Hopscotch by Brian Garfield Page A

confusion. You have a seat, hear—tell me what-all I can do for you?”
    Maddox didn’t remember at all of course. But Kendig knew Jim-Bob Fredericks by sight—nobody who’d ever had anything to do with international oil machinations didn’t know Fredericks—and once seven years ago he had in fact seen Fredericks in this club talking to Maddox.
    â€œYou said if I could ever use a little help on this little thing or that I should look you up. Well sirhere I am.” Kendig looked around the room with quick appreciative nods. Maddox had no desk; he worked in an easy chair by a coffee table. The middle-sized room had the grandiose pretension of an antebellum drawing room: high ceiling, brocaded furnishings, leather-laden bookshelves, a painting that might well be a real Stuart, living-room lamps that illumined without glare.
    â€œI’d be pleased to help out, Mr. Murdison. What can I do for you?”
    â€œI’d kind of like to charter a private plane.”
    Maddox gave him an outdoor squint. In another month he’d be out in the piney woods himself—he was the kind who’d like to prove his carnivorous superiority to a 140-pound whitetail buck. “I’m not exactly in the airplane binness, Mr. Murdison.”
    â€œWell this is for a little vacation I’ve got in mind. It wants to be a real private plane, you understand?”
    Maddox dropped a piece of notepaper in the ledger to mark his place; closed it gently and set it aside. “Well now I expect you realize a binnessman like me can’t go involving himself in extralegal activity.”
    â€œI’m not in the smuggling line, nothing like that. I have a little problem about these private detectives that sort of keep tabs on me, you follow? And it just might be I promised this little lady friend of mine a nice quiet vacation down there in the islands for two, three weeks?”
    Maddox slid back in the chair, clasped his hands over his belly and grinned slowly. We’re both men of the world . “From time to time I do pass on a contact or two in the right direction. How long a flight would this be that you had in mind?”
    â€œThis little girl sort of has her heart set on Saint Thomas down there in the Virgins.”
    â€œThat’s about eleven hundred air miles from Miami. You couldn’t exactly do that in a puddle-jumper. You’d need a Bonanza, Twin Apache, something like that.”
    â€œThat sounds about right, yes sir.”
    â€œA plane that size is likely to cost you a little money. You’d want service both ways, two or three weeks apart?”
    â€œThat would be just about exactly right, Mr. Maddox.”
    Maddox squinted at a point above and behind him. “We’d have to face the fact that private aviation fuel’s a little hard to come by.”
    â€œYes sir. Between you and me I think there’s always ways to get around these little problems. If a man’s willing to spend a little money here and there. I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I didn’t intend to spend a little money. I mean what else is the stuff for?”
    Maddox smiled gently and watched him. Kendig took the flat wallet from his inside pocket and counted off ten one-hundred-dollar bills and placed them neatly on the arm of his chair. Then he put the wallet away. “I’m on my way down to Houston, a meeting tomorrow afternoon, and then I’ve got to be back in Topeka by Friday. I’d rather you didn’t get in touch with me—I’d better get in touch with you.”
    â€œI’ll tell you what. If you’ve got a few hours to spare right now why don’t you wait around the club a while or come back later tonight. I might be able to help out. I happen to know a charter pilot here in town who’s done a few discreet chores for mefrom time to time. Why don’t you check back with me in about, say, two hours?”
    Kendig stood up.