BEGIN TEXT: PRESUMABLY BROUGHT IN BY FOXFIRE / END TEXT / CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS / 1316 EDT
BEGIN TEXT: PRIOR TO BRESNAHAN? / END TEXT / MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY / ATTN MASSEY / 1217 CDT
BEGIN TEXT: PROBABLY / BIRDDOG GAVE NO INDICATION FOXFIRE CONNECTION / CONTACT WITH FOXFIRE TENUOUS / CHECKMATE PHONED YESTERDAY / SAYS BIRDDOG CLOSING FAST / SITUATION DELICATE / END TEXT / CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS / 1320 EDT
BEGIN TEXT: DISPATCH OPERATIVE YOUNGSTOWN PRONTO / SHOULD HOOK UP WITH CHECKMATE / BIRDDOG GAVE RENDEZVOUS PARTICULARS? / END TEXT / MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY / ATTN MASSEY / 1221 CDT
BEGIN TEXT: AFFIRMATIVE / FLAMINGO LOUNGE MAHONING AVENUE YOUNGSTOWN 1000 EDT 10/17/88 / WILL SEND DELLICK WITHIN HOUR / ASSUME FOXFIRE WILL LAY BACK UNTIL SHOWDOWN / END TEXT / CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS / 1322 EDT
BEGIN TEXT: SHOULD COME SHORTLY / WHEN BIRDDOG REQUESTED ASSISTANCE IN JUNE MATTER RESOLVED WITHIN HOURS / END TEXT / MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY / ATTN MASSEY / 1222 CDT
BEGIN TEXT: WILCO INSTRUCTIONS / WILL KEEP YOU POSTED / END TEXT / CARRUTHERS
LINE CLEARED LANGLEY 1323 EDT 10/16/88
55
His radio was on again but Glenn Miller’s arrangement of “Along the Santa Fe Trail” seemed a thousand light years away. He lit a cigarette, not wanting the damned thing but lighting it anyway. It was something to do.
He’d never been superior at anything—marbles, mumblypeg or Ping-Pong—adequate, usually, but never a standout. He’d had decent speed but he’d been the third fastest kid on the block. He’d played American Legion baseball and he’d never hit better than .250. As a sandlot halfback his longest gain from scrimmage had been for fewer than twenty yards and he’d been hit from behind and fumbled. In straight pool he’d had a run of thirty-eight balls but that’d been a once in a lifetime thing. As a bowler he’d rolled a 660 series, but his season average had been the same, year after year—165. He’d played some chess during his service years and once he’d beaten a guy who’d claimed to be the Florida state champion. He’d taken considerable pride in that accomplishment until he’d realized that you can become the Florida state champion by beating one Seminole and two alligators.
He’d been outsmarted in his time, but never twice by the same party. In the spring he’d taken a thorough mental shellacking from a woman he’d loved like he’d never thought he could love a woman—the same woman he still loved like he’d never thought he could love a woman—but he had his share of pride, and he didn’t want that to happen again, if he loved her or if he didn’t.
He locked the office, picking up Natasha’s rose before driving home, checking his rear-view mirror every half-block. Natasha was in the front yard, cultivating around an azalea bush, if it was an azalea bush—Lockington’s chances of being enshrined in the Horticultural Hall of Fame stood at something south of zero. Natasha came to the car, accepted her rose, frowning, searching his face. She said, “It’s heating up, isn’t it?”
Lockington nodded. He said, “Sister, could you spare a martini?”
She left her trowel on the top rail of the white trellis fence, leading the way into the house. When she’d made martinis they sat in the living room facing each other and Natasha didn’t cross her legs.
“Lacey, I’ve told you that I’ll try to help. The offer stands.”
Lockington got a cigarette going before he said, “Tell me something, will you?”
“Certainly—if I can.”
“Are you happy—in this house—in Youngstown, Ohio—with me?”
Natasha’s gaze was level. “Happier than I’ve ever been—happier than I have a right to be. Lacey, you should be able to sense that!”
“Then let’s not rock our boat—I don’t want to see you dragged into this affair.”
She shook her head. “Understand me, please—I don’t intend to leap astride a white charger and go galloping wildly in all directions, but I do have experience in this sort of thing—you know that, of course.”
