Росс Томас - Cast a Yellow Shadow

“Are they the ones who wrote the note?”

“Probably. They were trying to appear German for some reason. They made their proposition in German and I turned them down in English and they forgot about their German. Then they raised the ante — from fifty thousand dollars to seventy-five thousand. I still said no.”

He paused for a moment. “There were two of them,” he continued. “And they told me about myself. They told me quite a bit — even some stuff that I’d almost forgotten. They had everything about you and the saloon and me and my former employers. They even knew about the two who had defected and how we’d got them back.”

“Where’d they get it?”

“Wolgemuth probably lost somebody in Berlin and whoever it was took a file with him. Wolgemuth knew a lot about us.”

“Then what?”

“They talked about blackmail to me there in Lomé and I laughed at them. I said I’d just go back to Switzerland and die again. You have to have something to lose to be blackmailed and there wasn’t anything they could take away from me. So they got down to that one last threat that they all use because it’s supposed to make you cry. Either I agreed to do what they wanted, or I’d be dead within forty-eight hours.”

“Who were you supposed to kill?”

“Their Prime Minister. They had the time and the place all picked out: Pennsylvania Avenue, a block and a half west of the White House. What’s today?”

“Thursday.”

“It’s supposed to happen a week from tomorrow.”

I found myself unable to be surprised or even concerned. I had known Padillo for a long time and together we had seen a few die. A Prime Minister would be just one more and his death would be nothing compared with what I stood to lose. That’s how it seemed then because Fredl was gone and because I was afraid that she would be gone forever and I would be alone again. I was afraid that if she were dead, all the years that had gone before would add up to nothing. Yet there was no panic or frenzy or scurrying about. I just sat there with Padillo and listened to him talk about the man somebody wanted him to kill so that they wouldn’t kill my wife. I wondered how Fredl was and if she had cigarettes and where she would sleep and if she were cold and what she had had for dinner.

“A week from tomorrow,” I said.

“A Friday.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I told them I’d let them know and then I got out of Togo. I flew out with a fifty-year-old ex-Luftwaffe pilot who thought he was still diving Stukas. He charged me a thousand dollars to go to Liberia — Monrovia. I took the next ship out — the bucket that landed me in Baltimore.”

“And they knew all about it,” I said. “They knew you’d gone to Monrovia and to Baltimore and they knew about Fredl and about me.”

“They knew,” Padillo said. “I should have gone back to Switzerland. I carry a lot of trouble around with me.”

“Who is it you’re supposed to kill?”

“His name is Van Zandt. He’s Prime Minister of one of the smaller south African nations — the one that followed Rhodesia in declaring its unilateral independence from Britain. The British got excited and started talking about treason and then put through some economic sanctions.”

“I remember,” I said. “It’s before the UN now. The country has about two million people and one hundred thousand of them are whites. What else has it got?”

“A hell of a lot of chromium — about a third of our supply.”

“We can’t let that go.”

“Not according to Detroit.”

“Who wants you to kill Van Zandt? He’s an old man.”

“The two who approached me were from his cabinet. He’s arriving here in a couple of days to make a plea before the UN. First he’ll put in an appearance in Washington. There won’t be any royal treatment here — just an Assistant Secretary of State to meet him at the airport and a ride down Constitution Avenue. He won’t get near the White House.”

“What’re you supposed to do?”

“Pick him off with a rifle. They’re to set it up for me.”

“Won’t the old man get suspicious?”

“Hardly. It’s all his idea. He’ll be dead of cancer within two months anyhow.”

They liked to mention that Hennings Van Zandt was eighty-two years old and that he had been one of the first whites to be born in the country that he served as Prime Minister. He had watched it evolve from a virtually unexplored territory into a private preserve of the British South Africa Company, then into a colony, and finally into a self-governing country. Now he claimed it was independent, but Britain said it wasn’t and that its declaration of independence was tantamount to treason. Because of the chromium, the U.S. had made only gruff warnings about not recognizing the declaration.

“When they made me the proposition, they spelled it all out,” Padillo said. “I don’t know if it’s logical or not. All I know is that it could cause a hell of an uproar.”

According to Padillo the plan was to announce that Van Zandt was coming to the U.S. to plead his country’s cause before the United Nations. He would stop first in Washington for trade talks and for a try at countering the British anti-independence campaign.

“They’ve followed the civil rights action here,” Padillo said. “Van Zandt himself came up with the idea. He gets assassinated, the blame is placed upon an unnamed American Negro, and public opinion here does a flip-flop in support of Van Zandt and his government.”

“That’s tricky thinking,” I said, “but they sound like a tricky bunch.”

“They have it all mapped out. There’ll be almost no police or security protection for Van Zandt — nothing like what’s laid on for De Gaulle or Wilson. They’ll make sure that the Prime Minister is riding in an open car. When he’s shot, he becomes a martyr in America to the cause of white supremacy, which is about as good a way to go as any if you’re eighty-two, think like he does, and have a stomach that’s three-fourths eaten away by cancer.”

“Why did they pick you?” I said.

“They wanted a pro — someone who wouldn’t get caught — because they’re going to have unimpeachable eyewitnesses who saw a Negro with a rifle. They need someone who can make it down the elevator, out into the lobby, and across the street. They picked me.”

“Could you do it?”

Padillo held up his glass to the light and looked at it as if it contained an unfriendly cockroach. “I suppose so. I could do it and feel nothing. Zero. I think that’s what I’m most afraid of. It’s been getting a little empty. But say the word and I’ll do it and I won’t get caught and you might get your wife back.”

“Might?”

“She’ll be dead, of course, but they could let you live long enough to bury her.”

“You don’t think they’d like to have me walking around with all my inside knowledge?”

“Neither you nor Fredl nor me. The two who made me the proposition are to be the eye witnesses. If you include Van Zandt, that’s a conspiracy of three and that’s damned big for something like this.”

“With us, it’s six,” I said.

“That’s why they won’t want us around.”

I looked at my watch. It was almost three in the morning and the apartment seemed to be assuming the impersonal quality of one of the rooming houses that had once stood in its place. Padillo was sitting in the chair, his drink on the coffee table, his head in his hands. He seemed to be giving the rug a careful examination.

“I should have gone to Switzerland,” he said again.

“But you didn’t.”

“I wasn’t very smart. I must be getting old. I feel old.”

“You’re two months younger than I am.”