by Joseph Kanon
His eyes scanned the room and stopped at the entrance to the bar, where Marty Bielak was already perched on his stool. Who would want to stay closer? His legman, tempted with a scoop.
“I need to ask a favor.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s just that I don’t know anyone else to ask.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to borrow a car. Just for a few hours. I’ll pay for the gas. Mine’s in for repairs.”
Bielak looked at him, waiting for more.
“I need to get something. You know Walter Kotlar was my father.”
Bielak said nothing, too interested to pretend he hadn’t known.
“He wanted me to have something. You know, a memento. But it’s in the country, and I don’t have any way to get there. Would you mind? I’d really appreciate it.”
“I’ll take you,” Bielak said, almost eagerly.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“No, I do. See, over here-you’re a foreigner. We can’t lend-” He paused, apologetic.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I’m just taking up space here. Let me get this.” He put some money on the bar. “Sorry to hear about it, by the way. To go that way. Sad. Must be hard for you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“At least I got to see him again. That’s something, anyway.”
“Why didn’t you want anybody to know? If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, collecting the change.
“He didn’t want it. He was afraid-you know, if the press got hold of it. He wanted it to be just family.”
“I heard he was sick.” Bielak hesitated. “Is that why he did it?” A trial balloon for the party line.
Nick nodded. “I suppose. I don’t know.”
“No. We never do, do we, when they go like that. Not really.”
“No, not really.”
Bielak got up from the stool. “What did he leave you, anyway? That we’re going to pick up. If you don’t mind my asking.”
“What? What would he have left? ”The Order of Lenin,“ Nick said, leaving Bielak, for once, with no reply.
Outside, he saw the tails come to attention, their faces registering surprise at Bielak’s appearance.
“Listen, I think you should know that the police have been following me since he died. I mean, I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bielak said easily. He looked at Nick seriously. “Your father was a hero. What do they know? Traffic cops.” Nick caught the tone: rival agencies, then, not colleagues, like the squabbling offices in the embassy. Who did Bielak work for? It occurred to him, a grisly irony, that he had inadvertently picked the perfect chauffeur, the only way he could ever have left Prague without an escort.
“How far is it?” Bielak asked.
“Out past Theresienstadt.”
“Oh, nice,” Bielak said. “The country, I mean.”
What Nick hadn’t counted on was that Bielak would want to talk, using the long drive as a pretext for a fishing expedition, casting for information. Nick’s life. His father’s health. And after a while Nick began to welcome the distraction, so preoccupied with shaping his answers, the careful feints, that he had no time to think about what really concerned him, what he would do if the list wasn’t there. A wasted trip. But it had to be. All of it had to be true. Everything he’d said.
The questions told him something else-Bielak hadn’t known about him before, which meant his superiors hadn’t known either. The connection had come out with the death, surprising them as much as the police, the unexpected son. His father had been careful right up to the end. The order to kill had come from somewhere else.
They fell behind a convoy of trucks, back flaps open to reveal sitting rows of soldiers. When the road opened out to a long stretch, Bielak beeped his horn and passed, waving to them as he pulled in front.
“Russians?” Nick said.
“And Poles. Some Hungarians. They’re here for the Warsaw Pact maneuvers.” Did he really believe it?
“You never see them in town. I thought they’d be everywhere. You know, since-”
“The invasion?” Marty said, almost playful. “That’s what they call it in the West. Some invasion. See for yourself. You notice they never say NATO troops have invaded Germany. They’re guests. Only the Russians are occupiers. But the Americans stay and the Russians go home when the maneuvers are over. So where’s the occupation, Germany or here? It’s always the same. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”
“No. So when do they go home?”
“When the Government asks them to. Right now it’s useful. We could use a little order. Things go too far. These kids-they play right into the hands of the capitalists, and they don’t even know it. Your father understood. That’s why he came last year, to help out.”
Nick froze. “Help out how?” he asked quietly.
“Well, the Czechs wouldn’t look at a Russian cross-eyed. But a Czech-American with a Czech wife? He could talk to anybody.”
And report back. Selling them, the way he had sold sailors who jumped ship in San Francisco. Still in the game, not retired, not everything true. What had he been buying this time? The flat with a view? A way to bring Anna home? Or the chance to get in the files again, get something worth a few dissidents?
“How do you know this? Did you work with him?” Nick said, remembering his father’s easy dismissal.
Bielak squirmed in his seat. “No, no. But you hear things.” He paused. “He wasn’t wrong, you know. Things were going off the rails here. They see the flashy cars, but they forget what the West is really like.” He paused. “But maybe you don’t agree.”
Nick glanced at him, the unlikely defender. Who still believed in the great dialectic, without his wife, thousands of miles from the old Glen Island Casino. A capacity for self-deception as limitless as faith.
“What are your own politics?” Bielak said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t have any,” Nick said. “My father had enough for one family.”
Bielak was quiet. “You know,” he said finally, “when you get to be my age, you don’t point so many fingers. It takes a lot of guts to do something for what you believe in. I mean, the Order of Lenin, that has to count for something.”
