by Ross Thomas
“You’re a treasure, you are,” I said and took a long gulp.
“What now?” Arrie said.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
I looked at my watch. It was nearly three o’clock. “I’m not planning on walking down any mountain tonight, are you?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll just sprawl around the fireplace and sing songs till it gets light.”
“And then?”
I shrugged. “Then you, Killingsworth, Wisdom and Knight can start back for Sarajevo.”
“What about Tavro?”
“He and Gordana go with me.”
“Where?” she asked.
I grinned at her. “I still don’t know.”
I looked up and saw that Killingsworth was now talking to Gordana, his big face worked up into an expression of sadness. She was nodding, as if only half listening to what he had to say. Then she shook her head sharply and moved away. Killingsworth looked around as if bewildered, but then I remembered that he’d often looked that way. He saw me and came over to where I sat
“I have to talk you privately,” he said. “It’s important.”
I sighed and rose. We went over to the rough wooden table. Killingsworth sat down and hunched over it in what he may have hoped was a conspiratorial manner. “This man Tavro,” he said.
“What about him?”
“He’s dangerous.”
“So?”
“He approached me with information. He wanted me to help him get out of the country.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“But you took the information.”
Killingsworth looked around. “You have no idea how vital it is, St. Ives.”
“Hot stuff, huh?”
“It could well determine the future leaders of this country.”
“What’ve you done with it?” I said.
“That’s confidential, of course.”
“But it’s the real thing?”
“There’s no doubt about it,” he said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you get him out of the country?”
“Maybe.”
“I can’t be involved, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But I did more or less promise him.”
“In exchange for the information?” I said.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I can try,” I said and started to rise. He used his right hand to pull me back down. “There’s one other thing.”
“What?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think during the past week.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“A half hour ago you couldn’t remember my name.”
“A man sometimes does foolish things.”
“Such as?”
“This girl, Gordana Panić. We were, well, close and I made some promises, some foolish ones, I’m afraid, but now that I’ve had a chance to think it all through it would be far better if this entire affair didn’t involve her. Am I making myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” I said. “You want to give her the brush.”
Killingsworth frowned. “There’s my family to think of.”
“What about her?”
He ignored the question. “And as ambassador I should avoid any hint of scandal that could damage our relations with Belgrade.”
“You want me to fix things, right?”
“Could you?”
“Why should I?”
Maybe I wanted him to crawl a little. Or maybe it was because I thought I’d owed him something for thirteen years and now was my chance to pay it all back with compound interest. His face fell. Crumpled would be better. He was no longer Ambassador Amfred Killingsworth, millionaire publisher. He was only a fifty-year-old man who’d just about wrecked things because of a twenty-two-year-old girl and now he was trying to scramble back, trying to salvage it all, trying to make it as it had been before he fell in love too late in life. And that was probably what hurt most of all, that he couldn’t fall in love at fifty with someone who was twenty-two because he didn’t have the stomach for the sacrifices that it called for.
“Oh, hell, Killingsworth. I’ll see what I can do.”
His face brightened. It not only brightened, it shone. “You mean it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll remember it, Phil. We’ve had a few differences, but that’s all water under the bridge. Wait till you see my report on how you’ve handled this. I’ll see that you get full credit.” He was babbling now, not saying anything really and I only half listened. Then he said, “Who brought you in?”
“Hamilton Coors,” I said. “You know him?”
“Of course I know him. Damned fine man. He’s a personal friend of mine, the best I’ve got in the Department.”
I nodded. It was all that I felt like doing. “Coors speaks well of you, too,” I said.
I was dozing by the fireplace about an hour later when I got my first night visitor. It was Tavro. I glanced about and the rest of them were sprawled out or huddled up near the warmth of the flames.
“I must speak with you,” Tavro said in his whispering rasp.
“Go ahead.”
He looked around, his sad fish face covered with a black and white stubble that made him look mean all the way through. “When will Killingsworth get back to Belgrade?”
“Tomorrow, I think.”
“He has information, papers, documents that are mine.”
“I thought you gave them to him.”
Tavro frowned. “It was a foolish mistake. I must have them back.”
“I don’t think there’s much chance.”
“Then I must leave immediately.” He started to rise. I caught his arm and pulled him back down.
“You don’t have a chance,” I said. “We’ll try it tomorrow with the girl. You can be her grandfather.”
He shook his head. “Mr. St. Ives, if the information that is contained in those documents that I gave your ambassador is revealed to anyone else, I will be dead before night.” I looked at him. His face was still grumpy and mean, but it was also serious.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Your ambassador, Mr. Killingsworth, does not have the background to assess their true significance.”
“He told me that it was hot stuff.”
“He was speaking as a newspaperman, not as a diplomat. The information that he possesses could destroy this government.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
Tavro looked away and then returned his gaze to me. It contained as much sincerity as he was capable of displaying, perhaps more. “Not if it would take Russian tanks, Mr. St. Ives.”
