The man shook his head. “Bresnahan—Cayuse Bresnahan—Mineral Springs, Montana.”
“There ain’t been too many songs about Montana.”
“Enrico Caruso had one—my grandmother wrote it and sent it to him.”
“I haven’t heard it.”
“No, he died three years later—never got a chance to sing it.”
“Your grandmother was probably disappointed.”
“She was never the same.”
They were at the front door of the Valencia Cafe when Lockington said, “This is a lousy way to make a living.”
Bresnahan said, “I should have mentioned that.”
19
They made their way to a rickety table near the Valencia Café’s stockroom. It was shadowy back in that area, well removed from a raucous football argument at the south end of the bar. The old lady who was running the Valencia came by, eyeing Lockington suspiciously, recognizing him as the man who’d swished nonstop through the place. She didn’t say a word, just stood at their table, arms folded, staring at them, waiting. Lockington went with his customary double Martell’s, Bresnahan requested a shot of Corby’s and a bottle of Stroh’s. The old lady said, “We don’t got no Corby’s.”
“Make it V.O.”
“We don’t got no Stroh’s.”
“Make it Budweiser.”
“And that ain’t all.” The old lady glared at Lockington. “We don’t got no Martell’s.”
Lockington said, “Make it brandy.”
“What kind of brandy? We don’t got no Christian Brothers.”
“Okay, what other kinds don’t you got?”
“Wait a minute—I’ll go see.”
Lockington said, “Don’t bother, ma’am—just grab a bottle and pour.”
She returned to the bar and Cayuse Bresnahan said, “The check is mine.”
Lockington said, “I’m glad to hear that.” He was waiting for Bresnahan to get down to brass tacks or whatever he was going to get down to.
When their drinks were on the table Bresnahan said, “All right, who’s your gorilla?”
Lockington said, “I don’t own a gorilla.”
“I’m talking about that walking catastrophe who coldcocked two guys in the post office parking lot—the one who dragged me out of my car when you were in the Flamingo Lounge.”
“He dragged you out of your car?”
“Yes, and the sonofabitch didn’t even open the door—he just reached in and jerked me through the fucking window! Then he hoisted me about six feet off the ground and he shook me like I was a bag of popcorn!”
“Oh, you must mean Barney. What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to—I got the message.”
“Apparently you didn’t—you stayed on my trail.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t easy. I had to watch your car from three blocks away—damned good thing I happened to have binoculars!”
“Uh-huh, well, Barney’s just a shade on the exuberant side.”
“So was Genghis Khan.” He offered Lockington a cigarette and Lockington took it because it wasn’t a filter-tip. Lockington detested filter-tips. Bresnahan held a match for them and they sat there, looking at each other until Lockington said, “Okay, Bresnahan, let’s get at it.”
Bresnahan said, “All right, to kick it off, I’m out of Chicago.”
“So am I—for keeps.”
“You didn’t like Chicago?”
“I liked it, but that was before I stopped liking it.”
“Well, she ain’t what she used to be, that’s for certain.” He downed his shot of V.O., turning his attention to his bottle of Budweiser. He said, “I’m with the United States government.”
“I keep running into you people.”
“Yes—you were of considerable assistance during the Devereaux matter.”
Lockington concentrated on the coal of his cigarette. At the end of the bar the football argument was heating up. Bresnahan nipped at his beer, organizing his plan of approach, Lockington figured. Following a few silent moments Bresnahan said, “I suppose the best place to begin would be at the beginning.”
Lockington said, “Well, if it’ll help any, I was born in ’39.”
“To Kelly and Peggy Lockington.”
Lockington nodded. “Fine people.”
Bresnahan said, “The best! They got drunk together on Saturday nights, but they made it to church on Sunday mornings.”
“Well, not always—Sunday mornings were ordeals for Kelly.”
“They were good Catholics. How come you turned out to be a fucking agnostic?”
“I’m not a fucking agnostic—I believe in God, but the God I believe in has no religious connections and He doesn’t meddle in the affairs of men—that’s the only way He makes sense to me. Where’s the importance?”
