made it to the Resistance?”
“One of Steady’s taller tales, right?”
Haynes confirmed the guess with a nod and said, “They send you after Tinker?”
“Who?”
“The OSS.”
“I had better things to do,” Padillo said. “But in ’forty-six in Marseilles, I believe I did bump into Tinker again and mention that the Army’s CID was getting warm, thus earning his eternal gratitude. On Tinker time, of course, eternity is about two and a half weeks.”
“That must’ve been when he joined the Legion.”
“About then,” Padillo said. “But to get back to Isabelle. When she walked in here with nothing but Tinker’s letter, it hit me that she might be more than just another kid reporter looking for the big break.” He paused. “Although God knows this town’s always had a surplus of them.”
“L.A., too,” Haynes said.
“So I introduced her to Karl Triller.”
“Your bartender.”
“And minority stockholder.”
“The one who helped nurse Steady through his fourth divorce.”
“The same,” Padillo said. “For more than twenty years Karl has studied congressional antics. It’s been a very thorough, very German study, and notice I said antics, not actions.”
“I noticed.”
“What began as a hobby turned into an informal clearinghouse of information.”
“A gossip exchange.”
Ignoring Haynes’s clarification, Padillo said, “Karl gets quoted a lot by air and print reporters, although never by name. He’s always a veteran Congress watcher, a well-informed source, or that grand old standby, the seasoned Washington observer. It was Karl who tipped Isabelle off to a couple of stories that she beat AP on and impressed her editors so much that, after the nineteen eighty conventions, they assigned her to the Bush campaign and, in the final month, to Reagan’s.”
“A couple of nice hops,” Haynes said.
“So nice that soon after the election she began getting invitations. To dinners. Embassy receptions. Various balls. Intimate gatherings of twelve in Spring Valley. Things like that. Sometimes she needed an escort; sometimes she didn’t. When she did, she usually asked me, probably because I had a dinner jacket and knew how to tango.”
Haynes grinned, which again caused Padillo to realize how closely the son resembled the dead father. “Anyway,” Padillo said, “we lasted eighteen months, maybe twenty, and then came Steady.”
“What’d he have to offer other than limitless charm?”
“New directions.”
“Leading where?”
“To covert action fiascoes. Terrorism, theirs and ours. An assortment of foreign intrigue imbroglios. Homegrown money spies. Redefecting defectors. It was heady times and Isabelle began to wonder if it wasn’t mostly because old Bill Casey was back.”
“Back?”
“From his glory days in OSS.”
“You knew him then?”
“In a way.”
“And Isabelle?”
“Eventually, she did an unauthorized and very unflattering three-part profile on Casey,” Padillo said. “She had a lot of help from Steady and a mixed bag of Casey watchers he’d rounded up for her. A few even let her quote them by name. She later sent me a copy of the piece. I think I still have it somewhere—a hell of a story. But twenty minutes after AF-P moved it, they sent out a kill. Isabelle got mad and quit, did some free-lancing for a while, then moved in with Steady at his farm either to write or help him write his memoirs—or so I gathered from what she said at lunch today.”
After studying Padillo for almost fifteen seconds, Haynes said, “You haven’t always run a saloon, have you?”
“I’ve always wanted to.”
“What’d you do before you and McCorkle opened this one?”
“We ran one in Bonn.”
“What happened to it?”
“They blew it up.”
“Who’re they?”
“McCorkle’s always been convinced it was the CIA who supplied the bomb and the KGB who threw it.” He smiled slightly. “But then McCorkle has a rather jaundiced view of world
“One of Steady’s taller tales, right?”
Haynes confirmed the guess with a nod and said, “They send you after Tinker?”
“Who?”
“The OSS.”
“I had better things to do,” Padillo said. “But in ’forty-six in Marseilles, I believe I did bump into Tinker again and mention that the Army’s CID was getting warm, thus earning his eternal gratitude. On Tinker time, of course, eternity is about two and a half weeks.”
“That must’ve been when he joined the Legion.”
“About then,” Padillo said. “But to get back to Isabelle. When she walked in here with nothing but Tinker’s letter, it hit me that she might be more than just another kid reporter looking for the big break.” He paused. “Although God knows this town’s always had a surplus of them.”
“L.A., too,” Haynes said.
“So I introduced her to Karl Triller.”
“Your bartender.”
“And minority stockholder.”
“The one who helped nurse Steady through his fourth divorce.”
“The same,” Padillo said. “For more than twenty years Karl has studied congressional antics. It’s been a very thorough, very German study, and notice I said antics, not actions.”
“I noticed.”
“What began as a hobby turned into an informal clearinghouse of information.”
“A gossip exchange.”
Ignoring Haynes’s clarification, Padillo said, “Karl gets quoted a lot by air and print reporters, although never by name. He’s always a veteran Congress watcher, a well-informed source, or that grand old standby, the seasoned Washington observer. It was Karl who tipped Isabelle off to a couple of stories that she beat AP on and impressed her editors so much that, after the nineteen eighty conventions, they assigned her to the Bush campaign and, in the final month, to Reagan’s.”
“A couple of nice hops,” Haynes said.
“So nice that soon after the election she began getting invitations. To dinners. Embassy receptions. Various balls. Intimate gatherings of twelve in Spring Valley. Things like that. Sometimes she needed an escort; sometimes she didn’t. When she did, she usually asked me, probably because I had a dinner jacket and knew how to tango.”
Haynes grinned, which again caused Padillo to realize how closely the son resembled the dead father. “Anyway,” Padillo said, “we lasted eighteen months, maybe twenty, and then came Steady.”
“What’d he have to offer other than limitless charm?”
“New directions.”
“Leading where?”
“To covert action fiascoes. Terrorism, theirs and ours. An assortment of foreign intrigue imbroglios. Homegrown money spies. Redefecting defectors. It was heady times and Isabelle began to wonder if it wasn’t mostly because old Bill Casey was back.”
“Back?”
“From his glory days in OSS.”
“You knew him then?”
“In a way.”
“And Isabelle?”
“Eventually, she did an unauthorized and very unflattering three-part profile on Casey,” Padillo said. “She had a lot of help from Steady and a mixed bag of Casey watchers he’d rounded up for her. A few even let her quote them by name. She later sent me a copy of the piece. I think I still have it somewhere—a hell of a story. But twenty minutes after AF-P moved it, they sent out a kill. Isabelle got mad and quit, did some free-lancing for a while, then moved in with Steady at his farm either to write or help him write his memoirs—or so I gathered from what she said at lunch today.”
After studying Padillo for almost fifteen seconds, Haynes said, “You haven’t always run a saloon, have you?”
“I’ve always wanted to.”
“What’d you do before you and McCorkle opened this one?”
“We ran one in Bonn.”
“What happened to it?”
“They blew it up.”
“Who’re they?”
“McCorkle’s always been convinced it was the CIA who supplied the bomb and the KGB who threw it.” He smiled slightly. “But then McCorkle has a rather jaundiced view of world
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