The Prodigal Spy (48 page)

“Nothing. We went to the country. We went to a Benny Goodman concert.”

“God.”

“He was just happy to see me. I thought so, anyway. I had no idea he was thinking about—”

“No, he was always good at that. The old Kotlar two-face.”

“Come on, Larry.”

He sighed and nodded, an apology.

What else? How Nick’s heart had turned over that first night at the Wallenstein? Putting him to bed? His face at the gallery, gazing at the fatted calf? The bottomless regret? None of it. “He showed me his Order of Lenin,” Nick said instead.

“Well, he earned it,” Larry said sourly. “I’m sorry, Nick. A couple of jokes and old fishing stories? I remember other things. I remember
you
. The way you walked around looking like you’d been kicked in the face.”

“I remember it too, Larry,” Nick said quietly.

“He shouldn’t have done it,” Larry said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Making you go there. All these years, and he just crooks his little finger like nothing happened. Jokes. I’ll bet he was charming. He was always charming.” He spoke the word as if it were a kind of smear. “He charmed me. Well, they’re all good at that. All smiles. You ought to sit across a table from them. Day after day. Not an
inch
. They don’t want us out, they want us to keep groveling. Showing you his medal–was that supposed to make you proud? What do you think he got it for?”

Nick stared at him, amazed at the outburst.

Larry put down his fork and looked out the window, visibly trying to retrieve control. “He shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “You might have got in real trouble. I didn’t know you were there.”

Nick waited a moment. “I’m sorry you were worried, but nothing happened. I’m back. He wasn’t charming. He was a sick old man. Now he’s dead. It’s over.” He paused. “What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know,” Larry said, still looking out the window. Then he turned back to Nick, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe I’m jealous. It’s hard to share someone.” He picked up his fork, then put it down again, as if a prop would distract him. “You were so stubborn. Like an animal. You wouldn’t trust anyone. And I thought, I’m not going to let this happen to him. Okay, at first it was for your mother. I never thought about having a kid, not even my own. You were just part of the package. But there you were. You wouldn’t give an inch either.” He paused, a smile. “Just like old Ho. Maybe you were my special training. But then it changed a little. Then a little more. The funny thing was, I wasn’t winning you over–it was the other way around. I loved being your father. All of it–all those things I didn’t expect. Christ, those hockey games.” He looked up. “I thought you were mine. You remember the way people would say we were like each other and you’d give me that look, our little secret? But I loved it when they said that. We
are
a
little, you know. I see myself in you sometimes. I don’t know how that happens. Of course, I don’t see myself farting around London when you could be making something of yourself here. Well, I had to say it. But I know you will.” He looked straight at Nick. “You’re the hardest thing I’ve ever done. So maybe I’m jealous when someone has you so easily. One call and you come.”

“And if you called, I wouldn’t?”

“Well, you like to be the only one. Maybe it’s wrong. I never thought I’d have to share you, but I do. So I’ll learn. Even with him. I thought Walter was a fool–I’m sorry, I did, I can’t pretend. But I don’t want you to think I am too.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool.”

“Well, you will if I go on like this. A little unexpected, isn’t it? Maybe I’m getting old, a little fuzzy. But a stunt like this. Christ, Nick. Wait till Hoover tells you your kid is locked up somewhere.” Larry paused and Nick saw the hint of a question in his eyes. “But it’s all over now.”

“Yes, it’s all over.”

Larry glanced at his watch. “I have to run, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear. Go see your mother, she’s expecting you. You might skip the body details–you know, after he fell. She’s been— It brings everything back. So maybe just the old jokes. And how you weren’t in jail.” He paused, a glint. “And his wife.”

He got up and started out, Nick following. “I shouldn’t leave her, but I’ll be back Friday. It’s like the shuttle, back and forth to Paris every week. They love face-to-face in Washington these days, I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t trust the phones. Well, they’re right. Remind me to tell you the latest about Nixon and old Edgar. The War of the Roses. To tell you the truth, I don’t mind the planes. No calls. You get to read the papers.” They were on the bright marble steps, traffic honking, the quiet formal rooms behind them like some misplaced dream of London. “By the way, what’s with the hotel? You’ve got a perfectly good room at home sitting there.”

