Backup Men (19 page)

“You call,” she said. “It’s your lead.”

The phone permitted direct dialing so Padillo got outside and then dialed the ten numbers. We all listened while the phone rang. The room was quiet and I could hear the voice that answered in Washington, but I couldn’t hear what it said. But it said the same thing twice and then Padillo slowly hung up the phone.

“It was the Llaquah Embassy,” he said.

There was a silence that grew until I diplomatically broke it with, “I think I’ll have a drink on that.”

Wanda Gothar nodded and went into the bedroom, reappearing with three drinks on a small tray. Padillo accepted his and moved over to the window which offered a good view of the fog. I sat on the green and white striped sofa. Wanda was in a club chair with her hand that held the drink resting on its arm. Her head was back and her eyes were closed. No one seemed to have anything to say.

After several minutes of silence Padillo turned from the window, his face expressionless.

“As a lead, how good is it?” Wanda asked, not opening her eyes.

“It might narrow the search,” he said.

She opened her eyes. “How?”

Padillo turned to me. “Has San Francisco got an Arab quarter or section or neighborhood?”

“I don’t remember, if I ever knew, but I can find out.” I moved over to the phone and asked for information. “There’s a guy I used to know with UPI.”

“If that intuitive leap of yours is correct, Padillo,” she said, “it may tell us where they’ve gone, but not why.”

He turned back to the window. “There’s a possibility that I know that, too,” he said.

“But you’re going to keep it to yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s still just a possibility.”

There were a lot of representatives of what has been called the Arab world in San Francisco. There were Algerians and Egyptians and a large number of Syrians and Jordanians. There were a few Tunisians, I learned, and some Saudi Arabians.

“What about Armenians?” the man from UPI asked. “We’ve got a lot of Armenians.”

“I’d say that they’re geographically unacceptable.”

“Saroyan’s an Armenian,” he said, trying to be helpful.

“I thought there might be a section or a neighborhood where they congregated.”

“Not really,” he said. “They’re all sort of scattered around.”

“Do you know of any from Llaquah?”

“Where the hell’s Llaquah?”

“Not too far from Kuwait.”

“What do you call somebody from Llaquah?”

“A Llaquahian,” I said. “It rhymes with Hawaiian.”

“Well, I don’t know of any Llaquahians, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some. If you really want to find out, there’s a restaurant that a lot of the Middle East types hang out in.”

“What’s it called?”

“The Arabian Knight. That’s knight with a k.”

“I was afraid of that.”

We hung up after promising each other that we’d get together for a drink before I went back to Washington. Both of us knew that we wouldn’t.

The Arabian Knight restaurant was near Eighteenth and Querrero Streets in the Mission District and I remembered it as an area of German bakeries, Greek and Italian restaurants, a couple of Russian bars, and a sizable number of people who claimed to be from Malta. Now there was a rash of
Se Habla Español
signs in the shop windows so I assumed that a lot of persons of Spanish descent had moved back into the area which was named for the Misión San Francisco de Asís, founded five days before a group of malcontents in Philadelphia got around to issuing their Declaration of Independence.

Despite its name, San Francisco has about as much Spanish flavor as a bagel. Although widely admired for its high suicide rate, its nicely rising incidence of alcoholism, its occasional riot, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere, the city hasn’t done much about promoting its Spanish heritage. No doubt it will as soon as somebody figures out how it can bring a fast dollar.

We parked the car and walked back to the Arabian Knight which occupied the lower half of a two-story building whose front someone had gussied up with Permastone. Inside it was smoky and dark and crowded. There was a long bar, a row of high-backed booths, and some tables covered with red and white checkered oilcloth which helped cut down on the laundry bill.

The door to the kitchen was open and either customers or waiters wandered in and out. I couldn’t tell the difference. A jukebox blared out some Mideast music, marching songs for all I knew. There were only a few women in the place. The male customers sat in the booths or at tables in groups of three and four, drinking coffee and arrack and beer, their faces only a few inches apart, shouting at each other over the noise of the jukebox, probably conspiring against Israel.

