by Bill Granger
When a felon’s not engaged in his employment, his employment
Or hatching out his felonious little plans, little plans
His capacity for innocent enjoyment, his enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man’s, honest man’s.
He had a three-room apartment in an anonymous building with a stucco front and red-tile roof in a quiet neighborhood in back of the old mission church at the top of the hill. Denisov received an allowance from the government every month, a green cardboard check that he took to the bank on the first of the month (or second or third, whenever it arrived). Every six weeks or so, he received a visitor from Washington who came to talk to him about old colleagues, old masters, old controls, old operations. They covered the same ground many times. He welcomed the visits; it broke the routine. They would always end up eating lunch on the oceanfront. Denisov knew a place…
Once, he had said, “Why is this worth it to you? You ask the same questions someone asked a year ago. The answers are the same. But we keep asking and answering as before.”
“Do you think you have the only fucked-up country in the world?” the man from Washington had said. “Hell, I don’t know what they do with my reports any more than you do.”
They had gotten along better after that.
There were things to do. Even friends. He had acquired his driver’s license but did not have money for a car. Occasionally, he rented a car and drove up and down the coast. He had gone to San Francisco once. A year ago, he had seduced a middle-aged widow who thought he was a professor from Switzerland. She had money and gave him some from time to time. It was pleasant to sleep with her—her imagination exceeded her physical presence—but he did not like her family very much. Her daughter reminded him of his younger sister in Moscow. He rarely thought of his family in Moscow. They were better off without him in any case. That’s what he told himself when thinking of them so far away made evenings painful to him.
He was forty-six years old. He could live another twenty years or thirty years.
Like this? Walking on this beach? Watching television in the evenings? Going to movies and concerts? Reading books. Playing chess with the old men in the park? What was so bad about this life except that it might go on too long?
Denisov turned the key in the lock of his apartment door and pushed it open. The shades were drawn. The sun had come out in early afternoon. The rooms were dark. He reached for a lamp switch next to the door and turned it on and closed the door behind him. He dropped his mail on the table next to the wall—a catalogue from something called the Sharper Image, an account from the electric company, a copy of The Economist.
Devereaux sat at a table in the little alcove the Americans called a kitchenette. The word was absurd, Denisov had thought once: It implied there might be larger kitchens. And then he had seen the kitchen in the house of the middle-aged woman he slept with and realized the truth.
Denisov stared at the American agent for a moment with patient, saintly eyes that blinked behind his rimless glasses. He slowly removed his coat, took it to the closet, removed a hanger and carefully hung it. He came back to the middle of the living room and put his hands in his pockets and stared at Devereaux.
Once, in Asia, they had been spy versus spy. They had drunk together, once, at the press club in Hong Kong, a neutral territory. Years later, they had faced each other in Ireland in the plot to kill an English lord. And the game had ended in Florida three years ago. Devereaux had won, not by checkmate but by overturning the board.
“You didn’t have any beer in your refrigerator,” Devereaux said.
“I thought you drank vodka.”
“Not much. I’m getting older. Or my liver is.”
Denisov stood very still. He realized how much he hated Devereaux. But the hatred only made his large, blue eyes appear more forgiving, saintly. It was useful to look like a church icon in a business where deception counted for everything.
“Do you want to know why I came here?”
Denisov said nothing. He waited for the other man. He realized he could not trust his voice. He thought about killing him. Would Devereaux be armed? How quickly could he remove his pistol from under his jacket? Denisov was very strong. He could push him back, out of the chair, pin him, break his neck with a well-placed blow. He had done these things.
“You still have a scar. On your neck,” Denisov said.
“You saved my life that time. I told you that makes you responsible for me.”
“I didn’t understand it when you told me. I read a book. Here. About the Indians who believe this. It has to do with interfering with fate.”
“Yes,” Devereaux said. “Maybe I was fated to die that night in Belfast. You mocked fate.”
“And fate? It put me here.”
“Is it a bad prison?”
“Are there good prisons?”
“I don’t know.” Devereaux stared. A single lamp pierced the afternoon darkness but it was not enough. Denisov was framed in the light but his features appeared dark to Devereaux. Devereaux waited in shadows.
“Your English has improved.”
“That was inevitable, my friend. If I put you in Lubyanka prison for three years, I think you would speak Russian very well.”
“I would not have been alive for three years.”
“Oh, no. You’re wrong. Some live forever. Some have been there for thirty or forty years.”
“I would not have been alive,” Devereaux said.
“Perhaps it is true,” Denisov replied.
Neither man moved.
“They gave you a good hiding place.”
“Not good enough if you found me.”
“I had the address, Denisov.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you want is more the question.”
“To never see you again.”
“What about the money in Switzerland?”
“What money?”
“You have money in Zurich.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The money you took. Over the years.”
“How do you know this?”
“Are we going to waltz all night? I know you, Denisov. I knew you for nearly twenty years. You’re a thief.”
“Like you.”
“Yes. Like me. The difference between us is that I can get my money. And you can’t.”
