Last Call for Blackford Oakes

by Buckley, William F. ;

  Tony was alarmed by his father’s aged face, which he could inspect now that the whiskers were gone. “Don’t be afraid of making me jealous, Papabile. I think I understand. Mother has been dead a while now. Your capacity for love and friendship and company did not die with her.

  “But, Papá, you have been doing your best to end your capacity to do anything. If you want to kill yourself, there are six pistols, four rifles, and six shotguns in your locker over there. Take a pistol and do it, if you are through with life.”

  “My religion—and your religion—forbids suicide.”

  “You are committing suicide in another way. Surely the church—your Episcopal Church, my Catholic Church—forbids that too.”

  Blackford looked up at his poised, blue-eyed stepson. His style of speaking was Sally’s, exactly. He could manage to say only, “I am not arguing with you.”

  “Papá, can you control the … whiskey?”

  “You know about that? Josefina—”

  “Josefina said nothing. I have made some inquiries in the past two days.”

  “It will not seem credible. But in fact I have not drunk since I laid eyes on you two days ago. I doubt I will ever drink again.”

  “If you say that, then you are not cured. If you are cured, you will feel at liberty to drink some time again.”

  “Perhaps. Now I must regain my strength and”—he stood up on his feet, putting his arms around Tony and struggling to get the words out through his tears—“thank God for the son he gave me.”

  He removed his arms. “Go back to Mexico, Tony. This time I will call you there. And I’ll be happy when you come to Washington for a semester.”

  Tony knew it was best to leave. “I’ll drive back here in the station wagon tomorrow morning and have a cab pick me up to take me to the airport.”

  In the kitchen he spoke for a few moments with Josefina, kissed her, and thanked her for everything she had done for his father.

  “Pronto se va mejorar.” He’d get well soon, she promised.

  CHAPTER 46

  After Tony left, Blackford walked about the house almost as if it were his first visit. He had not noticed anything, he had to admit, for ever so long. The living room where he had met with Tony was handsome, woodlined. There were bookcases at one end, opposite original paintings collected over the years. There was the tiled fireplace, framed by two semicircular sofas, an armchair at each end, a large coffee table between.

  He passed into the hallway leading to the front door. Josefina had made some attempt at order, piling the magazines on top of each other, placing them on the shelf above the radiator. Correspondence was on the low table, sitting in a large silver bowl, oblong in shape, which Sally had brought up from Mexico. It was not entirely full, but it had now forty or fifty pieces of mail, many of them obviously bills.

  He made a rough effort to separate the letters from the bills. He would take the letters upstairs, read them in the bedroom, perhaps during the stretches when he was unable to sleep.

  “Señor?” He heard Josefina call out.

  “Sí, sí.” He had forgotten her first call to supper. In the dining room she brought him tortillas and cheese and a small tomato salad.

  “No, gracias,” he said to the proffered beer. He ate listlessly, then got up, walked into the living room and brought over the Washington Post. Michael Dukakis and George Bush, he learned, had both won primary elections.

  He took the sheaf of letters upstairs. He thought to turn on the television, but changed his mind. But he did reach for a CD, and stuck on some Bach partitas, done by Rosalyn Tureck.

  He sat down in the armchair by the bed and put the mail on the bedside table. He hoped to avoid letters from well-wishers inquiring after his health. There was one letter there, hand-addressed, from the director. It was kind of Bill Webster to write as he did: If and when Blackford changed his mind about the years ahead, “we are here waiting for you.”

  He came then to the FedEx letter. It had been posted in Vienna, early in February—he could not make out the exact date. He opened it.

  It too was handwritten.

  He was so startled by the opening lines, his eyes shot down to the signature, which read, “Harold Adrian Russell Philby.”