“If you’re a Communist.”
“It still has to mean something to you. Isn’t that why you want it?”
“It meant something to him.”
“It’s a shame you didn’t get to know him better, how he thought. Maybe you have more in common than you think.”
The voice was no longer casual but insinuating. Nick looked at him, amazed. Was Bielak recruiting him? Was this the way it worked-the awkward fumbling, looking for the right spot, promising something else? Like teenage sex.
“I never cared about politics,” Nick said, trying to be light. “I don’t think I’d make a very good spy, either. I don’t even know if the police are still following us.”
“No, we lost them just outside the city,” Bielak said, sure, not inept, a professional after all.
The driveway was still muddy.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Nick said, but Bielak got out too, looking curiously at the cottage. Now he’d have an audience.
He went toward the woodpile at the side of the house, where his father always hid the key. But before he could reach down and scoop it out, Bielak said, “Here we go,” taking a key from under the terra-cotta planter near the door. Nick stopped, disconcerted. People don’t change. But maybe the planter was Anna’s idea, better than fumbling under logs.
“I figured,” Bielak said. “If it’s not the mat, it’s always the flowerpot, isn’t it? You’d think people would know better. Where’re you going?”
“I have to take a leak,” Nick said, improvising. “I don’t know if the water’s turned on. Go on in.”
“Well, me too,” Bielak said
, moving away from the house. “That last half-hour.”
So they peed together at the side of the house, backs to each other, while Nick looked toward the woodpile, wondering. Where else?
Inside, he switched on the lamp. The same room, so familiar to him that he could have moved through it in the dark. The table by the window where they’d had lunch, gloomy now in the fading light. Everything spotless, still. But not his. He walked quietly to the desk, feeling like a burglar.
Bielak had stopped by the door, looking around. “Not much, is it?”
“No.”
“I mean, a man in his position, you’d think they’d-” He seemed genuinely surprised, a little shaken. What had he imagined? A hero’s dacha.
“He said they never really trusted Americans,” Nick said, then, seeing the wounded expression on Bielak’s face, instantly regretted it. Why not leave him his faith, when it was all he had left?
The medal wasn’t on the side table. Now there were two things out of place. Nick opened the desk drawer and pushed papers aside. The list wasn’t at Holeckova; it had to be here somewhere. Bielak, subdued now, was looking at the bookshelves. Nick sorted through clipped articles from Russian magazines. Papers. It could be anywhere. Wedged behind a book. Think.
He went upstairs, leaving Bielak to the shelves, and turned into the bedroom. The nightstand drawer, nothing. Then Anna’s, face creams and tissues. He found it on the bureau, a flat box next to their picture, out in plain sight. He opened it to find the medal and its piece of ribbon lying on a square of velvet. But what about the other? Somewhere personal, where she wouldn’t have looked. He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine chest. Pill bottles, about the size of a roll of film. He started opening them, twisting off caps, his fingers clumsy.
“How we doing up there?” Bielak called. “Got it,” Nick shouted down. Two more bottles. Nothing. He took a last glance at the room where he’d helped his father to bed and went downstairs. He handed Bielak the box.
“A few more minutes, okay?” he said.
“Take your time.” Bielak opened the box. “This is something, isn’t it?” He fingered the medal, fascinated.
Nick went over to the shelves. English books. Anna never would have bothered with them. He ran his hands over the titles, pulling a few out, squatting to reach the lowest shelf, half expecting to find one hollowed out, a jewel cache. But they were neat and dusted, part of Anna’s house too.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
“No, not really.” He stood and looked around the room. He’d have to come back alone, go through everything. But how? “I guess we’d better go,” he said, feeling helpless. “It’s getting late.”
It was dark outside, and they had to follow the faint shine of metal to the car. Somewhere she wouldn’t have looked. Bielak got in the car.
“I can’t believe it,” Nick said, dropping the medal on the car seat. “I have to go again. Be right back.”
He went toward the end of the woodpile, pretending to fumble with his clothes. Bielak started the car. The headlights were facing away from Nick. Could he be seen from this angle? He stooped quickly, not caring, and felt along the bottom logs for an opening. Yes, where the key would have been, as always. He shoved his hand through, scratching the top, and felt around the dirt, rummaging again through ashes, remembering the moment when he had felt the bone. Nothing.
He reached farther, groping, his arm pressed now against the wood. It had to be. A place she’d never look. He heard Bielak call, “You all right over there?” and then he touched it. Something cool. His fingertips grazed plastic, and he pushed a little more until he covered it with his palm. The size of a pill container. He pulled his hand back, feeling slivers biting his skin, and put it in his pocket.
Then he stood up and hurried back to the car, exhilarated. All of it true.
“You left your fly open,” Bielak said. “I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
Nick yanked his zipper up, then put his hand back in his pocket, afraid to let go, and got into the car.
“I’ll put the heater on,” Bielak said, thinking he was chilled. Nick drew his hand out and rubbed it against the other, playing along. But it wasn’t the heater that made his face warm as they drove toward the main road. He could feel the film in his pocket, heavy as a gun, the excitement of finding it curdling into a new kind of dread. Now he wasn’t innocent. If they caught him, they would never let him go.
