Brewer didn’t care now. He was even beyond anger. He slouched up to the doorway indifferently.
She pointed inside. “Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
The back room of the saloon was half-filled with people eating and drinking. Abbott sat in a booth with Flo’s husband, Rudy. Eyes shut, Rudy was crooning a lugubrious song at the ceiling, breathing cigarette smoke and letting tears flow down his face. Abbott watched him with considerable interest. Brewer was surprised to notice that Abbott’s eyes were still clear.
“Hey, Brewer,” said Abbott. “Boy, I’m glad to see you.”
“Yeah,” said Brewer. “Great.”
Abbott struggled out of the booth and strode purposefully across the room to the door and left it open behind him. “Let’s go, Brewer.”
“Jesus. He can still walk. What does he owe you?”
“Nothing. Rudy bought him.”
“Rudy bought him. Sure. With whose money? Here.” He held out a five-dollar bill to her.
“I don’t want it.”
“Yeah. Neither do I.” He pushed it down into her blouse pocket. Rudy crooned a long wail as Brewer left.
“What happened to you, Abbott?”
“What do you mean, happened? Nothing happened. What you mean what happened?” They faced each other on the sidewalk in the rain. Abbott was holding his booze pretty good.
“You were supposed to meet me.”
“I did. I did meet you. Only, Brewer old poop, you didn’t meet me. So I just went to have one with a couple of guys.”
“Went! You went way to hell and gone up Third Avenue.”
“Yeah—well, that’s where they wanted to go. So that’s where we went. See? That’s where they wanted—”
“Where’d you hock the stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“The stuff in the truck. Where did you hock it?”
“Hock the stuff? Did I do that? Why did I do that?”
“Come on, come on. The stuff. You know. The pulleys and the chairs and the barrels. Where’d you hock it?”
“Where’d I hock it? Did I? Listen. I didn’t hock the stuff.”
“Well, where is it?”
“Inna truck.”
“No, you dummy, it’s not in the truck.” Brewer started through Abbott’s pockets. “Where’s the pawn ticket?”
“I ain’t got no pawn ticket.”
“Yeah?” Brewer pulled a jacket pocket inside out. The rain was heavier now.
“I stowed it.”
“Stowed it. Where?”
“Onna roof. Up onna roof.”
“What roof? What are you talking about? Roof?”
“Onna roof. Where we’re going to go. It’s on the roof all set for tonight. Right? We’re going to do it. Tonight. Easy as pie. Right?”
Brewer stepped away from Abbott, pointed up at the sky. “You mean up on the roof?”
“Absolutely. Guaranteed. On the roof.”
Brewer felt a roaring in his ears. His cheeks became hot. He felt the violent collision of emotions again. The deal was still on. They could go. The way out of the Complex was still open—down that sixteen-story wall. He still had to go down it. The wall—it loomed ahead of him like major surgery.
But he’d already accepted failure. He’d received his freedom. He stared at Abbott, absorbing the significance of it all. A twitch throbbed in his cheek. “Somebody may have found it.”
“Nah. Not on the roof. Who’s on the roof?” Abbott stood holding the skirt of his jacket and the turned-out pocket, trying to push the pocket back in, twisting his torso, walking in a circle after the pocket.
“Come on, Abbott. I gotta know the truth.”
“It’s all taken care of. Just you and me. Right, Brewer? Just you and me on the roof.”
But Abbott was in no shape to go out the window and down the side of any building. He collided with the fender of a parked automobile. His eyes were sliding slowly out of focus, heavy-lidded. Brewer grabbed his arm and pulled him between two parked cars. “Here. Dump it.”
“Ha?”
“Dump it. Put your finger down your throat and dump it. Puke! Goddam it, Abbott. Puke!”
Abbott frowned furiously at him as though hard of hearing. He swayed slightly. “What what what? Come on, Brewer.”
“Get rid of the load, Abbott. Puke! Use your fingers.”
“I don’t want to puke. Hey, Brewer, I feel great. Let’s go somewhere. What do you say? A bite to eat. Listen, how about a quick snort?”
“Abbott, let it go, right here. Put your finger in your mouth.”