  Dear Oakes:

  That was quite a stay you had here. I have drunk to—am drinking to—your accomplishments. It was a fine touch that you were, among other things, my guest at our little wedding party. So you managed: One prominent Soviet woman seduced. Her thinking corrupted. She’s egged on to deliver a sophomoric speech in the Great Kremlin Palace. We cherish our copy of it. No wonder she died, or was it that her system could not stand the thought of procreating another Oakes in this world? History, Harry Doubleday, is of course the great engine of the Communist world enterprise. Perhaps history had a hand in ending a perfidious life. Feel free to write to me in Moscow (I am in Vienna for only a few days) if I can be of any service. You may be considering defection. I am schooled in advising people how to conceal their allegiances.

  Blackford thought to reach for the whiskey bottle in the cabinet.

  But the thought was fleeting.

  Questions crowded his mind, and sharp thoughts began to pump up his blood pressure. How did Philby know who he was? How did he find out? How had he got the Merriwell address?

  Of course! Rufina! Rufina must have torn open his letter, the letter bequeathing half his estate to Ursina.

  He closed his eyes, recreating the scene in Philby’s apartment on Uspensky Street. He had not dreamed of the possibility that Rufina would open that envelope. But then he had never dreamed the nightmare of Ursina dead.

  But how had Philby got hold of Ursina’s speech, which Blackford himself had never seen? What could he have meant by saying that perhaps “history” had had a hand in Ursina’s death?

  He roiled at the ugliness of the letter. But then it was written by someone who had had no hesitation in betraying fellow citizens to ugly deaths. What could such a man ever do that was surprising?

  He walked to the medicine cabinet and surveyed the bottles on Sally’s shelf still sitting there. He swallowed a sleeping pill and made his way back, climbing now into bed, shutting off the lamp, and closing his eyes, waiting for the drug to do its work for him.

  The next morning he called the special number in Frankfurt and gave the conduit the embassy number in Moscow. He was relieved that, in moments, he was talking to Gus.

  “Hey Black. I hear you’ve been … vacationing a bit.”

  “Yeah, well … Gus, you know Vladimir Kirov? I never met him, but Ursina told me she brought him along one night to dinner with you.”

  “Sure. I remember sending him the schedule on the Gorky exhibit. He asked me for it.”

  “Well, he was very close to Ursina, and he’s a medical doctor. Tell him I’ve been real sick, just coming out of it, and I want to know what happened to Ursina. Can you find out if an autopsy was done? And ask him something else, Gus. Ask him if the father of the child of an unmarried Russian woman has any rights, legal or conventional, when the mother dies the way Ursina did.”

  “Yeah, I can get through to him.—Black, some people are saying that Ursina saved the state a lot of trouble. Sorry to put it that way. But that’s what they’re saying. Anyhow, there are a couple of things popping here, but nothing to talk about over the phone, not even on this snug line.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Blackford submitted to the medical examination Tony had urged over the telephone. “And, Papá, you should go to a physical therapist. Work out a couple of times a week. I have a cousin in medical school at Georgetown. She was telling me about a physical ed instructor she thinks is terrific who does individual training on the side. I’ll call Adelaide Gutiérrez and have her leave a message with you or Josefina—the name and number of the phys ed guy. And you can talk to Adelaide about it if you want. Her number—”

  “Yes, I have a pencil. In my line of work we always have pencils handy.”

&
nbsp; “I thought you were expected to memorize?”

  “If there is any risk that the bad people want that information. Is Adelaide hot?”

  “Papabile, such a question!”

  “Well, don’t let the bad people take physical therapy. They’re dangerous enough as it is.”

  Eight days later, his letter to the director was answered by a telephone call. “Monday is fine as Reincorporation Day. Black, I thought of having a half-dozen people for lunch in my dining room. I thought Anthony Trust and Singer Callaway and Jake—Jake what’s-his-last-name? I forget …”

  “Jake Shulz.”

  “Yes. Our Congressional Medal of Honor winner. And anybody else you want.”

  “That would be nice, Bill. I’ll give a speech on my blackout. You got something interesting for me?”

  “As a matter of fact I do, Black.”

  “Well then, give me a good lunch.”

  Back at work, Blackford read a long cable from Gus.