“Yes, I know that very well.” And he did. Very well.
“People have been killed, we’ve been shot at, the General Fedorovich business is coming down to its crucial stages, and you haven’t asked for help, not once!”
“I’ve asked for your opinions, haven’t I?”
“I don’t know that you’ve asked for them, but I’ve given them.”
Lockington clinked his martini glass onto the coffee table. He said, “All right, give me one more.” He told her about the death of Cayuse Bresnahan.
Natasha reached for his cigarette, lighting hers from it, returning it. She said, “This is opinion and opinion only, but I doubt that Bresnahan was a National Security Agency man.”
“Why doubt that? He knew my life story!”
“Your life story isn’t difficult to come by—neither is that of the neighborhood barber—they call for thorough research, that’s all. I believe that Bresnahan was a KGB operative, a member of Mawlniyuh who was watching you or having you watched because he knew that Krahsny Lentuh was trailing you. I believe that he learned the true identity of our Mr. Mawson, and that Mawson murdered him for his trouble.”
Lockingon was nodding. “Plausible.” Then he asked the question that he didn’t want to ask. “Natasha, are you out of the KGB—really out?”
He’d expected an explosion, or tears, or sullen anger. He got none of the three, just a pale blue-eyed stare.
“I suppose you had to ask that. All factors taken into account, it’s a fair question. Lacey, I struck a deal with the KGB in June—I’m sure you remember.”
“Yes, I remember—you were a KGB agent, working out of Chicago’s Polish Consulate, and so was the guy who knifed Cy Willoughby—Ivan Leonid. Did you know Leonid?”
“Not by that name—people came and went through the Polish Consulate, there were countless aliases—I’ve had a few myself.”
“Okay, when you left the consulate, had there been mention of the Fedorovich defection?”
“I wasn’t privy to such matters—I was a hired hand, I was given assignments, the Devereaux case for one—I had little knowledge of events that influenced KGB policy.”
“Well, look—according to Gordon Kilbuck, Fedorovich defected in the spring of this year. According to Bresnahan, Fedorovich spent three months under CIA questioning before he was placed in a home just outside of Rochester. Now, Kilbuck has no firm dates and Bresnahan may have been lying through his teeth, but it would appear possible that Fedorovich hit Youngstown at approximately the same time we got here. Don’t you see that as being just a trifle on the odd side?”
Natasha came out of her overstuffed chair like a tawny javelin. She took his head in her hands, tilting it, peering down into his eyes. “Lacey, do you believe that I’m working against you?”
“You were working against me last spring.”
“I was not working against you—our goals were identical.”
“At the outset, perhaps, yes—certainly not at the end.”
Natasha released his head, stepping back, pointing a finger at him. “I’m in love with you! Devereaux intended to kill you! Anybody who wants to kill you is fair game in my book, and that includes Mr. Mawson!”
Lockington didn’t say anything, knowing that he’d just seen a tigress on the verge of snapping her leash.
Natasha said, “Another martini?”
Lockington said, “Damn right.”
56
He’d spent eight hours in bed, but he’d netted less than six hours of sleep. He’d comforted himself with the thought that he wasn’t alone in his situation. Surely there were other forty-nine-year-old men doing their damndest to keep sexual pace with thirty-one-year-old redheads from the Ukraine—millions of them in all probability. He’d blundered into the kitchen at eight o’clock, finding Natasha at the table, up to her elbows in eight-spoked wheels. She’d
said, “Sit down before you fall down!”
Lockington had said, “Coffee, ere I perish!”
She’d poured him a cup of black coffee. She’d lit a cigarette, inserting it between his lips. She’d stroked his cheek. She’d said, “Behdny bahtuh!”
Not having the slightest idea what behdny bahtuh meant, and not being of a mind to take any damned fool chances, Lockington had smiled silent response, concentrating on his coffee, and Natasha had returned to her wheels, working silently.
Later, during his second cup, he said, “Do you still see possibilities?”
“Only possibilities—a few days ago I believed I could see probabilities.”
“Well, look, Barney came up with an interesting question yesterday—he wanted to know if the wheels rotate. Do they?”