“No dice, Brewer. No dice. Now come on, old poop …”
Brewer held Abbott firmly by the arm, glancing up and down the foggy street. He pulled out a clasped switch-blade knife. “Look, Abbott, you see this? See it!” He pressed the button, and the blade sprang open. He clutched Abbott closer to it. “See it! Now you unload that rotgut or I’m going to do it for you—from nose to toes! Dump it.”
Abbott had bent back over the trunk of the car, hypnotized by the blade.
“Now!” yelled Brewer.
Abbott bent over and pushed his fingers into his mouth with familiar skill. He coughed in a spasm and heaved; then, finished, he groped in a pocket for a handkerchief.
Brewer put the knife away. “Come to hell out of there, Abbott.”
Abbott turned and stepped up on the sidewalk. His face was rain-soaked and noticeably paler. He was hiccupping and seemed dazed.
Brewer led him by the arm down the street to a drugstore.
“I want a pill that keeps you awake,” said Brewer to the girl by the cash register.
She went over and got him a box. Not-a-Wink. “School kids say these would wake the dead.”
Brewer counted off some coins and pushed them at her. Now he walked briskly to the coffee shop, with Abbott stumbling along with him. Neither spoke.
The owner was still sitting in the booth with the two wise guys, still talking, with the paper on the table. One of them put the paper in his pocket.
“Two coffees,” said Brewer. He put the Not-a-Wink box on the counter.
“Easy with those, mister,” said the waitress.
Brewer dumped a palmful of pills out. “If I need you, I’ll write you a letter. Here, Abbott. Pick up that water.”
Abbott took the pills and palmed them into his mouth. Then he drank the water.
The waitress watched with near horror.
“Bring more coffee and some ice cubes,” said Brewer. He got six cups of coffee into Abbott. “You want something to eat?”
Abbott shook his head. “No. I’m okay.”
“Walk him,” said the owner. “You gotta get the heart pumping.”
Brewer turned and looked at the owner. He reminded him of Fatty the Fence. For a moment Brewer considered going over to the booth and going through a drill with the loudmouth. But the owner quickly averted his eyes. One of the wise guys turned and looked at Brewer’s expression and turned his face back to the table.
“Come on, Abbott, let’s haul anchor.”
Abbott was awake, but he walked like a man under hypnosis, completely withdrawn. It was raining now and the fog was thicker.
“How do you feel, Abbott?”
“Yeah.”
“You feel sick?”
“Where are we?”
“You want to walk?”
“I’m tired.”
Brewer led Abbott around the block by the arm. Finally, Abbott said, “You know what, Brewer?”
“What?”
“You would have liked my Millie.”
Brewer walked Abbott up to the Soviet Mansion. Scarves of fog sinuated across the intersections as they walked, and their feet had gotten soaked. Sharp, brief bursts of raindrops struck their faces.
The mansion, with its soft lights showing at many windows, sat like a ship at the dock. In the chilly rain, it promised warmth and friendship within. Over it rose the office building, the upper floors indistinct in the fog
and mist. Its defiant, unconquerable appearance made Brewer’s gut contract, and chills waved through his torso. Down that? Down that? he asked himself. I’ll never do it.
He looked at Kotlikoff’s window. It was still papered over, with a faint light illuminating it. The bathroom window was completely dark. He remembered Amy Kotlikoff and her figure and her eyes and felt sorry for Kotlikoff, the poor bastard.
Abbott stood, head down, away from the rain, just about finished. There were tears on his damp face and he snuffled.
“Come on, Abbott old poop,” said Brewer. “Let’s get the van, and then we’ll get some dry clothes.”
Abbott, head down, sobbed audibly.
In the van, Brewer composed a letter in a loud voice. “Dear Makers of Not-a-Wink,” he said. He looked at the slumped form of Abbott, who slept with a soft snore. “I would like to endorse your great product, Not-a-Wink, the world’s most effective sleeping pill.”
Only the swaying windshield wipers replied.
He put Abbott to bed and removed his clothes and shoes. He also took Abbott’s key and locked him in his room with it. Then he sat in his own room and smoked a cigar in the dark. Through the partly open window, he could hear miscellaneous sounds from the poolroom and apartments. Somewhere a television was bawling: shots, shrieks and music in a menacing mood.