“Like Czechoslovakia, huh?”
“You do not believe me?”
“No.”
Tavro shook his head and then smiled as if he felt sorry for my stupidity—which he may have. “Think about this, Mr. St. Ives. If I were not telling the truth, I certainly would not be here.”
I nodded as he rose. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll go first tomorrow. The others can come out later.”
“Tomorrow,” he said, as if he were not at all sure that there would be such a thing. Then he rose and walked to the far end of the fireplace where he stood and looked into the flames for a long time. I watched him for a while and then I tried to go to sleep, and almost succeeded until something warm and wet started licking my ear.
“What’re you doing?” It was Arrie, of course.
“Trying to sleep,” I said. “Doesn’t the sandman stop by your place anymore?”
“I was cold.”
I put my arm around her. She snuggled against my chest. “I bet they have rooms upstairs,” she said.
“We’d freeze before we got there.”
“What did Tavro want?”
“Out.”
“You still going to help him?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Probably.”
“None of it’s gone right, has it?”
I looked down at her, but she had turned her face away from me. “None of what?” I said.
“None of what you thought you were supposed to do.”
“No, it’s all gone wrong.”
“It could get worse,” she said.
“I don’t see how.”
She sighed and snuggled closer. “You will if you try to get him out.”
26
THE COLD AWAKENED ME. Thin gray light was coming through the tall windows. The fire had died down. I gently lifted Arrie’s head from my chest and made her a pillow of my topcoat. She curled into it without waking. I rose and went over to the fireplace, put three large logs on, and waited until they caught. I squatted down and warmed my hands before the flames. And then I thought for a long time, until the thinking threatened to become the end itself rather than the method by which the end is reached.
I rose and walked over to the windows. Before me stretched a broad, snow-covered meadow that was lined by thick forests of fir and pine. Beyond the meadow was more forest that rose until it thinned out into snow and rocks and became the peak of a mountain whose name I would like to have known.
Below the castle near the edge of the forest, two deer, a buck and a doe, took small, delicate, tentative steps into the deep snow. They stopped, looked around suspiciously, and then bounded across the meadow, hurrying into the safety of the forest on the other side.
I turned from the window and went back to the fireplace. Tavro was propped up against the stone wall, his overcoat drawn up to his chin. I bent down and shook his arm. He opened his eyes and then opened and closed his mouth several times as if he tasted something bad.
“It’s time we started,” I said and moved over to where Gordana sat sleeping with her head on Wisdom’s shoulder. I shook her gently and she stirred, but didn’t open her eyes, and I had to shake her again. She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at me. It was a child’s smile that contained a child’s faith and I didn’t feel that I deserved it.
“It’s time,” I said and she nodded and stretched. Wisdom also awakened.
“What time is it?” he said.
I looked at my watch. “Nearly seven thirty.”
The rest of them began to stir. Killingsworth rose and stretched and looked around as if he felt he should say something, something wise perhaps, like telling the rest of us where the toilet was. He didn’t. Knight was up looking rumpled but ruggedly handsome. I envied him. Arrie was the last to awaken. She got up quickly, clutching her purse to her as though she thought someone might snatch it away.
“I think I found some coffee,” Wisdom said, poking around in a box of canned goods.
“Make some in that pot that I used for snow,” I said. “There should be enough water left in it.”
He nodded, opened the paper sack of coffee, and threw a couple of handfuls of the grounds into the pot and hung it over the fire with a metal hook that swung from the wall. I don’t think Wisdom did much cooking for himself.
One by one they trooped downstairs and out into the snow to relieve themselves and when they came back they dipped tin cups into the coffee and drank it gratefully even though it was indescribably bad. They turned toward me instinctively, it seemed, even Killingsworth, as though waiting for me to tell them what to do next now that they’d gone to the toilet. I took another sip of coffee and lit a cigarette.
“I’m going to borrow your car, Killingsworth,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to borrow your car. I need it. Tavro and Gordana are going with me. I want you to give us an hour’s start. When you get down to the village Arrie can tell someone who you are and they’ll call the authorities. I don’t care what you tell them about me.”
We were all standing. Tavro, with his coat on, was slightly behind Wisdom. I was next to Gordana, and Knight and Killingsworth were near the fireplace. Arrie was by herself near the table.
“All right,” I said, looking at Gordana. “Let’s go.”
“Tavro’s not going.” It was Arrie’s voice. I turned to look at her. She held a small automatic in her right hand. It was aimed at Tavro. “He’s not going anyplace, Phil. I’m sorry.”
“Aw, come on,” I said and started toward her. She kept her eyes on Tavro. He looked at me and then at the pistol. His face started working, as if he were trying to think of something to say. Instead, he shoved Wisdom violently at Arrie. The gun went off. Tavro ran toward the open door and through it and I could hear his leather heels clatter down the stairs.
Wisdom stumbled against the table, tried to catch it, but failed, and fell to the floor on his back. There was a small black and red hole under the pocket of his white shirt. Arrie stood frozen, the gun in her hand, staring at Wisdom, her mouth silently forming the word “No” over and over.