  “I accosted Kirov. I used just the approach you recommended: You were the father, and you felt you had responsibilities in the matter of Ursina. He dodged and dodged, didn’t throw me out, but went on and on about how accidents happen. So I said, ‘Vladimir’—that’s what he told me to call him at the dinner we had with Ursina—‘Vladimir, I need to see the report by the doctor who did the operation. Can you get that for me?’ Kirov said he’d have to check with the legal people to find out whether I could have access to it. He said, ‘You know, Gus, there is no way your friend Doubleday can medically establish that he was the father.’”

  Blackford bristled. But his orderly mind got in the way of his incipient indignation. One could hypothesize that someone else was the father.

  The cable read on: “Kirov wasn’t suggesting he thought any such thing, but warning that a legal, court-of-appeal approach might bump into this, denying you rights you’d have if you were the established father. I guess in the good old USA in such a situation the presumed dad would demand a DNA on the fetus. But Ursina—Kirov called her ‘my dear, beloved Ursina’—was cremated.

  “So I said to him maybe the thing to do was for me to go quiz the surgeon. He paused over that one. Maybe, he said, you need a Soviet lawyer.

  “What do you think? I’m inclined to go see the surgeon. Kirov did give me the name—Dr. Shumberg. My cover would be that I am drafting a report on Ursina Chadinov on behalf of a U.S. citizen who was here helping Deputy Minister Artur Ivanov on a project in which the U.S. and the USSR are jointly engaged. Think about it and call me.”

  Jonathan Tuck, in the legal department at Langley, was a friend Blackford had several times worked with when bumping into questions that needed counsel from people who knew, well, the law of the land.

  Blackford explained the problem.

  “I know, Jon, that Soviet officials can take the position that any contact I had with Professor Chadinov was personal. In one way it was certainly that. I intended to marry Ursina. I have a good friend in the Moscow office, Gus Windels. We’ve done things together in the past, and he’s willing—and I think eager—to go to the doctor who operated. The question: Can he plausibly claim that I have the right to see the doctor’s report?”

  “Blackford, that is a novel question. I don’t think anybody ever wrote a treatise on the subject. I’m going to have to ask you something off the record.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is Gus proposing to tell our ambassador what he’s up to?”

  “No. I’m not sure what Jack Matlock would say. As you know, Jack’s a scholar and has intellectual interests.”

  “Yeah. And one of them is to keep the U.S. clear of unnecessary confrontations with the Soviet Union. And unnecessary—forgive me, Black—engagements with Soviet citizens.”

  Blackford managed a smile. “Granted. But I don’t see this as a confrontation. Just a personal-service inquiry.”

  “I know somebody I can call who might have an angle on this. You’ll be in your office this afternoon?”

  Blackford nodded.

  Two hours after hearing back from Tuck, he cabled to Gus. “Call me on the good line tomorrow 3 P.M. Moscow time.”

  CHAPTER 48

  The nurse asked Gus what it was he wished to consult with Dr. Shumberg about. Gus said that he was on an ambassadorial mission, having to do with someone engaged in the cultural exhibit being jointly sponsored by Washington and Moscow. He was given an appointment for 6 P.M. that day.

  Dr. Shumberg was well known in the little community of Soviet scientists who were sometimes called upon to discharge diplomatic assignments. He was known for his general affability and for the closeness of his ties with the KGB. When Gus arrived, pulling out his card, Shumberg’s tone of voice was that of a man who, however important, was prepared to interrupt whatever he was doing in order to oblige this postulant.

  Gus Windels said that he was asking questions on behalf of an American citizen who had recently been in Moscow on U.S.–USSR business and had sired a child who—

  “You are talking, obviously, of Professor Chadinov’s lover.”

  “Yes. The question has been raised: What exactly was the cause of her death? And, of course, you would be the authority on that subject.”

  Shumberg picked up his phone, looked down at a list of numbers in his drawer, and dialed.

