An Honorable Man

by Paul Vidich

  Mueller’s eye caught a framed oil painting the size of a serving tray leaning against the lowest book shelf, and he knelt to look. The portrait was of a nursing mother, her hand guiding her breast to her child’s mouth. She gazed lovingly at the innocent thing in her arms.

  “It’s a Schiele.”

  Mueller turned. Roger Altman was standing just inside the open door, which he closed.

  “It’s a portrait of Stephanie Grunwald. She was the daughter of Schiele’s best collector. He painted her as a memory for the father. He also did that painting.”

  Roger pointed to a landscape that also leaned against the book case. “It’s titled Birch Forest. The Nazis called it degenerate art. We call it modernism, and some of the other work you see here on the floor are good examples of cubism. After the Anschluss the Jews of Vienna needed cash to buy their way to Paris or Switzerland. They sold their work. Sometimes for a pittance.”

  Altman nodded. “I like your expression. The owner of this painting who sold it to me said, ‘You’ll be able to judge whether a man has taste or not if you see that he is able to appreciate great art.’ You have taste, George. I can see that in the way that you look at her hand. Remarkable, isn’t it, the mother looking at her child and gently holding her breast to feed him with such love in her eyes.” Altman paused, reflected. “For the artist there is nothing better than to know that his work is in appreciative hands.”

  Altman turned the painting so it now faced the wall. “Each painting is unique. One of a kind. Irreplaceable. A woman is unique too, but a woman’s beauty fades. A painting’s beauty is eternal.” He turned to Mueller. “Do you know of Egon Schiele?”

  “I do.”

  “I see. It’s good to know. You always surprise me with the things that you know.”

  There was a pause. “Do you have plans in the morning?” Altman asked. The question surprised Mueller. “To go sculling. It’s been years since we did that. How is your technique? Are you still the chaser you were in school?”

  It was agreed.

  • • •

  Dense fog. Dawn light came through the cottony gray that blanketed the bay. A buoy clanged somewhere. Visibility was nearly zero and sound had no provenance. Mist was heavy with moisture over the cool surface of the water.

  Two sculls sliced the calm green, moving side by side, bows sharing the lead. Oars dipped in a steady pace, and with each pull the oarsmen grunted, voices lending strength to their arms. There was no one to see them. They traveled in a bubble of visibility that was just an oar’s length of water, but they saw each other, competed with each other, straining to gain the advantage. Oars entered the water in a quickening pace. They were dressed in sweatsuits for the dawn chill, but the exertion of their race drew sweat to their foreheads and stained the gray cotton.

  Suddenly a monstrous four-masted barque rose straight out of the water and loomed through the fog. Waves slapped the hull. Beads of sweat channeled their eyes, smarting, then blurring eyesight, but neither wanted to risk surrendering the lead by losing half a stroke to gaze at the ghostly mass that slid past.

  The finish line was suddenly upon them. A clarion red buoy bobbed in the wake of their sculls. And then only the sound of air being gulped and labored breathing.

  “You lost,” Altman said, gasping. His head rested on his hands, holding his stilled oars.

  “I won,” Mueller said. He too gasped for breath and he too rested his forehead on his oars.

  Then quiet. The sleek sculls continued to glide the surface still powered by the last great heaves the two men had put into their effort. All around there was only dense fog and the strange silence of water.

  “I won,” Altman reiterated, rising to sit upright. “You had nothing to drink. It was my handicap.”

  Mueller shook his head, exhausted. He filled his lungs with a mouthful of air, and moved his arms to shake out the tension in his shoulders. “You lost.”

  “You’ve never beaten me,” Altman said.

  The two men were still youthfully fit in spite of desk work and job stress, and they grinned at each other, proud of the ambiguous result, each pleased to be spared an obvious and embarrassing loss—neither conceding.

  “Will you be crewing in the race today?” Altman asked.

  “No. You?”