Natasha dropped her ballpoint pen, pushing her papers away from her. She licked her lips contemplatively. “They were stationary when I was a child—but then, when I was a child, I thought as a child…” Her voice faded into the morning silence of the kitchen.
Lockington said, “If they turned, would that increase the number of combinations?”
Natasha’s brow was furrowed. “If everything turned, nothing would change—if the numbers stood still and the letters rotated—no, I don’t believe it’d be more difficult than it already is. How could it—we’re into googols, aren’t we?”
“Fedorovich spoke good English, they say.”
“Excellent—or so I’ve heard—he was American-born, and I’d think that he’d have retained that ability.”
“Do you remember his words at the beginning of his book?”
“‘The wheels of treachery turn slowly, one click at a time’? That could have been more aptly put, I thought.”
“Maybe not—‘one revolution at a time’ wouldn’t have conveyed the proper meaning—‘one click’ says it, if we’re on the right track.”
Natasha said, “Let me think about it.” She got up to walk with him into the living room. He put on his jacket, then his hat, wincing slightly. She was watching him. “Your neck again?”
“Still.”
“I’m so sorry!”
Lockington said, “Sympathy won’t help—pray for me!”
“Khawdish! She opened the door, pushing him out of the house. He climbed into the Mercedes, hurting just a bit, but deeply in love. If you’re deeply enough in love, a pain in the neck doesn’t matter, and Lockington was in deeply enough.
57
A chill drizzle was riding a light gray wind out of the west and Lockington thought of Helen Hunt Jackson’s lines about October’s bright blue weather. They’d been true enough if Helen had been speaking of early October because early October is a virgin lass. On the other hand, late October is a full-fledged woman, gaudy but aging, given to bitchy spells, and she was in vile spirits on the morning of Tuesday the 17th.
Barney Kozlowski was nowhere to be seen, the office was locked, and Lockington let himself in. The place was uncomfortably cool and damp, so he didn’t take off his jacket. Or his hat. He sat in the swivel chair, wondering about Barney. The kid had been annoying at times, at others a genuine nuisance, but Lockington missed him. The rain was pelting the windows now, a nasty downpour. He turned on the radio, stacking his fists on the desk top, leaning to rest his chin on them, lapsing into thought.
Apparently the hour of the grande finale was at hand and he was beginning to feel like the last replacement to reach the Alamo. He counted his allies—Natasha, of course, first and always, Barney Kozlowski, and probably Frank Addison. Natasha would be at home, drawing wheels, and then she’d go shopping because it was Tuesday—not because the cupboard was bare, or because there were any stupendous bargains to be had, simply because it was Tuesday. Barney would be somewhere on the planet, Lockington assumed, but where on the planet was a mystery at the moment. He might have joined the Junior Secret Service Cadets—you could do that by mailing in the top from a box of Toasted Wheat Zingers, and you got a badge and a ring with a built-in whistle. Frank Addison was an intelligent, sincere, hard-working Youngstown flatfoot, efficient enough at the local law enforcement level, but hardly qualified to go up against the likes of Krahsny Lentuh. And the leader of this disjointed safari, the great white hunter, was none other than the fabled Lacey Lockington who was sitting on his dead ass in a store-front office in Youngstown, Ohio, where rain was falling like a cow pissing on a flat rock, listening to Stone Age music, and trying to figure out which fucking end was up.
WHOT’s melodies came and went, Mahoning Avenue’s traffic roared and faded, the rain continued, Lockington’s mind swarmed with questions, and there wasn’t an answer in sight. Something had tripped the last of the floodgates, a word, a mistake, an event. Cy Willoughby’s murder in Chicago—had that been it? Lockington clawed into a jacket pocket in search of a fresh pack of cigarettes, considering that possibility. Cy Willoughby had been small potatoes—or had he? This Leonid fellow from Chicago’s Polish Consulate—had he learned something from Willoughby, something of importance? If so, what? And if he’d gained information of consequence, why had Leonid killed the poor bastard after he’d gotten it? Lockington scowled into the smoke of his new cigarette. To hell with the what—get the cart out in front of the horse—concentrate on the why. Sometimes it works a little better that way.
