“We’ll dicker. Let’s see the five thousand Cook gave you.”
I took the flat, wrapped package out of my coat pocket and handed it to Padillo. I remembered the exchange with Cooky in the hotel room. He hadn’t looked at my check; I hadn’t counted the money. Gentlemen scholars. I closed my eyes as Padillo ripped open the package. “Blank sheets of paper?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Cut-up newspaper.” I opened my eyes. Padillo tossed the newsprint into the can where Langeman had thrown the waste.
“Cook knew you pretty well, Mac. He also didn’t seem to think you’d have the chance to spend the money.”
“There’s one consolation,” I said. “There’s no doubt about the stop payment on the check.”
Chapter 15
Langeman’s garage was a twenty-by-forty-five-foot building with a grease pit; a couple of chain pulleys to hoist cars up; an oil-smeared, cluttered workbench that ran most of the length of the right-hand wall; and a small partitioned-off cubicle in the left rear that served as his office. He waddled toward us from the cubicle, counting a sheaf of Deutsch Marks and wetting his thumb every third or fourth bill. His once-white coveralls seemed to have picked up some more dirt and grease in the few moments he had been gone. He had also acquired a yellow-brown smudge on his wide flat nose, which somebody had broken for him at one time and nobody had yet got around to setting. His breath whistled through it with a bubbling sound that indicated he might do well to blow it once in a while.
“I gave them some food and some schnapps, Herr Padillo.”
“How about cigarettes?”
“Cigarettes, too. Yes.” Langeman nodded his head vigorously and his three chins danced and lapped around his collar.
“How do we get down to your cellar?”
“Through my office: there is a trap in the floor and a ladder. It’s not much, but, as I said, it’s dry. There is also light. The telephone is in the office.”
“We won’t be using it until around eleven.”
Langeman bounced his chins around again in a nod. “Any time. I am leaving now and will return at eight hours tomorrow. I have two helpers who will arrive at that time. If you go out, I must send them on errands. The noise of the work here will prevent them from hearing you if you speak normally. For a toilet there’s a bucket.” He tucked the sheaf of bills into his coveralls and gave a slight shrug. “Not luxurious, but it’s clean.”
“And expensive,” Padillo said.
“There is the risk to consider.”
“We’re acquainted with the risk. Suppose we have to go out tonight. How do we manage it?”
“There is a door at the rear leading from my office. It will lock automatically as you close it. But to get back in is another problem. You can have someone — Max, perhaps — posted by the door. But you must be back before eight hours tomorrow. My two helpers will be here.” Langeman paused and then asked carefully: “Would it not be dangerous for you to go out tonight?”
Padillo let the question wander for a while in search of an answer before he said, “You weren’t paid to worry about us, Langeman.”
The fat man shrugged. “As you wish. I am leaving now. The light in my office burns all night; the rest I turn off.”
Without saying good night Padillo and I walked back to the cubicle. It contained a bill-strewn fourth- or fifth-hand oak desk, a swivel chair with a greasy-looking rubber pad, a wooden filing cabinet, and some automobile-repair catalogues. A light with a green shade hung from the ceiling. The telephone sat on the desk. The office had no window — only a door with a spring lock. A trap door that was in the corner not occupied by furniture was fastened against the wall with a hook and eye. A ladder led straight down. Padillo went first and I followed.
It was a twelve-by-twelve room with a seven-foot ceiling. A forty-watt bulb provided the illumination. Burchwood and Symmes sat on a gray blanket against one wall, chewing on some bread and meat. Max sat on another blanket opposite them, a bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand.
“There’s a blanket and there’s the food and cigarettes,” he said. A foot or so of sausage and a part of a loaf of bread sat on a newspaper on the floor. Four packages of cigarettes, an East German brand I had never heard of, were stacked next to them.
I sat down on the blanket and accepted the bottle from Max. It was unlabeled. “What is it?”
“Cheap potato gin,” he said. “But it’s alcohol.”
I took a swallow. The liquor burned all the way down, clawed at my stomach, bounced a couple of times, and started to move around warmly. “Christ!” I said, and passed it to Padillo. He took a swallow, coughed, and handed it back to Max.
Max set the bottle down on the newspaper. “There’s food.” I looked at it without interest, trying to make up my mind whether to risk another swallow of the potato gin. I decided against it and opened one of the packages of cigarettes, lighted one, and passed the pack to Padillo. We coughed over the tobacco for a while.
“What do you brilliant people plan to do now?” Burchwood asked. “Drag us through another mess like this evening?”
“Something like that,” Padillo said.
“And I suppose we’ll be shot at again,” Symmes said, “and you’ll get mad and take it out on us.” He seemed to assume that he wouldn’t get hit.
“If it doesn’t work this time, you won’t have to worry about another try,” Padillo said. “In fact, you won’t have to worry about much of anything. None of us will.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours before you call, Mac. You and Max might as well get some sleep. I’ll stay up.”
Max grunted, wrapped himself in his blanket, and rested his head on his arms, which he laid across his raised knees. Padillo and I sat on the blanket and leaned against the wall and smoked. Burchwood and Symmes followed Max’s example.
It was slow time. I went through a what-in-hell-am-l-doing-here cross-examination, then shifted into a small orgy of self-pity, and finally just sat there and planned the saloon’s menus, day by day, for the next five years.
“It’s eleven,” Padillo said.
“Let’s go.”
We climbed up the ladder and I dialed the number that Maas had given me. It answered on the first ring. “Herr Maas, please,” I said.
“Ah!” the familiar voice said. “Herr McCorkle. I must say that I have been anticipating your call — especially since the accident this evening. That was you, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“No one was hurt?”
“No.”
“Very good. Herr Padillo is with you?”
“Yes.”
“Now, then, I assume that you wish to conclude the business arrangement that we discussed day before yesterday?”
“We’d like to talk about it.”
“Yes, yes, negotiations would be in order, especially since there are five now that Herr Baker has joined you. Of course, this makes my original proposal subject to review. You understand that the first cost estimate—”
“I don’t need a sales talk,” I cut in. “Suppose we meet so we can get down to cases.”
“Of course, of course. Where are you now?”
My hand tightened on the telephone. “That’s a stupid question, coming from you.”
Maas chuckled over the telephone. “I understand, my dear friend. Let me propose this: I would assume that you are within a mile of where this evening’s... uh... accident — yes, accident — occurred?”
“All right.”
“I suggest a café — where I am known. It has a private room in the back. It should be within walking distance of where you are now.”
“Hold on,” I said. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and told Padillo.
He nodded and said, “Get the address.”
“What’s the address?”