by John Gardner
“Primal is very right, Herb. I nearly went off the road twice.”
After his bravura display of wizardry, Passau leaned back and went to sleep. Herbie had not the heart to wake him, and resigned himself to the fact that the Maestro, for all his sins and unpleasantness, had him in thrall—in undisguised wonder.
Herbie leaned back and watched the road, thinking of the many performances of great music that he had heard conducted by this extraordinary man—not so much in person, but in his own collection of recordings. His mind turned to the old man’s Mahler cycle, at times more moving and inspirational than even Bernstein or Solti. Inevitably, he drifted back to the days when he had listened to Mahler’s music in his head, without a recording to jog his memory. It had been the ultimate in his tradecraft during the Berlin days, when he had used imagined music as a place in which to hide: his secret womb of sound which was his mental priest’s hole when the KGB, and God knew who else, searched for him. It had been a place where his mind could scuttle into when he was utterly alone and frightened.
Herbie dozed, and for once did not dream about the apartment with the Dürer and the ruby glasses. Instead, his dreams took him to the side of a lush pasture where all was sunlight and flowers. The woman under him was Pucky Curtiss, and they made deliriously smelling hay while the sun shone down.
She was crying out—
“Herb! Herbie! …”
He woke with his body aroused. In the distance great jagged spurs of lightning forked from the bruised sky, and there was the crash and rip of the storm attacking the car, as though they were under mortar fire.
“Herbie, I can hardly see!” The windshield wipers had lost the battle with the drenching rain. “Pull off, Puck! Get onto the shoulder!” he yelled, and the car slewed, jerking to the right and pulling up sharply behind a monster rig forced from the road.
Passau woke, announcing that he was hungry.
“You’re lucky to be alive.” Pucky had been shaken by the sudden onset and violence of the storm.
“I told you we’d get a lot of rain coming to Florida at this time of year.” Passau wagged a mental finger.
“We’re miles yet from Florida, Lou. Just shut up and wait for this to clear.”
It stopped raining and they drove on, into sunshine, the blacktop sending up drifting clouds of steam as the surface dried from the rain.
Half an hour or so later they got off the Interstate and found a little group of fast-food joints, a gas station and a motel which looked clean and well-kept. It was almost six thirty and they had covered three hundred miles of the thousand that would take them to Captiva Island.
Pucky did all the paperwork and drove them to the three street-level rooms, next to each other within the square U of the motel. There were some eight or nine other cars parked around the lot, one family argued outside a room further up, while two big men unloaded a car directly across from them. Herbie would have preferred to wait until dark when they might have some cover moving the short distance from car to motel room doors.
They got Passau into his room first. It was clean, had a color TV, telephone and fresh sheets. There was also a strip of unbroken sanitized paper across the lavatory telling them it was hygienically sealed, a statement that brought a flow of bizarre humor from Passau, who sank back onto the bed. He looked exhausted, but had enough energy to ask if they were going out to dinner.
Herbie explained that Pucky was going to bring dinner to them from one of the fast-food joints.
“I want to go out to dinner. See a bit of life. Stretch my legs.”
“You’ll stretch them in here. We stay here with you, Lou, until it gets dark. Then we can move out into our own rooms. Puck’ll bring food here and we’ll share a meal. It’ll be fun.”
“Ecstatically exciting!” The Maestro shrugged.
Herbie and Pucky shared the room two down from Passau, leaving an empty room between in case Pucky got noisy again. They had eaten remarkably well, considering: huge shrimp, yucky with hot red sauce, cold chicken and every salad you could name, plus enormous desserts made mainly of chemicals but tasting like fresh strawberries. Passau put away the best part of a bottle of some California white wine which he pronounced only fit for making French dressing.
“Doesn’t stop you drinking it,” Kruger said, without malice, for he wanted the old man to be well and truly ready for sleep.
They lay together on the big double bed, and everything seemed very stimulating, more illicit in an American motel.