Bresnahan shrugged. “There probably isn’t any.”
“Then why are we talking about it?”
“Just charge it to curiosity. You were a Chicago cop.”
“For a time.”
“For quite a time. You were a good one as Chicago cops go, not a glowing compliment by any means, but you were reasonably straight-up. You gave second and third chances to a few Clark Street hookers, you bent some rules out of shape, but by and large you came right down the middle of the road. Then you shot a drug pusher, a child molester and a couple of muggers, and the Chicago Morning Sentinel hung a trigger-happy tag on you. That got you drummed out of service.”
Lockington polished off his double cognac. “What are you looking for, Bresnahan—a psychological portrait?”
“Nothing like that—just getting to know you.”
“Why?”
“Later on that, if you don’t mind. Any leftovers from your Chicago days?”
“Bad memories, mostly. My badge and handcuffs are in my bedroom bureau drawer.”
“And you still have your .38. Tell me, Lockington, why would you pull a gun on a man who was driving behind you—are you working on something?”
“Nothing that would concern you.”
Bresnahan shrugged it off. He said, “You hired out at Classic Investigations on West Randolph Street, you got involved in the Denny-Elwood mess, and when Denny got blown away by Elwood and vice versa, you took over Classic Investigations. You hired your old buddy from the Chicago force—a guy named Katzenjammer.”
“Katzenbach—Moose Katzenbach.”
“Yeah, Katzcnbach. Then you started digging into that Devereaux business and that was how you met a woman from the Chicago Polish Consulate, a humdinger by the name of Natasha Gorky. You handled the Devereaux matter like a champion—Devereaux was in a position to damage the agency but you set him up for the axe.”
“I set him up to be taken alive by the CIA—the KGB was a jump ahead of me. It killed him.”
“Well, however it worked, it came out just dandy for Uncle Sam.”
“And probably for Devereaux—the poor bastard was dying of cancer.”
Bresnahan said, “Back to you and Natasha Gorky—she was KGB, but you fell in love with her.”
“To put it mildly, yes.”
“And she went bonkers over you.”
“I can’t speak for Natasha Gorky.”
“Aw, come on, Lockington, the woman went out on a limb for you! She blackmailed the KGB for a hundred grand plus that Mercedes you’re driving! She used the threat of an exposé that Devereaux never wrote—she claimed that he’d done one, she inferred that she might arrange for the manuscript to reach a publisher, and the KGB let her walk!”
“Did it?”
“We’ve seen nothing to the contrary.” Bresnahan shook his head in disbelief. “Talk about bearding the lion in his den! She had the guts of a drunken Apache—she was working without a net!”
“You’re talking ancient history, Bresnahan. That was then and this is now.”
“I’m bringing us up to date. You two came to Youngstown. Why Youngstown?”
&
nbsp; “Because it has trees.”
“That’s good enough. Natasha Gorky bought a furnished house from a chickie named Pecos Peggy Smith, a country singer at a joint called Club Crossroads in Austintown, and you’re living happily ever after.”
“And you are spinning your wheels.”
“Be patient, we’re closing in on it.”
“Maybe we’d better grab it before it dries up and blows away.”
Bresnahan was waving to the old lady behind the bar. She waved back, arriving shortly with a new round of drinks, peering at the gaping hole in the front of Bresnahan’s shirt. She said, “Moths?”
Bresnahan said, “Right.”
The old lady said, “Some moths!”
Bresnahan said, “We grow ’em big in Montana.”
20
Cayuse Bresnahan was studying Lockington, nodding. He said, “You’ll do.”
Lockington said, “That’s what the cannibals told the missionary.”
“Look, Lockington, you don’t have a clearance of any priority, but I’m authorized to open the books to you—we think you can be of help.”
“The CIA thought that I could be of help last May—it thought I could be of help by staying the hell out of the Devereaux case.”
Bresnahan smiled a tolerant smile. “That wasn’t exactly how it worked. The CIA asked you stay out because it wanted you to get in.”
