“Police ever catch up with you?” I asked pleasantly.
“Oh, that. They will soon forget. It was — how would you say? — a misunderstanding.” He brushed it away with a flick of his hand.
“What brings you back to Berlin?”
He took a noisy sip of his coffee. “Business, always business.”
I drank my brandy and signaled for another. “You know, Herr Maas, you’ve caused me a great deal of embarrassment and trouble.”
“I know, I know, and I sincerely regret it. It was most unfortunate, and I apologize. I really apologize. But tell me, how is your colleague, Herr Padillo?”
“I thought you might know. I get the word that you have all the information sources.”
Maas looked thoughtfully into his empty cup. “I have heard that he is in East Berlin.”
“Everybody’s heard that.”
Maas smiled faintly. “I have also heard that he is — or shall we say has had a misunderstanding with his... uh... employers.”
“What else have you heard?”
Maas looked at me, and his spaniel eyes turned hard as agate. “You think me a simple man, do you not, Herr McCorkle? Perhaps a buffoon? A fat German who has eaten too many potatoes and drunk too much beer?”
I grinned. “If I think of you at all, Herr Maas, I think of you as a man who has caused me a great deal of trouble from the moment you picked me up on that plane. You poked your nose into my life because of my business partner’s extracurricular activities. As a result, a man got killed in my saloon. When I think about that I think about you, Herr Maas. You’ve got trouble written all over you, and trouble is something I try to avoid.”
Maas called for more coffee. “I am in the business of trouble, Herr McCorkle. It is how I make my living. You Americans are still very insular people. You have your violence, to be sure, and your thieves, your criminals, even your traitors. You wander the world trying to be — how does the slang go? — the good guys and you are despised for your bungling, hated for your wealth, and ridiculed and mocked for your posturing. Your CIA would be a laughing-stock, except that it controls enough funds to corrupt a government, finance a revolution, subvert a political party. You are not a stupid or stubborn people, Herr McCorkle, but you are an ignorant people, a disinterested people. And I pity you.”
I had heard it all before — from the British and the French and the Germans and the rest. Part of it was envy, part of it was truth, and none of it would change anything. I long ago gave up being either guilty or proud of my nationality, and there were plenty of reasons for both. I had a life to live, and I lived it the best I could, adapting to the changing rules, avoiding the ho-hummery whenever possible, escaping a little perhaps, but putting keen value on a few things that still seemed important, although these too seemed to be getting just a bit worn and shabby.
“Herr Maas, I don’t need a civics lecture today. I just wish you would get to your point — if you have one.”
Maas gave me one of his sighs. “I am no longer shocked, my friend, by what man does to man. Disloyalty does not dismay me. Perfidy I find the rule, not the exception. However, these things can often be turned to profit. It is my business to do so. Look.” He pulled his left coat sleeve up, unbuttoned his shirt cuff, and folded it back over his forearm. “See this?” he said, pointing to a series of numbers tattooed on the inside of his pudgy arm.
“A concentration-camp number,” I said.
He rolled down his sleeve and buttoned it. He smiled, and there was no humor in it. “No, it is not a concentration-camp number, although it appears to be one. I had it tattooed in April of 1945. It saved my life several times. I have been in concentration camps, Herr McCorkle, but never as a prisoner. Do you follow me?”
“It isn’t hard.”
“When it was necessary — and profitable — I was a Nazi. When that was no longer fashionable, I became a victim of the Nazis. You are shocked?”
“No.”
“Good. Then perhaps we can get down to business.”
“We do have some, I take it?”
“Yes, we have some concerning Herr Padillo. You see, it was he who was my primary reason for going to Bonn.”
“Who was the other man?”
Maas waved his hand airily. “A minor functionary who was interested in buying some arms. Of no consequence, really. He had little money. But it was Herr Padillo I wished to see. And here is where the irony creeps in, Herr McCorkle, and perhaps the pity too. Your establishment is very dim, is it not? There is little light?”
“True.”
“As I said, the little man was of no importance. Your place is dimly lighted, so I can only assume that a mistake was made. The two gentlemen who burst in shot the wrong man. They were supposed to kill me.” Maas laughed. It sounded as humorous as the ha-ha’s people write in letters.
“The pity, I take it, is that you weren’t shot. It’s not the funniest story I’ve heard in a long time, although it has its points.”
Maas reached into his brief case and rummaged around. He came up with a long dappled cigar. “Cuban,” he said. “Would you care for one?”
“I’d be betraying the fatherland.”
Maas got the cigar lighted and took a few experimental puffs. “I had information that I wished to sell to Herr Padillo concerning his current assignment. You see, Herr McCorkle, a man of Herr Padillo’s talents is rare. Such men are difficult to come by, and they are to be treasured. In the course of their activities they make enemies because their primary function is to frustrate the opposition’s carefully made plans. Herr Padillo, through his language ability and his personal resourcefulness, has been highly successful in his assignments. Has he told you of them?”
“We never discussed it.”
Maas nodded. “He is also a prudent man. But, as I said, his successes were notable. In the course of his work he found it necessary to remove some rather prominent political figures. Oh, not the ones who make the headlines, but those who, like Herr Padillo, worked in the shadows of international politics. He is, I’m reliably informed, one of the best.”
“He also makes a hell of a good hot buttered rum,” I said.
“Ah, yes. The cover of the café in Bonn. Really excellent. For some reason, Herr McCorkle, you do not strike me as the kind of man who would engage in this business of information and politics.”
“You’re right. I’m not that kind of man at all. I’m just along for the ride.”
“Yes. How much do you think that our friends in the East might pay for a topflight agent of the United States — for one who is the sine qua non of its intelligence apparat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Money, of course, would be out of the question.”
“Why?”
“An ambitious man in the U.S. intelligence organization for which Herr Padillo occasionally does odd jobs, shall we say, would not be looking for money. He would be looking for the coup that would enhance his reputation, for the brilliant stroke that would advance his career. That is what I came to tell Herr Padillo. For a price, of course.”
“And you were interrupted.”
“Unfortunately, yes. As I have told you before, my sources are excellent. They cost a bit, but their reliability is without question. I learned that a trade was in the offing between our Russian friends in the KGB and Herr Padillo’s employers.”
“What kind of trade?”
Maas puffed some more on his cigar. It was growing an excellent ash.
“Do you remember two men called William H. Martin and Vernon F. Mitchell?”
“Vaguely. They defected four or five years ago.”
“Five,” Maas said. “They were mathematicians for your National Security Agency. They went to Mexico, flew to Havana, and caught a Russian trawler. And then in Moscow they talked and talked and talked. They were most communicative, much to the embarrassment of your National Security Agency. As I recall, virtually every major nation in the world changed its codes and caused the agency and its computer no end of trouble.”