"Happy birthday," he muttered to himself. "Happy birthday, you fool."
After Emerson had left the back room of the House of Joy, Anya Ignatiev sat silently at her desk, the only sound the percussive beat of the disco music from the dance enclosure in the front room. She lit a cigarette, screwing up her eyes against the smoke, leaned back in her swivel chair, and stared at the ceiling. She seemed to be waiting for something. When nothing happened, she glanced at a door in the corner of the room and said impatiently, "Sasha, come in here, for God's sake."
The door opened, and a slim, blond man with pale gray eyes came into the room. In his mid-thirties, his peaked eyebrows and elfin features made him look much younger, and his lemon-colored slacks and tank top showed off a smooth musculature. He walked gracefully, almost gliding in quick, pointed steps. He did not prance and he did not swish, but he very obviously did not prance or swish.
"Well, what do you think of him?" Anya asked.
"Absolutely yummy, Mummy." Sasha smiled at her mockingly. "He must have been a knockout back in the Dark Ages when he did you."
"Don't talk that way." Anya said it automatically, as if she had said the words many times before. "He's still a very handsome man."
"Handsome? Come on, Mother darling, you were wetting your panties just sitting there talking to him. I could see you on the screen trying to push out those remarkably preserved tits." He moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "You could strain your back that way, you know. Want me to give you a rub?"
"Fool!" She twisted around and knocked his hands away. "Isn't he a remarkable man, to have done what he did? Thirty-five years!"
Sasha lowered his eyes in mock humility. "Yes, you're right. He's a remarkable man. He's a father to be proud of."
"Sweetheart, I never said that." Anya looked at him reproachfully. "I only said that he might be your father."
"Either him, or the real Emerson."
She managed to look prettily confused and even to blush slightly. "It could have been either."
"So you've told me." He smiled at her thinly. "I suppose that makes me unique. The man with two fathers. At least, I assume it was only two. For all I know, you were balling half the Red Army in those days."
"Sashinka, I'm warning you—"
"Well. Mother, you must admit that you did have one hell of a war. Other people got medals and ribbons, but all you got out of it was the crabs. And me."
Anya looked at her son thoughtfully. There were times when she regretted having told him about the two men named James Emerson. When he was a child she had let him believe that his father had died a soldier's death in the Great Patriotic War, but as he grew older the urge to tell him the truth grew obsessive. When he was a grown man. and himself a contract agent for the KGB, she had finally felt him old enough to know.
She shook her head sadly. "I didn't have to tell you, but I did. Give me credit for that much."
"Bullshit, sweetie, you were just trying to show me how liberated you were back in the days when the nice girls kept their legs crossed."
"Sasha!"
He pulled himself up to a position of stiff attention and saluted several times rapidly. "Yes, Mother. Yes, Comrade Major."
He let his body sag into a lounging position, resting one hip against her desk. Anya shrugged helplessly and laughed.
"You're impossible," she said. "Stop clowning, and tell me what you think of our Mr. Emerson."
"Your Mr. Emerson," he said pointedly. "Personally, I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. That is, if I had a ten-foot pole, which I don't." He suddenly dropped the bantering tone and looked down at his fingernails, studying them carefully. "I suppose you'll want the usual surveillance on him? Four-man teams around the clock?"
"What on earth for?"
"In case he decides against an ocean voyage, obviously."
"That's absurd," she said, shocked. "You're talking about Yuri Volanov. A loyal, dedicated officer!"
"Is that who he is? Listen, babushka, you're thinking with your uterus instead of your brain. ..."
"Don't call me that." Her voice was sharp. "Go get yourself married and have some children, and then you can call me a grandmother."
Sasha was studying his fingernails again, buffing them listlessly against his knee. "All right, Mother dear, no babushka for you yet, but I don't agree with you about dear old Daddy. Maybe you're right - maybe he's really a loyal, dedicated officer. But I'd keep an eye on him just the
same."