“And now you’re going to ask me to get in because you want me to stay out. Why don’t you bastards ever mean what you say?”
“Normally, we do, but there are occasions when a touch of reverse psychology works wonders—you see, the best way to get a bulldog to hang onto a bone is to try to take it away from him. You were interested in the Devereaux affair. The Agency wanted you to stay interested.”
Lockington yawned. “I’m due back at the office shortly.”
Bresnahan leaned forward. “Lockington, a top-flight Soviet defector has given us the slip.”
A tiny bell was jingling insistently in the recesses of Lockington’s mind and he hoped that Bresnahan couldn’t hear it. He cranked up his very best jaded expression. “And that’s why you’ve been following me around like I’m giving away doughnuts?”
“Hear me out, please. I got in from Chicago last night. I rented a car and I tagged you from your residence this morning. I wanted to discuss this matter, but you didn’t go directly to your office—you went to the West Side Post Office and that wasn’t the appropriate place. I got the impression that you were waiting for someone.”
“Yeah, I was supposed to meet the Youngstown City Council for coffee.”
“Then, after you and Paul Bunyan kicked the stuffings out of the hooligans at the post office, I followed you to the Flamingo Lounge, but before I could come in, that man-mountain closed in on me. Since then, I’ve been waiting for you to light somewhere.”
Lockington permitted himself to display a casual interest in Bresnahan’s earlier statement. “This Russian defector—what about him?”
“His name’s Alexi Fedorovich—General Alexi Fedorovich—ever hear of him?”
Lockington managed another yawn. “I’m not acquainted with the Russian Army—I’ve had enough difficulty with the United States Marines.”
“Well, Fedorovich was a biggie—second-in-command of the Soviet Military Planning Division. He was in East Germany on behalf of the Soviet Government. He went over to West Berlin, apparently to pick up a few trinkets and he ducked out on his entourage. He showed up at, the United States Embassy, requesting political asylum and he got the red carpet treatment. He was flown to Washington and he handed us a ton of information. He was given a new identity and he was established in a quiet suburb of Rochester, New York—nice house, new Cadillac, fat pension, highly cooperative twenty-five-year-old housekeeper—the whole shot.”
“Highly cooperative—how highly cooperative?”
“As highly cooperative as it took.”
“She was CIA?”
“Of course, but he gave her the slip, he kissed it off, all of it, and the sonofabitch hasn’t been seen since! He left no tracks, and here’s the punch line—it turned out that he’d written a book on Soviet battle plans before he defected—something called The Wheels of Treachery. Are you familiar with it?”
Lockington said, “No, I never got much beyond Robin Hood.”
“Fedorovich peddled it to a New York City publishing house—prominent outfit—Millard and Cummings. He probably got a bundle for it. Then he flew the fucking coop.”
“Millard and Cummings can’t help you regarding his whereabouts?”
“Can’t or won’t, whichever it is. Fedorovich really blew the whistle, and I’m here to tell you that the KGB takes a mighty dim view of that kind of carrying on!”
Lockington was listening, trying not to look bored—he’d heard most of it from Gordon Kilbuck. Bresnahan was saying, “I suppose you know what happens if the KGB gets to him before we do.”
“Instant goulash, I’d imagine. And what happens if you get to him first?”
“Well, we’re gonna have to take him into protective custody, that’s certain. We’ll have to point out the error of his ways—we’ll probably have to relocate him and watch him to cut down the possibilities of an encore.”
“He has money now—that could make him difficult to deal with.”
“I doubt it—he’s a reasonable man. He probably grew weary of Rochester. We have a hunch that he’s in Youngstown to touch a few old bases—that’s the kicker—he was born in Youngstown.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“Yep! His old man hauled him back to Russia when he was just a kid. It’s probably a sentimental journey—no doubt he has connections somewhere in the Mahoning Valley.”
“All right, where do I come in?” Lockington knew exactly where he came in, or exactly where Bresnahan would want him to come in.
