Backup Men

14

THE KING was going for a grand slam in spades when Padillo came in and went behind the bar to mix himself a drink. Trumps were all in and the king used a spare one to get back to the board so that he could finesse his jack of hearts through me, but Amanda Clarkmann nailed the jack with her queen and the king was down one and doubled. He took it hard.

We had been playing bridge for nearly two hours that morning for a cent a point and the king and Scales were nearly thirty-five dollars ahead, probably because I hadn’t played in more than ten years and hoped that it would be another ten before I was talked into trying it again, even with a partner who played as well as Amanda Clarkmann.

On the next hand the bidding stopped when she went to four hearts which would be not only game, but also rubber. It made me dummy so after I laid down my hand, I joined Padillo at the bar. It was nearly noon and I had nothing to do until Wanda Gothar called that evening so I went behind the bar and mixed a martini, lying to myself as usual that it was needed to spark the appetite.

“Who’s winning?” Padillo said as I debated about whether I wanted an olive.

“They are,” I said, deciding that I didn’t really need the extra calories.

“I ordered the armored truck.”

“The armored truck,” I said wisely and took a quick swallow of the martini.

“It’s due at four.”

“The banks will be closed by then,” I said, once again demonstrating that I can keep up my end of any conversation.

“It’s not going to a bank.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s going to the airport.”

“LaGuardia,” I said, just to give him the chance to correct me. It made him feel better.

“Kennedy.”

“Well, I’ve heard that they make them so that they’re pretty comfortable nowadays.”

“We won’t be in it.”

“This came to you in the night, I assume.”

“Around two.”

“As a diversionary measure,” I said, “it has a touch of genius.”

“It’s half good and it gives us half a chance,” he said, “which is about one hundred percent better than we had before.”

“What’s going to the airport? In the armored car, I mean.”

“The ring.”

“The good one, of course.”

“Amanda says that it’s insured for five hundred thousand.”

“And where does the ring go once it gets to the airport?”

“To a jeweler in San Francisco. He’ll clean it and send it back.”

“But our nemeses, Mr. Kragstein and Mr. Gitner, will think that this is just a ruse—that we’re really inside the armored truck.”

“That’s it.”

“And while they’re following or pursuing the armored truck, we’ll be heading somewhere else.”

“Newark,” Padillo said.

“Ah, Newark.”

“Then to Denver.”

“Of course.”

“And from Denver guess where.”

“If I said San Francisco, I’d be wrong so I’ll say Los Angeles.”

“You’re right.”

“Where we rent a car and drive to San Francisco, sneaking in the back door so to speak. Whose armored truck is it, Brink’s?”

“It’s the other outfit,” he said, “the one with the red ones.”

“I’ve never ordered an armored truck,” I said, “probably because I felt that they’d be picky about having me as a customer. Did they give you any static?”

“I doubt that they’d give me the time. But then my Dun and Bradstreet rating doesn’t glow in the dark the way Amanda’s does.”

“She ordered it,” I said.

Padillo nodded.

“I can’t think of any disadvantages in being rich,” I said.

Padillo looked around the room. “Only one,” he said.

“What?”

“Worrying that someday you might be poor.”

After the game broke up and Amanda and I paid the king and Scales the $31.58 that we owed them, she excused herself, and the older of the two men who had waited on us the night before served lunch in the same room where we had played bridge.

Lunch was a shrimp cocktail with a sauce whose recipe I would have paid $100 for, thick rare roast beef sandwiches, and a Mexican beer that I’d never tried before but liked very much. The king said he didn’t drink beer, so he was brought a Coca-Cola.

During lunch Padillo told the king and Scales about the armored truck. They exchanged glances and after the king caught Scales’s almost imperceptible nod, he beamed and complimented Padillo on his deviation.

“I think you mean deviousness, your Majesty,” Scales murmured, looking a little embarrassed. The king beamed happily and said yes, that’s what he had meant all along. “It will also give me the opportunity to see more of your great country than I had thought possible,” he said, making it sound as though he felt that Padillo and I ranked not too far below the President and considerably above the Secretary of State.

Just before the coffee was served, the king got another one of those almost invisible nods from Scales. He rose, smoothing his bald head again, and begged to be excused, mentioning that it was time for his afternoon meditations.

When he was gone, Scales leaned across the table toward us in a confidential if not conspiratorial manner, said “uh” a couple of times, and then asked, “I had no wish to alarm his Majesty, of course, but are you quite convinced that this is our safest route to San Francisco?”

