Walking Back The Cat

by Robert Littell

  Eskeltsetle didn't waste breath posing questions that weren't going to be answered. Rummaging in a shoe box, he came up with a large skeleton key, which he said opened the front door of the out-of-the-way building that had once served Watershed Station as a town jail to keep sore losers and drunken Indians out of circulation and out of earshot; the river gushing under its windows, Eskeltsetle explained, his face as impassive as ever but his eyes bright with laughter, tended to drown out cries for help and declarations of innocence. The keys to the manacles and cells were hanging on a peg just inside the jail's front door.

  Now, daylight streamed through a high barred window as Early drifted slowly back to consciousness. He was stretched out on a straw mat on the dirt floor of a cell, with a thin chain manacled to his right ankle and attached to an iron loop embedded in the adobe wall. Early brought a fleshy hand up and shaded his eyes. Two men stood over him. The one he recognized, Finn, dragged over a three-legged stool. "Sit down," he ordered.

  Early gripped the thin chain in both hands and yanked at it, but it didn't give. Using the chain for leverage, he pulled himself up and settled groggily on the stool, which sank into the ground under his weight. From time to time he massaged the back of his neck, which ached from Parsi-

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  Robert Littell

  fal's precise karate chop that had pitched him into a stupor back at Mary Magdalene's.

  "Where am I?" he asked. "What the hell you think you're doing, shanghaiing me like this?" Blinking hard to bring Finn's face into focus, absently cracking a knuckle, Early concentrated on him. "Aiding and abetting, kidnapping, assault, battery, holding someone prisoner against his will—you'll get thirty years if you get a day."

  Parsifal kicked with the toe of a shoe at the chain manacling Early to the wall. "You can always make a citizen's arrest," he said dryly.

  His humor was lost on Early. "Pull out before it's too late," he advised Finn. "Mary Magdalene's bound to start asking questions when she sees my Chrysler out in front of her place."

  "We ditched the Chrysler," Finn explained. "It'll be a miracle if anyone comes across it this century."

  Early tried another tack. "When the Chronicle doesn't appear on the newsstands, folks back in New Jerusalem will notice my absence. Sheriffs probably combing the countryside for me right now."

  Finn recognized the instinct to clutch at straws; he had been there himself recently. "They'll think you're off fishing," he said. "Nobody will miss you for days."

  Early cracked a knuckle. "What do you want?"

  "Answers," Parsifal said. He sniffed at the air. Judging from the expression on his face, he didn't like what he smelled.

  Early looked directly at Parsifal for the first time. "Who's your friend?" he asked Finn, suddenly less sure of himself.

  "He's a professional killer. He's the pistol you sent to murder me."

  The blood appeared to drain from Early's already pale cheeks. He produced an oversized handkerchief from a hip pocket and mopped the back of his neck. "I don't know what you're talking about," he protested hoarsely.

  Parsifal circled behind Early and talked to the back of his head. "You can save yourself a lot of grief by coming clean. When you learned that my young friend here was asking questions about the Mafia and the casino, you—acting on orders from someone you work for, someone you report to —lured him to the yucca rope factory. You or this same someone arranged for me to be there instead of an FBI agent. One way or another you're going to give us the identity of this someone." He wound up in front of the prisoner. "Who do you report to? Is it Green Bow Tie himself, or someone higher up the chain of command?"

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  Walking Back the Cat

  Early shook his head; his jowls quivered in his cheeks. "You're barking up the wrong tr—"

  Without warning Parsifal slapped him hard across the face, sending Early's silver-rimmed half glasses flying and almost knocking him off the stool. "Do you want me to repeat the question," he asked softly, "or do you remember it?"

  "Repeat it as many times as you like," Early muttered sullenly, his fingers caressing the side of his cheek, which had turned beet red. "I can't tell you something I don't know."

  Walking Back the Cat

  prodded the stocky man back up the hill. A moment later the two disappeared inside the jail.