“I’m with a girl.”

“Really?” Larry said, interested. “Serious?”

But Nick ignored it. “We’re only here for one night. To see you. We go to Washington tomorrow.”

“What’s in Washington?”

“Friends.”

“What friends?”

Nick smiled at him, the suspicious parent. “Hers. This must be your car.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s black and important. Big aerial. Isn’t it?”

“Wise guy,” Larry said fondly.

“By the way, did you get a call from Jack Kemper?”

Larry looked at him, suddenly alert. “No, why?”

“He’s with the CIA in London. I used his name. I told the embassy in Prague I was working for him. That’s why they got me out. Not the Bureau. You don’t owe Hoover anything.”

Larry blinked, taking this in. “How do you know he’s with the CIA?”

“You told me. At the Bruces’ party.”

Larry looked at him, then smiled, an insider’s laugh. “Who said my kid couldn’t think on his feet? They’d better watch you.”

“Well, they may. And you. I heard Kemper was upset. That’s why I thought you should know.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Larry said, taking his hand, but Nick leaned over and hugged him. Larry held him for a moment, surprised and pleased. “I’m glad you’re home,” he said, no longer joking, an apology for the lunch.

“Get us out of Vietnam,” Nick said as Larry got into the car.

“I’m trying, believe me,” he said, then rolled up the window and the car slid toward Fifth Avenue.

The photographer was in a rundown building on Delancey Street, near the bridge, two unlit flights up.

“You Nick, man?” he said, opening the door a crack. Long hair, a face corrugated with old acne scars. When Nick nodded, the door opened into a huge empty space with exposed pipes, littered with tripods, light cables, and back screens. The living quarters seemed to be a camp bed and a trestle table overflowing with Chinese takeout cartons. A young girl in a flimsy short dress sat on a stool, smoking a joint. “Molly’s in there,” he said, nodding toward a bare red bulb hanging over an enclosed space. “Your prints are still drying. What the fuck are they, anyway? I mean, they’re in fucking
Russian
.”

What had Molly told him? “
Samizdat
,” Nick said.

“Samitz who?”

“Underground manuscripts. They have to smuggle them out. You know, like Solzhenitsyn.”

“Far out.”

“Want a hit?” the girl said dreamily, holding out the joint.

Nick shook his head.

“I’m not going to get in any trouble or anything, right?” the photographer said.

“No, nothing like that. I appreciate your help.”‘

“Hey, no problem. Old Molly. Samizyet,” he said, shaking his head.

“What kind of photography do you do?” Nick said, to make conversation.

“Fashion,” he said, grinning. The girl giggled.

Molly came out, stuffing an envelope into her bag. “Hey, thanks, Richie.” She went over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You do great work.”

“Fucking A. You got them all? Don’t leave nothing in there.”

“All here,” she said, patting the bag. “I’ll see you, okay?”

“Yeah. Say hi to your mom.”

As they were leaving, the girl with the joint began lifting the dress over her head, her body as thin as a child’s.

“The people you know,” Nick said when they hit the street, bright after the dark stairs.

“Richie? We went to high school together.” She laughed to herself. “In the glee club.”

They stopped at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue to buy a Russian-English dictionary.

“What’s the point?” Nick said. “We can’t translate this. It’d take months.”

“No, but we might get some idea what it is. What were you going to do, get one of the girls at the UN? Would you mind taking a look at these? Just a few espionage documents I happened to pick up. By the way, do you have a safe-deposit box or something? For the negatives.”

“No. I’ll put them somewhere at home. I have to see my mother anyway.”

“Alone?”

Nick nodded.

“A little too early to take me home to Mom, huh?”

“A little too early for Mom. She’s got other things on her mind.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll run up to Bronxville and see mine. Since we’re being so good.”

“But you’ll be back tonight?”

“Hmm.” She looked at him. “I’m not that good. Besides, I always wanted to stay at the Plaza. How rich are you, anyway?”

He smiled. “Rich.”

“And Catholic. You
are
Catholic, aren’t you?”

“Baptized, anyway.”

“She’ll die. She’ll just die.”

The photographs, in impenetrable Cyrillic, seemed to be a series of reports, not a simple list.