“You really believe he’s the younger brother, not the original Louis?” Pucky asked in the afterglow.
“Got to be. Work out the dates between Chicago and Hollywood. They’re vague. He tried to fudge them, but there’s a lot of time—too much time, or too little, depending on how you look at it. Why he’s the brother, I haven’t a clue.
“Like the guy’s only eighty-four, which is still incredible but makes more sense.”
“You going to play it as a trump card?”
“Not yet. Later. I did some sums. He could still have worked in Chicago; could still have had a great time with Sophie; could still have known Don Carlo; still have sold out Capone booze. He’s obviously a genius. Did you get that whole rehearsal thing in the car?”
“Get it? I was there. I heard the music. I always thought of Ravel’s Bolero as ten minutes of one tune going nowhere. That was sexy.”
“It was sexy, no doubt about it, which reminds me. …” Herbie began to lay his hands on Ms. Curtiss again. Ms. Curtiss squealed in delight and responded, hand for hand.
HERBIE DROVE FOR all of the next day, and there wasn’t much talking. They tuned the radio to various stations that went in and out of range. Mainly classical, but with occasional lapses: it was incredible that so many radio stations appeared to play nothing but sixties’ music, the Beatles and the Stones were predominant. After three hours of it, Herbie became rather fond of Eleanor Rigby with her face by the door in a jar.
On the Saturday night they stayed in a motel just off Interstate 75, north of Ocala and Silver Springs. The air was heavy, full of moisture, and Passau dozed on and off throughout the day, waking up, full of energy for the evening. The motel had a pool and he threw a small tantrum, wanting to take a swim.
In the end he came round and seemed to understand. They ate together in his room, where he once more demolished a lot of wine. At this place they got real strawberries.
Early on Sunday morning they took to the road again with Pucky, in the redhead wig, at the wheel. She drove slowly, and it was late afternoon, with the sun going down in their faces, by the time they crossed to the beautiful island of Sanibel, and so over a bridge onto Captiva, with its narrow winding roads, junglelike foliage and the sea never far away.
At six forty-five, the Lincoln town car turned into the parking lot in front of the administration building for the South Seas Plantation. Everywhere there were palms and green foliage. Baskets of flowers hung from the building, and people bicycled or walked slowly along the paths which led off towards the sea and the apartment houses. Insects clouded and attacked the lamps around the entrance.
Pucky went off, clutching her shoulder bag, to register them under their trio of assumed names.
“Looks nice. We go out to dinner tonight?” Passau asked.
Herbie was concerned lest he was reverting to childhood. “You know we don’ bloody go out, Lou. We’re incommunicado.”
“Oh, I thought we were in Florida.”
“Don’ piss me about, Passau. Tomorrow we start remembering the past again.”
“I feel like I should have a vacation. Lie on a beach.”
“Maybe in ten years time, when we’ve got you to England, and I’ve completely dried you out, maybe then you get a vacation. I’ll take you to Torquay or Bognor Regis.”
“I’ve been to Bognor Regis. It’s piss awful.”
“How about the Isle of Man?”
“How about the Isle of Man?”
Pucky ret
urned and climbed in behind the wheel. “All set,” she announced. “We have two apartments, as they promised. We’ve taken over one whole unit. It costs a fortune.”
“They didn’t want to come out and help your senile old father and your incontinent uncle, Puck? Incontinent is … ?”
“Correct? Yes, Herb, it’s correct; you know it’s correct. We’ve got to get a move on, because I’ll have to drive a half a mile or so back to collect provisions after we’ve moved in.”
“Provisions as in steak, eggs and fries?” the Maestro asked.
“You got it, Lou.” She negotiated the turn out of the parking lot and headed into the plantation, telling them to look out for 105-slash-106. “And steak, eggs and fries are not good for your cholesterol, Lou.”
“Give me a break, Pucky. If you don’t have any heart trouble by the time you’re sixty forget about the cholesterol.”