A swarthy, slim man of about thirty who wore a white shirt and a narrow black tie came up to us and yelled to determine whether we wanted a booth or a table. Padillo yelled booth and we were led back to one which was close enough to the kitchen for us to hear the cooks arguing with the waiters.

The waiter handed Padillo a menu and Padillo handed it back, saying that we only wanted drinks—arrack for the three of us. The waiter nodded, left, and when he returned, Padillo asked if the owner was around. The waiter nodded again, pointed to the last booth, bent down, and yelled “Dr. Asfourh!” Padillo brought out a card, the one which said only, “Michael Padillo, Washington, D.C.,” and handed it to the waiter, and asked him to find out whether Dr. Asfourh could spare us a few moments. In private. The waiter looked dubious, but went away, came back, and screamed that Dr. Asfourh would see us in his office upstairs in ten minutes. It came out in a short series of screams really. “Dr. Asfourh—upstairs—he see you—ten minutes.” He held up all of his fingers to make sure that we got it straight.

Wanda Gothar sat next to me in the booth. She leaned toward Padillo and raised her voice so that both of us could hear. “I’ll stay here.”

Padillo looked at her, a little strangely, I thought. “Why?” he said.

“You were about to leave your flanks unprotected again. It’s getting to be a habit with you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Think again. How many tries have Kragstein and Gitner made, five?”

“Four,” Padillo said. “One in Delaware, two in New York, and one here.”

“And how many people are dead?”

“Two. One of theirs and a friend of mine.”

“Two of theirs might be in the hospital,” I said. “My contribution.”

“My brother,” she said. “You forgot Walter.”

Padillo shook his head. “I didn’t forget Walter, I just didn’t mention him.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Padillo said, “I don’t think Kragstein and Gitner killed him.”

20

IF WANDA Gothar wanted to ask Padillo if he thought he knew who had killed her brother, she didn’t get the chance because he rose, turned, and headed for the door just behind the last booth. The door opened onto a flight of stairs. I followed my leader.

At the top of the stairs there was a grimy hall that needed to be swept. Padillo hesitated before turning right or left and then turned right when a rich bass voice called out, “This way, Mr. Padillo.”

That way was down the hall toward the rear of the building. Pale amber light flooded through a half-open door. We went through it and into a room that seemed to have been decorated by someone enthralled with Egyptian antiquity. There was a large, authentic-looking statue of Osiris, king of the dead, which was flanked by one of his sister-wife Isis—the goddess of fertility, I remembered from somewhere. An old movie, probably. The rugs were also from the Middle East, Lebanon no doubt, and looked expensive.

The room had no windows that I could see, but that may have been because heavy amber drapes that looked like real silk covered two of its walls. The indirect lighting revealed some other Egyptian artifacts which I felt should have been in a museum: there was a large fresco that hung on one wall and looked as if it might have been stolen from the ceiling of Ramses VI’s tomb at Thebes; a sculpted head of Cleopatra could have been the double of the one I’d seen in the British Museum, and a bas relief that someone later told me depicted Hapi, the male god of the Nile who had the breasts of a woman because they were thought to represent fertility.

There were also some comfortable-looking chairs, an immense carved desk, and behind it stood Dr. Asfourh who could have lost 150 pounds and still been overweight. He was as fat as the late King Farouk I and even looked something like him, which he didn’t seem to mind at all.

“You must be Mr. Padillo,” Dr. Asfourh said in that rolling bass that to me sounded a little like spring thunder. “There’s the Spanish in your eyes.”

“The rest is Estonian,” Padillo said, accepting Dr. Asfourh’s hand. “This is my partner, Mr. McCorkle.”

“Scot?” he said as he gave me his hand which was surprisingly small, but just as plump as I’d expected.