  Closing the telescope with a snap, Thomas leaped from the tree house and raced toward the nearest footbridge. He was halfway through the cornfield when the two Apache boys playing Victorio and Geronimo materialized out of nowhere. "Surrender or face the consequences," they yelled triumphantly, their air guns leveled as Thomas tore past them.

  Thomas had recognized the stocky man with his hands tied behind his back. Something real funny was going on in Watershed Station and Es-keltsetle ought to be told about it.

  Walking Back the Cat

  Eskeltsetle shrugged. "Doubting Thomas saw him yesterday when you let him out to piss. Thomas recognized him from when the three of us was off fishing in Rattlesnake Wash where it narrows and falls into the Sacred Lake. Funny thing happened that day. Thomas and me, we was lying flat on an overhang looking straight down at the falls. We tried to talk Mr. Early into joining us, but he refused. He hung back upstream shouting about how he suffered from something called vertigo. Thomas didn't know what vertigo meant, so I had to explain it. Mr. Early is terrified of heights."

  "I should have thought of it before," Finn told Parsifal when he recounted what Eskeltsetle had said. "Of course —Early is scared of heights. The day I went to his office to tell him about how Green Bow Tie was walking off with the casino's cash, he swiveled in his chair and looked down at the street, four floors below. When he swiveled back he was sweating like a stuck pig. I thought for a moment he was going to pass out."

  Parsifal's eyes, normally expressionless, danced. "This opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities."

  Walking Back the Cat

  Working the nozzles, Finn gave the envelope another shot of hot air to keep the balloon aloft. Early made a stab at practicing chod, but he didn't get very far with it. Parsifal took a good grip on the ropes binding Early's wrists and ankles and started to shove him up and out of the gondola. "If he won't tell us what we want to know," he said, straining to lift the stocky man, "we might as well get rid of him."

  A wild animal scream emerged from the back of Early's throat. Half over the gondola railing, he gagged on words. "Oh God . . . talk . . . tell you what you want. . ."

  Parsifal wrestled him back into the gondola. Whimpering, Early collapsed onto the deck, his head angled back against a propane canister, his mouth gaping open, his Adam's apple throbbing as his breath came in short rattling spurts.

  Parsifal crouched next to him. "Let's begin with who you work for."

  Early managed to say, "... a freelancer." He swallowed several times. ". . . renewable one-year contract. . . the Defense Intelligence Agency . . . specialty is laundering money. . . offshore companies . . . Caribbean casinos . . . private banks in Liechtenstein, in Guernsey." He was starting to catch his breath now. Once he began talking, the information seemed to cascade out. "From time to time Harry would ask me to moon-

  light--

  "Who's Harry?"

  "Harry Lahr, the one you call Green Bow Tie. He was under contract to the Agency—"

  "The Central Intelligence Agency?"

  Early nodded weakly. "I never knew exactly what he did for them —he was attached to something called Special Projects, which could have meant anything, either on the operations side or the intelligence and estimates side."

  Parsifal said menacingly, "Pin it down for us."

  "I used to think Harry had to be involved with the Soviet section, because he was always running off at the mouth about the Communist menace, the need to maintain our military edge, the usual shit. But he kept me at arm's length —I never got close enough to know for sure."

  "Did he ever talk about the Mafia?" Parsifal asked.
<
br />   Early shook his head. "Never."

  "He could have been working for the Mafia without knowing it," Finn put in.

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  Robert Littell

  Early said, "He could have been fronting for the Mafia, sure, but who knows who the Mafia was fronting for? In this business you never know where the buck stops."

  "It never stops where you think it stops," Parsifal informed Finn. He crouched in front of Early. "How did you meet this Harry Lahr?"

  "We knew each other from when we were both running Treasury agents in Thailand in the seventies, putting arms smugglers out of business, tracing dope back upcountry into Cambodia, setting up black market kingpins for a fall. Harry was the same back then, always wearing fancy bow ties, always talking like he was a heavy hitter, distributing fistfuls of greenbacks, dropping names of station chiefs he'd partied with, dropping names of ambassadors' wives he'd gone down on. Later on, in Washington, he'd call me in from time to time on one-shot contracts —Special Projects needed to slip a million or two to a Haitian general or a Cambodian prince or a Japanese politician, but it had to look like it came from a legitimate source. I'd launder the money until you couldn't see the green in the bills, and pass it on."

