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Haynes would say next, and by Haynes wondering whether he should say anything. Finally, he said, “Ever hear of a place in what used to be the Congo called Kilo Moto?”
    “No,” Mott said.
    “It’s known for its gold mines. In March of ’sixty-five it fell to Five Commando—Hoare’s outfit.”
    “The mercenary they called Mad Mike?”
    Haynes nodded. “Tinker was an officer, a captain, I think, in Five Commando when it took a town called Watsa and with it the gold mines of Kilo Moto.”
    “I didn’t think the Congo mercenaries would accept Americans.”
    “They wouldn’t,” Haynes said. “But by then Tinker was no longer an American. After his first five-year hitch in the Legion was up, he had the option of becoming a French citizen and grabbed it.”
    A practiced listener, Mott only nodded.
    “Steady was also back in the Congo then—doing good works for Mobutu Sese Seko, or the Supreme Guide, as he calls himself these days. Tinker and Steady had known each other before—from Nice in the late fifties. Some people think they met in Zaire but they didn’t. Anyway, Tinker got word to Steady that he’d liberated thirty kilos of gold bars—”
    “About sixty-six pounds,” Mott said.
    “Right. And if you’re beginning to wonder how I know all this, it’s because I heard it through a thin wall when I was thirteen and supposedly asleep. Tinker and Steady were on the other side of the wall and well into war stories and a bottle or two of Scotch.”
    “But if Tinker Burns and Five Commando were trying to dump Mobutu, why get in touch with Steady, who was, from what little I know, Mobutu’s chief image polisher?”
    “You really want to discuss ethics?”
    “Sorry,” Mott said.
    “As I said, Tinker got word to Steady that he’d liberated the gold. He needed a way to get it from Zaire into Uganda, which is next door in case you’re a little fuzzy on your African geography.”
    Mott again said nothing.
    “Well, the CIA had hired some Cuban pilots to fly and fight for Mobutu. They were a hard-luck bunch who hadn’t done all that well at the Bay of Pigs, which is where they’d last flown for the agency. Steady suborned one of the pilots—he was really quite good at suborning—and convinced him to ‘borrow’ a plane and fly to Watsa. There the pilot would secretly pick up a deserting officer from Five Commando. After he flew the deserter to Uganda for debriefing, the Cuban would be paid five thousand dollars. And that’s how Steady Haynes got Tinker Burns out of the Congo with a knapsack containing sixty-six pounds of gold bars. And that’s how Tinker acquired the capital to go into the arms business and possibly why Steady received that four thousand dollars every month.”
    “What happened to the Cuban pilot?”
    “Who knows?”
    Mott nodded thoughtfully, spun around in his chair and stared out of his corner window. His view was of some other buildings very much like his own. Over their rooftops he could watch the planes as they descended and rose at National Airport.
    Still watching the planes, Mott said, “Did you know Steady’s written a book?”
    He spun back around just in time to see Haynes nod. “He and Isabelle. His memoirs—or autobiography.”
    “It’s copyrighted, of course,” Mott said.
    “So?”
    “He assigned the copyright to you in his will. Except for the old Caddy, it’s your sole legacy.”
    “My own copyright. Imagine.”
    “Bear with me,” Mott said. “Steady deposited a sealed copy of the manuscript with me two weeks ago when he made out his will just before he and Isabelle checked into the Hay-Adams. He said it was the only copy. Of the manuscript, not the will.”
    “The phrase ‘only copy’ has always bothered me.”
    “Me, too,” Mott said. “But in this case it may be true.” He paused, as if beginning a new paragraph, and said, “About thirty or thirty-five minutes before you walked through my door, I got a call from what I’ll describe as a