No matter what else she thought of her son, Anya respected his native shrewdness. Curiosity conquered irritation. "Why?" she asked.
"Because I have the disgusting habit of thinking that everyone else is as naughty as I am." He raised his arms over his head, clasped his hands together, and stretched like a lithe, muscular cat. "If I got the orders that he got today, I'd think twice about going back. He's got a good life here. Of course, he owes us for it, but nobody likes to pay thirty-five years' worth of back rent all at once. I'd watch him, sweet Momma. I'd watch him carefully."
"You're right, you can be quite disgusting." Anya tapped a pencil thoughtfully against her teeth. "You hate him very much, don't you?"
Sasha looked down at his mother, his face impassive, and decided that there was a lot about hate that he could tell her. Like growing up hating an unknown father because he was dead, and then later on hating him because he was alive. Like the hundreds of times he had killed the man in his dreams, gleefully smashing him, and the other hundreds of times in those very same dreams when he had curled himself contentedly in his father's arms.
Instead, he gave her his brightest smile and said gaily, "Sweetie, do it your own way. I couldn't care less - thank God, I'm just a contract agent. But if that man doesn't make it to the boat on time, it's your cute little tushy that's on the line, not mine."
Anya said slowly, "Full surveillance? Around the clock?"
"If you're going to do it at all. . ." Sasha flipped his hands palms up and shrugged.
She nodded in sudden decision. "I don't agree with you, but we won't take any chances. Do you have the men for it?"
"I'll have to borrow some embassy people."
"Do it, then. Handle it personally."
"That's my sweet old momma; that's playing it smart. I'll get right on it." He slid off the desk and started for the door. He opened it to a blast of disco music from the front room where the nude girls danced ceaselessly. Anya stopped him before he could leave.
"Sasha . . . one of the dancers, that girl Rosita. She has some bad bruises on her belly and her back."
Sasha met her gaze. "The little bitch was holding out on the tips. You know I can't allow that."
"Yes, my darling, I know, but the men won't pay to see girls with banged-up bodies. Can't you do your disciplining more carefully?"
"I do what I have to do."
"No, you do what you want to do. In this town, getting a girl to beat up is a very simple matter. Don't damage our dancers."
Their eyes locked in a contest of wills. He would have kept it up longer, but he felt the first twinges of a headache and he looked away. He went out of the room, and as he carefully closed the door behind him he thought he heard his mother chuckle softly.
CHAPTER SIX
"You're a fool," said Rusty.
Emerson shook his head. "No doubt I am, about many things, but not about this."
"A fool," she repeated. "The first sign of trouble and you went running to Edwin Swan. Before you even told me about it."
He reached out a hand to soothe her. "What else could I have done?"
She pulled her hand away. "You could have waited until you got home. We could have talked it over."
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm not going back, and if I don't go back I need protection. That means Swan."
Rusty shook her head, unconvinced. "You've burned your bridges. You have no options left. You should have waited."
"You don't know these people the way I
do." He leaned forward intently. "I had no options; I guess I never had any."
They sat across the dining room table from each other, the untouched plates of a cold dinner in front of them. They had left off the lights, as if their words needed darkness for safety, and only candles glowed. The house was still, and beyond the house were only the night sounds of small animals, the harsh crash of cans as a coon went foraging, the far-off glissando of a whippoorwill's call. Rusty shivered at the sound of the bird.
"He'll turn you in," she said bitterly. "I know he will. They'll lock you up in some place like Leavenworth. You'll be there the rest of your life, Jim."
"There comes a time when you have to trust someone, and I do trust Edwin. ... In twenty-four hours we'll know how we stand. That's what he promised."
"I wish I could believe it. All these years, I was sure it would never happen. I was sure they'd forgotten all about you." She said it wistfully, the bitterness gone. She raised her glass, sipped some wine, and stared into the rosy reflection in the crystal. "But they didn't forget . . . did they? They let you sleep - and now -1 suppose they'll see you as a monster."