There’d be more than one possible why—two came instantly to mind—Leonid hadn’t wanted another party to become cognizant of the knowledge he’d received from Willoughby or he hadn’t wanted Willoughby to reveal that he’d divulged it in the first place. Lockington wasn’t sure that he was pleased with those choices. They weren’t all that compelling.
All right then, it was probably a matter of guesstimating Willoughby from the ground up—who was he, anyway? He was a pussy-pursuing over-the-road truck driver, and that failed to qualify him for the Guinness Book of World Records. Okay, who else was he, or what else had he been before he’d stopped a switchblade in the men’s room of a fourth-rate Chicago boozery? Well, first and foremost, he’d been Brenda Willoughby’s ex-husband, and that was undoubtedly the motivating factor, directly or indirectly. Slowly now, one step at a time—Brenda Willoughby had been Candice Hoffman’s daughter and Cy Willoughby had been Brenda’s husband and this had made him Candice’s son-in-law for however brief a span. Lockington’s eyes narrowed a trifle. According to old Mabel Johannsen who lived across the street from the Candice Hoffman residence, Candice’s mother had been ill, and Candice had visited the old lady frequently—not a long trip, Mabel had told him—Candice had rarely been gone for more than an hour. So what can a doting daughter do for an ailing mother? She can drop in every couple of days, she can bring candy and flowers, she can help tidy up the house, she can do some shopping, she can be cheerful, tell funny stories, play the banjo if she knows how, and—and—the flat of Lockington’s hand came down on the desk top with a spanging sound—and she can pick up the mail at the post office! Candice Hoffman was the daughter of Olga Karelinko just as sure as God made Eve’s little green apple. Why in the hell hadn’t he seen that earlier? Not that it would have altered the equation to any great degree because he still didn’t know Olga’s location, but she wasn’t ill, she was lying low! That was how it went now and then—you look for the why and you trip over the what.
Brenda Willoughby’s ex-husband had known exactly where Grandma Olga lived. It was a lead-pipe cinch that Gen. Alexi Fedorovich was with Olga, and if Ivan Leonid had acquired Olga’s address, Fedorovich’s life wasn’t worth a busted bucket of borscht! The information would have been telephoned from Chicago to Youngstown within minutes of Cy Willoughby’s demise if Ivan Leonid had managed to get to a phone before he’d been killed, and maybe he hadn’t made it. He might have piled into the blue Audi to discover that he had an unexpected passenger. Ivan, please be so kind as to drive us to Central Avenue—I’d like you to see the old Galewood freight yard.
The minutes had jelled into nearly an hour—it was pushing ten o’clock.
Lockington turned off the radio in the middle of Frank Sinatra’s “Roses of Picardy.” He hated to do that. “Roses of Picardy” had been Sinatra’s very best number.
58
The sky was darkening in the west, the wind gaining in strength. John Sebulsky’s white Olds Cutlass was parked behind the Flamingo Lounge, tight against the building. A beige ’88 Toyota Camry stood in a corner of the lot. It carried Illinois plates. Lockington parked next to the Camry, entering the Flamingo at ten o’clock sharp. The tavern was virtually silent. Two well-dressed young men sat in a booth, playing chess on a pocket-size board that had holes to secure the bases of the tiny red and white pieces. White was in trouble. Lockington brushed by the booth, walking directly to the bar, and John Sebulsky lowered his Racing Form to belt level. He poured a double hooker of Martell’s cognac. Out of a corner of his mouth he mumbled, “Watch yourself, Lacey—the guys in the booth were talking, and I heard your name mentioned.”
Lockington nodded, picking up his glass of cognac and headed for the booth. He slid in on the side of the man playing red. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
Steve Dellick smiled. He said, “Lockington, how are you?”
Lockington said, “I don’t know, and nobody better tell me.”
Dellick said, “You’ve met this fellow.”
“I know him as Frank Addison.”
They shook hands all around. Dellick said, “He’s a Youngstown boy, stationed in Seattle—they brought him home for this business.”
Frank Addison said, “I haven’t seen you in damned near twenty-four hours.”
Lockington said, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Dellick said, “Carruthers hustled me down from Chicago yesterday afternoon. Got in around eleven last night.”
“Good trip?”
The Fedorovich File: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book Three Page 18