Grandmaster

by Molly Cochran

  "I need water."

  "Oh, Jesus." Starcher sighed. "Look, just hold still, all right? I'll pull over at a gas station somewhere."

  Justin wrapped his bony hand around Starcher's. "Here," he said quietly. He got out of the car and walked stiffly over a debris-covered embankment toward a river.

  Starcher puffed angrily on his cigar, thinking that Justin would come back even filthier than he already was. He checked his watch. It was 3:15. He found a station on the radio that played big band music from the forties.

  Those were the days. Before the infirmities of age and guilt. Before the Grandmaster came into his life.

  Justin Gilead had come back to Starcher, the son he had fed to the dogs. He had come back to show Starcher what he had done to him. He came back dead, in order to rot in Starcher's arms. It all ends badly, he thought. There's no good way to get old, any more than there's a good way to die. But at least Kael and the other idiots at Langley didn't know about Justin, couldn't arrest him as a Communist agent. "Ruby" was playing on the radio, and Starcher closed his eyes and remembered Jennifer Jones.

  A horn blew, and a wave of thunder seemed to roll over Starcher. He awoke, terrified, to see one sixteen-wheeler passing another and blaring its horn in salute. "Ruby" was no longer playing. He checked his watch. It was nearly 3:30. Justin had not returned.

  He got out of the car and walked hastily toward the river. The embankment was a disgusting sight, with broken bottles and scraps of paper and fly-covered food everywhere. The river itself was a slick, filthy mess, its Plasticene surface broken only by a few soda cans bobbing in the foamy scum near the water's edge. Justin was nowhere in sight.

  "Gilead!" he called. "Justin!" He walked downstream, picking his way through the trash and the trees with their blackened, soot-heavy leaves. "Justin!"

  There was no answer. It was 3:36.

  Some children trying to set fire to some rags in a bottle whispered excitedly to one another when he approached.

  "Did you see another man come by here?" Starcher asked. "Or in the water? Did you see anyone swimming?"

  The boys quickly pulled down their pants, waved their exposed cheeks, and darted off, giggling. One waited long enough to say, "A man went in. But he didn't come out. I watched."

  It was 3:41.

  Starcher felt his heart thumping. "Justin!" he shouted. But he knew it was no use shouting anymore. The man had come back to life only to drown before the day's end. Starcher climbed, wheezing, back to the car, put on his hazard lights, and waited for the police.

  From the top of the embankment, he saw something emerge from the river. "Jesus Christ," he muttered and clambered out of the car.

  It was 3:47.

  "Where in hell were you?" he shouted, stumbling toward Gilead.

  "I was underwater."

  "For half a fucking hour?"

  "Was it so long?" Justin smiled. "I missed it."

  Starcher gaped. "You didn't stay under all that time." He turned away, then turned back to face Justin. "Did you?"

  Justin took a deep breath. His eyes were sparkling.

  "What are you so happy about? I almost had heart failure looking for you, you crazy middle-aged fool."

  "I thought it was all gone," Justin said quietly.

  "What was? What are you talking about?"

  Justin looked at him for a moment as if appraising the old man. Finally he picked up two rocks the size of baseballs and held one in each hand, weighing them, flexing his fingers around them.

  "Come on, let's get back to the car," Starcher said. "We've still got a long..."

  But Justin's eyes were turned inward. His breathing was deep and fast. The rocks trembled in his hands.

  "Justin..."

  He brought his hands together. The motion was so swift that a sound like a thunderclap issued from them. The cars on the roadway slowed down. One swerved, grazed a guardrail, and lumbered on.

  As Justin released his hands, a fine spray of dust shot upward into the air like a fountain.

  Starcher's mouth hung open in astonishment.

  "That's what I have inside me," Justin said.

  Starcher tossed away his long-extinguished cigar. He felt as if he were seeing Justin Gilead for the first time. "You did stay underwater all that time."

  "I did."

  Starcher sighed and got into the car. "You're not anything like the rest of us, are you ?"

  Justin looked over, his eyes weary and sad. "No," he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  There were seven weeks remaining until the chess match in Havana.