“You came to tell me this.”
“Sit down.”
“I will stand in my own rooms.”
Devereaux smiled, a lazy smile without warmth or mirth. “California dreaming, Russian. Wouldn’t you like a car? How much did you put away over the years? When you were in Geneva, for instance. When was that? Early seventies.”
“I cannot get my money. There is no way. I buried it too deeply in the account. I have to withdraw in person—”
“I know. At least, I figured it.”
“So what do you want with me?”
“Gilbert and Sullivan, walks on the beach. You have anyone to provide companionship? Yes. I’ll bet you do by now. Great life.”
“It is a life.”
“And you have me to thank for it.”
The hatred burned in the eyes of the saint; the hatred made the eyes seem wide and full of pity and mercy, qualities not contained in Denisov.
“Should I thank you?”
“Yes. Because you won’t get out of here to get your money without me.”
Denisov waited.
“You’re declawed, Russian. An indoor cat. You’d get torn apart out there. I’ll take you in to get your money. And take you out again.”
Denisov slowly walked into the kitchenette, pulled out a kitchen chair, and sat down at the yellow plastic-topped table across from Devereaux. His large hands rested on the table. He stared, unblinking, at the American agent.
“When was the Washington man here last?”
“Three days ago.”
“So he won’t be back for five or six weeks.”<
br />
“That will be Christmas. He won’t be back until January. No one works at Christmas.”
“You’ve learned our secret of survival,” Devereaux said.
“Unless he comes early.”
“No. They never do that.”
“He is from the Section?”
“Yes.”
“But so are you—”
“This does not involve the Section, Russian. Just you and me and a couple of other people. A very private matter. Understand?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Some of the old business. I’ve got a piece for you, a couple of other things of interest.”
“This is a trick.”
“No. We can’t start off on that basis. You’ve got to trust me just enough to do what I want you to do.”
“And why do you need me?”
“Because I don’t have anyone else.”
“What’s happened?”
“Let’s say, I’m expendable. And you’ve become invisible.”
“Expendable by which side?”
“Maybe both of them. Certainly by KGB.”
“Why should I help you then?”
“Watch my lips, Denisov, it isn’t so hard. California is nice, isn’t it? Nicer than Moscow in winter. You can’t go home again anyway. You’re dirty, marked money, they’d tear you apart. I need a reliable backup man, outside the game. And someone who might still have contacts left in Geneva. I want to get a line on a KGB—”
“Be a traitor?”
“Of course. What do you think I was talking about? Doesn’t it get easier every time you do it? Like the two-dollar whore?”
“You are a bastard.” Denisov jumped up and grabbed him and the two men crashed to the floor in the kitchen.
Denisov kicked Devereaux in the side and fell on him, pressing down on his neck with large hands, the thumbs on each side of the Adam’s apple. In a moment, he would be dead.
A terrible pain between his legs.
Denisov fell back, his head hit the chair. He scrambled up as Devereaux pushed himself against the counter for leverage. Devereaux had blood on his lips. He had a black pistol in his hand.
The two men stood, gasping for breath, for a long moment.
“Sit the fuck down,” Devereaux said.
Denisov, slowly, took the same seat.
Devereaux sat down opposite. The revolver was cocked. Devereaux stared at him as though deciding something. “I guess I would hate you as well. But I wouldn’t hate myself enough not to see where my self-interest lay. I am talking about the money you have in Switzerland. And ten thousand American dollars that I have waiting for you in Los Angeles after the business is finished. Do you think the amounts would supplement your income from Uncle?”
Denisov said nothing.
“Oh, the hell with it,” Devereaux said. He put the pistol on the table with the barrel pointed at himself, the grip close to Denisov’s hand. “Pick it up.”
Denisov picked it up.
“You want to kill me so fucking bad, shoot me. But remember, I can get you out and get you back in before anyone knows you’re gone.”
It was a lot of money, Denisov thought.
He stared at Devereaux hard.
Perhaps it was not enough, though.
He pulled the trigger.
Click.
Devereaux smiled.
Click. Click.
Denisov stared at the pistol, then at Devereaux. Suddenly, he smiled at the other man.
“You see?” Devereaux said. “We don’t have to trust each other as long as it works.”
“It is a lot of money,” Denisov said. “In Zurich, I mean.”
“Good. I hoped it was. I couldn’t get ten grand to tempt you otherwise.”
“Are you legal?”
“No. Not at the moment.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything about Felix Krueger. About an operation.”
“How long will it take?”
“A couple of days I hope.”
“There is some risk.”
Devereaux smiled. “Of course. Don’t worry, Russian. The next piece I give you will be loaded.”
Denisov shook his head slowly, the smile lingering. He put the piece on the table, butt end toward Devereaux.
“At least we know where we stand,” Denisov said.
“And mine will be loaded, too,” Devereaux replied.
20
LOS ANGELES
Devereaux walked into the apartment. Levy Solomon closed the door behind him. He locked it by turning a deadbolt twice with a key.
