Cards on the Table
We returned to the city in the officer’s car. He and Grantham sat in the rear. I sat beside the soldier who drove. The boy and I got out at our hotel. Einarson said good night and was driven away as if he were in a hurry.
“It’s early,” Grantham said as we went indoors. “Come up to my room.”
I stopped at my own room to wash off the mud I’d gathered around the lumber stack and to change my clothes, and then went up with him. He had three rooms on the top floor, overlooking the plaza.
He set out a bottle of whisky, a syphon, lemons, cigars and cigarettes, and we drank, smoked, and talked. Fifteen or twenty minutes of the talk came from no deeper than the mouth on either side—comments on the night’s excitement, our opinions of Stefania, and so on. Each of us had something to say to the other. Each was weighing the other in before he said it.
I decided to put mine over first.
“Colonel Einarson was spoofing us tonight,” I said.
“Spoofing?” The boy sat up straight, blinking.
“His soldier shot for money, not revenge.”
“You mean—?” His mouth stayed open.
“I mean the little dark man you ate with gave the soldier money.”
“Mahmoud! Why, that’s—You are sure?”