The Prodigal Spy

by Joseph Kanon

  He went back into the store and caught Molly’s eye. A quick shake of her head. He crossed the floor, positioning himself next to ladies’ scarves, then bought some perfume, all the while keeping the men’s department in sight. Almost closing time. Barbara looked at her watch and then toward the door. A missed connection, or just a salesgirl eager to go home?

  When the bell rang, Nick’s heart sank. He’d made himself conspicuous and no one had showed. He watched her close the register with Molly, chatting, then had no choice but to follow the other customers out. He waited across the street again and then, on the chance that she was meeting him after work, moved toward the employee entrance. A group of women, talking. He picked out the blond hair easily and began to track it back toward Dupont Circle. Maybe a drink after work? But Barbara, the reliable tenant, went straight home, and when he saw her go through Mrs Baylor’s door he knew the day, with all its nervous expectations, was gone.

  “But she asked to switch again,” Molly said later. “Maybe he couldn’t make it for some reason.”

  “And maybe she just likes shirts,” Nick said, depressed.

  “No, she never asked before. It has to be. Anyway, you could use the clothes.”

  The next morning was like the first: sleepwalking past the sales tables, picking through the suits, the clerk puzzled at his being there again but still wanting to make a sale. Nick said he’d try a few on, hoping the salesman would go away, and went into one of the changing rooms. The door was louvered, so that if you bent a little you could see between the slats. Barbara at the shirt counter. But he couldn’t stay here forever, peering out. The clerk had someone else now and was leading him toward the tailor, but he’d knock in a minute, wanting to know if everything was all right. Nick thought suddenly of the station men’s room, the sick feeling as the footsteps came closer.

  He was about to give up and open the door when he saw Barbara’s head rise, relieved, recognizing someone. She turned and pulled two shirts off the shelf, ready, then glanced to either side of her to see if the coast was clear as the man’s back came into view. For a second Nick didn’t breathe. The man was picking up a shirt, handing the other back to her, turning slightly as she went to the register. Nick grabbed the slats with his fingers, lightheaded, steadying himself as his stomach heaved. He’d seen the face. A shouting in his head. He opened the door.

  “Ah, and how did we like the gray?” the salesman said, but Nick walked by him, one foot in front of the other, as if he were underwater. Moving toward the shirts, a hundred pictures flashing by him, rearranging themselves in place. The same face through the cubicle slats, in a slice, just like the crack at the study door. Molly watching him, her mouth open. And then he was there, behind the familiar shoulders.

  “Hello, Larry,” he said.

  Chapter 19

  “He told you.” They were on a bench in Lafayette Square, across from the Hay-Adams, everything around them drenched in sun, surreal, Larry’s voice as calm as the quiet park. A man feeding birds, a young woman pushing a pram-no one had the slightest idea. Larry had led him here by the arm, guiding him out of the store as if he were a patient, one of those men in Nick’s unit who’d been too near a bomb and had to be helped away.

  “No. He never knew,” Nick said, almost whispering, foggy. “Except at the end.” His voice was coming back now. “That’s why he changed his plan that day. He figured out the lighter-that you were the only one who could have taken it. From the study.”

  “That was an accident. I must have put it in my pocket. But then I had it-”

  “He was going to use you to make the deal for him. Then he realized you were the one person he couldn’t use. He’d have to do it himself.”

  “He must have been out of his mind.”

  “Yes.”

  “Come back. Really, Nick-”

  “Are you going to kill me too?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my son.”

  “You killed the other one.” Then, to Larry’s blank expression, “She was pregnant. Rosemary Cochrane. It was yours, wasn’t it?”

  Larry was silent. “I didn’t know,” he said finally, past denial.

  “Would it have made any difference?”

  “No.” He looked away. “It was too dangerous.”

  “She wouldn’t have named you. She was in love with you.”