Bresnahan said, “Let me put it this way—if by some curious twist of fate you should happen to come across General Alexi Fedorovich, there’ll be ten thousand dollars in it for you.”
Lockington snorted. “And just how am I supposed to go about coming across him?”
Cayuse Bresnahan’s smile was of the type that establishes the smiler as wise beyond the ken of ordinary men. “Well, Lockington, you’re never gotten around to walking on water, but your track record shows you to be tough, talented and resourceful—and you should remember that Natasha Gorky’s KGB money isn’t going to last forever.”
“Uh-huh—which is why I can’t afford to get mixed up in any maybe cases. You’ve given me next to nothing to go on, and after I’ve spent a month going door-to-door, looking for Ivan the Terrible, I could wind up in the nearest soup line.”
Bresnahan threw his hands high in mock horror and the old lady behind the bar hollered, “We don’t got no more Budweiser.”
Lockington yelled, “That’s okay—I think he was drunk when he got here.”
Bresnahan was saying, “My God, Lockington, we’ve had no intentions of letting you starve to death!” He reached into a jacket pocket and popped a roll of currency onto the table top, pushing it to Lockington. It was secured by a rubber band. “There’s twenty-five hundred on account—it should get you around the next corner.”
Lockington wondered about the guy who’d said that money doesn’t grow on trees—getting paid twice for one job struck him as being an excellent idea. The football seminar had waxed furious, bordering now on fisticuffs, drowning out a portion of Bresnahan’s wrap-up on the subject of Gen. Alexi Fedorovich, but Lockington caught no mention of West Dewey Avenue, or of Princeton Junior High School, or of Abigail Fleugelham, or of Olga Karelinko, or of any number of subjects. He doubted that he was ahead of Mr. Mawson, but he was ahead of somebody—an unusuality. He liked that one. Unusuality—too bad it wasn’t in the dictionary.
Bresnahan was peering quizzically at Lockington, his half-smile not quite a half-smile—Lockington rated it a quarter-smile. Bresnahan said, “One othe
r thing.”
“Ah, yes, there’s always one other thing.”
“Could you tell me if you’ve been contacted by others expressing an interest in Fedorovich?”
“I could, but I wouldn’t.”
Bresnahan said, “Client privacy?”
Lockington said, “What client?”
Bresnahan nodded, getting to his feet. “I’ll be getting back to you.”
Lockington said, “Where can I reach you?”
Bresnahan said, “You can’t—I’m a very busy man.”
21
Leaving the Valencia Café, he’d driven past the 24 North Brockway address—an older two-story white-frame building, its garage open and empty, no blue Chevette in sight. Back at his Mahoning Plaza office, Lockington shuffled through the mail that’d been shoved through the door-slot, all of it addressed to OCCUPANT. He learned that he should vote for Bruno F. Bosworth for Judge because Bruno F. Bosworth possessed twenty-five years of experience—twenty-five years of experience in what wasn’t mentioned. He learned that Rev. Joshua Hammerschmidt was going to build a City of God in the Ozarks and that if Lockington wanted his name etched into the cornerstone he’d better send three thousand dollars pronto. He also learned that Eastwood Mall’s Women’s Ready-to-Wear was running one helluva sale on pink 36-B brassieres, limit eight to a customer. This knowledge digested, Lockington consigned the whole kit and kaboodle to his wastebasket, relaxing in his swivel chair with a cigarette and the music of WHOT, attempting to get a handle on recent events.
Within a space of less than forty-eight hours he’d been contacted by an author of scholarly military tomes, he’d been propositioned by a seventy-seven-year-old sex maniac who’d offered to tie him to a bed with forty feet of clothesline, he’d gotten involved in a Pier 6 brawl in a post office parking lot and he’d been saved from probable extinction by a young brontosaurus who wanted to become a private detective or a spy, he didn’t give a damn which. He’d been followed from the Flamingo Lounge to the Valencia Café by a government man, and he’d garnered seven thousand five hundred dollars for services as yet unrendered.
The Fedorovich File: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book Three Page 8