Padillo shrugged. “Being careful doesn’t make him smart.”
“Being smart is my department, isn’t it?” He turned toward the king and Scales. The king was huddled up next to the wall, his hands clasped around the back of his neck. Scales was still seated, leaning against the wall, staring at nothing.
“Who is he?” Kragstein said to Scales.
Scales didn’t look at the king. He still stared blankly at nothing. Or he could have been watching his dreams disintegrate. “An actor,” he said. “An unemployed actor.”
“He’s from Llaquah?”
“Yes. I knew him there. Then he came to London. He wanted to be an actor. A second Omar Sharif. But he was not nearly good enough.”
“What happened to the real king?”
“He sent for me you know. He really did. When he came out of the monastery, he sent for me. He said he needed me. I came over from London. We were going out to dinner the third night I was there and he was taking a shower in the flat that he had borrowed. He slipped and broke his neck. It was an accident. A foolish accident.”
“What happened then?” Kragstein said.
“I buried him that night.”
“Where?”
“In the Bois de Boulogne. The plan just came to me.” He glanced at the king. I still thought of him as the king. I suppose I always will. “I remembered that there was a strong resemblance. And no one had seen the king during the five years that he was in the monastery. A man can change between sixteen and twenty-one. I had all the credentials. It seemed worth the chance.”
“It still is,” Kragstein said.
Scales looked up at him. Some life came back into his eyes. He didn’t speak, but the question was on his face.
Kragstein nodded. “No one at the oil companies ever saw the real king?”
“As a child perhaps, but not as an adult.”
“And you’re sure nobody else knows?”
“No one,” Scales said. “No one possibly could. Gothar was beginning to suspect. We made a slight slip. So we sent him a telegram, urging him to be at McCorkle’s apartment. We signed Padillo’s name to it.” He began to talk faster, as if he found release in the confession. “When we arrived there, we told him that we’d also received a telegram. I handed it to him—we’d sent it to ourselves—and he—” Scales paused to look thoughtfully at the huddled figure of the king. “He went behind Gothar and used the garrote. I thought of the garrote. I thought that it might confuse things.”
“Not bad,” Kragstein said. “Not bad at all. Now then. What are the arrangements concerning the money?”
Scales shrugged. “The king’s dead brother arranged it all. As soon as the papers are signed, the oil company deposits five million dollars to the king’s account in Switzerland.”
“Numbered?”
“Of course.”
“That would give us about two days,” Kragstein said.
Scales looked up at him again. “To do what?”
“To withdraw the money.”
“You’re going through with it, aren’t you?” Padillo said.
Kragstein gave him a brief glance. “Of course. There’s going to be a slight change, however.”
“What change?” Scales asked.
“Your share will now be one million instead of four and a half million. Agreed?”
Scales hesitated only for a moment. “Agreed,” he said.
“How about your buddy over there?” Gitner said.
“Ask him,” Scales said.
“How about you, king?” Gitner said.
The king raised his head and looked at Gitner. “I no longer care,” he said. “I should never have listened to him. Never.”
“You should have also researched your role a little better,” Padillo said.
“What did he do wrong?” Kragstein asked. He sounded quite interested.
“Prayers and fish,” Padillo said. “He was supposed to be a devout Catholic. Anyone who’d spend five years in a monastery would be. I saw him pray once. He didn’t cross himself. I don’t think he knows how. In New York we had veal on Friday. He ate it. I don’t care what the Vatican says, a really hard-nosed Catholic wouldn’t and that’s what he was supposed to be.”
“That’s thin, Padillo,” Kragstein said.
“That just started me wondering,” Padillo said. “When they ran out on us I became sure. If he’d been for real, he would have run to the police regardless of what he thought of them. When he didn’t, he had to have something to hide. I was fairly sure I knew what it was.”
“It sounds good now anyway,” Gitner said.
“I don’t think it matters a damn how it sounds,” Padillo said. “What matters now is what happens next.”
“To you,” Kragstein said.
“That’s right. To me.”
“We’ll have to think of something, won’t we?”
24
THEY MADE the king and Scales help Wanda walk down eight flights of stairs to the basement of the building. She threw up twice on the way. We stopped before a small room in the basement, not much more than eight by ten, that contained a desk and three chairs which looked as if they’d been salvaged from one of the abandoned offices upstairs.
The door to the room was made of steel and it had a metal bar with a hole in its end that could be swung down and padlocked into place so that nobody could get in. If somebody was inside and the bar was down, it wouldn’t matter about the padlock. They couldn’t get out.
The king and Scales helped Wanda into the room. They turned her around, pushed her into one of the chairs, and then backed off quickly, as if glad to be done with a distasteful chore. She was bent over from the waist, her hands clasped hard against her middle, her head almost touching her knees. She made no sound.
The room was lit with a weak bulb in a ceiling fixture. The king and Scales came out of the room and stood near Gitner. They looked uneasy, frightened, and—I thought—a little embarrassed. Kragstein moved into the room and over to Wanda. He shifted his revolver to his left hand and with his right grasped her pale blond hair and jerked her head up. She still made no sound. She simply stared at him with those cold blue eyes. If there were no tears in them, I thought I could see plenty of hate.
“What arrangements have you made?” Kragstein said.
She ran her tongue over her lips. “It’s a full-dress affair. The boards of directors, their chairmen, the presidents of the companies. There’ll also be assorted guests. Wives, I think. Other company officials.”
“Reporters? TV?”
“No. But they’ll have sound cameras. They’re going to make a film on what the transaction will mean to Llaquah. The signing of the agreement will be part of it. I specified no press, but they may send out film clips later.”
“When will they sign?”
“At ten tomorrow morning. Or this morning. On the twenty-ninth floor of the headquarters on Bush Street. They’re to be there by nine thirty.”
“Whom should they ask for?”
“Arnold Briggs. He’s head of public relations.”
“What security arrangements did you request?”
“I told them to make it tight. They’ll probably use private detectives from one of the larger firms.”
“That means Gitner and I can’t get in.”
“Scales could get you in.”
Kragstein abruptly let go of her head and she dropped it back down near her knees and started to make small retching sounds.
Kragstein turned toward the door and motioned with his revolver. “Bring them in,” he said to Gitner.
I moved before Gitner could prod me with his revolver again. Padillo followed and when we were in the room he looked around and selected a worn swivel chair to sit in. I took what was left—a golden oak thing that had one of its arms missing. Padillo tilted back in his chair and looked first at Gitner, then at Kragstein.