The Mazovia Legacy

by Michael E. Rose

  “And you don’t want to tell your old pal Brian O’Keefe too much about it just yet.”

  “Not for the moment, Brian, that’s true. You know the scene.”

  “Yeah,” O’Keefe said. “Investigative bullshit. So what have we got here? Old Polish guy, drowned. Old French priest, drowned. Don’t tell me, let me guess. A couple of old faggots, and young Delaney figures he’s got the Catholic Church in his sights at last. Any choir boys involved?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Or no, I’ve got it. Old Polish guy wishes to leave his vast riches to the Church, but a jealous relative, no, his wife, finds out and kills the fucker first.Then does the same to the priest who had the idea in the first place.”

  “It’s good, Brian. Very good.”

  “‘Two Dead in Catholic Sex Romp. Pope Implicated.’”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “Sounds exciting. I can’t wait to see it. Joint byline if I help you out, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  They both took manly pulls at their beer. Delaney realized, somewhat sadly, that there was not much more to say.

  “Here. Take a shot,” O’Keefe said. “You’ll need some practice if you’re taking on the Quebec Catholic Church hierarchy, my lad.”

  For some reason, Delaney took the offered shotgun. He loaded it with one shell. He’d been around guns often in his reportorial travels over the years, but had not fired many. He sighted up to the rafters and then out at the bright rectangle of snow that shone through the doorway. He felt a growing urge to fire, to unleash what was contained, to see the effects of this powerful tool he now held close to his face. He smelled the polish on the stock and the light oil on the barrel.

  “Go ahead,” O’Keefe said as he drank from his bottle and watched Delaney’s hesitation. “Shoot.”

  Delaney turned and sighted along to a cluster of empty brown beer bottles that O’Keefe had placed on a wooden crate near a support beam. Delaney suddenly wanted to effect change in this target, to transform it, if not necessarily to destroy it. All other stimuli momentarily fell away.

  He sighted down the barrel for what seemed to him a long time. Then he slowly squeezed the trigger, remembering how a Sandinista soldier had once shown him to keep a gunstock tight against his shoulder. The explosion of sound was deafening, so close to his ear. The target burst into a brief cascade of brown glass and droplets of beer and bits of shattered wood. Pigeons poured from the rafters and the cattle lowed in terror. O’Keefe’s maniacal laughter frightened them even further.

  “You’re a natural, Delaney,” O’Keefe roared as he danced briefly in the muck and straw of the barn floor. “You’re a fucking natural.”

  As Delaney drove away down O’Keefe’s driveway, he heard more gunfire coming from the barn. His right ear was still ringing from the single shot he had fired. He felt a dangerous exhilaration.

  *

  Delaney knew Hilferty slightly. They’d had a couple of extremely off-the-record conversations when Delaney was researching his book on the CIA and Quebec separatist groups. Hilferty, Delaney had decided then, should be placed in the category of not-terribly-reliable source. Close enough to information of interest but either unwilling or unable to share the truly interesting bits with anyone, least of all an investigative reporter.

  Still, some of the things Hilferty had passed along proved useful, if only in leading Delaney to people who really knew what was going on in those days and were willing to say. Hilferty was also to be placed in the category of those police officers and not-so-secret agents who get a thrill out of journalistic interest in their work and their lifestyles, those who have to restrain themselves from telling more than they know should be told, or from telling more than they realize they are telling.

  After all his years as a reporter, Delaney was not surprised when Hilferty called unexpectedly from his car phone and said he wanted to meet. He’d had dozens of unexpected calls from people over the years, and dozens of unexpected meetings. The only surprise was that Hilferty was already parked downstairs on University Street and wanted to come up right away. As usual lately, Delaney had not much work he wanted to do and the call he wanted to make to Natalia after his morning session with O’Keefe could wait. He told Hilferty to come up.

  He didn’t try to guess whether this could have anything to do with the Janovski thing. Hilferty was the type who would tell him soon enough.

  Of course Hilferty took Delaney up on his offer of a drink, even though it was early afternoon. He reads too many thrillers, Delaney thought as he poured a Jameson’s for his guest and a mineral water and lemon for himself. Hilferty had taken off his black cashmere overcoat and placed it carefully down on the sofa, label out, so it would be clear it was from Holt Renfrew. The silk scarf, he left on. It actually looked quite good with his Holt’s houndstooth jacket and his bright yellow V-neck sweater, which was also in cashmere. He took the clinking glass from Delaney and wandered around the living room a little, talking as he went.

  “Still got no money for furniture in here I see,” Hilferty said, grinning like a college boy. “It’s the minimalist style, John. Understated.” Delaney had no taste for empty chatter today. His time with O’Keefe had left him in an odd mood.

  “Working on another blockbuster exposé book, I hear,” Hilferty said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything we’d be interested in?”

  “I doubt it, John.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah.” Delaney waited a bit while Hilferty admired the view of the St. Lawrence and then he asked the obvious, “What’s up?”

  “Oh, you know how we like to keep up with what the media’s doing.”

  “Spare me, John.”

  “What you working on, really? Got an article going?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Not having a look at the Polish community in Montreal by any chance are you?”

