Manhattan 62 (35 page)

“Yes. Sure. OK. Let me go now,” he said and got up from the bench.

I grabbed his sleeve. “Listen to me. What's going to happen on Sunday. What's going down? You have no diplomatic immunity as an exchange student, isn't that right? You're not attached to a news bureau, or a consulate. If you're not a student, you're illegal here, and nobody at all will care about you. Nobody here, nobody in your country will even think of an exchange for you. You're nothing much.”

“You're wrong,” he said, but the conviction had gone.

“I'm trying to help you, man. I could have saved you from your thick-necked goons, I could still help you out, maybe, or maybe they'll just send you home. Be good to go home, don't you think? Except for your preference for, what should I say, nice-looking boys?”

“Yes, it would be OK to go home. Yes, that would be good,” he said, frightened, a beaten man. I got the feeling he actually thought he'd make it all the way back to the USSR, at least at first.

“Listen to me, somebody is going to die, I want you to tell me who it is. Is it somebody important, an American?”

“Yes.”

“So you know. You do know, don't you? Does Forrester know?”

“Yes.”

“And his Soviet friends, his contacts?”

“You're looking in the wrong place,” said Bounine. “It's not his Soviet contacts.”

“I don't think either your people or ours would feel good about who some of your friends are. You know our mayor, the mayor of New York City that is, does not show much sympathy for, how shall I say, homos right now. You know what I mean. Isn't that right? Isn't that your thing, Bounine? You like boys.”

“Let me go. Please.” He was begging.

“Is Ambassador Stevenson the target? Is there an assassination?”

“Yes.”

“Stevenson is the target?”

“No.”

“But Sunday?”

“I think yes.”

“Listen to me, why don't you make it easy? We're all going to die in this war probably, so, meantime, let me help you. Come with me.”

“Where?”

I had no idea at all; if I took him in, I'd be on the line. I needed more.

“Which side is Edward Forrester on?”

“I think both sides. No sides. His own side. He does this for money, also for his wife, who loves her old country, but also, I think, for respect.”

“What?”

“There is somebody he, what do you say, reveres? Someone he has worked for. For this man he does anything.”

I looked down the platform and saw the cop I had seen earlier. A young, big-shouldered, tough New York cop in his dark summer blues, gun on his hip.

“Officer,” I called out.

“Don't,” said Bounine. “My train is coming. Let me take my train.” I could hear the train coming. I could hear the noise.

Somehow, just before the train appeared, Bounine, gathering his strength, went to the edge of the platform, propelled, and jumped onto the tracks.

The train screeched to a halt. The beat cop ran to the edge of the platform, radio in hand. I couldn't risk it. I couldn't take the chance the cop would ask me too many questions, that he might have seen me with Bounine. So I hurried away. I hurried up the stairs into Union Square. I didn't wait to find out if Bounine was dead.

CHAPTER EIGHT

October 26, '62

T
HE DRAPES AT
U
NCLE
Jack's were drawn tight, even though it was late, after ten, and Ostalsky was sitting
in living room in the dark. In a rage, I said, “Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, you called Forrester before I got to him. You set me up.”

He switched on the lamp with a green glass shade on the table next to him, and looked up. “It's not true,” he said. “Forrester was playing you.” His eyes were swollen, purple circles around them.

“What happened to you?”

“It's nothing.”

“Where are your glasses?”

“Gone.” He tried to smile and it made him wince. “So this means I am, as you say, blind as a bat.”

“Edward Forrester told me you called to let him know I was coming. It makes everything you've said a lie. So I don't really give a good goddamn how bad you got beaten up, or if you can see.”

“Isn't it possible that Forrester lied? Think about it. Did you mention me before he said I had called? This means you must have used my name to get in? Pat?”

“So what?”

“It was a game. My God, I've revealed everything to you, what I do, who I am, details for which, if it was known I told you, I would be sentenced to death. Do you really think I would double-cross you now? Even if I wanted to.”

“What makes you think I give a good goddamn what happens to you? You once you told me you couldn't possibly be a spy because you were such a joker, or was it a loser.”

“Both,” said Max. “I am both.”

“Then tell me, what kind of spies exchange secrets in a box of chocolate cherries. What kind of creeps?”

“Every kind, Pat. Spies can be very silly people. Little people who would never get a proper job; nobodies all puffed up with importance. So they put secrets in chocolates. Do you know what Klaus Fuchs, the Englishman who handed us your atomic secrets at Los Alamos, did in his spare time? He was a babysitter for the children of American scientists. Truly. Or you try to blow off Castro's beard with an exploding cigar. Spies are just damaged people who hide behind this idea of national purpose, they lie to their own governments when it is convenient, and they make up exploding cigars. What's the expression? Small potatoes.”

He had a good line in bullshit, a witty way of putting things, self-effacing charm, but he had screwed me over once too often. I turned my back and went to the kitchen for a beer because otherwise I would have socked him good and hard, punched him in his already bruised face; I would have made sure it hurt plenty. In the kitchen, I gulped a beer, ate a couple of aspirin, and realized what was really eating me: I couldn't do this on my own; I needed Max Ostalsky.

“Is Forrester CIA?” I said to him when I got back to the living room.

“From what you tell me, yes, and possibly working with our people as well. You say he had dinner with Bounine?”

“Yeah, and Forrester's Russian wife, who apparently dislikes this country plenty, was also there. I saw your pal Bounine. He told me it isn't Adlai Stevenson.”

“At dinner?”

“Jesus, Max, you losing your mind? Afterwards. I followed him after. He told me before he jumped. Who in the name of God beat you up? I told you to stay put.”

“Jumped?”