  Early ran out of steam and sagged back against the propane canister. Parsifal grabbed a handful of shirt and started to pull him to his feet. Early cried, "No, please, no." His chest heaved as he drew several deep breaths. "Harry takes me out to lunch about three years ago," he began, closing his eyes, reliving the event, "he orders fancy French wine, he pays the check in cash and leaves a big tip, he says he's quit the Agency, he says he represents a consortium, they're going into business out west, they need someone with laundering expertise on staff. So I think, What the hell, I'm forty-nine, it's time I put the intelligence rat race behind me, besides which the job pays well—the salary, the perks are supposed to come from a newspaper the consortium's going to purchase through a dummy corporation. What could be more tidy? It's the golden parachute I always dreamed about. So I sign on the dotted line, I set up the dummy corporation, I organize the purchase of the newspaper. I draw a monthly check as editor and publisher, on the side I take care of the dry cleaning for the consortium."

  "Which is where the casino comes in," Finn guessed.

  "I was instructed to establish contacts with the Apaches, and later on, when I'd won their confidence, to point out the advantages of going into the casino business."

  Parsifal looked puzzled. "This consortium—what business is it in?"

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  Walking Back the Cat

  Early whispered the answer because he was terrified they wouldn't believe him. "It was not something I needed to know, so Harry never told me."

  "Who is Dewey?" Parsifal demanded.

  "Dewey is the next rung on the ladder, the man Harry reports to. Harry dropped his name once or twice, he said something about him being a nut for opera, but I never met him, I never personally talked to him. The consortium was compartmented like a submarine. I was brought in by Harry, I reported to Harry, I complained to Harry, I kissed Harry's ass, I got my marching orders from Harry."

  Parsifal was in his element now, accumulating details the way some men collect lint in their trouser cuffs. "Assuming what you say is true, assuming Dewey is the next rung on the ladder, how many rungs are there?"

  Early was on the verge of losing control; his chest heaved, tears streamed down his puffy cheeks. "I don't know. Dear God, you need to believe me. Harry was my horizon, I never got to see past him."

  "How do we find Harry Lahr?"

  "There's an unlisted phone with an answering machine which he interrogates from a distance. I leave messages, he gets back to me."

  Parsifal pulled Early to his feet, spun him around so that he was looking out of the gondola and pulled up hard on the rope binding his wrists. "You have a safety signal, a code that says you're not being manipulated." It was a statement, not a question.

  "I describe the weather—"

  "I can't hear you."

  "I describe the weather, but I get it wrong. If it's snowing, I say something about how hot it is."

  "If you're lying to me I'll take you up for another ride in The Spirit of Saint Louis and throw you out."

  "God is my witness. I'm not lying."

  Glancing at Finn, Parsifal tapped the side of his nostril again. "You can take her down," he told him. "I enjoyed the ride. When we're back on planet Earth, we'll arrange for the publisher of The Occasional Chronicle to leave a message for his friend in the green bow tie complaining about the rain."

  Walking Back the Cat

  transmitter you gave me to send a radio signal to the car and detonate the plastic as the Jogger passes. The hill backs onto the parking lot of a shopping mall. Disappearing into the woodwork after the fireworks would be relatively easy."

  "Plastic stinks. Literally. The people responsible for the Jogger's health will sniff the route with dogs — "

  "I heard about a technique of neutralizing man's best friend. You boil Lophophora williamsii, which is a hallucinogenic cactus better known as peyote, and spill the broth over the road near the parked car. The odor of the peyote temporarily clouds the olfactory lobes of animals. Forget plastic. The dogs won't be able to smell another dog in heat."

  "Assuming you are correct about the odor, a stray automobile parked along the Jogger's route, as opposed to the parking lot near the museum, would certainly be towed away."