"I find it hard to believe," he said quietly, "that they didn't foresee the outcome. Rusty . . . they took a teenage kid, admittedly a trained atheist and a Communist, but still a teenage kid. They told him, 'Go be a good American. That's your job. Be an American, do as the Americans do, learn to think as the Americans think. Educate yourself, make money, go to school, go to church, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Enjoy the good life.' Well, I did it. I did exactly what they told me to do. I learned to enjoy the good life, and I learned why it's a good life. Not a perfect one, but a better one than anywhere else. I became a good American . . . and I intend to stay one. It's hardly a crime, is it?"
"Not to you. But to them? You'll still seem like a monster."
"The Frankenstein of the KGB," he said lightly. He waited, but she was silent. He heard her breathing change, and he knew that she was crying. He reached for her hand again. "Please don't."
"I won't, not for long." She dabbed at her eyes. "It just hit me all at once. This is all finished, isn't it? The house, your career, our family life . . . everything you and I have worked for. Everything!"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. No matter what else happens, that part of it is finished. But not you and I, Rusty. Please stop crying."
"I have," she said, and her voice was clear. "Where will we go if Edwin keeps his promise? Have you any idea?"
"There hasn't been much time to think." He smiled at her sadly. "There's one thought. It may be a crazy idea, but . . . how does Point Balboa sound? I've never been there, it was the one place I couldn't go. I've always wondered what it would be like. I could go there now, with a new name and a new face. I've never forgotten how he made it sound so pleasant. A backwater, but a sunny one."
He heard the shot again, over the span of thirty-five years felt the grip of the pistol and saw the boy fall heavily to the earth.
I don’t want to think about that.
"It might work," she said and leaned over to kiss him.
Later, after she had cleared the table, she walked through the darkened rooms of the house looking for her husband. She had no doubt where she would find him. On the south side of the building, overlooking the back lawn that descended in levels to the creek, was a second sitting room that opened onto a veranda. It was a cool and quiet room, built as a summer haven, and she found him there as she had known she would. The room was dark, the only lights the small pools projected upward from under the paintings that hung on the walls. There were three such lights. One illuminated a Braque still life of fruits and a plate in graceful juxtaposition. Another shone on a series of Picasso sketches from the Toro y Toreros collection, quick, angular representations of horses, lances, and men. The third bathed a small Matisse of pure and vivid colors that jumped joyously from the wall.
Rusty paused in the doorway. In the darkness she could just make out where her husband was sitting, reclined in a chair so placed that he could see all three without moving his head. There were other paintings in the house, but these were the three he loved most, and she realized sadly that he was saying good-bye to them. She came into the room stepping softly, trying not to disturb, but the swish of her skirt alerted him, and he looked up.
"Shade your eyes," he said. "I'll turn on the light."
"Don't, it's nicer this way."
"I thought I was the romantic in the family." He clicked a switch, and the lamp on the table beside him went on. He clicked another, and the illumination faded from the paintings. Rusty sank gracefully to the carpeted floor beside the chair, resting against his leg.
"We're going to have to tell Ginger," she said.
"Yes. Tomorrow, as soon as she gets here." "It won't be much of a birthday for you."
"She has to be told. I just wish she were coming alone." He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the memorandum from Military Intelligence. He handed it to her. "I think you'd better read this."
Rusty took the papers, read the first few lines, and looked up. "But this is about Ginger. From Military Intelligence?"
"Just a little back scratching. Somebody owed me a favor." He saw the stern disapproval on her face and said quickly, "Look, we've both been worried about this guy, Angelotti. This was the quickest way to get some input."
"A very ugly way. Spying on your daughter."
He set his face grimly. "If it is, it's the only spying I've ever done."
She nodded at that, then read the pages carefully. When she was finished she stacked the sheets, squared them, and handed them back. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand.
"Not a very pretty picture," she said.
"No, it isn't." He went searching for a cigarette in a sandalwood box on the table. He rarely used cigarettes, but he lit this one hungrily. "I like Eddie, you know I do, but. . ."
