King's Gambit

by George C. Chesbro

  Gligoric, who was always kept appraised of Arnett’s comings and goings, arrived at the station house in time to see Arnett, John, Tom Manning and Henry get into a government car and be driven away. The big man cursed slowly and methodically in Russian, then wheeled the car he was driving in a sharp U-turn and sped back the way he had come. His fingers were white where they gripped the steering wheel.

  NINE

  Henry, at John’s request, accompanied John back to his apartment. Henry seemed uneasy and unnaturally quiet. Neither man spoke as John pushed his broken trophies into the corners of the living-room and set up a chessboard in the centre. He sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and began playing through a game.

  Henry moved around to the opposite side of the board and stared down, watching the moves John was making. ‘It’s too bad we don’t have those games of Petroff’s,’ he said at last.

  ‘I remember most of them,’ John said without taking his eyes off the board. ‘In any case, I don’t need them. I’ll beat Petroff anyway.’

  ‘Not if you don’t get some rest. You couldn’t have slept much in that jail.’

  ‘There’s no time to rest.’

  ‘You sound very confident, John.’

  ‘I am very confident. I think I’ve got the answers to some of Petroff’s opening innovations.’

  Henry watched John demonstrate one of the opening lines. John varied on the sixth move. Henry frowned. ‘I’m not sure that’s going to work. Why can’t he do this?’ He reached down and moved a piece. ‘Pawn to queen four. It forks your knight and bishop.’

  ‘Sure,’ John said easily. ‘And it loses. It sets up the combination beginning with knight takes pawn. Watch.’

  John rapidly moved the pieces, demonstrating the combination. He took the bishop’s pawn with his knight. The next four moves were forced. When he had finished the position of the enemy king was destroyed. Checkmate was imminent.

  Henry lifted his eyebrows and whistled softly. ‘I see,’ he said respectfully. ‘Very neat.’

  ‘I thought that up in jail.’

  Henry leaned forward on his elbows, cupped his chin in his hands and stared at John. ‘You do look tired.’

  John did not reply. His eyes were still on the position in front of him. Henry tentatively moved a piece, then studied the board. After a few moments he sacrificed a bishop, using it to capture the rook’s pawn on the king side. ‘That’s what I had in mind; sacking the bishop for a king side attack.’

  ‘Yeah,’ John said flatly. ‘It looks good. I’ll have to give it some thought.’

  Henry picked up a freshly sharpened pencil and began to write some notes on his analysis pad. The scratching of the pencil on the rough paper of the pad was the only sound in the room.

  ‘I had a lot of time to think while they had me locked up, Henry,’ John continued without looking up. His voice was soft, but there was a new quality to the tone that made Henry stiffen. ‘For one thing, I came up with that combination I showed you. What I wasn’t able to come up with was your reason for putting that microfilm in my set.’

  The point on Henry’s pencil broke. The tiny piece of lead skipped off the table, hit the floor and skittered to the opposite wall. John slowly looked up and was sickened by what he saw; Henry’s face was bloodless, his expression a mixture of shock and fear.

  Henry’s quivering lips opened and a single word dribbled out. ‘John …’

  John slammed his fist down on the table in disgust. ‘Please don’t try to deny it, Henry. Just please don’t try. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. It’s written all over your face.’

  Henry’s shaking hands were like animals that had suddenly slipped the leash of their master. Henry dropped the pencil on the floor and crossed his arms on his chest, squeezing his hands in his armpits. The flesh of his face had gone from a fish white to an ashen grey.

  ‘How did you know?’ Henry asked in a choked voice.

  ‘It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with that break-in. It was the door. The door was locked when I came home. That was your mistake, Henry. You’re the only person besides myself who has a key to this apartment. You must have been nervous. A burglar or a junkie might break in, or even pick the lock if he has time. But he’s not going to lock up after himself when he’s through busting up a man’s apartment.’

  Henry leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  ‘Why did you do that to me, Henry?’ John asked quietly. ‘Was it for lie money?’

  ‘I … this man …’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘I … I don’t know his name. He was a Russian. He offered me money, yes. Lots of money. But I turned him down.’ Henry shuddered, as though he had suddenly seen something horrible on the ceiling of his eyelids. ‘Then he said he was going to hurt me, John; put me in a coma, damage my head, make sure I’d never be able to play chess again. I couldn’t stand that thought, John. Can you understand?’

  John studied the face across the table from him and tried to find his anger. It wasn’t there. There was only pity. ‘It won’t wash, Henry. I can understand how you’d make promises to somebody who was threatening you. But you had a chance to come forward later, after the FBI picked me up. You’d have been protected. You didn’t do it, Henry.’

  John waited for some response from the other man. It didn’t come. Tears welled from beneath Henry’s closed eyes and rolled down over the pink, boyish cheeks. ‘God, Henry, how I pity you,’ John whispered. ‘You planted that microfilm because you wanted to be world champion yourself one day. You might be able to beat the Russians on a good day, but you could never beat me. At least that’s what you were afraid of. Helping to frame me on espionage charges was a neat way of finally getting me out of the picture for good.’