The rain muttered on the sill, telling him that the Russian roof slates were slippery with raindrops.
It was just impossible: he with an almost psychotic fear of heights, and Abbott, a hungover, weeping drunk, plus Kotlikoff, a middle-aged diabetic—all trying to cross a slippery roof and go up a high wall in a steady downpour while a bunch of Russian guards are shooting to kill. What a stupid idea.
He told himself he was daring too much; he was trying to play against a stacked deck: he had to forget it, had to accept a job as a bartender or a salesman of encyclopedias, going from door (slam!) to door (slam!).
Maybe even a career as a steeplejack, eh, Brewer?
He felt his cheek twitching again.
The S.S. Pomeroy, 8,000 tons, Panamanian registry, chartered to the Mare Shipping Corporation, sailed up through the Narrows burthened with rubber and tea from Sumatra, sixteen peacocks from Ceylon and a cargo of hamadryas baboons from Ethiopia destined for a midwestern zoo, coffee from the Ivory Coast, sarcophagi from the Arabian Desert under bill of lading to the New York Metropolitan Museum, a large palletized cargo of Fiat motor parts from Milan, and a hold filled with containerized Japanese electronic parts for color television, destination Philadelphia.
It was guided into port by two tugs and a New York Harbor pilot and assigned a berth at Pier 90 on the Hudson River side of Manhattan. Ship’s log recorded docking effective 2310 hours during mist and encroaching fog, precisely as a running neap tide was reversing to flow back out to sea. The voyage had lasted sixty-two days.
The first man up the gangway was Leary, scanning a passenger list as he made his way toward the captain’s quarters.
The man’s passport was a fraud. It was Algerian, an excellent piece of work, either a modification of an original passport or a very good counterfeit, and it would have caused him no trouble. Leary examined it curiously, wondering how much of Kotlikoff’s hundred thousand had gone into its purchase.
The magazine article had been quite accurate: the man was small—little more than five feet three. And he had a large head with a beetling forehead and wiry eyebrows which, along with his high cheekbones, made his black eyes seem sunken and intense. His dark, graying hair, his thick short arms and barrel chest were exactly like a small bear’s—a world-famous little Russian bear.
And when Leary found the man’s eyes looking calmly back at him, there was no more expression, no more indication on his face of what he was thinking than a bear might have shown: just two attentive black eyes, waiting, patient, ostensibly devoid of guile; yet his calmness was astonishing, for Leary knew he was looking at the noted nuclear physicist Sergei Rostov: Russia’s entire library of nuclear knowledge, packaged in one of the truly fine scientific minds of the age—the friend to whom Kotlikoff had dedicated his first volume.
Something stirred in the man’s eyes—a recognition. He’d read Leary’s thoughts and knew he’d been detected.
“You speak English?” asked Leary.
“Oh yes, quite well and for many years.”
“You have me in quite a quandary.”
“Yes?”
“Every Russian in the world is searching for you, Dr. Rostov.”
The man said nothing. He calmly waited.
Leary said: “The Soviet Mission is just a short cab ride from here. They’re waiting for you to surrender yourself. They want to exchange Kotlikoff for you. And that presents me with a moral dilemma, Doctor. If I can save only one of you—either you or Kotlikoff—who’s worth more, a poet or a scientist?”
Rostov grunted.
“Do you have a family?” asked Leary.
“No. All dead.”
“Are you a Jew?”
“No.”
Leary nodded: “Then that was what the quarrel was about.”
“What quarrel?”
“Oh—between a man and his grandson.”
“Who won?”
“Who won? Why, a man named Hillel, I suppose. Well, what am I to do with you, Doctor? Return you to your country?”
“Do you have that authority? Do you think your government would let you return me to my country?”
Leary thought of Geller.
Rostov said: “I have the only solution. Let me leave.”
“Leave? You mean asylum?”
“No, no. I mean leave. I don’t want asylum, and I don’t want to go to the Soviet Embassy.”
“There is no third choice.”
