“How big was her party?” I said.
“Five other broads. Nobody important. The duchess is supposed to show at the Spanish Embassy reception tonight, but I don’t think she’ll make it. If she does, she’ll probably jump in the goldfish pool again.”
Karl had worked for Padillo and me in Bonn where he’d been bored by both the Bundestag and whatever passed for social life in that village on the Rhine. Although I found it difficult to decide which of the capital cities was duller, Karl thought that Washington glittered and regarded Congress as an endless drama. He was on a first-name basis with at least fifty Representatives and a dozen Senators, knew how the rest of them voted on every issue, was a primary source of backstairs gossip for half of the town’s society reporters, and was occasionally consulted by a couple of syndicated columnists who also put great faith in the philosophical pronuncia-mentos of New York cabdrivers. In addition, Karl was also the best bartender in town. Padillo had seen to that.
“When’s Mike coming back?” he said.
“In a couple of days.”
“Where is he?”
“Out of town.”
“I was hoping I could talk to you guys about something.”
I sighed and turned from my vigil at the door. Plomondon could find me easily enough when he arrived. I had a more important problem. My bartender wanted to borrow some money.
“What barn did you find it in?” I said.
“You’ll never believe it.”
“That’ll make it easier to say no.”
“Listen,” Karl said and patted a stray lock of long blond hair back into place. I think he may have pioneered the trend because he’d worn it long for more than a dozen years. “It’s a Dues.”
“You can’t afford a Duesenberg,” I said. “Nobody can.”
“It’s a 1934 blown SJ with a Rollston body.”
“What kind of shape is it in?” I said, getting interested in spite of myself.
“Cherry.”
In addition to being the town tattle, Karl was also a classic car buff. He’d owned a series of them beginning with a 1939 Lincoln Continental that I’d found for him in Copenhagen. He’d keep one awhile and then sell it for a respectable profit in what seemed to be a steadily rising market. I didn’t share his passion, but after all, they’d only made 500 of the things, and he probably wanted this one so much that it hurt.
“How much?” I said.
Karl busied himself with the glasses again. “Twenty-five,” he said in a voice so low that it was hard to decide whether it was a whisper or a whimper.
“Jesus,” I said.
“Look,” he said, whipping out a ballpoint pen and using a paper napkin to figure on. “I know where I can get fifteen tomorrow for the Hispano-Suiza.” That’s what he was then driving. “I got five saved so really all I need is another five.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Twenty-five thousand dollars for a car that’s nearly forty years old.”
“It’ll be worth thirty-five easy in less’n five years.”
“It’s in good shape?” I said, feeling myself weakening and hating it.
“Perfect.”
“I’ll talk to Padillo when he gets back.”
“This guy can’t hold it forever.”
“When Mike gets back.”
“I’ll call the guy and tell him I’ll take it.”
“Look, I didn’t say—”
“I think your luncheon date’s here,” Karl said.
I turned and watched Plomondon the Plumber move across the room toward the bar. He was a small, compact man, not quite forty and not over five-five who walked on the balls of his feet and swung his arms a little more than necessary, something like a British soldier who’s never off parade. He had brown curly hair that was cut close to his head, which may have been a little too big for his body, but which he carried at a proud angle with chin out and shoulders back.
He nodded at me as he came and when he was close enough he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Bill Plomondon.”
I shook his hand, which was dry and hard and also too large for the rest of him, and said that I was glad to see him and asked whether he would prefer to have lunch in a private room.
“I like things out in the open.”
I nodded and turned to survey the dining room. It was a little past two because Plomondon had said he couldn’t make it any earlier so there were several tables available. I caught Herr Horst’s eye and he nodded and glided across the room toward us.
“Number eighteen, I think, Herr Horst,” I said.
“Of course, Herr McCorkle,” he said with the stiff formality that we’d both maintained in private as well as public for nearly fifteen years.
We could have squeezed another ten tables into the dining room and perhaps no one would have complained, but a lot of our customers ate with us because we kept the tables far enough apart so that they could describe their latest triumphs and disasters in a normal conversational tone without fear of being overheard.
When we were seated, Plomondon waved away the menu. “I’d like a small steak rare and a salad. If you’re having a drink, I’ll take a martini any way that they like to make it.”
To celebrate this no-nonsense approach I ordered the same thing and when the drinks came, he took a sip, put it down, folded his arms on the table, leaned forward and stared at me with brown eyes that didn’t seem overly impressed with what the world had to offer.
“How’s Mike?” he said.
“All right.”
Plomondon shook his head. “If he was all right, he wouldn’t have you inviting me for lunch.”
“He said he can use you in New York for three days and that there’d be a bonus.”
Plomondon didn’t nod or frown or do anything other than blink at me twice with those seen-it-all eyes of his. “No,” he said. “Tell him that. No.”
“He said he needed you by seven tonight.”
“It’s still no.”
“All right,” I said.
Plomondon moved his head to look first right and then left and then over his shoulder. He had a small face for the size of his head. There was a great deal of forehead and chin and they seemed to have shoved his mouth, nose and eyes together into a neat, compact area that could be easily attended to. His nose tilted up at its end and his mouth didn’t have much upper lip which made him look as if he pouted a lot, although I don’t think he really did. When he was satisfied that nobody was eavesdropping, he leaned forward again and said, “You don’t talk about it a lot, do you?”
“About what?”
“About Padillo and what he does.”
“He runs a saloon,” I said.
“Good. I run a plumbing company. A big one.”
“I’ve seen your trucks.”
“I also take on the odd job now and then. Not often. Just now and then. So you see I’ve got my lines out.”
After that he didn’t say anything for a while. We sat there sipping our drinks until the steaks came. Plomondon cut his up all at once into precise one-inch cubes which he proceeded to eat in a methodical manner, giving each cube twenty-five chews. I became so fascinated I counted. When he was through with the steak, he polished off the salad, cutting it up into manageable squares with knife and fork. I didn’t bother to count how many times he chewed his lettuce.
Herr Horst was keeping an eye on us and when we were through eating, the coffee was served promptly. Mac’s Place is the only restaurant in the world where I get decent service. In others I seem to turn invisible. But Plomondon seemed no more impressed by the service than he had been by the food. I felt that he would have been just as happy eating fried cat as long as it came in one-inch cubes.
When he’d finished his first cup of coffee he again leaned forward, signaling that he had something important to say. First, he nodded his head a couplc of times. “Nice lunch,” he said.