  “You can’t trust that,” he said dismissively. “She was just a girl. Then she got-emotional. And she slipped up somehow. They got on to her. It was dangerous. She knew about me.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No. But he was going to crack. I saw it that night.” He glanced over. “When you were spying on us.”

  “I didn’t understand anything.”

  Larry sighed. “Well, neither did Walter. That was the problem. He didn’t understand how serious it was. He thought-I don’t know what the hell he thought. Buy them off with a name and live happily ever after? It doesn’t work that way. Once you start, you go to the end. And what name? He only had Schulman.”

  “Who recruited him.”

  Larry looked back, surprised. “That’s right. And me. At Penn. The one point of connection. I couldn’t risk that. If he’d given them Schulman, it might have led them to me.” He wrinkled his face. “The way things work out. I was the one who suggested he try Walter. He was always looking for prospects. I told him Walter might be promising material. But he turned out to be the weak link. You see that, don’t you? He might have brought the whole thing down.”

  Nick looked at him, incredulous. Was he being asked to agree?

  “They had to protect me. I was in the White House. We’d never had a chance like that.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill him too?”

  Larry looked at him with an indulgent expression. “Is that what you think of us? Of course we didn’t kill him. Anyway, you take care of your own, unless there’s no other choice. That would have been a foolish risk to run. Two deaths? No one would have believed the other was suicide. There’d be no end to it.”

  “The police didn’t believe it anyway. You made sure of that. With the lighter.”

  “No, I was making sure of him. I wasn’t sure he’d go. Walter was unpredictable.” He paused. “He had reasons to stay. He might have thought he could tough it out, not accept our invitation.”

  “But not if he thought he’d be accused of murder. Then he’d have to go.”

  “Well, it never came to that. It was just a precaution. He did go.”

  “Convenient for you.”

  “Convenient for everybody. Except old Ken Welles, I suppose, but that couldn’t be helped. Oh, you think we wanted him stopped? No-he was useful. He was so busy looking for Commies in all the wrong places, nobody thought to look in the right ones. Loyalty oaths for schoolteachers — Christ. But even a fool gets lucky once.”

  “You had Hoover looking too.”

  “Well, I didn’t want him looking at me. All I had to do was suggest that Walter must have been tipped off by someone in the Bureau and he was off. Catching his rats.” He stopped. “I never wanted to hurt Walter.”

  “You killed him.”

  “We got him out. It was the best we could do. He had a life there, you said so yourself. We had to do it.”

  “Not then. Now. You killed him. Or had him killed.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We’re sitting here, aren’t we? How do you think I got to you?”

  Larry looked up at him, serious. “How did you?”

  “First tell me why.”

  “Why. What else could we do? Coming back. That could only mean one thing. He found out. I don’t know how-we were careful about that. All those years. I knew how he’d react. He’d make it personal.”

  “It was personal.”

  “No. I was just another agent.”

  “Who took his wife. And set him up for a murder charge. And got rid of him to cover your own ass. You ruined his life, Larry. What do you call personal
?” Larry turned away. “Why did you have to kill him? He was never going to get out-you know that.”

  “He didn’t have to get out. Once he knew, he could have told anybody. A journalist. The spooks at the embassy. He wasn’t safe if he knew.” He paused. “Given everything.”

  “But he didn’t know, Larry. Not until the end. You had him killed for nothing.”

  “What do you want me to say, Nick? I’m sorry? It’s a death wish, to want to defect. There’s only one way to do it. If he didn’t know about me, then he knew others. He was going to turn them. This isn’t school. What did you expect them to do?”

  “Once you told them.”

  “Yes, once I told them,” he said impatiently. “Of course I told them. You don’t wait. We’re all at risk when somebody defects. He had to be stopped before anything got out. It had to die with him.”

  “It didn’t,” Nick said quietly. “He told me. That’s what led me to you. Names. Her, your new friend. You ought to change your pattern, Larry. You made it easy. It didn’t die with him.”

  Larry crossed his legs and looked down at his trousers, picking at the fabric, seemingly at a loss. “Well, that creates a little situation, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. You’ll have to kill me too.”