  “Father’s boat. The one at the dock. It’s old, slow. Work?”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “That’s never stopped you.”

  “Reading. Thinking. A bit of work.”

  Altman threw out an opinion. “You think too much, George. You’re too self-absorbed. The tedious life of perpetual self-examination is a bore. You’re moody, dark, always preoccupied. I’m not sure what Beth sees in you.”

  Mueller stroked to keep his scull even with Altman’s.

  “It’s not a race,” Altman said.

  “I’m not racing.”

  “Life, George. Life is not a race. I meant life is not a race. It’s a journey with surprises and unexpected twists. Who would have thought you’d be seeing my sister?”

  Mueller wondered. Question or observation? He stroked harder to pull away. His bow cut through the murky water.

  “You and Coffin met the director last week,” Altman said, voiced raised.

  Question or observation? “Yes.”

  “What did you discuss?”

  The two boats were alongside each other at matched speeds. The two men had picked up their pace and their oars overlapped in the narrow gap separating the boats, oars synchronized, dipping to avoid the other. Mueller spoke in staccato bursts between oar pulls. “Coffin has another theory. He lives in a gloomy castle brooding about all his doubts. In his mind everything—everything—is a security risk. I’m a risk. For all the reasons you know.” Mueller looked across the water. “And you’re a risk.” Mueller slowed his pace. “I defended you.”

  “He’s good at that. Talking behind one’s back. You defended me? Well, jolly good for you.”

  Mueller stopped. He detected offense in Altman’s voice when he had instead expected gratitude. Mueller had gone out of his way to protect Altman. It was the right thing. Mueller respected the choice Altman had made in his life and he knew the burden it placed on him in the hostile, frightened gossip that passed for intelligent conversation in Washington’s social circles. Nobody in Mueller’s life—not at home, in school, at work—had ever spoken of homosexuality except as a disorder that would destroy a career. Lost in the excited prurience of the conversations by ones who weren’t homosexual about someone who was, was the person, the man, the human being. Mueller felt an obligation to defend Altman because he knew Altman, knew the man.

  Mueller arrived at Yale from the Midwest with limited experience, and none of the sophistication that the graduates of New England boarding schools brought with them to college. He was naïve and curious. He didn’t understand the social fear of affection between men that rose to drama and, at its worst, hypocrisy. Mueller had found Altman attractive in a way he couldn’t put to words—the quick smile, his intelligence, a passion for athletics, and a shy vulnerability. Mueller was curious about the tall, lean boy with hair that fell over his forehead and pushed back with his hand, and that made him open to “bonding.” That was the word they used to describe the things they did together, the crewing, a cappella singing, and it was a different type of relationship from the more formal dating on weekends with Vassar coeds. The end of their friendship came one day after crew practice in the boathouse when Altman emerged from the shower. Mueller inserted his arm between their bare chests, blocking Altman’s advance. “It’s not going to happen again,” he said. He was respectful, but firm.

  Neither of them brought up the incident. They never discussed what happened, and as far as Mueller knew, it was something that stayed between the two of them. They were part of the same social set, but they were no longer c
lose friends, and Mueller blamed Altman for that. In time, enough other things filled their lives and the incident was lost in memory. Here they were, twelve years later, the same men with the same competitive spirits, the same fit bodies. Except that Mueller had married and Altman never had.

  Mueller’s recollection emerged from its past in that moment on the water. Perhaps it was Altman’s offhand comment, which Mueller didn’t understand, or the fog, or the sculls, which were like the ones in the boathouse, or the tone of Altman’s smug self-confidence, Well, jolly good for you.

  Mueller’s oar came out of its saddle and traveled in a long arc that struck the surface and sent a stream of spray Altman’s way. Suddenly, a crack. Mueller felt the hard contact of the end of his oar and he saw Altman slump and go underwater. He emerged a moment later, gasping for air, wet hair flat on his forehead. Blood came from an inch-long gash above the eye and the crimson flow washed across his cheek. He clung by one hand to Mueller’s scull and drew the other across his forehead and then inspected his palm.