The unit was almost hexagonal in shape, painted white and gray, with a drive-in area underneath, and daunting wooden stairs leading to the pair of apartments. Herbie all but carried Louis Passau to the top. He said they should use the top apartment and just keep the other one for informality.
The place was charming. Big rooms, a deck which ran around the entire outside, huge picture windows, bathrooms with showers and Jacuzzis, and a well-modeled kitchen.
Herbie lumbered down again to lug the suitcases up the stairs. It took three trips, even with Pucky’s help, and by the time she had gone off in the car to do the shopping, Passau was yelling for music. “You promised me. You said Pucky had bought a machine and a pile of CDs.” He was worse than a five-year-old.
Herbie took little notice, except to make coffee (a basic stock of essentials had been left for their arrival) and start to unpack, but Passau drove him mad with constant wailing, so he unpacked the Sony Discman, plugged in the battery-powered speakers, and put on the first CD in the pile. It was Shostakovich. The First Piano Concerto. For several minutes the Maestro was silent. Then he began to complain because it wasn’t his recording with Ashkenazy.
“Hey, I did most of the unpacking,” Herbie announced when Pucky returned, looking flushed and carrying large brown paper sacks. “Opened your case, Puck, but didn’t touch anything. You’ve a distinctly feminine taste, haven’t you?”
“They are all treats, Herb, darling.” She kissed him lovingly on the cheek after making sure Passau could not see them from where he sat, still complaining about the Shostakovich.
They had just started to put the groceries in the cupboards and fridge when the doorbell rang.
“Who the hell … ?” Herbie began.
“Probably maintenance. They said at reception that they would call in to make sure everything was working. I’ll go.”
Kruger had to grab her by the arm, holding her back until he could place himself behind the door with the big pistol in his hand. He felt that the journey and the obviously relaxed atmosphere of this vacation paradise had made everyone go a little crazy. Who knew what was lurking around the place?
“What cheer, Puck, where’s Herb and the demon conductor.” Art Railton slid into the small hallway and saw Kruger. “Well, Herbie,” he grinned. “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”
(8)
ARTHUR RAILTON FLASHED A charming smile at Pucky, then turned it into a grin for Herbie. He closed the door behind him and strode across to where Passau sat, now resigned to the fact that the Shostakovich performance was not half bad.
“Louis Passau,” Art stretched out a hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
The Maestro looked at him with suspicious eyes, lifting his hand some four inches from his knee, so that Art had to bend slightly to shake it.
“Arthur Reynolds,” he lied, still smiling.
Passau’s eyes flicked toward Herbie. “He’s a friend, this Arthur Reynolds?” The way he spoke the name left no doubt that the Maestro was old in the practice of deception, so did not believe for a moment that Art’s name was Reynolds.
“Best friend you ever had, apart from me and the Puck.”
“You going to get me back to England?”
Art hesitated a fraction too long and Herbie jumped in. “If anyone can get you back, Arthur can.”
“I want you to know,” the Maestro was carefully measuring his words. “I want you to know that I am talking to my friend, Herbie. I won’t do it with anyone else. I will tell him my life story, warts and all. But him alone. None of your good cop, bad cop people at the place you call Warminster.”
“You know about Warminster?” Art raised an eyebrow.
“We been through all that, Art,” Herbie pitched in.
“Okay.” He slowly sat down, gauging Passau’s mood. It was perfectly clear that the great musician was not going to talk with anyone until the Shostakovich was over. Art winked at Herbie, and Pucky said something about food, retreating to the kitchen with a look that maintained she was going to prepare a meal because she wanted to do it, not for any stupid domestic ideas that females were the ones who ground the corn, cooked and sewed, and looked after the welfare of their menfolk.