  “Does anyone know?” Larry said.

  “Just me. Once I’m gone, you’re safe.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I was thinking of you. Are you sure? What about that girl?”

  “No,” Nick lied. “Just me. You’d be safe.”

  “Don’t talk crazy. Kill you.” He turned to Nick, his eyes suddenly old and unguarded. “You’re all I care about. Don’t you know that?”

  Nick felt a tremor, another shock to the system. Not a lie. His boy, the unexpected thing in his life, a knot too tangled to untie. Nick looked away.

  “You should have been more careful in Prague then,” he said. “I almost didn’t make it. Or were you going to get me out of that one too?”

  “But I didn’t know you were there,” Larry said, reaching over and putting his hand on Nick’s arm. “I didn’t know. You have to believe that. I would never involve you. Nobody said you were there.”

  “Didn’t Brown tell you?”

  “Brown?”

  “One of yours. Over in Justice-”

  Larry held up his hand. “Don’t. I’m not supposed to know. It’s safer.”

  “Then who did?”

  “Hoover. He called. He had a report from one of his legats saying that Walter was planning to come back. Did I know anything about it? I suppose he thought I might, because of your mother. He never said anything about you. Why would I even think it? It was a damn fool thing for Walter to do, involving you. What was in his head? You don’t do that.”

  “He trusted me.”

  “He didn’t even know you. I was there, not him. No matter what you think of me now, that part’s still true. He wasn’t there. I was. I gave you everything.”

  Nick looked at him, amazed. “No,” he said. “You took everything.”

  A pause. Then Larry looked down at his watch. “Well, this isn’t getting us anywhere. And I have a meeting.” He looked up. “You’re being sentimental. Walter was a damn fool. But you’re all right, that’s the main thing.”

  “You have a meeting?” Nick said. Was he just going to walk away?

  “Yes, at the White House. Walk over with me.” He stood up.

  “Do you really think I’m going to let you do that?”

  Larry raised his eyebrows, genuinely puzzled.

  Nick got up, facing him. “I know everything you’ve done. Your code name. What happened at the hotel. How you report. All of it.”

  “You’ll make an awful mess trying to prove it.”

  “I can do it. I have documents. He gave them to me.”

  “Ah,” Larry said, looking away. “Then I guess I’m in your hands. You might say we’re in each other’s hands. Sort of a protection racket.”

  “I’m not in your hands.”

  “Well, a minute ago you said I was going to kill you. Which I’m not, of course. But you’re not going to do anything either. What did you have in mind? Turning me in? Your own father? I don’t think so. You know, Nick, you’re more like me than you think. We’re both pragmatists. We take the world as it comes. You just got thrown a curve, that’s all. But don’t do anything foolish. What’s in it for you? Patriotism? Not very pragmatic.”

  “You bastard. Listen to me-”

  “No, you listen to me. Calmly. We’re going to walk out of the square, and in a few minutes I’m going to sit down at a table and listen to fools and crooks tell me how they want to run the world. I’ve been listening to them for thirty years, different crooks, same fools. But I’m at the end. This is my last job. After that I won’t be a threat to anybody, least of all the country. That you think you care so much about. It’s over. Walter told you things he had no right to tell. You’re lucky, no one knows except me. So you come back playing detective, all fired up to change the world. Just like Walter used to be. But you’re not going to change it. Nobody does. What you might do is cause a scandal that would embarrass the Government-not a bad thing in itself, given who they are. But it’ll be a lot worse for us. It would kill your mother.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “And what about you? You know what it would mean. Do you want to go through all that again? I’m not doing anything more than what Walter did. You want to make him a saint, that’s your business, but don’t drag the rest of us down trying. Do you think anybody wants to know? That time is over. You think Nixon wants his old Red-baiting days brought up again? Mr Statesman? Hell, the only one who still cares at all is Hoover, and he’s been nuts for years. No one wants to know. Who would you be doing it for?”