  ‘John, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  John tried to hold the words back and couldn’t. ‘You were my friend, Henry. My only friend. Now I find out what a small man you are. I wonder what that makes me?’

  Henry’s head suddenly jerked forward. His eyes snapped open. Rage burned in their depths, momentarily burning away the tears of shame. ‘Don’t you get sanctimonious with me, John! Your talent is wasted in you, you mincing prima donna! You’ve thrown all your other chances away, so why should you deserve this chance? All right! If you really don’t want to be champion—if you never have the guts to follow it through to the end—then somebody else should have the chance!’

  ‘You, Henry?’

  ‘Yes, me! You’re a disgrace to this country. Nobody wants you to win, John! Do you know that? You’ll never be champion because you’re not … enough … of a …’

  ‘Man, Henry?’ John asked quietly. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say? That I’m not enough of a man to win the championship?’

  Henry slumped forward on the table and began to weep. John watched the heaving shoulders and felt overwhelmed by emptiness. His throat felt raspy and there was the taste of bile in his mouth, but that was all. Suddenly he wanted only to sleep.

  Henry’s weeping finally wound down to a series of disconnected sobs. John wanted to reach out and touch the shoulders, but couldn’t. The distance between them was farther than any arm could reach.

  ‘Well, Henry,’ John said wearily into the silence, ‘I guess we’ve both said everything there is to say.’

  Finally Henry lifted his head. The tears were gone. There was a new air of resignation—and some relief—about him now that the terrible secret was out. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Try to beat Petroff.’

  ‘I mean … about me.’

  John thought about it. ‘Nothing,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t do any more to you than you’ve done to yourself. But I don’t want you with me on that flight to Venice. I suppose that goes without saying. I don’t care what you tell Tom. You’ll have to make up your own excuse.’

  Henry tore a page off the pad in front of him and began to wad it into a small ball. ‘John, you’ll need a second,’ he said in a
small, strained voice. ‘You’ll need help to prepare and analyse during adjournments.’ Henry paused and swallowed hard. ‘Please let me try to make it up to you.’

  John’s only reply was a fixed, cold stare. After a few moments Henry dropped his eyes, nodded and slowly rose from the table. His walk was unsteady as he went towards the door. He paused with his hand on the knob and looked back towards John. John was hunched over the table, studying the chessboard. Henry opened the door and walked out of the apartment.

  Back at the table John brushed the back of his hand across, his eyes. Then he rose and went to close the door.

  TEN

  The jangling of the phone seemed incredibly loud as it broke the night stillness. John squirmed in the armchair where he had fallen asleep and tried to ignore the sound. He cursed softly, for he had meant to turn down the bell.

  Finally the ringing stopped, but John was already awake. He turned on the standard lamp behind him and glanced at his watch: it was three in the morning. His plane would be leaving in five hours. He glanced down at the chessboard in his lap, debating whether or not to analyse more. Finally he decided against it. He would go to bed and get a few more hours of sleep.

  He rose and put the chess set on a shelf that he had repaired. Then he went to the phone, turned it upside down and turned off the bell. The phone began to vibrate as he started to set it down. John hesitated a moment, then snatched up the receiver.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘John, it’s Anna Petroff.’

  Suddenly John found it difficult to breathe. The sound of the voice on the other end of the line cut through his weariness and jolted him wide awake. It was enough for him to hear that voice, and he did not notice the tension in it.

  ‘John, I have to see you. Now.’

  Then he remembered, and the bitterness of the memory of what Anna had tried to do to him clouded his voice.

  ‘You want to see me after what you tried to pull?’

  There was a long pause at the other end, then: ‘I don’t understand.’

  John frowned as he caught himself hoping that it was true, that the girl hadn’t tried to betray him. He shook his head. ‘I have a plane to catch in the morning,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Please, John. I have to see you. It’s about Yevgeny.’

  He was a fool to be talking to the girl, John thought; a fool to have answered the phone in the first place. He would be gone in a few hours, on his way to becoming chess champion of the world.

  ‘No,’ John said forcefully, and started to hang up the phone.

  Anna’s strained voice leaked from the receiver, pleading, strangely defenceless. ‘John! Please don’t hang up!’

  John hesitated. The receiver was only inches from the cradle. He struggled against the image of himself cutting Anna out of his life forever, condemning her to … he didn’t know what. He was very tired, John thought, and not thinking straight. The thing to do was to hang up the phone and put Anna Petroff completely out of his thoughts. He slowly raised the receiver back to his ear.

  ‘John? Are you still there?’

  ‘Please leave me alone,’ John said quietly.

  ‘I have to talk to you, John. You—we—are in a great deal of danger. I … I need your help.’

  ‘Then you come here.’

  ‘I can’t. You have to come to me. I’m at the Hotel Carlisle. Room 417. Please, John. I have something very important to tell you.’

  He couldn’t leave his room now, John thought. It would be insane. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quickly, and hung up.

  John walked quickly away from the telephone as though it was a bomb about to explode. He went to his window and stared out at the city lights. The muscles in his stomach had knotted painfully. He opened the window and took deep breaths of the cool night air, trying to collect his thoughts.