“There aren’t any safe routes,” Padillo said. “But this is the best I can come up with unless you change your mind about bringing in either the local cops or the Secret Service. I’d recommend both.”

Scales frowned, shook his head twice, and said, “Impossible,” in a tone that clearly implied that further discussion would be unwelcome.

It didn’t bother Padillo. “Why?” he said.

Scales pulled at the end of his long, skinny nose, looking first at Padillo and then at me, as if trying to decide whether we could be trusted with some more royal secrets. “I haven’t brought this up before because you might think it a bit ridiculous,” he said.

“Try us,” Padillo said.

“His Majesty—this is not critical, mind you—but his Majesty has a theory that amounts almost to an obsession.”

“About what?”

“Your Secret Service. He blames them, you know.”

“For what?”

“For the death of President Kennedy. Also his brother’s. His Majesty is convinced that it was a gigantic conspiracy and that the Secret Service was in the thick of it.”

“That’s not only dumb, it’s ridiculous,” Padillo said.

“The Secret Service wasn’t even assigned to Robert Kennedy,” I said.

“His Majesty’s point exactly,” Scales said. “‘Why not?’ he asks. Mind you, he’s read virtually everything that has been written on the subject and he is totally convinced of this conspiracy theory. It’s become an obsession with him and that’s why he’s so adamant about refusing Secret Service protection. He is positive that they can be suborned.”

A look of tired disgust crept over Padillo’s face. “All right,” he said. “The Secret Service is on the take. What about the local police?”

Scales ran a finger around the inside of his collar, straining his neck this way and that. His pale face grew a trifle pink. “Doctor King,” he murmured. “And Dallas.”

“The local cops are crooked, too,” Padillo said, nodding his head slightly and biting his lower lip to keep from either laughing or screaming.

“Of this, his Majesty is convinced.”

“What about the Gothars?” Padillo said. “What about McCorkle and me?”

“The Gothars had impeccable credentials, but just to make certain I had them doublechecked—at no small expense, I might add.”

“Who recommended me?” Padillo said. “As I understand it, the Gothars had to make me part of their package.”

“That is entirely correct,” Scales said. “You have an admirer who once was in British Intelligence, Mr. Padillo. I leant heavily upon him for advice. He recommended the Gothars as well as you.”

“What’s his name?”

“He prefers to remain anonymous and I respect his wishes.”

“You should have spent some of that money checking out Kragstein and Gitner,” Padillo said. “Then you might have frightened Kassim into agreeing to Secret Service protection.”

“His Majesty is well aware of their reputation,” Scales said, a little stiffly. “That’s why your services were engaged.”

“Because I’m supposed to be better than Gitner?”

Scales smiled for the first time in what must have been a long while. “Not better, Mr. Padillo,” he said. “But more honest. Decidedly more honest.”

I was back in the room that contained the bar at three thirty that afternoon. After Scales left us, Padillo and I had talked in a desultory manner for twenty minutes or so and then he had gone in search of Amanda Clarkmann to thank her for her hospitality or to say good-bye or to accept her offer of marriage. I never did find out which.

I did find another bottle of the Mexican beer and took it back to my room and sipped it while I read a new novel that a lot of critics had liked about a youngster from the Midwest who was trying to make up his mind whether to go to Canada or Vietnam. When he chose Canada, I gave a small cheer, put the book down, and headed for the room that contained the bar. Padillo and Amanda Clarkmann came in a few minutes later and since both of them seemed to be glowing more than usual I assumed that they had spent a pleasant enough afternoon together, probably in bed.

The king and Scales joined us and then William, the major domo, wheeled in some coffee along with the information that Amanda was wanted on the phone. She used the one near the bar and when she rejoined us she said, “That was the armored truck company. They’re going to be fifteen minutes early. I told William to notify the security people downstairs.”

Padillo looked at his watch. “We have time for one cup, I think.”

Amanda Clarkmann poured and served the coffee and offered around a plate of nice little sandwiches, but no one took any except the king, who took four.

Afterward we walked down the wide hall with the chandeliers, the black and white marble floor, and the Louis Quatorze furniture. Amanda Clarkmann carried a small gray velvet box that I assumed contained the ring. I wouldn’t have minded a look at a ring that was insured for half a million dollars, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

At three forty-five we were all standing in the foyer that faced the elevators. Padillo was next to Amanda. I was between the king and Scales. There was a soft bong from a bell as the elevator reached the nineteenth floor and the doors opened and two men in gray uniforms with drawn guns stepped out into the foyer.

It had gone just like Padillo had planned it. The only thing wrong was that one of the men with a drawn gun and a gray uniform was Amos Gitner.