Burmser turned to look at Padillo. “He says you’re solo.”
“That’s right.”
“What about him?” Burmser said, nodding in my direction as if I were some unwelcome intruder who’d bumbled his way into the conversation. Maybe I was.
Padillo looked at me thoughtfully. “We could tie him up and gag him and hide him in the closet.”
“Aw, Christ,” Burmser said, turning toward the door, “I don’t know why I talk to either of you.” He paused at the door with his hand on its knob. “You know where to reach me, Padillo.”
“Don’t sit by the phone.”
“Amos Gitner,” Burmser said and then repeated the name as if it cheered him considerably. “You still think you’re all that good?”
“I guess I’ll just have to find that out, won’t I?” Padillo said.
“Yes,” Burmser said, smiling broadly this time, “I guess we all will.”
He opened the door and was halfway through it when I called to him. “You forgot something.”
He stopped and turned. “What?”
“You forgot to hang up the phone in the bedroom.”
6
“WHAT DO they want you to do?” I said after Burmser slammed the door hard enough to wake three floors of neighbors.
“Keep Wanda Gothar’s client alive.”
“Do they know who he is?”
“Burmser’s boss does. Or says he does.”
“Is he important?”
Padillo sank back in the sofa and stretched out his legs, staring at the ceiling. “He could be the richest kid in the world. If he lives long enough.”
“He’s important all right.”
“You’ve heard about what’s been going on in what they now call Llaquah?”
I thought a moment before answering. “It’s way down the Persian Gulf, about the size of Delaware. It’s also an absolute monarchy with a new oil strike that supposedly makes Kuwait look like a dry hole.”
“Well, the kid’s going to be the king of Llaquah as soon as his brother gets through dying.”
“The playboy brother,” I said. “I read somewhere that he had an accident last month. In France, I think.”
Padillo nodded, still staring at the ceiling. “He flipped his Maserati while doing one-hundred-and-thirty. He was badly burned and his chest was crushed and I don’t know what they’re keeping him alive with. Prayer probably. But he’s now something of a medical curiosity because by rights he should have been dead two weeks ago.”
“When does the wicked uncle come in?” I said.
“What wicked uncle?”
“The one who filed the tie rods on the Maserati and now is just waiting to do in the younger brother.”
Padillo stared at me. “I thought you’d sworn off those late movies.”
“I sneak one now and again.”
“Well, there’s no wicked uncle, but there are a couple of oil companies.”
“That’s almost as good,” I said. “Two giant industrial combines locked in a death struggle over a tiny corner of the world which contains the richest oil reserves known to—”
“No death struggle,” Padillo said. “They’re in cahoots—a cooperative venture, I think it’s called.”
“But nothing so grand as a cartel?”
“No.”
“What’s the kid’s name?”
“Peter Paul Kassim.”
“Peter Paul?”
Padillo nodded and stretched. He yawned, too. I caught it and yawned back. “That seems to be one of his problems,” he said after we were through yawning at each other. “At sixteen he underwent a religious experience and rejected his Muslim faith, converted to Catholicism, and entered a French monastery where he’s been ever since.”
“I take it that the folks back home didn’t much care for that.”
“Not much.”
“Why is he in the States? His brother’s not dead yet.”
“They never got along and when the brother dies and Peter Paul becomes king, the oil companies are going to need his signature on the documents that will complete their deal. The older brother was to have signed them here, but he flipped his car before he could make the trip.”
“How old is Peter Paul?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Who wants him dead?”
Padillo yawned again. “Not the oil companies.”
“No.”
“There’s no wicked uncle.”
“Pity.”
“So that’s what I’m supposed to do. Keep Peter Paul alive and at the same time find out who wants him dead.”
“And you said yes.”
“No. I only said that I’d try to keep him alive.”
“For how long?”
“Until his brother dies and he automatically becomes king and signs the documents.”
“What about afterwards?”
“Right now Peter Paul hasn’t got a dime. The Gothar twins must have taken him on spec—a contingency basis. When he signs those oil company contracts, or whatever they are, he gets five million dollars for his personal use. He can hire his own army then.”
“Why don’t the oil companies move in, if they want him to stay alive?”
“They don’t want to get caught in a crossfire. If something happens to Peter Paul, they’re fully prepared to do business with his successor—whoever he may be.”
“What about the folks back home?”
“They won’t lift a finger because of his infidel dog religion. They’d probably be just as happy if he got himself killed.”
“So that leaves you and Wanda Gothar. I’d think that Peter Paul would welcome the Secret Service after what happened to Walter.”
Padillo shrugged and rose. “Maybe he’s just trying to find out how it feels to have royal prerogatives.”
“Or he’s stupid.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
“Why?” I said.
“You mean why did I take it?”
“That’s right.”
Padillo moved to the door before answering. “I want that letter.”
“On White House stationery.”
Padillo nodded. “On White House stationery.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need it anymore. Five years ago maybe, but not now. You have more than enough to blackmail them with if you really wanted to say no.”
Padillo smiled, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the chair—at the last chair that Walter Gothar ever sat in. “Maybe I’ve gone in for coercion,” he said.
“No. You’re not much good at that either. And they won’t write anything that you could really use.”
“I thought there might be a line or two in it thanking me for doing another swell job for God and country.”
“It was Walter Gothar getting himself killed here in my apartment, wasn’t it?”
Padillo shrugged and put his hand on the door knob. “There was that,” he said, “and something else.”
“What?”
“Maybe I do owe the twins’ older brother a favor.”
“He’s dead and you’re not that sentimental.”
“That’s right,” Padillo said. “I’m not, am I?”
Padillo showed me the letter when it arrived by special White House messenger the next afternoon. It thanked him for his services, but after that it got a little vague. In fact, it was as fine a piece of obfuscated prose as I’d ever read.
Padillo held it up to the light to admire the watermark. “Did you ever hear of the guy who signed it?”