“Some,” I said. “There’s also some Irish and some English but it all goes back so far that nobody’s really sure.”

He spread his hands in an almost imploring manner. “Do sit down, gentlemen.”

It took Dr. Asfourh a little while to seat himself because he did it cautiously, as if not too sure that the oversized executive chair was as sturdy as it looked. He grasped its arms firmly and then lowered himself into it slowly and carefully, but with a curious kind of dignity.

I guessed that he was somewhere between forty and forty-five. It’s often hard to judge the age of those who are extremely fat. His head had turned itself into the shape of a big-bottomed pear because of the jowls that draped themselves from his chin line, almost obscuring his short neck, and making it seem difficult for him to smile because his mouth didn’t like handling all that weight. But he smiled anyway—almost constantly—and I noticed that his teeth were white and even and probably capped. From the roundness of his face jutted a nose that was thin and sharp and beaked. It went with his dark, bitter eyes that flickered as they moved.

“I am Egyptian by birth, as you have probably gathered. But by choice I am an American citizen.” He paused a moment as if brooding about that choice. “So. You are from Washington and you are here for what purpose—business or pleasure?”

“Mostly business,” Padillo said. “Mr. McCorkle and I have a restaurant in Washington.”

“Really? I have been in Washington on numerous occasions. What is it called?”

“Mac’s Place,” I said.

“Just off Connecticut?”

“That’s right,” Padillo said.

“Although I have not dined there, it was recommended to me. I do believe that the person who told me of it described it as superb. Is that true?”

“It’s better than most,” Padillo said. “Superb is a word that should be carefully used when it comes to restaurants.”

Dr. Asfourh nodded his agreement as he smoothed a few long strands of black hair. He was nearly bald and the hair that was left grew just above his ears and formed several long thin arches over his white scalp. It didn’t help much, I thought. He still looked bald.

“So. You are in San Francisco for what—a new chef? Perhaps a new maitre d’?” He didn’t give us a chance to answer because he furnished his own. “No, you would be looking for neither at the Arabian Knight. It is not, as you may have noticed, a first-class joint.” He smiled contentedly at his use of the phrase.

“We’re thinking of expanding,” Padillo said. “We’ve already looked into New York and Chicago. Now we’re considering LA. and San Francisco.”

“All restaurant towns,” Dr. Asfourh said, nodding his agreement again. “However, I am still at a loss as to why you’re here. Jack’s or Ernie’s would seem far more suitable.”

“We’re also looking for a friend,” I said.

“A friend?”

“He’s from the Middle East. From Llaquah.”

“Your restaurant was recommended to us as being a kind of informal headquarters for those from the Middle East,” Padillo said.

“From Llaquah,” Dr. Asfourh said. “Very few who come here are from Llaquah. But if they do, they always seem to be in transit. And they always want something. A free meal perhaps. A place to sleep. Even,” he said, looking at us carefully, “even sometimes a place to hide.”

“Do you provide that?” Padillo said.

Dr. Asfourh took a long cigar from the humidor on his desk and lit it carefully with a wooden match. “I have not always been a restaurant owner. In Alexandria I was a physician. A dedicated one, I might add. Perhaps too dedicated. I was forced to leave my country and emigrate to yours where I hoped to resume the practice of medicine. I then still entertained most of the ideals of my profession. Dedication again. However, because of some incredible stupidity on the part of my colleagues in the American Medical Association, I was not permitted to practice in the United States unless I undertook a long, tedious and fruitless training program. Am I boring you?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“To shorten my story, I refused to undergo the training and became an illicit abortionist. They were probably the happiest—and most profitable—years of my life.” He paused as if to think about them. Fondly. “My dedication sloughed away as my bank account grew. Now, at the behest of the local authorities, I have retired from all practice. I pass the time operating this place and coming to the aid of those from the Arab world who find themselves in San Francisco—and in trouble.”