  “I am calling to speak with Professor Titov. It is Shumberg calling.… Titov. There is an American here who is beginning to ask me exactly the questions you asked, in the matter of Chadinov. I am fed up answering journalistic-type inquiries on the matter. If”—he looked down at Gus’s card—“Mr. Windels wishes to speak with you on the subject, you can give him the medical information I passed along two weeks ago.” He slammed the telephone down and turned to Gus.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Gus read up on Professor Lindbergh Titov in the extensive file the embassy had on him. He was a world-renowned radiologist, Gus learned, said to be at work on a means of advancing positron emission tomography. The objective was a cancer cure and also a means of immunizing human beings against damaging ionization.

  Gus thought it wise, instead of calling on the telephone, to go to the radiology laboratory and present himself at Titov’s office. He introduced himself as a friend of Vladimir Kirov. “And of Ursina Chadinov. She was a special friend. In fact, it was I who introduced her to Harry Doubleday, on whose behalf I am undertaking this inquiry.”

  Titov’s interest in the matter was obvious. Gus continued, “I went to see Dr. Shumberg, and he telephoned you while I was with him. I heard him say that he had answered every question on the matter of Ursina Chadinov, and that I should go to you, not him.”

  “That bastard! That shit! So I am now the source of knowledge on the matter of Professor Chadinov! All Shumberg did was operate on her! Mr. Windels. There is a great deal on my mind right now. But I am intensely interested in the matter of Ursina Chadinov. I will discuss the matter with you in—different circumstances. Are you willing to come to my apartment?”

  “I would be honored, Dr. Titov.”

  They made the engagement.

  “May I ask, Dr. Titov, have you seen the surgeon’s report following the death?”

  “Yes. I succeeded in getting a copy. Hmm! It is perhaps the only piece of information I have not been denied! Perhaps because it was not written by a foreigner, and isn’t therefore suspicious. Anything written by a foreigner needs to be certified for ideological ‘reliability.’ I am surprised they permit me to use ultrasound waves in my laboratory. Some of them have not been cleared by security.”

  “I look forward to this evening,” Gus said.

  CHAPTER 49

  Gus Windels arrived at Lindbergh Titov’s large apartment at 6 P.M. It was a select address, with a husky doorman at the entrance, and an operator who took him up in the creaky old elevator to the eighth floor. Gus emerged into a hall with three doors, but only Titov’s name was posted. He rang the doorbell.

&nbs
p; It was opened by a lanky young man, his hair in fashionable teenage disarray. He wore blue jeans, a striped sports shirt, and, on his head, an old-model aviator’s cap. Hanging down from his neck, suspended on a braided cord, were an aviator’s dark glasses.

  His expression was bright, and his diffident smile seemed genuine. “Hello. I am Aleksei.”

  “How do you do, Aleksei?” Gus extended his hand. “I have an appointment with your father.”

  He was taken through a living room with a half-dozen framed posters from scientific conferences and as many oil paintings, into a study with a very large table, on which what looked like a whole library of manuscripts were piled high.

  “Ah, Mr. Windels, sit down. I was incensed by what you told me. I even called Shumberg this afternoon. I said to him, ‘Shumberg, that is very interesting, suggesting to an American inquirer that I am the authority on the death—the killing—of Ursina Chadinov. This call is simply to say that you will not get away with this ongoing deception.’”

  Gus said nothing.

  “But I want to call in my wife—Nina Aleksandrovna—to hear what you have to say.”

  She came to the door, Aleksei at her side.

  “Alyosha,” Titov said. “Who called for you?”

  “I wish to practice my English. Or”—he looked over at Gus, seated by his father’s desk—“is he going to speak in Russian?”

  Gus was pleased by the opportunity to say, “I was born in Kiev. I am happy to be talking in Russian, my native tongue.”

  Titov knit his brows. Even his bald head seemed concentrated on the question on his mind. “Why not? Alyosha is seventeen years old. Any additional data on the intransigence of the … of the governing class will be enlightening.”

  Nina upbraided her husband. “Linbek! Linbek.”