  "That's the one question that still needs an answer," Parsifal admitted. "I'm working on it."

  "Get back to me when you have solved it."

  The line was cut.

  Robert Littell

  Parsifal took the glass from Finn and sniffed at the water. "They're putting in more chlorine than usual this week/' he said as he tilted the glass to Early's mouth. Water slopped down the front of his shirt as his flabby throat worked. Handing the empty glass back to Finn, Parsifal reached for the telephone and dialed a number. He listened as the call went through. There was no recorded message, only a beep. Parsifal held the phone to Early's lips and nodded once.

  Early swallowed hard. "It's me," he began. "It sure doesn't look as if the damn rain's ever going to let up, but I need to see you all the same. It's about that kid who came to see me —the one who spotted you playing poker in the casino. When the Apaches over in Watershed figure out he's missing, the police are bound to come sniffing around The Occasional Chronicle. Could be he left a trail. I could use some guidance. Thought I'd mosey on out to that abandoned quarry off Route 14 on the Santa Fe side of Madrid — "

  Parsifal pointed to an hour on his wristwatch.

  "Let's say about eleven tonight. That way everyone'll think I'm living it up at Mary Magdalene's."

  The heel of Parsifal's hand sliced down, cutting the connection. "You did real well," he informed Early. "Keep up the good work and you may die in bed."

  Robert Littell

  Tm trying to reach ." Miss Abescat made up a number.

  "You dialed a wrong number," a man said, and hung up. Six minutes later the phone on Miss Abescat's console buzzed. She switched on the speaker.

  "It's me," a voice said.

  "Re setting up a meeting between the early bird and your man in the bow tie, the answer is affirmative."

  The voice on the other end, all business, said, "Roger, understand affirmative." Then the line went dead.

  The man in the khaki baseball cap strolled over to the window and stared out at the killing ground strewn with the bleached bones of animals blown up by mines. He pulled a set of large silver worry beads from the pocket of his khaki windbreaker and absently threaded them through his fingers. It was a habit he had picked up during his first posting to Moscow Station, when he ran Muslim agents into the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics from Afghanistan. He was still uneasy about Lahr's friend Early; he would have to speak to Dewey about terminating his contract. Now that the consortium had the Apaches on the hook
, it really didn't need a professional launderer on the payroll, especially one who dropped from sight every time the fish were running.

  Lefler looked up from his computer. "Did you get a chance to read the report I left on your desk? It's a hell of an idea—boiling peyote and spilling the broth near the car to throw off the dogs."

  The man in the khaki baseball cap turned back to the room. "I ran agents into Uzbekistan from Afghanistan who used to urinate on the trail to confuse the dogs. I never heard of boiling peyote. It's certainly imaginative, but I'll want an opinion from the science-and-technology people before we buy into this."

  Robert Littell

  Party headquarters because that was the only street in town that was paved. My mother was a German Communist who fled Germany before what we call the Great Patriotic War. She always referred to Leningrad as Sankt Petersburg. My father was Georgian. When I think of him, I think of his fingernails, black with soot—he was a miner, you see. He worked himself to death trying to fulfill quotas set by apparatchiks in three-piece suits drinking ersatz coffee in overheated offices in Moscow. But until his dying day, my father believed in the thing we call Communism. He believed there was a better world out there only waiting to be constructed."

  "Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia! You're a Russian spy! It's not possible. You speak English as if you were born here."

  "I studied your American English in the best school in the world—the KGB language school in Moscow. The course lasted three years. My teacher was an American defector, a Negro soldier who had been stealing walkie-talkies in West Germany and slipped over the Wall before he could be arrested. We'd sit around watching old I Love Lucy tapes until I could talk like Lucille Ball. I watched baseball and football to learn the rules and jargon of these impossibly complicated games. For homework I read Hemingway and Rolling Stone and The Village Voice, for on-the-job training the KGB filled my pockets with dollars and sent me off to hotels to seduce American tourists."