  Justin's transformation began immediately. He exercised from five in the morning until noon, ate ravenously, then ran. Within two weeks, he increased his distance from a quarter-mile to fifteen miles. In the evenings, he lifted weights in Starcher's basement, devoured the books in Starcher's library, and played chess until the small hours of the morning. He slept little, and was up at five the next morning.

  Starcher often watched him from the kitchen window. The house was small, in contrast to his family's other holdings, sparsely furnished and with the vaguely shabby air of a bachelor's quarters. He had never thought of it as anything but a place to sleep at night when he worked at Langley, but now, with Justin's presence, things changed. The strange young man who shared Starcher's days was inexplicably coming to life again, like a dead plant suddenly blossoming through its withered brown husk. Justin was still bone thin, still uncommunicative and alien, but the bones were being strapped over with hard flesh, and something inside him seemed to be expanding, releasing, energizing.

  What is he? Starcher wondered for the thousandth time. The Company had missed the opportunity of a lifetime in not training Gilead while he was still young. Even now, at forty-one, after four full years of privation and suffering, he was astonishing. The hollowed sockets around his joints had begun to fill out, and the wasted appearance of his face had changed, focused, intensified.

  Maybe this is enough, Starcher thought. A man who had been ready to give in to whatever strange demons possessed him was healthy again. This had been Starcher's gift to the young man who had once come, earnest and gifted, to him, and whom he had sent to be slaughtered in Poland.

  But there was more. Justin Gilead was more of a man than most, but somehow also less. He had no concept of casual conversation. He evinced no desire to leave the small house near Langley to seek more stimulating company. Yet he could crush rocks in his bare hands. Starcher had seen him swim underwater for thirty minutes without coming up for air. He always slept out of doors, on a path of gravel. He could catch butterflies in his hands. When he walked, he made no sound.

  He was, Starcher imagined, like a sleeping giant now awake, his body aged inexorably into middle age, but with some extraordinary spirit within him just beginning to kindle to youthful life.

  And when that spark was in full blaze, Starcher knew, its light would be dazzling.

  Starcher got the impression that Gilead was merely tolerating him, putting up with him as a means to an end. That end was Zharkov. Justin seemed to give his total attention to the retired CIA officer only when they talked about the trip to Cuba.

  Gilead's air was cool, as if Starcher and not he were the houseguest, and during their conversations Starcher usually wound up displaying his annoyance.

  "Have you figured out how I'm getting to Cuba?" Justin asked matter-of-factly, as he did every morning.

  "Have you figured out how you're getting on the American chess team?" Starcher countered.

  "Don't worry about that. I'll get on the team."

  "Why aren't you doing anything about it now?" Starcher asked.

  "You know why. If I do anything too soon, your friends at Langley will get wind of it and find out that I'm still alive. Since they've decided that everybody who ever lived is a Russian spy, they'd be coming after me with an armed posse. I've got to do it at the last minute. How will I get into Cuba?"

  "I'll get you in. I'm more conc
erned with how you're going to get out."

  "After I do what I've gone there to do, I don't really care if I get out or not," Justin said.

  "Well, I do," Starcher snapped. Justin shrugged and left the room to return to his exercise.

  The next morning, he would reappear and ask, "Have you figured out how I'm getting into Cuba?"

  One day, Starcher handed Justin a list of four names. "These are the American players who are making the trip," he said.

  Gilead looked at them and nodded. "Needham," he said aloud. "That's good. He owes me a favor. I'll be going in his place. Did you figure out how I'm getting into Cuba?"

  "You know," Starcher said, "I've been reading a book. I don't know anything about chess, but I've been reading about the Fischer-Spassky match."

  "A wonderful match," Gilead said.

  "I couldn't tell if it was a wonderful match or a blowout," Starcher said. "But Fischer had a second. Are you allowed to have a second?"

  "Of course," Gilead said.

  "Good. Then we're both going to Cuba."

  Gilead smiled, surprised. "When did you become interested in chess matches?"

  "Forget chess. I'm interested in what Zharkov is doing in Cuba. What he's got planned. And there's Kutsenko. If he wants to defect, I want to get him out. Somehow, I don't think you're going to concern yourself with either of those things very much. That's why I'm going to go."