“There is only a third choice.”
Leary shook his head. “Soviet agents will never give up. They almost caught you in Rome.”
“Ah, you know about that. Devils.”
“They almost got the whole Roman police force looking for Napletano.”
Rostov smiled. “And burned out a fascist printer to do it. But the Italians put only one detective on the case.”
“How did you know that?”
Rostov said: “Napletano—he put a phone tap on the Soviet phone tap on Sardi’s phone.”
Leary considered that, then smiled. “Bravo.”
“Extraordinary man, Napletano. A true fox and most unhappy when last I saw him in Genoa. He was sure war was near and that he was responsible.”
“He’s dead.”
“Napletano? Dead? Ah. I’m sorry. In a short time I got to know him quite well.”
“He was tortured. They were trying to find you.”
“Tortured? That was a mistake. Did you know he was dying? Each day he lived was a miracle. He had a valve in his heart—a plastic valve, but the heart was beyond help. If they tortured him, he didn’t last ten minutes.”
A silence fell between them. Rostov waited for Leary to speak.
Rostov said at last: “I will say this simply. I want to decide what I will do when I wake in the morning. I want to be the master of my own life. I want to decide whether I shall make a bomb to kill us all or find a cure for something. Me. I want the right to do that. But I didn’t escape from one bomb shop just to join—join … what’s your word?—the competition. No. I don’t want the competition. Neither one is the friend of man: the enemy is bureaucracy.”
“So you won’t surrender.”
“Will it help Boris?”
“I frankly don’t know.”
“I do. It won’t. I told him to go hide for a while. They always take hostages. It’s a reflex action.”
Leary asked: “You mean it? You’ll do nothing?”
“There is nothing I can do. I am in a game called Catch Me: Kill Me. And Boris is a dead man … no matter what I do.” Rostov watched Leary quietly. Time passed while Leary pondered.
Rostov spoke again: “You don’t know what to do w
ith me. So—I will make the decision. I am going to go down the gangway with my bag and process myself through your customs. See? I already have filled out the forms. It says I have nothing to declare. Ironic, no? They search my bags while I smuggle the prize in between my ears.” Rostov stood and put on his overcoat. “I think I know what you are going to do. So I give you one word I learned in Italy: Arrivederci.”
Sergei Rostov stepped out of the compartment and walked to the gangway with his false passport and his one large suitcase. Owner and new operator of the Rostov brain. Under new management. In minutes he would be gone.
Leary watched each step. After fighting wars for millennia over grasslands and waterholes, over seaports and holy places, oil fields and foreign markets, man now contended for the ultimate prize, the human mind. Keep your shrunken, chapped little soul. We’ll have the brain, that three-pound mass of crafty protoplasm; and especially we’ll have the brain of Rostov, that three-pound nuclear bomb, that portable weapon worth more than an army of trained troops in the field, that gateway through otherwise impregnable Soviet defenses, that bone bowl filled with Russian military secrets. For the Soviets, the loss of Rostov’s brain was an unparalleled military catastrophe.
The casualness of it all was astonishing: he’d met one of the major figures in world science, had discussed the possibility of the third great war of the century and squinted at Armageddon—all in a conversation that had been casual, relaxed, almost insignificant. And now he’d let the man just simply walk away. Rostov would soon pass his last barrier and would go to a place designated underground.
It called up a picture of a vast cellar, distant, damp and poorly lit, containing an army of aggrieved defectors like Rostov from both sides, all making only one soft subterranean noise: the slick sound of knives being sharpened.
Let the crossword puzzles be corrected: 13 down, six letters, former Russian scientist.
Tomorrow morning, the committee room on the sixth floor of the State Department would fill with frightened men again—men who’d aged years in days, who still read in one another’s faces no solution, men who knew that they’d let their eternal game get out of hand yet again. Tomorrow morning, also, Russian agents around the world would resume the search for Rostov, while at the same time the Russian committee would meet with burned-out sleepless faces, fingering their hot button and considering again: war or no war. Shall we get them before they get us? Stop Rostov from leading them through our defenses? Anticipatory retaliation.
Catch Me: Kill Me Page 24