Herbie sat across from Art, the Maestro between them. What Kruger had said was the absolute truth. After a life dedicated to filching information from other countries, he trusted only three people within the British intelligence community: Young Worboys, Art and himself. Four if you counted Pucky, and he was not yet absolutely certain about her. To his way of thinking, the intelligence communities of the world were now running on fumes. They had never been totally brilliant, any of them, but now, with the Cold War over, an uncertain time ahead, with bleak longterm prospects, he put his trust, not in the princes of secrecy, but in the one true god of his experience. To his mind, few old hands were left, and of those, only a minute number bore scrutiny.
The concerto came to a rousing finish and Passau leaned back with a sigh.
“Is one of the things we enjoy, the Maestro and myself.” Herbie gave his daft grin. “We have wonderful musical evenings, Art. Is a pleasure to do business with such a man.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He looked across at the old man. “Herbie treating you well, Mr. Passau? Looking after you?”
“Wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Herb. Saved my life, and he’s keeping me going. Moving me along until I’ve told him what he wants to know.”
“You’re doing this of your own free will? No one’s forced you?”
There was the glimmer of a smile, not so much in the mouth but deep within the extraordinary clear blue eyes. “Nobody can force me, Mr. Reynolds. Nobody.”
“But you do have things to say?”
“Yes, I have things that should be said. The earth can’t hold me much longer, and I should tell someone. That someone is Herbie. Okay?”
“Why now, Maestro?”
“Why not … ?” he began. Then—” You like poetry, Mr. Reynolds?”
“Thrive on it.”
“Then let me quote you something very simple. An American poet you might not know, you being a Brit …”
“… And also a Brit from Head Office, as it were?”
Passau gave a solemn nod. “I know about all the Head Offices in the world. I quote, and this is the reason I’m talking to friend Kruger:
‘The rent man knocked.
He said, Howdy-do?
I said, What
Can I do for you?
He said, You know
Your rent is due.’
“That’s a poet of color, as they say. Langston Hughes. My rent is due, Mr. Reynolds, and Herbie Kruger is the rent man. I’ll pay him and him only. What he does with the rent afterwards is his business.”
“I can understand that.”
“Good.” The one word came out very tired, and Passau closed his eyes for a moment, as though drifting off to sleep. When he opened them again they fixed on Herbie. “Tiring trip, Herb. I think I’ll listen to something else, have a bite to eat, then go to bed and sleep the sleep of the just.”<
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Herbie put on the next CD that came to hand. They still lay in the canvas bag in which Pucky had carried them back to the house in Virginia. It was Shostakovich again. The Eleventh Symphony, full of bravado, courage and revolutionary fervor.
Art Railton did not move a muscle. He wanted to talk with Herbie alone. Kruger knew it by a kind of telepathy, honed with members of Art’s family over the long years.
They all sat in silence—Passau with his eyes closed—until Pucky came out and said there was supper if anyone was hungry.
Over cold meats and salad—Pucky promised they would be back on hot meals tomorrow—they talked of deep and wide interests, like their favorite movies, the latest plays and musicals running in London and New York and, most important of all, the correct way to make French dressing.
Louis Passau did not contribute much to the conversation. He pushed cold ham and tongue around his plate, ate a few mouthfuls, drank a couple of glasses of wine, and told them his favorite movie of all time was something called The Big Knife with Jack Palance, Ida Lupino and Rod Steiger. None of the others had heard of it. He also made a telling comment on Les Miz—telling for him anyway.
“It is so beautifully directed,” he said, the voice now old and drenched with fatigue, “but I have to smile when I see all those good, solid conservative people coming out with damp eyes and their hearts stirred by a revolution which, in the real world, they would despise.”
That was the sum total of his conversation, and both Art and Herbie wondered if the comment about conservative people and revolutions was for their benefit, a preamble to his own, almost certain, political involvement after World War II. Pucky finally got up and helped him to his room. Art said they would wait for her before talking, and she came back flushed, but smiling. “The old bugger tried to cop a feel,” she said, laughing.
“He’ll never give up.” Herbie did not laugh. “First question at Pearly Gates—if he gets there, which I doubt—will be, ‘Who’s that foxy-looking blond angel over there, the one with the good legs?’”