The Cold War Swap by Ross Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

do with the fact that Padillo missed his flight to Berlin.”
    “Well, I think your belief is founded on faulty reasoning. Maas was at my place at four o'clock this morning carrying a brief case and a Luger and drinking my Scotch. When I left shortly before eleven he was still there snoring on my living-room couch.”
    Maybe they send them through a special school where they are taught not to express surprise or emotion. Perhaps they stick pins in each other and the one who says “ouch” gets a black star for the day. They showed no more surprise than if I had told them that it was nice this morning, but it looks like rain this afternoon.
    “What did Maas say to you, McCorkle?” Hatcher asked. His voice was flat and not particularly friendly.
    “I told him why I was going to boot his ass out and then he told me why I wasn’t. He said he knew where Mike was going and why and that he’d let the Bonn police know that plus the fact that Mike was here when the shooting took place unless I let him spend the night. What the hell—I let him spend the night.
    “He said he had an appointment at noon today. He didn’t say where, I didn’t ask.”
    “Was there anything else—anything at all?”
    “He thanked me for the Scotch and I told him to go to hell. That’s all. Absolutely all.”
    Hatcher started to recite. “After Padillo arrived at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhoff he had a glass of beer. Then he made a phone call. He spoke to no one in person. He then went to the Savigny Hotel, where he checked into a room. He went up in the elevator and stayed in his room for eight minutes and then came down to the bar. He sat down at the table of a couple who have been identified an American tourists. This was at eight-fifteen. At eight-thirty he excused himself and went to the men’s room, leaving his cigarette case and lighter on the table.He never came back from the men’s room, and that’s the last trace we’ve had of him.”
    “So he’s disappeared,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? Just exactly what is it you want?”
    Burmser ground his cigarette out into the ash tray. He frowned, and his tanned forehead developed four deep wrinkles. “Maas is important to Padillo,” he said in the voice of the patient teacher to the mayor’s retarded son. “First, because only he—besides us—knew Padillo was to catch that plane. And, second, because Padillo did not catch the plane.”
    He paused and then continued in the same patient voice. “If Maas knows of the particular assignment that Padillo is on, then we want to call it off. Padillo is of no use on it. His cover is blown.”
    “I take it you’d like him back,” I said.
    “Yes, Mr. McCorkle. We would like him back very much.”
    “And you think Maas knows what happened?”
    “We think he’s the key.”
    “O.K., if Maas drops by, I’ll tell him to call you before he calls Lieutenant Wentzel. And if Padillo happens to give me a ring, I’ll tell him you’ve asked after his health.”
    They both looked pained.
    “If you hear from either, let us know, please,” Hatcher said.
    “I’ll call you at the Embassy.”
    They not only looked pained but they seemed embarrassed.
    Hatcher said, “Not at the Embassy Mr. McCorkle. We’re not with the Embassy. Call us at this number.” He wrote it down on a leaf from a notebook and handed it to me.
    “I’ll burn it later,” I said.
    Burmser smiled faintly. Hatcher almost did. They got up and left.
    I finished my coffee, lighted a cigarette to get rid of its cold taste, and tried to determine why two of the town’s top agents so suddenly had revealed their identities to me. In the years I had been operatingthe bar, none had given me the time of day. Now I was an insider, almost a fellow conspirator in their efforts to unravel the mystery of the vanished American agent. McCorkle, the seemingly innocuous barkeep, whose espionage tentacles reached from Antwerp to Istanbul.
    There was also the equally discomforting