  “For me.”

  “For you. Why? Settling someone else’s scores. And you’d still have to prove it. I don’t know what you think you have — is it really enough? I’d have to fight you, and I’m good, I’ve been doing it for a long time. I don’t want to fight you, Nick. You’re my son. You are, you know. We’d be killing each other. Like scorpions. We’d both go down.”

  “You killed someone, Larry. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Listen, Nick, I’m going to a meeting now with men who are killing thousands, and people think they’re heroes. I didn’t make the world. At least I did it to protect myself — that’s the oldest instinct in the book. What’s their excuse? Come on, walk with me. I’ll be late.”

  Numbly Nick fell in step at his side. “I don’t care about them, Larry. You killed him.”

  “He killed himself, Nick. He killed himself the moment he decided to turn. Those are the rules. They’d do the same thing to me-or you. Be smart. Let’s all just retire in peace. Think of your mother. You don’t want to do this to her.”

  “Look what you’ve done to her.”

  “I hope I’ve made her happy.” He turned. “She can’t know about this.”

  “What’s the difference? A wife can’t testify against her husband.” Nick stopped. “Is that why you married her?”

  “Of course not. I love your mother. I always have.”

  “You’re a liar, Larry. You don’t even know her.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Nick. I did my best, that’s all I can say.”

  “You even lie to yourself.”

  “Well, we all do that.” They stopped near the entrance to the White House, across the lawn behind the tall railings. Barriers along the street to keep protestors away. Larry waved to one of the guards and turned. “But I’m not lying to you. There’s no advantage here. Be smart.”

  “Like you. Maybe I’m one of the fools. Are any of them smart, or are you the only one?” Nick cocked his head toward the gate, where a black limousine was pulling onto the driveway.

  “Well, they’re not very bright,” Larry said. “Anyway, it won’t be much longer. I’ll be out this fall. Would you like me to resign sooner? Would th
at ease your conscience?”

  Making a deal, the way he always did. Sure of himself. Nick looked at him, the familiar face suddenly inexplicable. “Tell me. Why did you do it?”

  “I thought I explained-”

  “No. It. Are you a Communist? I mean, do you believe in it?”

  “I used to. I thought it would fix things.”

  “But not anymore.”

  “I’m too old to believe you can fix things.”

  “Then why did you keep going?”

  “Well, you have to.” An easy answer, but then he stopped, thinking. “I don’t know if you’d understand. It was the stakes. It was-you’d sit at a table, in there.” He jabbed his thumb toward the gate. “You’d sit there while they all talked, and none of them knew.”

  “That you were betraying them.”

  “That you had the secret. This big secret. None of them knew.” He shrugged. “But that’s all over now. My son’s going to insist I retire.” He smiled his old Van Johnson smile and turned to the gate. “Call me after lunch.”

  “But-” Nick reached out to stop him, but Larry had already moved out of reach, so that Nick’s arm just hung in the air, as if he were holding a gun. Then slowly he dropped it, unable to pull the trigger.

  Molly was still at the store, waiting.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “What happened?”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “She split. But I got this.” She held up the envelope. “She was too freaked to argue. Just ran.”

  “Did you look?”

  Molly nodded. “What we’re going to say in Paris. Talk about a stacked deck. If this doesn’t put him away, nothing will. What happened? No more than what your father did-another lie. He was prolonging the war.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I can’t,” she said, indicating the unmanned register. “There’s no one here.”

  “Now,” Nick said sharply. Then, seeing her surprised face, “What if she comes back?”

  Molly grabbed her purse from underneath the counter. They walked down 14th Street toward the Mall, hearing the sound of loudspeakers in the distance, a chant. Molly listened to him without interrupting, her face worried. They turned up Pennsylvania Avenue. Nick could see the Justice building, Hoover’s balcony overlooking the street, where he watched the parades. A short elevator ride, a deal-that’s all it would take.