  “I’m not a feature writer anymore, I’m afraid. I leave that sort of thing to ambitious young cadets.”

  “I see. Been interviewing any Jungian psychologists, then? Any foxy little second-generation Polish numbers? Hmm? Or have we simply developed a taste for young women of East European stock?”

  Hilferty’s grin was getting on Delaney’s nerves badly today.

  “Look, John,” he said. “Let’s not piss around like this, OK? What can I do for you?”

  Hilferty paused to put his drink down on the glass coffee table, looking around unsuccessfully for a coaster. He put it on top of a stack of magazines, and then sat on the edge of the sofa looking intently at Delaney. The no-nonsense spy now.

  “We’re really quite interested in why Natalia Janovski might have been in touch with you, Francis,” he said.

  Delaney didn’t bother pretending he didn’t recognize the name.

  “Lots of people contact me, John. You know that as well as anyone. Why should it be unusual to have someone give me a call and come around to see me? The question, really, is why you’d be interested, and why you would be in a position to know what Natalia’s doing on any given day.”

  It didn’t surprise Delaney that this meeting was going to be about Poles.

  “Can we go way off the record here, Francis?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Not sure whether this will give you a story or not. Not sure we’d want this to give you a story anyway, if you get my drift.” Delaney said nothing.

  “We’re sort of interested in an old guy named Stanislaw Janovski.”

  “Why would that be?” Delaney watched Hilferty watching him to see if he knew that Janovski was dead.

  “Well, it’s really because some other people we are quite interested in . . .”

  “As opposed to sort of interested . . .”

  “Yeah. Some people we are quite interested in have bee
n taking an interest in the old guy.” Again, Delaney said nothing.

  “Well, unfortunately old Janovski has passed on,” Hilferty said, “and we couldn’t help but notice that his niece, this Natalia woman, has been round to see you and we were wondering if you could help us out a bit on what she might have said about why anybody would have been watching her uncle.”

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  “To be really honest with you, Francis, we don’t want her to know we’re interested just yet. Best she doesn’t know just yet. Just carry on with your story for a bit, nothing fancy. You’ve got a much more trustworthy face than my guys and you’ll get more from her than we will, I would imagine. You know how these things work. Cloak-and-dagger.”

  “I see. And what happened to this Stanislaw Janovski then? Just so I know how these things work.”

  “Well, of course the lovely and talented Natalia would have told you all about how he slipped in the bath last month and croaked.”

  “What do you figure?”

  “Well, a lot of accidents happen in bathrooms, Francis. You know, with bath oil or bubble bath or whatever, it can get pretty slippery in there sometimes. Maybe he was a bubble bath sort of guy.”

  “So CSIS is working with the Canadian Safety Council now on this sort of thing, is that right?”

  Hilferty always hated it, Delaney knew, when anyone suggested his employers were anything other than a band of good, hard men. Even in jest.

  “OK, Francis,” Hilferty said. “Let’s not fuck around. It would be really helpful to us if we could find out a bit about why a couple of Polish spooks would be watching a boring old fart like Janovski, and why his niece would come a little while after he dies to approach Canada’s foremost, ahem, investigative journalist and why you guys would then take a little car trip out to Lachine to go to confession at a lovely old seminary by the canal.”

  His people must be getting better, Delaney thought. “I hope you had more luck with the priest than I did,” he said.

  “Well, to be honest, we haven’t actually made the approach yet,” Hilferty said. “We thought you might be able to save us the trouble.”

  Delaney wasn’t sure he bought that. He very much wished he knew whether Hilferty’s people had found out about the other priest yet, the dead one. The drowned one.

  “If you’re calling in old markers, John, I’d have to say with all due respect that you haven’t exactly filled my ear with state secrets over the years.”

  “True. But we do what we can.”

  “What is it you want exactly?”

  “Well, it’s just like I said. Help us out on this thing for a little while. Have a sniff around on our behalf, sort of, and then give us an idea what young Natalia knows, for example. Maybe you’d even turn up something interesting about her old Uncle Stanislaw.”

  “Do I look like a spook to you, John?”

  “If you bought yourself some clothes you might pass.”

  Delaney thought about the few other times he had had such an approach. It happened to people like him from time to time, but generally overseas, if they were going in to somewhere unstable or strategically interesting. Sometimes an embassy type would make a gentle suggestion about a “possibly fruitful” line of questioning for an interview, that sort of thing. Maybe with a civilized little debriefing later over drinks.

  It had happened to Delaney in Cuba, and in Malta when he was doing up a piece on Libyan terrorism. In Malta, though, it wasn’t even the Canadians making the approach. This was the first time CSIS had pitched something like this to him overtly, and he was intrigued that it was on home ground.

  “And what do I get out of this?” Delaney asked. “A nice little feature story?”

  “Maybe not this time, Francis. Hard to say.”

  “So why would I bother?”

  “Just to help out. Future considerations. ’Cause you’re a nice guy. Out of a heartfelt passion for this great country of ours. Because there’s nothing on TV tonight.”

  “Let me get this right,” Delaney said. “Are you actually recruiting me to work on something for you?”