  "It'll be dangerous," Gilead said. "Zharkov's going to try to kill me. You're sixty ..."

  "Considerably older than that," Starcher snapped. "And still alive. If you're worried about taking me along, those are all the credentials I have to offer." His dark eyes were frosty and unyielding.

  The Grandmaster nodded slowly. "They're enough."

  "Good," Starcher said, still blustering. He lit a cigar, blowing out an enormous, joyful cloud of smoke.

  "Maybe you ought to figure out how we're going to get into Cuba," Gilead said.

  Starcher sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him languidly. A big grin spread across his face, making him look twenty years younger. "I have."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Starcher permitted the bellhop to carry only one of his bags up the sumptuous stairway of Miami's Fontainbleau Hotel. It was nearing Christmas, and the hotel was filled, mostly with New Yorkers.

  "Pretty fancy," Justin said as Starcher tipped the bellhop and closed the doors on the suite. "Was that a ten you gave him?"

  "A hundred. To come in before the maid in the mornings and mess up the beds. It's a weak alibi, but if we need an alibi, it's better than nothing."

  "What about your sister? If the CIA gets wind of me and comes sniffing around, she'll talk. She knows I've been staying with you."

  Starcher laughed as he hung a few shirts in the closet. "She knows someone's been there, but she's too much the lady to ask. Probably thinks I've turned into an old queer. Wear this." He handed Justin a beige linen suit from Harrod's. "And go downstairs and get yourself a haircut and a manicure. I want you to reek of money."

  "What for?" Justin asked, fitting the jacket.

  "For spending a hundred thousand dollars."

  Justin laughed. "What on?"

  "A boat," Starcher said.

  "I don't know anything about boats."

  "You don't have to." He pulled from his jacket pocket a neatly folded photograph from a magazine. It pictured a 38-foot cruiser that looked as if it were flying. "It's an Azimut Electron, Italian made. Pay for it in cash."

  "Where are we going to get that much cash?"

  Starcher opened a suitcase. It was filled with hundred dollar bills. "Here," he said.

  "Are you paying for it yourself?"

  Starcher smiled. "You forget. My family's wealthy. And this is the old age I've been saving up for," he said. "Now listen. I want the boat to be painted black and towed thirty miles offshore, directly south of Miami following the Keys, within three days. I'll find someone to drive it by then."

  "Painted black? No boat dealer's going to—"

  "Pay what you've got to. Most merchants have a healthy respect for cash. They'll do it. Just stay with the boat, understand?" He handed Justin the suitcase and sent him out.

  Next, he dressed himself in some threadbare clothes and examined the stubble on his chin. Not bad, he thought. It didn't take much to turn a wealthy old man into a derelict. It had been Riesling's favorite technique. No one ever looked too closely at seedy old vagabonds. Besides, he was only going to look for Saarinen. For the actual contact, he would need a foolproof disguise.

  It took him nearly forty-eight hours to locate the black hulk of the Kronen. Couched among the sleek Posillipos and Magnums and Couache Motor Yachts that dotted Miami's Bel-Air harbor, the salt-encrusted fishing boat was as obvious as a black eye on a Kabuki dancer.

  Starcher wandered near the marina, keeping his cap pulled over his eyes, searching for the captain of the Kronen. No one seemed to be on board. Starcher moved closer and knocked on the portholes. No one came. Finally, he stepped aboard the boat.

  "Hey!" someone called from atop the rigging on a nearby sailboat. "You, Mr. Bum. Get off my boat, okay? Get out of here."

  Starcher looked up. It was Saarinen, a little leaner than Starcher remembered him, but no older. So he still owned the Kronen.

  "Hey, I know you," the Finn said, scrambling down the rigging.

  Starcher turned and walked quickly away.

  "Wait a minute," Saarinen called, but Starcher was gone.