  What did she want? What did she want?

  Sleep was impossible, John thought. A major distraction had come back to haunt him. The girl’s request was outrageous, but it still upset him.

  He took a chess set off a shelf, set it up on the table, then sat down to analyse. His hands trembled as he reached out to move the pieces.

  He gave it up after twenty minutes. He rose and searched through his pockets until he found the scrap of paper he was looking for. Then he went to the phone and dialled the number written on the paper. The phone was answered on the second ring by a scratchy recording.

  ‘This is Peter Arnett. I’m out at the moment. Please leave your name and number, I’ll call you back.’

  John replaced the receiver on the hook. He stood very still in the middle of the room for a full minute. Then he strode quickly to a closet, took out a jacket and walked out of the apartment.

  It took fifteen minutes to get to the Hotel Carlisle, a twenty-storey building on the lower east side of Manhattan. John paid the taxi driver, then walked through a light rain the few steps to the lobby.

  The lobby was just short of seedy, and its personnel reflected this fact. A television set no one was watching was on in a small alcove at the far end. The night clerk was sound asleep behind his desk. John went directly to the elevator and punched the button for the fourth floor.

  He knocked once lightly on the door of room 417.

  ‘Come in.’ Anna’s voice was laced with a curious mixture of relief and tension.

  John pushed the door open and stepped into the room. He found himself in one room of a suite. The lighting was dim, but he could make out Anna sitting on a couch shrouded in shadow at the opposite end of the room. A doorway behind her was covered with a curtain. The air was musty.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ Anna’s voice was flat.

  John went to turn on the overhead light.

  ‘Please don’t turn on the light,’ Anna said quickly.

  John turned on the light. Anna’s hands flew to her face, but not fast enough to hide from John the fact that she had been beaten. The entire right side of her face was black and blue, and her right eye was swollen almost shut. She quickly turned away.

  ‘Who did that to you?’ John asked angrily.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Anna said from behind her hands. ‘What does matter is that you came.’

  ‘Are you finally going to tell me what part you play in all this?’

  ‘Would you turn off the overhead light, please? I don’t want you to see me like this.’

  John hesitated, then turned off the light. The only illumination came from a small table lamp to his left. Anna rose and walked across the room to him. She kept the damaged side of her face turned away from him. John wanted to reach out and touch her, cradle her face in his hands. He kept his hands at his sides.

  ‘John, you mustn’t get on that plane. Don’t go to Venice.’

  ‘You must be out of your mind.’

  Anna shook her head, then moaned softly with the pain. ‘You’ll be hurt, John! You may even be killed if you go. You must believe me!’

  ‘Who’s going to kill me?’

  Tears glistened in Anna’s eyes, and there was a note of desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t tell you anything except that you must not go to Venice. Even if you go, you won’t play, John. Believe me! You’ll never get a chance to play!’

  ‘They haven’t stopped me yet,’ John said with a touch of pride. ‘You haven’t stopped me yet, and you sure as hell gave it your best shot.’

  ‘Oh, John!’

  John sat down in a chair and casually crossed his legs. ‘You’re one cool bitch, Anna Petroff,’ he said evenly. ‘First you try to set me up with those papers, then you get yourself punched around to make this pitch sound more convincing.’ He wasn’t sure that was true, but he had to say it because it was on his mind. It was the only explanation that made sense to him. He tried to see the girl’s face, but she was still turned away from him. ‘For a woman who’s convinced her brother can beat me over the chessboard, you’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble to try to keep me from playing him.’
>
  Anna’s voice was choked. ‘I didn’t try to trick you with those papers. They were what I said they were: a gift.’

  John frowned in the dim light. He hesitated a moment, then bored in again. ‘You gave them to me so that it would look like they were a payment for my smuggling secrets out of the country.’

  Anna slowly shook her head. ‘John, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re a very convincing liar. What did you want in return for the papers?’

  ‘I … I still can’t tell you. For your sake, I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Does your brother want to defect or doesn’t he?’

  Anna’s answer was immediate, and her tone was stiff with pride. ‘My brother is a Russian, and he is a patriot. He would never defect.’

  John found the girl’s tone, her certainty, disconcerting. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said weakly. ‘I don’t believe anything you say.’

  ‘If you weren’t prepared to believe anything I say, why did you come to see me?’

  ‘A good question,’ John said wryly. ‘Maybe it’s because I can’t get you out of my mind. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I respect the way you play it. I couldn’t do it. I need a board, a certain number of pieces. Most important, I need to know the rules.’

  ‘Oh, John, it’s not a game.’ Anna stepped forward and gripped his arms. ‘At least agree to a six month postponement. I think you care for me, or you wouldn’t have come. Then do it for me. Trust me. Please. You won’t have to wait more than six months. You’ve waited years; six more months can’t make that much difference.’

  ‘No,’ John said quietly. He slowly removed Anna’s hands from his arms, then turned and started to walk towards the door.

  ‘John!’

  Something in her voice made him stop. He turned and froze.

  Anna reached up with trembling fingers and began to undo the buttons on her blouse. She made no effort to brush away the tears that slid down her cheeks.