“Safe,” Devereaux said.
“Listen. Nothing is safe.”
“Tell me.”
“The woman is getting antsy. You know something?” Levy Solomon stared at him with large, protruding eyes. “I think she’s anti-Semitic.”
“If she wasn’t, she’d be the first goy Pole who wasn’t.”
“I feel sorry for her. She’s afraid. She even talks to Jews.”
“Everyone has a cross to bear,” Devereaux said.
Solomon grinned. “I put it down in notes. You can take it with you.”
“Where’s Rita?”
“With her. In the bedroom.”
Devereaux opened the door of the second bedroom. It was a high-rise near Century City in the heart of west L.A. An ugly building with a beautiful view. Devereaux figured Levy Solomon had stolen a bit, too, to supplement his pension. He had had enough opportunities in nineteen years in Central Europe.
Teresa Kolaki sat on the edge of the bed, still in the same sweater and skirt. She looked ill, old.
“You got news, mister?”
“Everything is going along well,” Devereaux said. “I’m going to Europe. We made a contact. Inside.” Most of it was a lie. He felt she knew it. Her expression stayed sour, down.
“When?”
“Tonight.” He looked at Rita and she understood.
Rita got up. “I’ll be right back, Teresa.”
“Sure,” the woman said. She stared out the window at the setting sun. Her face was old, drawn by tiredness. She hadn’t slept through for five nights, from the horror of the moment when Mary learned her child was dead. Then the black, Peter, had taken her on the long flight to Los Angeles. She felt afraid of them all. Jews. Blacks. Now the interrogation, careful, insistent. She told them everything. She didn’t care if she was dead. She should have stayed with John Stolmac. She was as dead as Mary.
Outside the bedroom door, Devereaux took Rita’s arm. He led her to the room that Levy Solomon used as an office. He had no business, he was retired, but he had an office. Books lined shelves neatly, floor to ceiling, on one wall. There was a desk with no papers on it, only clippings from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and half a dozen other publications. Levy Solomon confessed he wrote letters to the editor on important issues. Sharing his experiences, he called it.
Devereaux closed the door behind them. He thought to lock it. He sat down on the chair in front of Solomon’s oak desk. She sat on the leather couch.
“I hate leather couches. They remind me of press rooms,” Rita Macklin said.
Devereaux filled his eyes with her. He stared, tried to see everything. He wanted to carry it with him. He tried to frame her like a photograph.
“Denisov is at the airport. He takes Swissair to Zurich tonight at seven.”
“You?”
“A few more loose ends. I’ll be in Zurich by Wednesday afternoon.”
“I’m a loose end.”
She wore a blouse, cream-colored silk. Earrings. He couldn’t remember her wearing earrings before. Her eyes were green crystals.
“Yes.”
“What do you want to tell me?”
“Oddly enough, there’s a will.”
“Come on.”
“I know. Mundane, middle class. But it’s a will. Levy has it. I have a lot of money.”
“From yo
ur family?”
“A trust in part. From Melvina. And other money.” Vague, his gray eyes shifting in the dying light of afternoon. “In banks in Zurich. Two banks, in fact.”
“How did you make so much money?”
“The old-fashioned way. I earned it.”
“Why are you doing this? This grand good-bye?”
“Because it probably is good-bye. And I love you.”
Quiet. She wouldn’t accept this. Her hands were crossed on her lap. She looked at them, looked up, her green eyes a little angry. “What am I going to do with money if you get killed? Who’s going to save my life?”
“Getting killed is what I got paid for.”
“Stop being a smart-ass with me.”
“All right. What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say where you’re going to meet me.”
“I’m trying to put this the right way. They want to kill you. They will probably kill me. Nobody will be on your case.”
“You said that last winter. I just hide for two years, is that it? You thought I’d be safe. It didn’t work out that way.”
“Yes.” He bit the tip of his thumbnail. “It should have. I think it’s all mixed up with this business with Teresa. And the others. The closer I get, the more they don’t want me around. Not just KGB. They were looking for me before. Now they’re dragging the lake for me.”
“Hanley. Why can’t he help you?”
“He has. But Hanley can only stick out his neck so far. He has to survive. What interests him is that the Puzzle Factory is fucking everyone around. Moving on the Section. Hanley lives and eats and breathes the Section. It was my leverage with him.”
“I must have six hours of tape with Teresa. She’s worn out. Her son. Are you going to get him out?”
“No,” Devereaux said.
“Jesus Christ.”
“They won’t hurt him, I think.”
“You keep making up theories that don’t turn out right.”
“No reason to hurt him. But there’s plenty of reason to hurt Teresa Kolaki. There was a guarantee—five hundred thousand Swiss francs. About two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Not all the money in the world, but Felix Krueger could use it. Who couldn’t? The guarantee is a legal document, an insurance policy. I think that I might be able to use it to play with Krueger. If he wants to play. In any case, it gives Teresa a start if nothing turns out right.”