  He could still lose himself in a crowd of five people, Starcher thought with some gratification. There were some students fooling around near the piers, and he moved in among them, then led them all unconsciously near another group, where he was safely out of sight. It had always been something he excelled at—a little thing, the by-product of his work, the way a bank teller can count money with lightning speed, or a librarian can pull out all sorts of trivial information from a lifetime of insignificant research. The CIA men watching Saarinen were all too easy to spot: A deck hand with eyes too wary, a casual stroller with rings of perspiration on his shirt that could only come from hours in the sun and humidity. They were watchers, little men with little jobs, like the KGB watchers who had stood so patiently below his office window in Moscow. They turned when Saarinen called out to him, but they, too, lost him in the crowd. Watchers were the youngsters, easy to dodge. But if they saw him again, they would report the sighting. The disguise for meeting Saarinen head to head would have to be perfect.

  It was nearly dusk by the time Saarinen got off the gleaming sailboat. He whistled on his way back to the Kronen, his steps light on the plank pier.

  "Good work," he said, clapping one of the CIA-watchers on the back with his big grime-blackened hands. The watcher pulled away from him indignantly, his flushed face betraying his embarrassment. Saarinen laughed. "My guardian angels, eh?"

  The agent walked away. Saarinen lumbered into the hold of the Kronen and pulled a bottle of vodka from beneath the galley sink. Since his immigration to America, he'd switched from Korskenkova to easily available Finlandia, but the effect was the same—a wild, fiery ride down a gullet followed by the warm, stomach-prickling glow that always preceded the numb blankness of his nights.

  Spies. Who needed them? he thought as he straightened out a sweat-stained Gitane and lit it with a new American Bic lighter. He tilted his wooden chair so that it rested on its two back legs and swung his feet up onto the table. In his right hand was the bottle of vodka; in his left, the cigarette. It was the position he found best for thinking during what little time he had before the Finlandia shut down his brain for the night.

  Spies in Finland. Spies on Gogland Island. In the Soviet Union, there was at least one spy per family. And now they were in Miami, too, following him around the Land of the Free.

  He belched. "Fuck your mother," he said reflexively.

  If he went back to Finland, he'd be thrown in jail again. Or worse. The KGB, very much a presenc
e in Helsinki, had a way of relocating local small-time enemy operatives like Saarinen to the morgue. And the Americans were no better. Shit! If he'd known the bones tossed to him by the CIA fat cats would turn him into a Flying Dutchman, homeless and running forever, he would have stuck to smuggling. It was an easier life. Now, with no crew, no home, and no money to pay for even minor repairs on the Kronen, he was as empty-handed as he had been on the day he was born.

  He took a swig of the vodka. Well, not completely empty-handed, he thought. At least there would be more Finlandia waiting for him tomorrow. After he was through cleaning Mr. Cohen's sloop. Mr. Cohen, who wouldn't know a nor'easter from a fart.

  He smelled something acrid, looked down, saw his shirt was on fire, and slapped it out with a barrage of cursing and a fountain of spilled vodka.

  "Fuck your mother!" he screamed. "Fuck my mother!"

  There was a knock at the door.

  "And fuck you!" He threw a vicious kick at the wooden door.

  The knocking persisted.

  He threw open the door. "Goddamn your eyes!" he bellowed before his visitor came into focus. It was a woman, built like the proverbial American brick outhouse. She was wearing a nurse's cap and had breasts like melons.

  "Excuse me," she said throatily, "but I understand you offer charter cruises."

  Saarinen tore his eyes away from her chest, sputtered, then took another belt of vodka. "It's dark outside," he managed.

  "That's fine with my patient. He can only go out when it's dark. Will you come with me, please?"

  Wobbling slightly, he followed her back up to the deck, occasionally sliding his hand along the nurse's heart-shaped backside, a gesture the woman didn't seem to notice.

  "He's over there," she said, pointing to a dark figure in a wheelchair on the pier. He looked like an old man, although his face was almost completely swathed in gauze bandages. Only the tip of his nose showed beneath large dark glasses and a wide-brimmed fedora.

  "It's a man? Are you sure?" Saarinen said. The cigarette burn on his chest was beginning to blister, and he'd left his bottle down in the hold. Even the nurse's heart-shaped rear couldn't make up for the lack of Finlandia.