“See how they’re dated up here? Like memos.”

“This is impossible, Molly. Even if we figure out the letters, we still have to translate the Russian.”

“Well, the numbers help. We can figure out the dates,” she said eagerly. “And see the words in block capitals? They all have them. It’s a format, if we can figure it out. They sign off that way too.”

But the dates, once deciphered, were all recent, none of them reaching back to his father’s time.

“They’re the active ones, that’s why,” Molly said. “These are the reports they’re getting now. I’ll bet the caps are names. Look, this one’s Otto. So who’s Otto?”

“A code name,” Nick said, then sighed. “We have to know the context, Molly. Look at the dates–they’re not consistent. It’s a selection. Maybe they’re the incriminating ones. Each one nails somebody, if you understand it.”

“Hold on,” she said, distracted, looking something up in the dictionary. Nick walked over to the window and looked across the street to where the hansom cabs were idling in the afternoon sun.

“Serebro,” Molly said, running her finger down a page. “Yes. Come look.” But Nick was still eyeing the street, watching the taxis pull up under the 59th Street awning. She brought the book over to him, pointing to the word.

“Silver,” he said. “By him or about him?”

“By him. The signature.”

He glanced at the photograph. A report, exactly like the others, same format, so not original, typed by someone in Moscow. From cables? By Nina, perhaps, his father’s friend, Silver’s admirer. “Yes, but we have to know what it says. Didn’t any of your friends go into the translating business?”

“No, only dirty pictures.” She hesitated. “You could ask your father. He’d know someone.”

“You could ask Jeff,” he answered back. “Want the phone?”

“Look, let’s think about this. What would reports say? Not necessarily who they are, just what they’re passing on. I mean, the reports still might not identify them. You’d have to know who the code names referred to.”

“Great. No, we need the context. I mean, if it’s a trade report, it’s someone in Commerce. Like that.”

“But how would we know exactly who in Commerce? Are you listening to me? What are you looking at?”

“It’s a pickup zone,” Nick said, still watching out the window. “So why is that car just sitting there? The doorman acts like he doesn’t even see it.”

“Maybe it’s waiting.”

“I don’t think so. Two guys. Feels like old home week to me.”

“Let me see,” Molly said, getting up, accidentally knocking the photographs to the floor. “Shit.” She bent down, collecting them.

“One of them’s on the corner, so they’ve got both entrances covered.”

“Don’t get paranoid,” Molly said, still crouched down, sorting the pictures. “I’ll bet it’s a divorce. This isn’t Prague, remember?”

Nick said nothing. The man below lit a cigarette.

“Well, bless me for a fool,” Molly said. “Nick, look.”

“What?”

“I thought they were all alike, but look. At the end.” Nick came over. “It’s a list.”

He took the photograph. “But of what?”

“Code names and addresses. Five of them. See. That’s NW at the end.”

“Washington.”

“There’s Otto. Come on, we can translate this. The street names’ll be in English.”

“What were the letters for Silver?”

She glanced down the list. “He’s not here.”

But someone can lead me to him. “Never mind. Let’s do the others.” He grinned at her. “How’d you get so smart anyway?”

“Bronxville High,” she said. “Look at Richie.”

The maid opened the door, someone new, a thin black woman wearing a housedress and comfortable bedroom slippers.

“She’s in there, feeling sorry for herself. See if you can get her to eat something.”

His mother was sitting on the long couch, staring out across the park. The room was almost dark.

“There you are,” she said, holding out her arms. “I was getting worried.”

He leaned down and kissed her, smelling the gin on her breath. “Want a light?” he said, reaching for the lamp.

“No, leave it. It’s nice like this. Anyway, I look terrible.” Her face in fact was blotchy, like a blur sitting on top the sharp edges of her perfect suit and its gleaming brass buttons. “I’m having a cocktail.” She glanced up. “Just one. You?” He shook his head. “I don’t know why. I don’t really like them.” She took a sip from the widemouthed glass. “Did you see Larry?”

He took a seat beside the couch, unnerved by her voice—dreamy, the way it had been the day after his father left.

“He said you were in jail.”

“No,” Nick said. “The police just asked me some questions. I’m all right.”

She turned her eyes back to the window. “What did he look like?”