“I told her that because I had to drive my father here home, I’d like some chilled Evian water in a martini glass.”
Warnock stared at McCorkle. “Has he gone teetotal on us, Mac?”
“No, but he has been getting notional.”
“Well, since it’s himself who’s buying, I’d best make introductions. Okay, lads, the generous one’s Mike and the other’s Mac. Now, starting on my left and going clockwise is Mr. Stroh, Mr. Ranier, Mr. Jax, Mr. Pabst, Mr. Schlitz and, lemme think now, Mr. Coors.”
“Why didn’t you just number them, Harry?” McCorkle said.
“Because I’m not at all sure they can count to six.”
The six big men grinned and elbowed each other in appreciation of their leader’s wit. A couple of them were still grinning when the pretty cousin returned and served the new round of drinks. Padillo gave her three $20 bills and waved away the change.
When she was gone, Warnock picked up Padillo’s glass, sniffed its contents and announced, “Pure gin.”
Padillo picked up the drink Warnock had put down, tasted it and said, “She must’ve made a mistake. Either that or I lied.”
McCorkle smiled reassuringly at Warnock. “As I said, Harry, he’s getting a little notional.”
“I’ll not be playing any of your mind-fucking games this night. Michael Padillo. So let’s get to what really brings the pair of you out to the far edge of town on this cold and miserable Sunday.”
“My wife’s in Frankfurt,” McCorkle said.
“Ah, well, then, had I known she was there and you were here, I’d’ve been there.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” McCorkle said.
Padillo sipped a little more of his gin and said, “How’s business, Harry? Are the terrorists taking Sunday nights off these days?”
Warnock sighed. “Business isn’t what it was, Michael, and that’s a fact. I blame some of the fall-off on the drop in oil prices which made a lot of my Arab clients cut back on security. But I blame most of it on Gorbachev himself and all that sweetness-and-light preaching of his. Jesus, it was but three, four years ago we had Libyan hit squads, sneaking across the borders up in Canada or down in Mexico, heading for the White House itself. My business shot up forty-two percent in that month alone.” He sighed again. “We’ll not be seeing the likes of those good times again.”
“The cold war’s over then?” McCorkle asked.
“Course it is. It’s just that the old dears who’d counted on apprenticing their sons and grandsons to the military-industrial trade are too stubborn to admit it — and who can blame ’em, say I?”
“Heard about Steady Haynes?” Padillo asked.
“I hear he died broke and the government had to bury him.”
“He left a little something,” Padillo said.
“Debts?”
“His memoirs.”
Warnock yawned. “I’ll wait for the paperback.”
“Remember Isabelle Gelinet?” Padillo said. “I sent her to you when she was still with AF-P and researching a story on old Bill Casey. She said you were helpful.”
“What about Isabelle?”
“She helped Steady write his memoirs.”
“She’s also dead,” Warnock said. “Somebody drowned her in her bath and before you ask me how I know what wasn’t in the papers, I’ll tell you it was Tinker Burns who found her and ’twas him who told me.”
“Tinker in the market for some protection?” Padillo asked.
“Old Tinker and I go back a few miles, we do,” Warnock said. “He made a nice bit of money off me, as well you know.”
“Off the IRA,” Padillo said.
“ ’Twas one and the same.”
“Then.”
Warnock shrugged. “That’s right. Then.”
McCorkle said, “After you defected from the IRA—”
“I never defected,” Warnock said. “I deserted.”
“Right. After you deserted and went into business, I seem to remember you sent out a rather fancy announcement.”
“All it said was that Warnock and Associates were a new security consultant firm, specializing in antiterrorism.”
“Wasn’t there a line at the bottom in italics about ‘Twenty Years Experience with the IRA’?”
“The best fucking credentials I could have,” Warnock said.
“What I’ve always been curious about,” McCorkle said, “is who were the associates in Warnock and Associates back then? One day, Harry, you’re a room-and-a-half office on the wrong side of Fourteenth Street and three weeks later you’re half a floor at Nineteenth and M. Who furnished the clout? Bill Casey? The National Security Council. The Saudis?”
“If you’re looking to hire me, Mr. McCorkle, sir, I’ve got many a fine reference you’ll be able to examine once a fee is agreed upon.”
“We are in the market for some security stuff,” McCorkle said.
“Is it your place you want swept then?”
“We’re concerned about Steady’s kid,” Padillo said. “Except he’s no kid. Thirty-two or — three. Around in there. Steady left him the copyright to the memoirs. And the kid, Granville, has decided to sell them to a private collector instead of trying to get them published. He’s asked us to sort of look after him until the memoirs are sold.”
Warnock gave his six associates a warning stare. “You’re not hearing a word of this, are you?”
Mr. Coors said, “No, sir. Not a word.”
Looking first at McCorkle, then at Padillo, Warnock said, “The kid wants you to baby-sit him?”
“To mind how he goes,” Padillo said.
“A bit of money involved, is there?”
“Three quarters of a million,” McCorkle said. “At least. Maybe more.”
The surprise that raced across Warnock’s wide pink face quickly changed into shock and then into anger. “What the fuck did Steady know that’s worth that?” he demanded. “He was never in on the real shit. He was always farting about in Africa or the Middle East or Central America — or out there in Southeast Slopeland doing his truth-juggling act. So what shocking revelations does old Steady have to tell? The CIA ran drugs, did it? Well, who the fuck cares? That they did in the Congo’s Lumumba, or had him done, along with maybe three or four dozen others over the years? So what? That they’ve kept a prime minister, a premier, a king or two and God knows how many other despots and satraps on their payroll? Who gives a shit? Christ, this country of yours lets some half-baked light-colonel run its so-called foreign policy out of the White House annex and when he’s caught, you turn him into a fucking hero. So why’d anyone give a good goddamn about the memoirs of a nobody called Steady Haynes? And what could old Steady possibly invent half as dirty as what’s really happened? And who the fuck’ll pay three quarters of a million for it?”
Warnock glared up at the ceiling, as if the answer might be written there. He then brought his glare down to aim it first at McCorkle, then Padillo. “It just doesn’t parse.”
In a very quiet voice Padillo said, “What do you care whether it parses or not?”
Cocking his head to the left, Warnock leaned back in his chair to study Padillo. The examination went on long enough for the bright red in his face to vanish, replaced by its normal pink. “Well, now, Michael, you struck a nerve, you did. And you’re right, of course. All I care about is how much you’re willing to pay me.”
“Your going rate,” McCorkle said. “Less the usual professional discount.”
“No discounts to the trade,” Warnock said, still staring at Padillo.
“I had to try,” McCorkle said.
“So who’s the package to be, Michael? Steady’s kid, what’s his name, Granville?”
“McCorkle and I are the package,” Padillo said. “If anybody comes for Granville, they’ll have to go through us. But McCorkle’s gone soft and I’ve lost a step, so to get to us, Harry, they’ll have to go through you.”