Price waved a hand as if he were brushing away a lazy fly. “It’s all been so vague till now, you know. A chap does wonder a bit.”
“All right,” Padillo said, “you can quit wondering. Here’s how it works: Magda, McCorkle and I will be going after McCorkle’s wife while you two pull the fake assassination. We don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing because we don’t know where she is yet. That’s the loose part of the operation. It has to be. Your part isn’t.” He paused and lighted a cigarette.
“The whole point,” he continued, “is to get Mrs. McCorkle back. The secondary phase is to expose the Van Zandt crowd to ridicule — to disclose that they paid out seventy-five thousand dollars to have their own Prime Minister shot and that they paid it to con men.”
“That’s a bit thick,” Price said.
“When it doesn’t come off,” Dymec said, “what do you expect them to do: run down to the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint?”
“Your American is getting better, Dymec.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re going to get cold feet, Dymec.”
“Why?”
“Suppose you actually carried out the assassination. What guarantee do you have that you’d get the rest of the money? None. What guarantee do you have that the Africans simply wouldn’t tip off the law to start looking for you? If you told the law that they hired you, who’d believe you? Especially you. And what difference would it make?”
He paused again. “So here’s what you do, Dymec. You ask them for a letter spelling out the details of their agreement with you. The whole thing. And that letter is to be on their official stationery, signed by Van Zandt, and bearing the official seal. It also has to be witnessed by Boggs and Dar ragh.”
“My God!” Price said.
Dymec looked skeptical. He looked the way I felt. “How would such a letter help?”
“Insurance, man,” Price said. “If they wrote a letter stating that they had hired you to assassinate their Prime Minister, that letter would be priceless. Of course they’d pay up to get the letter back.”
“They’re not that stupid,” Dymec said.
“Have they any reason to doubt that you’re going to kill Van Zandt?” Padillo said.
Dymec looked at him calmly. He had a fine face for poker. “None.”
“All right. You’re taking all the risk. You’d like to share a little of it. You’d like to make sure you get paid. When the Prime Minister’s dead, and you’re paid, they get the letter back.”
“I could copy it — there are a number of machines that can do that.”
“Not with the official wax seal on it,” Padillo said.
“Who keeps the letter?” Dymec said.
“You do, until it’s all over.”
“I thought you’d have a tricky one, Padillo,” Dymec said. “What happens to the letter then?”
“It falls into Price’s hands.”
“So that’s why I’m in,” Price said.
“That’s right.”
“I turn the letter over to my masters and they expose the entire thing.”
“Right. The British stand to profit more from this exposure than anyone else. You turn the letter over to them and they create the scandal. It should be a juicy one.”
“Who makes the proposition to the Africans?” Dymec said.
“You do.”
“What do I tell them?”
“You tell them that we don’t believe they’re going to release Fredl McCorkle when it’s all over and we want some insurance that they will. The letter will do that. They’ll get it back when we get Mrs. McCorkle. Second, tell them that you’re getting nervous and that you also want some insurance. The letter will do that, too.”
“But I get the letter?” Dymec said.
“That’s right.”
“And then I get it and turn it over to Price who’ll make the best use of it.”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic,” Magda said. “Really fantastic. And you say you’re not working any longer, Michael?”
“I wouldn’t be turning the letter over to the British if I were still working.”
“True. But it all still hinges on one thing, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“And that’s on getting Mrs. McCorkle back before the assassination is supposed to take place.”
“That’s why we want the letter. If we don’t find her, they won’t do anything to her until they get it back. They’ll trade for the letter.”
Price got up and started to pace the room. “Let me try to sum it up. I don’t mind telling you first of all that this will be quite a feather in my cap.”
“I would imagine,” Padillo said and I admired the way he kept the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Let me see now: Dymec approaches the Van Zandt people. He tells them he wants a letter — to whom it may concern, I suppose — all properly sealed setting forth the fact that one, they have employed him or some unnamed person to assassinate their Prime Minister, and two, that the assassination is to take place on such and such a date at such and such a time at such and such a spot. And three, that for the aforementioned services they agree to pay the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars. Have I got it right so far?”
“You’ve got it right,” Padillo said.
“Now then, the reason that they write this letter is that Dymec here is getting a little worried not only about the rest of his commission, but also about what happens to him after it’s all over — just in case they have the idea of having him caught in the act, so to speak. And thirdly, you and McCorkle are worried about getting Mrs. McCorkle back and she and the letter are considered fair exchange. Of course, once the Prime Minister is assassinated, the letter would be worthless to you because you would implicate yourself in murder.”
“That’s about it,” Padillo said. “If Van Zandt did die and I had the letter, they’d wire me to it.”
“Who’s they?” I asked.
“My former employers — or Price’s present ones.”
Price nodded. “Quite. But the assassination does not take place, you somehow rescue Mrs. McCorkle, and I turn the letter over to my government who uses it to excoriate Van Zandt and party in the press, the United Nations, and so forth.”
“That’s it.”
“Then all we have to do is get the letter,” Dymec said.
“Yes. But you’ll have to go through with the entire charade. You’ll have to be up on top of the hotel because they’ll have somebody around watching to see that you are. If anything goes wrong, if we don’t have Fredl McCorkle safe by the time Van Zandt’s car goes by, then I want it. It’s all we’ll have to get her back.”
“But if she is safe?” Dymec asked.
“Then you hand the letter over to Price.”
“I’ll be at the hotel then?” Price said.
“You’ll be on the roof with him.”
“Just one thing, Michael dear?” Magda said.
“Yes, precious?”
“Obviously, when this is all over, your African friends aren’t going to pay us the rest of the agreed-upon fee. Where will it come from?”
“Out of my own pocket.”
“You must have done well in the gun trade.”
“It was profitable.”
“Speaking of money—” Price said.
Padillo tapped the attaché case. “It’s here,” he said. He opened the case and tossed each share casually on the table. Then he closed the case, picked it up, and headed for the door. I joined him. “Stay close to your telephones,” he told them. “I’ll be calling you tonight.”
Once again they said nothing, but only nodded, as they kept on counting the money.