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “My fault,” Mueller said. Mueller put out his arm, and Altman clamped on, so the two men’s forearms were coupled by their wrists, and Mueller hauled Altman onto his boat, legs dangling over the side. Altman removed his cold, soaked sweatshirt and shivered. Mueller went to strip off his shirt, but stopped when Altman waved off the offer of dry clothing. Instead, Altman wiped his hand across his chest and displayed a crimson palm to Mueller.

  “This is how I’ll die. On the water. Struck by someone I thought was a friend.”

  Altman laughed, a short laugh, a self-conscious laugh, then a longer laugh. The two men found themselves laughing, laughing at nothing, looking at each other and laughing more, an infectious laughter fueled by an understood absurdity that neither could put into words. In the midst of the laughter, Altman slipped.

  Mueller grabbed his arm and kept him from falling. A touch. Altman’s hand took hold of Mueller’s chest in his effort to keep his balance. His hand lingered a moment. Eyes met. Altman slipped into the water and in a moment he had climbed into his boat and was pulling hard toward the boathouse.

  Mueller started after him, but he let himself fall back and then he found himself alone in the cloaking fog. He yanked on his oars, drifted, pulled again harder, and with each stroke his anger rose. He felt good about striking Altman, and that made him feel uncomfortable.

  14

  * * *

  A PERSON OF INTEREST

  MUELLER WASN’T prepared for what happened next. When he later reconstructed the chain of events, he convinced himself that he could not have foreseen the danger. Even the regular exercise of caution is a poor defense against the diligent working of an intelligent adversary.

  It was a quiet week in Washington and he’d made a few short visits to the office, but he kept his time there to a minimum to avoid seeing colleagues and having to answer questions about his time, or lack of time, at the sanitarium. On the fifth evening he passed the post office box on L Street and he saw Vasilenko’s double chalk mark. Two lines. Something is up. Mueller looked at his watch. He had half an hour to reach the agreed drop point. It wasn’t just the time he worried about. There were documents inside his briefcase that he should have left in his office safe, but how was he to know that he’d see Vasilenko’s mark on his way home? He rejected returning to Quarter’s Eye, or going home. There wasn’t time.

  Dense fog laid its false peace over Union Station. The limestone façade was bone-white in evening spotlights, and traffic sped around the fountain on its way to drop off or pick up passengers. Mueller waited for the green-and-white trolley to pass and then quickly crossed the tracks. He gained the sidewalk and entered the loggia, glancing down the hall of pendulous iron lamps chained to the ceiling. Passengers from a late-arriving train hurried through the corridor in bulky overcoats on their way to taxis queued at the end of the portico.

  Mueller entered the great hall with its vaulted ceiling rising high above the marble floor. He observed men whose backs were turned, and when he confirmed they weren’t Vasilenko, he moved to the next. Mueller saw two Metropolitan police at the far end of the hall strolling among the wood benches. A barbershop was shuttered, and next door the cashier of a newsstand was locking up for the night. The shoeshine stand was empty. A bar that catered to soldiers heading back to base was the only spot where convivial men and women gathered for a drink before boarding their train. A few of these tipsy commuters gawked at one wall where a giant electric locomotive jutted into the hall through a shattered wall, its black brow dusted in white and dented from impact. A month before, brakes on the overnight train from Boston had failed.

  Mueller looked up at the mighty clock that dominated one end of the hall. The six-foot arm traveled around the dial, once gilded, now darkened with soot and grime. Trust the plan. How long would he wait? Maybe the Russian had been held up. There was always a crisis somewhere, or a last-minute request to work late in the embassy. Spies weren’t like trains, they didn’t operate by the clock. Things happened. Even to trains things happened. He glanced at the huge locomotive that looked like a mechanical mole broken through an underground wall. Mueller had never gotten used to the waiting. You can’t train for that. The hardest part was not knowing.