He felt the warm lump against his leg all the way back to Prague, while Bielak’s one-sided conversation drifted in and out like a weak radio signal. How would he get it out? Maybe like this, in his pocket, where not even a legman would think to look. Molly and her tampons. Why not? The embassy car on its weekly lettuce run, immune to prying. Then he remembered what it was. Not a joint. Something only he could carry. He was back in the snow, with no one to help.
When they reached Wenceslas, Nick offered to pay for the trip, but Bielak shook his head. “Buy me a drink sometime.” Then, when Nick’s hand was already on the door handle, Bielak held out the medal and said, “Tell me something. Your father, he knew he was sick.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, it was that. Knowing he was sick.” Convincing himself. Then, unexpectedly, “Do you think he ever had any regrets?”
Nick looked at him, dismayed. All that was left. “No,” he said firmly. “Never.”
Bielak sat back. “Well, that’s something to think about it, isn’t it?”
He found Zimmerman waiting in the lobby, his usual calm betrayed by an impatiently jiggling foot. When he stood up, Nick panicked, sure that he was looking at the pocket.
“So you’re back. A pleasant trip?” Zimmerman’s voice was angry.
“No.”
“Where were you?”
“At my father’s house.”
“You were told not to leave Prague.”
“I went to get this.” He opened the box, showing the medal.
“And this has a special significance for you? You surprise me.” Zimmerman nodded toward the door. “Do you know who he is?”
Nick shrugged. “I met him in the bar. You have my car, remember?”
“Again with the charades. Is it possible you don’t know?” Zimmerman shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Who is he?”
“It’s possible you don’t take me seriously. That would be a mistake. Have I not made myself clear to you? Your position?”
“You mean he’s one of yours?”
“Stop it. Listen to me carefully. Don’t make yourself too interesting. A man is questioned; his embassy immediately protests. He is ordered to stay in Prague, so he goes for a ride with-with someone who is known to do odd jobs for the security police. Please, don’t look surprised, there isn’t time.”
“Is that why your men didn’t follow us?”
“Their jurisdiction ends with Prague, Mr Warren. Naturally they thought I would alert the other department.”
“But you didn’t.”
Zimmerman looked away. “Such a call would take things out of my hands entirely. The security police have much to do these days-so many dangers to the state. It’s unwise to burden them with false alarms. Luckily, you returned.” He paused. “Don’t do it again. You did not, I trust, confide in Mr Bielak?”
“No.” Nick smiled. “In fact, I think he wanted to recruit me. Maybe he thinks it runs in the family.”
Zimmerman looked at him. “Maybe it does, Mr Warren. But that is not my concern. I brought your statement.” He pulled some papers out of his breast pocket. “Sign it, please.”
“It’s in Czech,” Nick said, a lawyer’s son.
Zimmerman sighed. “The second sheet is the English. Sign the copy.”
“But am I responsible for all of it, the Czech too?”
Zimmerman handed him the pen. “Sign it, Mr Warren.”
Nick read it through, a bureaucrat’s account. His father’s distress at his illness. In this versi
on the depression had been deepened by Nick’s visit, a new twist. He raised his eyes, then took the pen.
“Does this mean I can go?”
“That will depend on the STB. But it would be useful, I think, for them to have my police report before they begin their own speculation. That much I can do.” He gestured toward the medal. “That’s a nice touch. They’ll like that. I hope Mr Bielak mentions it.”
“He will. Nothing else happened.”
“Assuming they believe him. I wonder, Mr Warren, has it occurred to you that you might have compromised him?”
He nodded at Nick’s surprised look. “Sometimes, you know, there’s nothing so dangerous as an innocent man. Everyone has to explain him. Why you picked him, of all people.” He took a breath. “Why your embassy was so eager to help. Why the police-well, the police are so often inept, losing people, not understanding the implications. For the STB there is nothing but implications. I hope they don’t find you too interesting. I hope, for example, they don’t find that you are involved with your intelligence group. Nothing would interest them more than that, not even other Czechs.”
Nick stared at him, chilled. Was Foster right? Had they monitored the call to Kemper? How long before they knew about it? He stood there, feeling the film in his pocket.
“You see,” Zimmerman finished. “Nothing so dangerous.”
“Well, at least you think I’m innocent,” Nick said, trying to be light.
“Only of murder, Mr Warren,” Zimmerman said. “For the rest-” He took back the paper. “Thank you for the statement. Don’t leave again. Don’t do anything. Do you understand?” He turned. “Oh, by the way, your car is fine. What did you say was wrong?”
“A knock in the engine.”
“Yes, that can happen. A knock for no reason. It’s often the case with a new car.”
Molly had double-locked the door.
“Thank God,” she said. “Where have you been?”
“Getting this,” he said, handing her the medal box.
She opened it. “So that’s what Anna wanted.”
He didn’t correct her. “Did you see Jeff?”