I ran to the window and forced it open. Tavro was in the meadow, trying to run through the deep snow. He floundered, fell, picked himself up, and tried to run again. I yelled at him. “Don’t try it, Tavro!”
He may have heard me because he stopped, looked back, and then tried to run again. They cut him down before he got three steps. It sounded like a submachine gun.
I turned from the window and ran back to Arrie who stood motionless, staring down at the fallen Wisdom, the gun still in her hand. I took the gun, ran back to the window, and tossed it into a snow bank. Then I went back to Wisdom. Knight had ripped open Wisdom’s shirt and was trying to stop the blood with his handkerchief. I handed him mine as I knelt down beside them.
Wisdom’s breath came in harsh wheezes. His eyes were closed. He opened them and looked at Knight. He smiled and shook his head slightly. He turned his eyes and found mine. Once more he shook his head, but only a little. “Don’t blame the kid, Phil.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t.”
Arrie was kneeling by him now. She was weeping.
“Not your fault, kid,” Wisdom said and tried to smile at her and almost made it before the pain hit. He shuddered and closed his eyes tightly and then looked up once more at Knight. This time he did smile, broadly. “Goddamn it, Carstairs,” he said, “get back to your post.” Then he died.
Knight kept the handkerchiefs pressed to the dead man’s chest, even when the metallic words boomed out from the bullhorn. “What’s it say?” I asked Arrie, but she was sobbing now. I turned to Gordana who stood, staring blankly down at the dead Wisdom. “The loud-speaker,” I said, “what’s it saying?”
She didn’t look at me. She kept on staring at Wisdom. “It is saying,” she said, “that we should come outside with our hands above our heads. It is saying it over and over.”
“Listen,” I said. “Tavro’s been killed. He was shot. Do you all understand?” I looked around. Killingsworth nodded dully. So did Gordana. “You understand, Arrie?” I said. This time she nodded.
“It was a submachine gun,” I said. “The same burst that killed Tavro also killed Wisdom. Is that understood?”
Knight raised his head and stared at me. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. They were not the tears of an actor.
“What the fuck are you doing, St. Ives?” he said. “Park’s hardly dead, the crap’s not even cold in his pants yet, and you’re already hustling one of your phony deals. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he? Can’t you even let the poor bastard die right? There’s something wrong with you, St. Ives. You need something fixed. Now get away from us, goddamnit! Just get the fuck away!”
I moved back and watched Knight as he knelt by Wisdom, his head bent his shoulders shaking now as he sobbed unashamedly. Arrie touched my arm. I turned and she shook her head slightly. “Don’t say it,” she said, softly. “Don’t try to say anything. Not now. Later.”
I turned and took her arm and motioned to Killingsworth and Gordana. The four of us went down the stairs
and out into the snow with our hands above our heads. Down in the meadow where Tavro had fallen I could see a group of men clad in gray uniforms. There were two other men with them dressed in civilian clothes. One of the civilians turned and pointed at us. The men in uniforms started moving across the meadow in our direction. Other men in uniforms came out of the forest and took up places around the body of Tavro.
The men in uniforms reached us first. They looked at us curiously, their submachine guns aimed in our general direction. When Arrie asked a question, one of them nodded a little shamefacedly.
“He says we can take our hands down,” she said.
I watched the two men in civilian clothes come closer. They were both short and they had a hard time making it through the deep snow. The nearest one saw me and waved cheerfully, as if I were liege of the manor and he an invited guest. I didn’t wave back at Slobodan Bartak of the Ministry of Interior. I had been expecting him. The man behind Bartak didn’t wave at me. He gave me a stony look instead.
It was all I should have expected from Hamilton Coors and the U.S. Department of State.
27
THEY HEADED FOR KILLINGSWORTH first, of course. He was after all the ambassador and there was protocol to be considered, even at a kidnapping.
I don’t know what lies Killingsworth told them. I didn’t try to listen. Instead I looked out across the meadow at the mountain peak whose name I would like to have known. Finally, I turned and said to anyone who cared to listen, “I’m going inside. I’m cold.”
Bartak turned from Killingsworth. He wore a broad, pleased smile on his face. “Well, Mr. St. Ives, it worked out much as I hoped it would.”
“Sure,” I said.
“The ambassador is safe and the kidnapper has been apprehended.”
“Tavro?” I said.
“Did you suspect that he was the one who engineered the kidnapping?”
I looked at Hamilton Coors. He stared back at me, not blinking, probably not even giving a damn. “No,” I said, “I didn’t suspect that.”
Bartak looked even more pleased, and the glint of early promotion was in his eyes. “Tavro had accomplices, of course. We’ll round them up soon enough.”
“An Italian,” I said, stubbornly keeping my end of the bargain. “One of them was an Italian, about thirty-five. I didn’t get a good look at the other one, but I think he was a Croat.”