walked over to the bar and Padillo went behind it and took down the dimpled bottle of Haig. He poured two stiff ones. Karl was still over in the corner making soothing noises to Hilde, and I noticed his hands were patting the right places.
“After I catch that plane tonight, I should be back in ten days, maybe two weeks.”
“Why don’t you tell them you’ve come down with a bad cold?”
Padillo took a swallow of his drink and smiled. “I don’t much care for this trip. It’s a little more than routine.”
“Anything else I should know?”
He looked as if he wanted to say something; then he shrugged. “No. Nothing. Just keep me clean. Give me two minutes and then call the cops. O.K.?”
He finished his drink and came around from the bar. “Have fun,” I said.
“Same to you.”
We didn’t shake hands. We never did. I watched Padillo go out the door. He didn’t seem to walk as quickly as he once had. He seemed to stand just a little less straight.
I finished my drink, walked over and helped comfort Hilde for a moment, and fixed it up with her and Karl about how Padillo wasn’t there when the small dark man had had his last drink of Coca-Cola. Then I walked over to the bar, picked up the phone, and called the police.
After that I sat down at the bar and wondered about Padillo and where he was going. I thought about that, but not too much. Then I wondered about Herr Maas and his slight, dark friend and about the masked pair who came in