"You scarcely know him. You've only met him twice."
"That's usually enough for me. I like him, but after that. . . ?" He flicked the report with his finger.
"I know. It makes him seem like some middle-aged hoodlum, or a con man."
"Not that bad, I hope. I can't see Ginger getting mixed up with someone like that, can you?"
"Why ask me?" she said with a touch of asperity. "My God, these games that you fathers play with your daughters. Look, I'm a woman, and I know what women do. She wouldn't be the first young girl to fall for a flashy guy with a big roll of money."
"Just like you did?"
She laughed. "Oh yes. The flashy one! Holes in your shoes and your nose in a law book."
"Was it that bad?"
"Who paid for the movies every Saturday night?" "But I paid for dinner," he said.
"The Imperial Jade Gardens. One order of egg rolls for two and the chow mein special. A dollar twenty-five."
"Plus tip."
She nodded dreamily. "A quarter for the waiter. That was a big tip for the Imperial Jade Gardens. Why was it that everybody tipped Chinese waiters less in those days? Were we all such terrible racists?"
"The conventional wisdom was that the Chinese were happy to work for a handful of rice and a place to sleep. So people tipped them with nickels and dimes."
"But not you. You had to leave a quarter."
"I told you. Diamond Jim Emerson."
They laughed quietly together. Then Rusty said, "It doesn't seem fair. She doesn't know anything about things like that. Counting up pennies for Saturday night."
"Seventy-nine cents for the cheapest sherry. Had to have seventy-nine cents in the old jelly jar by Friday night."
"Baking muffins on Sunday. A dozen muffins every Sunday morning."
"Good muffins, too. When was the last time you made muffins?"
She sighed and shook her head. "It doesn't pay to bake anymore. Now you open a box and squeeze a bag. Instant muffins."
"Instant happiness."
"Instant love. That poor kid. There are so many things that she
doesn't know about."
"Well, why should she? I worked damn hard to make sure that she'd never have to count pennies."
She looked up at him, and then slowly around the room. "And now you're going to lose it all. We'll be living the rest of our lives on the run."
"It may not be that bad."
"It will be. It will be that bad, and worse." She leaned back against his legs. "Jimbo, I really wish you hadn't told Swan."
"You let me worry about Edwin. You concentrate on handling your daughter and her boyfriend tomorrow."
"I know how I'd like to handle her," said Rusty, suddenly grim. "But she's too old for that."
"Take it easy on her, will you? It's going to be enough of a shock when we tell her about me."
Rusty said in a tight, fierce voice, "You've done absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You're the finest, truest man who ever lived. You're a wonderful husband and a devoted father, and if that young woman says just one word ..."
"All right, all right." He pressed his palm softly to her lips. "I also leap buildings at a single bound."
She kissed his palm and brushed her cheek against his hand. She pulled his arm around her shoulder. "Turn the lights back down. I want to look at the Matisse again."
"It's a terrible way to look at paintings."
"I know, but I like it that way."
He clicked the switches. The room grew dark and the small lights glowed. They sat quietly, without moving, his arm around her shoulder, her arm around his knees. Down the meadow the whippoorwill sang again, but this time Rusty did not shiver, and when the coon went banging in the cans she did not stir.
"Point Balboa," she said. "It's beginning to sound like a wonderful idea. Do you think Swan could arrange it for us?"
"I don't see why not. I'll ask him when he calls tomorrow." He was silent for a moment, then said, "I want you to know that up until now, no matter what else happens, it's been the best that a man could ask for."
"The best for me, too." She nodded in the darkness. "And it isn't over. It isn't even close to being over."
"Even if it is."
He started to say more and then stopped himself. After that they sat silently in the darkness for what seemed like a very long time listening to the bird song and the sound of the foraging coon, and when the animal noises were finally stilled, they turned out the lights and went up to bed. It was just after midnight, the Fourth of July, and somewhere a star shell burst and flared.
The Sleeping Spy Page 9