“In front of a subway train. I've learned plenty from you, I hinted to Bounine that I knew what his soft spot was, said I knew he preferred men. I wasn't exactly subtle. He gets the message. Before I can stop him, he jumps.”

“Is he dead?”

“I didn't wait to find out. I took the chocolates off him. I couldn't find any damn thing. Mrs Forrester passed them to him.”

“Give them to me.”

“Why?”

“Pat, give me the box,” he said. I handed it over to him. Inside two minutes, he had unpeeled an extra layer off the bottom of the box.

“What's there?”

He snorted, a dry laugh without any humor. “A letter for his family.” He began to read in Russian.

“What is it?”

“You were supposing there would be great state secrets? Can you please look out of the window, Pat?”

“What for?”

“Please, see if the Plymouth car has returned.”

Taking off my coat, I went to the window. “They're back. How did you know?”

“I saw them earlier when I went out,” he said and I realized he had put on his heavy gray Russian suit.

“Where the hell did you go? Did they get to you?”

“It could have been a simple mugging. I took a little walk near the East River, I tried to lose my tail but they came up behind me. What you call goons. Thugs. Can you believe me about Forrester? I don't know how this can work if you don't believe me.”

“What fucking choice do I have? What were you doing by the East River?”

“I went to the United Nations.”

“You really are crazy.”

Ostalsky leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes— he was obviously in pain—then sat up, found his pack of smokes, and told me he had gone to Irina Rishkova. He found her in the delegates' lounge having cocktails with some Swedes. “We're in a room with hundreds of people, what can she do to me?”

“Listen, if this assassination is some kind of provocation, a way to stir things up, provoke a war, why now? We're probably going to kill each other anyway. Did your Rishkova tell you that?”

“That's what I've been trying to, would you say, figure out, Pat? If it's true, or if the rumor itself is the provocation, this means a kind of fable-making, a story to tell that makes people react. This may have been planned long ago and activated when it seemed the right time. It can be flexible. It can be conceived with a variety of alternative aspects. I'm not a politician. I'm not much of a strategist. There might have been opportunities that came up at the last minute. There could be mistakes. Miscommunication. I have always privately believed that a war would begin almost by mistake.”

“So is it real or a story?”

“You're so literal-minded, you Americans. It can be either, or both.”

“Like those idiotic little wooden dolls you gave for gifts, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“What's in it?”

“It's for his family, and his wife. He tells them farewell. He says he hopes they survive, and to remember he loves them, no matter what they will hear about him.”

“He knew I'd give you the box. He knew you'd find the letter.”

“I think he knew there was no hope left for him, so yes. There is also something written in the margin that is addressed to me.”

“Go on.”

“It says ‘On Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, pray for my soul.' ”

“What, he believes in God now? Did he get religion or something?”

“I think he means the assassination could take place in a church. What church?”

There were more than a thousand churches in New York, and all I could do was focus on Manhattan, though there was no reason except how would I manage the boroughs, and also if the point of this assassination was a public statement, you wouldn't do it at some storefront, tin-pot church in the Bronx or Brooklyn. Churches. Pray for my soul. This was Bounine, the Communist who had never been in a church, who had been so keen on seeing one. Was he planning to convert? Was he so disgusted with his own system?

Max Ostalsky started for the door.

“Where are you going now?”

“I would like to take a little sleep, and to think about some things.”

“I don't believe you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No way you're going to sleep now.”

Ostalsky ignored me. “There are two cars now, if you look outside, Pat—black Plymouth with somebody from the KGB. They feel they have me trapped now. I am their prey, and no way out.”

“Who's in the other car?”

“My old friend, Ed, and a new agent, also FBI, I guess, in an Oldsmobile. Gray. New,” said Max. “I should be all right. I'm good at disappearing. You know that. Don't worry.”

“Can't your Mr Ustinov help you?”

“I called Washington. Ustinov has been recalled to Moscow.”

“How the hell could he have gone to Moscow so fast?”

“I ask myself. I've been watching the television. There have been too many changes in the negotiations, Kennedy and Khrushchev may work for peace but the others, too many who oppose them. Too much insanity and too much pride, and too many opportunities for mistakes. We have to move on the assassination, even if it's only a rumor. We must assume an attempt will be made.”

“Sunday. Forrester said something about leaving town by Sunday night.”

“I must sleep a little,” said Ostalsky again. I didn't believe him. I knew he would find his way out of the house, but he knew what he was doing. I had to believe it; I had to believe him; there was nothing else.

“Use the guest room if you want to sleep. It's one flight up. Go ahead.”

“Thank you. I am so tired. I have one favor to ask.” From his pocket he produced three airmail letters, on thin greasy blue paper, carefully folded, names written in English and Russian. “Can you be kind and mail my letters for me, please, if things go wrong? If something happens to me.”

“Sure.”

“Did you see the newspaper this evening? On the table. I left it for you.”

What I read froze my bones.

NEW INTELLIGENCE REPORT RELEASED BY U.S. DEMONSTRATING THAT SOVIET MISSILE BASES IN CUBA ARE PROCEEDING AT A RAPID RATE, WITH THE APPARENT INTENTION OF “ACHIEVING FULL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

“What does it mean?” I said.

“I think full operational capability means nuclear warheads. That these warheads will be ready. This has not been mentioned before,” he said, and then took the newspaper and left, and I heard him going up the stairs.

For a while I sat in the living room. I turned on the television. The news was very bad.

Above the TV Aunt Clara kept framed color portraits of the President and his brother. Handsome, smiling, confident men. If I was going to pray, if I went to church to pray, it would be for these two guys, but I knew too much to believe in anything now. Even JFK couldn't fix this. No even with Bobby's help. We were going to war.