  How many times had he stood here? This exact spot. There was something illusionary about time and space, which is why whenever he came home from a trip and paused by the exit under the giant clock he felt like he’d never been gone. Past trips came back to him as he stood there, all existing at the same time in memory. Mueller saw the huge arm jerk forward a notch, slicing off a minute of the future, and come to a quivering halt. 9:05 p.m.

  Where was Vasilenko? Mueller’s eyes went to people standing behind the police tape, eyes moving from one man to the next, looking for a big man in a floppy fedora.

  There! Their eyes met. An acknowledgment. Vasilenko had emerged from the men’s bathroom and crossed the great hall to the second exit, avoiding Mueller, but the doors were locked due to the late hour, and he was forced to approach. As he came to the doors he stepped quickly to the side, joining Mueller in the shadow of an overhang.

  “This isn’t right,” he hissed.

  What wasn’t right? “I’m here.”

  “You’re late.” Vasilenko glanced back and let his eyes search the faces of people moving along the far wall under the frieze of stone escutcheons displaying iron ties, hammers, and protean workers in symbolic celebration of progress. Passengers from the just-arrived Silver Meteor pushed from the gate into the waiting crowd. A name was called out. A cry of excitement, the quick race across the vast floor, the two people stopping in a public embrace.

  “We shouldn’t be seen together. This isn’t good.”

  “Is it inside?”

  “What do you think?” Vasilenko nodded at Mueller’s briefcase. “For me?”

  “No, there wasn’t time. I only saw the mark an hour ago. I can’t get cash that fast.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. Noon. Inside the vestibule. The usual spot.”

  Vasilenko flicked his cigarette to the floor and ground it under his heel. “Don’t be late.”

  • • •

  Mueller entered the men’s bathroom. Harsh fluorescent light aspirated the brightness of the white tile walls and the odor of mint cleaner mentholated the air. Mueller took the precaution to confirm there was no one in a stall. His only company was a middle-aged man in a business suit at the urinal. He leaned back from the wall, hand in crotch, and turned to Mueller, eyes urgent and signaling. Mueller looked away. Jesuschrist. A lousy spot for a dead drop. That damn fool Vasilenko picking a public bathroom. What was he thinking?

  The man entered a stall.

  Mueller removed an envelope wedged in the gap between cast iron radiator and the tile wall. The package didn’t fit in his coat pocket, so he folded
it in a newspaper he pulled from the trash and tucked it under his arm.

  Mueller left the men’s room with the brisk stride of a traveler anxious to get home. He repeated the mantra, Stay calm, but his legs moved like those of a man who wanted to get away from the spot as quickly as possible. Just beyond the door two men stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking his path. Trench costs, stern faces, and wide-brim hats pulled down on their foreheads. Mueller stepped to the right to avoid them, but they moved as he moved, then confronted him.

  “Sir.”

  Mueller turned to the man who had spoken, stout, vaguely unpleasant, with wire-rim glasses that had the thickest lenses Mueller had ever seen. “Yes.”

  “FBI.” He flashed a wallet with a badge. “Do you mind coming with us?”

  Mueller’s mind was in revolt. Think! Think! His eyes moved in the direction the agent had pointed to gain time. Think! “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  “We have a few questions. Right this way.”

  Mueller felt the man’s grip on his arm and he allowed himself to be led through the train station. He was hustled outside and then a hand lowered his head and he was shoved into the backseat of a sedan. His briefcase and the envelope had found their way into the hands of one of his escorts. Mueller sat quietly between the two agents, but his mind was a turmoil of dread. What should he say, or not say, and how should he explain himself? The car sped through empty streets. Bright lights from intersection street lamps patterned the driver’s face, but Mueller didn’t recognize him either. He had nothing to say—not yet. He wouldn’t be able to talk himself out of his predicament with these agents. Mueller’s worry kept coming back to the sinking feeling that they’d known he would be there.