“What is it?” Padillo asked.
“Money. A whole lot of money.”
I walked over to the couch and handed him the sack. “They didn’t have time to get it wrapped.”
He took the sack and dumped the money on the coffee table. It was in fifty and one hundred-dollar bills and it seemed to give off a nice glow.
“You want to count it?” Padillo said.
“It’s a little early for me; I doubt if I could get past nineteen.”
Padillo leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes tightly. His left hand moved to his side. “Ouch,” he said.
“You didn’t put much feeling into that.”
“There should be $37,500 there.”
“All right. I’ll count it.”
The fifties were in packets of one thousand dollars. There were fifteen of them. The hundreds were wrapped up in two-thousand-dollar packets, eleven in all. There was some loose change consisting of two one-hundred-dollar bills and six fifties that made up the remaining five hundred.
“It’s all here,” I said. “You want me to divide it into three tidy piles?”
Padillo sat up and his face was pale beneath his deep tan. “Half in one pile, split the remainder. It’s a two-one-one cut remember.”
I did some mental arithmetic. “The bills are the wrong size. A fourth would be $9,375.”
“Do the best you can,” Padillo said, his eyes still closed.
I went back into the kitchen for another cup of coffee while Padillo pulled the telephone over and started dialing. He had only to speak a few words to complete each call. By the time I got back into the livingroom he was finishing his last one. He put the phone away.
“That was Price,” he said.
“How’d he sound?”
“Sleepy, but greedy.”
“And the other two?”
“They’ll be there at eleven.”
I indicated the money on the table. “What shall we do with it?”
“Have you got a briefcase?”
“I’ll get it.” I went into the bedroom and pulled an attaché case out of the closet. Someone had given it to me years ago and for a while I had tried to think of someway of using it, but had finally given up and just put it away. It was a black leather case with solid silver fittings. If I’d been in some other line of work, I could have carried my lunch in it. I handed the case to Padillo.
“You have any rubberbands?”
“Fredl saves them. She puts them on the kitchen doorknob.” I got three off the knob, gave them to Padillo, and he snapped them around the stacks of money and put the bills into the briefcase and closed it.
“I lost the key,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
The door chimes rang again and I looked at Padillo. “It’s your house,” he said.
“But it’s your popularity.”
I crossed the room and opened the door. The man who stood there wore a plaid sports jacket, an open blue flannel shirt, dark grey slacks and three vertical creases in his forehead. It was a sign he was thinking. His name was Stan Burmser and he had once been able to tell Padillo where he should go in Europe and what he should do when he got there. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year. It had been in Bonn and even then he had been wearing the three vertical creases in his forehead. He seemed to think a lot.
“Hello, Burmser,” I said.
He smiled and the creases disappeared. The smile was as friendly as a fifth letter from the finance company. “I’m looking for Padillo.”
“Your search is ended.” I stepped back and held the door open. “A Mr. Burmser to see you.”
Padillo didn’t get up nor did he say anything. He watched Burmser cross the room and stand in front of him. Burmser had his hands stuck deep in his jacket pockets. He rocked back and forth on his heels as he stared at Padillo for what seemed to be long moments.
“We got a report two days ago that you were back,” Burmser said.
Padillo nodded. “Still got your trade-off with the FBI. The one-way trade.”
“They make mistakes sometimes.”
“And you just dropped by at nine o’clock in the morning to make sure. You’ll be late for Sunday School.”
“I’m Catholic.”
“Funny, you don’t look it.”
“You still have those tired old jokes.”
“One gets fond of them.”
“I’ve got a new one. It was too good to keep. That’s why I came over myself.”
“I’m ready.”
“You’re marked, Padillo. You’re in the book.”
“That’s not new. I’ve been in somebody or other’s book for years.”
“Not in this one. The British have got you down and they’ve got it assigned.”
“They wouldn’t tell you about it if they did.”
“You’re not the only one who’s doubled a few.”
“I suppose not.”
“And that’s what’s so funny.”
“I bet you’re coming to the punch-line now.”
Burmser’s grin got wider. “That’s right. I am. They handed the assignment to someone you yourself doubled. They handed it to Philip Price.”
“What have they got against me?” Padillo asked. He could have been asking if the bus stopped here, or across the street.
“I don’t know; I don’t really care.”
“Then why travel all the way in from McLean to tell me about it?”
“I live in Cleveland Park.”
“It must be pretty there in the fall.”
“Price is good. You doubled him; you should know how good he is.”
“He also works for you.”
“That’s right, he does.”
“You could call him off.”
“I could, but the British would have too many questions for him if he didn’t carry out his assignment. It might bust him wide open. He’s been fairly useful to us. We’d like him to continue that way.”
“And I’m not,” Padillo said.
Burmser quit smiling. “You’re nothing to us, Padillo. We’ve wiped you off. There isn’t a trace of you left. You never existed as far as we’re concerned.”
“How far back did you go?”
“All the way.”
Padillo smiled. “That’s a lot of territory and a lot of years. Why tell me about it?”
“I was told to.”
“I must have a friend left some place in the organization.”
“One is all.”
Padillo shrugged. “All right, Burmser, you got to play Old Blind Pew and pass out the black spot this morning. Anything else?”
“Just this: We never heard of you. If you’re in trouble, you’re alone. There won’t be any phone calls, no hush-ups. The fix won’t be put in anywhere. You’ve wanted out for a long time, Padillo, and now you are. As far as we’re concerned you’re a Mexican or a Spaniard who’s in this country illegally, but we’re not even sure about that, because we never heard of you. You’re nothing.” Burmser was breathing a little hard when he was through.
Padillo turned to me: “You think I should tell the shop steward about this?”
“Ask him about what happens to all the money you’ve contributed to the pension plan.”
Burmser smiled his final-notice smile. “You’re breaking me up. But, gentlemen, I’ve enjoyed it.” He turned and headed for the door. When he was there he stopped with his hand on the knob. “You were pretty good at one time, Padillo. Pretty good or lucky. Now you’d better be both.”
“Tell the old gang hello for me,” Padillo said.
Burmser looked at Padillo. “They never heard of you,” he said. He opened the door and left.
“He enjoyed himself,” I said.
“But he cleared Price up.”
“I’d say that Price told the British that you were actually going to shoot Van Zandt and they told him to take you out.”
“So it seems.”
“What’s Price after, a pat on the head?”
“A bonus.”