  “No. No, not at all. Recruiting is absolutely the wrong word. Asking you to give us a hand here for a little while. You know there’s a hiring freeze in the civil service anyway.”

  There was that boyish grin again. He loves this stuff, Delaney thought.

  “So, what do you figure?” Hilferty asked. “Depending on what comes up, maybe you could even get a story out of it in the end. Depending.”

  “Maybe I would get a story out of it whether you guys are involved or not. Maybe I could even get a story about you making this approach, John.”

  “Now you know, I figured you would joke around about that,” Hilferty said. “But we simply don’t think you’d do that to us. It’s not your style. You are known in high places for your discretion, Francis. Even though there were a few people pissed off by that last book of yours, nobody in my shop got burned. Or nobody you named anyway.”

  They both paused to study each other. Delaney remembered now why they had wordlessly agreed after their last encounters to hold each other in polite mutual disregard. Hilferty because Delaney was committed to nothing. Delaney because Hilferty was committed to anything. Anything his people in Ottawa might tell him to commit to.

  The ice had by now melted in Hilferty’s drink. Delaney also remembered he was one of those people who talked much more about drinking than he actually drank. He was one of those people who generally talked much tougher than they actually were.

  “What have you got on Janovski?” Delaney asked. “Anything stand out?”

  “Not a lot, Francis. Pretty basic story of a war vet who settles down in Canada after it’s over. He was a flyer. Parents killed over there. Brother here for a bit but dead now. Nothing special. Worked as a broadcaster in the Polish Service at RCI for quite a while. Maybe there’d be something there. I don’t know.”

  “Who do you figure sent the agents over here?” Delaney asked. “We’re not sure.”

  “You mean all of the best CSIS minds in this country can’t get a fix on who sends a couple of agents over from Warsaw these days?”

  “It’s not our fault, Francis. Really. You can’t imagine how fucked up things are getting in Warsaw. There are factions and counterfactions and plots and intrigues like you wouldn’t believe. Walesa’s gone paranoid because he thinks he might lose the election this year. There was even talk he was thinking of a coup at some point a while back. Like that crazy fucker Yeltsin in Moscow.

  Parliament doesn’t hop to it and you send in a couple of tanks. Walesa’s been getting a wee bit cozy with the army lately, for our money. And his office is full of very nasty people ever since his old Solidarity pals decided he was an asshole. Then you’ve got the Commies freaking him out by taking so many seats in the Sejm that last time. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing over there anymore, if you’ll pardon the political science jargon.”

  “But you figure it’s State Protection Office agents over here?” Delaney asked.

  “Yeah, maybe UOP. But you can’t figure who the State Protection guys are working for on any given day anymore, if you get my drift. Probably even Walesa doesn’t know anymore. They seem like professionals, however.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, just a gut feeling,” Hilferty said.

  “Because they did in the old man?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “The UOP still like to duck heads in bathtubs when they question people?” Delaney asked. “Like the old days?”

  “We haven’t inquired,” Hilferty said.

  Delaney knew this would be about the extent of what Hilferty would be saying today. On cue, the CSIS man looked briefly at his stylish Swiss Army watch.

  “Tell you what, John,” Del
aney said. “Why don’t you let me think this over for a bit. You wouldn’t want me to throw away my journalistic integrity just on a whim, now would you?”

  “No, not a bit. No. Just take your time, and see what you might be able to do for us, that’s all we’re asking. No strings.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “Hey, no problem.” Hilferty was taking a small package out of the inner pocket of his overcoat. It was wrapped in black cloth. “I’m going to leave you something, in case you decide to have a go. Nothing special. You just may find this stuff handy. You know, in the trade.”

  He put the package down on the coffee table with a thud.

  “That sounds suspiciously like a gun in there,” Delaney said.

  “Could be,” Hilferty said.

  “Unless I’ve got my facts wrong on this, you guys still don’t carry guns.”

  “Reporters quite often get their facts wrong, Francis. Not plugged in to the real story.”

  “My readers would love to know about this sudden shift in CSIS policy, I’m sure,” Delaney said.

  “Not a policy matter, this one. For some among us, anyway. You get my drift. No comment.”

  Hilferty stood up, and for reasons known only to himself very formally offered his hand for Delaney to shake. They did so awkwardly.

  “You thinking this makes a non-verbal agreement?” Delaney asked.

  “God, you’re suspicious. Reporters are all the same.” Hilferty pulled on his splendid black coat. “Perhaps I should say, on behalf of the Dominion of Canada and of all her departments and services and all of the ships at sea that you should perhaps watch your ass a little bit in this one, Francis. Really. And the lovely Natalia’s ass too. Whether you help us out or not.”

  “Cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

  “You got it.”

  *

  Delaney peered down twenty-six floors to the street, and watched the tiny perfect spy get into his tiny perfect car and drive off. He realized suddenly that this would be an excellent vantage from which to watch whether anyone pulled out to follow. No one seemed to, however. Delaney also realized suddenly that he had been very bad at remembering to watch if anyone was now following him. This morning, for example. Then he sat at the coffee table and slowly unwrapped the package Hilferty had left behind.