separated tables, two obviously married couples dawdled over coffee and dessert, as if dreading the prospect of home and bed. A pair of waiters, one old, the other young, stood talking quietly in their native tongue. Something the young waiter said made the old one yawn.
Herr Horst, his coat off, was making short work of a trout at the management table near the kitchen’s swinging doors. He looked up from his supper, saw Haynes and pointed, thumb over shoulder, to the office in the rear, then returned to the trout.
When he reached the office door, Haynes knocked, waited for the “Come in” and entered to find Padillo, in shirt sleeves and loosened tie, seated at what Haynes thought was his side of the partners desk, a pot of coffee and two cups at his elbow. Padillo indicated the brown leather couch. Haynes sat down.
“Why would anyone kill her?” Padillo asked.
Haynes said, “Where’d you first meet Steady?”
“Coffee?” Padillo said.
Haynes shook his head.
Padillo poured himself a cup, sipped it, put the cup down, leaned back in the chair, put his feet on the desk and crossed them at the ankles, revealing muted argyle socks but no shoes. “I met him in Africa,” Padillo said. “In the early sixties.”
“Where in Africa?”
“What’re we going to do—trade confidences?”
“It might be useful.”
After thinking about it, Padillo said, “Then I’ll go first and begin with Isabelle. Maybe I’ll get to Steady later. Maybe not.”
“Fine,” Haynes said.
With his feet still on the desk, his hands and forearms relaxed on the arms of his chair, Padillo, staring at Haynes, began to speak in a voice so quiet and uninflected it was almost a monotone. Leaning forward a little to make certain he missed nothing, Haynes suspected Padillo must have used that same quiet voice to tell truths, half-truths and lies to other trained listeners, and found himself wondering who they were and what languages had been spoken.
“Nine years ago this month,” Padillo said, “a twenty-four-year-old French woman walked in here and introduced herself as Isabelle Gelinet of Agence France-Presse. She said she’d been sent over from Paris to write fluff features on the presidential campaign and election. But she didn’t want to write fluff and wondered whether I could help her with advice, tips, introductions, anything. Her sole personal reference was a letter from Tinker Burns to me.”
“Not the most impeccable reference,” Haynes said.
“But an interesting one.”
“Where’d you first meet Tinker?” Haynes asked.
“In France.”
“When?”
“March of ’forty-five.”
“Was that after he parachuted in with the fifty thousand in gold that fell into the Loire and never quite made it to the Resistance?”
“One of Steady’s taller tales, right?”
Haynes confirmed the guess with a nod and said, “They send you after Tinker?”
“Who?”
“The OSS.”
“I had better things to do,” Padillo said. “But in ’forty-six in Marseilles, I believe I did bump into Tinker again and mention that the Army’s CID was getting warm, thus earning his eternal gratitude. On Tinker time, of course, eternity is about two and a half weeks.”
“That must’ve been when he joined the Legion.”
“About then,” Padillo said. “But to get back to Isabelle. When she walked in here with nothing but Tinker’s letter, it hit me that she might be more than just another kid reporter looking for the big break.” He paused. “Although God knows this town’s always had a surplus of them.”
“L.A., too,” Haynes said.
“So I introduced her to Karl Triller.”
“Your bartender.”
“And minority stockholder.”
“The one who helped nurse Steady through his fourth divorce.”
“The same,” Padillo said. “For more than twenty years Karl has studied congressional antics. It’s been a very thorough, very German study, and notice I said antics, not actions.”
“I noticed.”
“What began as a hobby turned into an informal clearinghouse of information.”
“A gossip exchange.”
Ignoring Haynes’s clarification, Padillo said, “Karl gets quoted a lot by air and print reporters, although never by
