“And you do all this out of compassion?” Padillo said.
Dr. Asfourh shook his head in what he may have hoped was a regretful manner. “I am afraid not, sir. As my dedication to humanity sloughed away it was replaced by other drives. Far simpler ones. Greed. And,” he said, patting his enormous belly, “gluttony. Now the services I render my kinsmen I render only for money.”
“Have you rendered any this evening to a short, plump, bald man from Llaquah?” Padillo said.
The doctor sighed. “It is difficult to remember.”
Padillo took out his wallet and laid it on the edge of the desk.
“It gets easier,” Asfourh said.
“How much?”
One fat hand moved in a small circle. “I will pique your curiosity first. It tends to create generosity. He was accompanied by an Englishman, a tall, thin chap.”
“Go on,” I said.
“They needed a place of safety for the night. And part of the morning. I think that much should be worth a trifle.”
“How much is a trifle?”Padillo said.
“Shall we say a hundred?”
“Fifty.”
“Very well, fifty.”
Padillo pulled a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it across the smooth surface of the desk. The doctor looked at it and smiled happily.
“I gave them an address. For a price, of course.”
Padillo nodded. “What’s your price to give it to us?”
“Five hundred.”
“Two.”
“Perhaps four,” the doctor said.
“Three.”
Asfourh sighed. “I do so dislike haggling. Especially with women. That’s the only phase of being an abortionist that was distasteful. Three fifty.”
“Three twenty-five,” Padillo said.
The doctor closed his eyes and nodded. Padillo took three hundreds, a twenty, and a five from the wallet and waved them gently back and forth. The doctor opened his eyes and smiled at them. One hand started toward the bills, but Padillo said, “The address first.”
“Of course. It’s a bit south of here on Mina Street. Should I write it down for you?”
“I’d like that,” Padillo said. “You might also sign your name to it.”
The doctor shrugged, opened his desk drawer, took out a small, thick sheet of cream-colored paper, wrote the address, signed his name, and then smiled faintly as if he liked the look of his signature. He held out both hands, one to extend the paper and the other to receive the money. Padillo handed me the address as the doctor picked up the fifty-dollar bill from his desk, joined it to the other bills, and put them away in a pocket of his dark suit. He smiled again as if the feel of money made him happy.
Padillo and I rose and started to turn when the doctor cleared his throat as though there was something else that he would like to say, but wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up.
He looked at Padillo and then at me and then back at Padillo.
“I sold that information cheaply, gentlemen, very cheaply, indeed.”
“I don’t think it was cheap,” Padillo said.
“Demand always drives up the price.”
“What demand?”
The doctor clasped his hands comfortably across his belly. “That in itself seems to be worth something, don’t you think?”
“How much?”
“A hundred,” he said. “And this time, no haggling.”
Padillo turned to me. “Have you got it?”
“Barely.”
“Pay him.”
I took two fifties from my billfold and laid them on the desk. The doctor eyed them fondly.
“What demand?” Padillo said, his tone edged with harshness.
“Not fifteen minutes before you arrived, two other gentlemen were here inquiring about the mysterious stranger from Llaquah.”
“Did you give them the address?” I said.
“Of course not, Mr. McCorkle.” He paused to smile. “I sold it to them for five hundred dollars. They didn’t haggle at all.”
21
THE ADDRESS that Asfourh had given us was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth on Mina, a street that would have been an alley in any other town and didn’t go much of any place in San Francisco. It was a small grim street with small grim two-story houses and I had the feeling that small grim people lived in them.
Somebody chose white the last time the houses were painted, but it had been a cheap job and now the paint was going, the victim of weather, city grime, and what I assumed to be collective indifference.
The houses were built nearly alike with small bay windows. Some of the windows displayed discouraged-looking potted plants. Others had been turned into pathetic shrines that featured tinted terra-cotta statues of Jesus, Mary, and assorted saints. And some of the windows offered nothing but shades that were drawn all the way down. The house that we were looking for was one of these.
Padillo and Wanda Gothar stared at it carefully as I drove past it toward Sixteenth.
“Chicano,” Padillo said.
“The neighborhood?”
“This street anyway.”
“I thought nice folks called them Mexican-Americans.”
“Nice folks might,” he said, “but us Chicanos don’t.”
“Ah. You’re going to try to pass.”
“Something like that,” he said. “Go around the block and see how close you can park to that house.”
I parked on the sidewalk next to a no parking sign three houses down. The sidewalk was where everyone else in that block parked. I turned and watched Padillo take off his necktie and unfasten three of his shirt buttons. “You have any lipstick?” he asked Wanda.
“Of course,” Wanda said.
“Put it on. A lot of it. Mess up your hair, too. Look sloppy.” He turned to me. “Loosen your tie and look a little drunk. In fact, we’re all going to seem a little drunk. The Mex and his two gringo friends.”
“It so happens that I have the remains of a pint here which might lend a little verisimilitude.”
“Pass it around,” Padillo said, taking his automatic from his waistband and checking it quickly.
I took the pint from beneath the seat, uncorked it, and handed it to Wanda. She took a drink and passed it to Padillo who drank deeply and then poured some of the whisky into his palm and rubbed it on his lapels. He handed the bottle to me and since there wasn’t much left, only three or four swallows, I finished it off and felt some better. Not much, but some.
“You really think Kassim and Scales are still alive in there if Kragstein had a fifteen-minute lead on us?” Wanda said, running her hands through her pale blond hair, mussing it in vain, I thought, because she still looked pretty. Perhaps even beautiful.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Padillo said.
Wanda carefully applied some pale pink lipstick with three sure strokes. “You could tell me why you don’t think Kragstein and Gitner killed my brother.”
“When you come out of that house, you may know.”
She turned to look at him. “You’re still not sure, are you?”
“I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
“Is there anything else you trust?”
“Sure,” Padillo said, “my feelings.”
“Strange,” she said. “I didn’t think you had any.”
It looked as if it might go on for the rest of the night, so I said, “It’s getting late. If it’s going to be done, let’s do it.”
“All right,” Padillo said. “I’m the Mex pimp. I’m looking for a room where the three of us can have fun.”
Wanda swore in German. I thought she did it quite well. Padillo ignored her. “Both of you just follow my lead. If they don’t want to let us in, we go in anyway, so keep whatever you’re shooting with handy.”
“It’s not what I’d call a carefully laid plan,” Wanda said.