68
They were seated at the basement bar, vodka in front of Natasha, cognac in front of Lockington. He said, “When did you get out to Hack Road?”
“Shortly after ten this morning, about twenty minutes after I’d experimented with Barney Kozlowski’s idea. The wheels turned—that simplified things.”
“I came home after you’d left. I looked at your wheels and everything was at the first position—I saw no signs that you’d accomplished anything.”
“That’s because there were seventeen footnote numbers requiring sixteen clicks of the wheels. Sixteen clicks rotated the wheels twice, returning them to their points of origin. I must do something for Barney Kozlowski!”
“I’ve already done something for him—I’ve given him half my fee. You were waiting on Hack Road, knowing that we’d come?”
“No, my primary purpose was to alert the general and attempt to persuade him to return to CIA protection, but I’d sketched a plan, just in case. Then you arrived, and I waited in the kitchen.”
Lockington said, “The general was solid, Olga Karelinko flew to pieces like a seven dollar watch.”
“Her daughter had been murdered—Olga wasn’t tempered at Stalingrad. I request permission to address the court.”
Lockington growled, “Granted.”
She smiled her bewitching lopsided smile, winking at him. She had him now and she knew it. So did Lockington. She said, “Lacey, Krahsny Lentuh sentenced General Fedorovich to death, not because of his book—there was nothing of great import in it, it amounted to maybes, and what ifs—he was condemned simply because he’d defected.”
“You defected, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and so have countless others, but we’re small fry—Gen. Alexi Fedorovich was prominent, he was a name!”
“And Krahsny Lentuh turned the execution over to Gordon Kilbuck, or whatever his name was.”
“Totski—Georgi Totski. I knew him in Dzerzhinsky Square at the KGB Academy. If you’d mentioned that Gordon Kilbuck smoked a pipe and carried a cane, he’d have been dead a week ago. Totski was excellent at chess, probably the academy’s best. He played a waiting game, looking for a mistake, as he did with you.”
“And I made a dozen.”
“No, you overlooked a few points, but you made only one mistake—that was when you took him to General Fedorovich. Fortunately, that was—well, rectified, shall we say?”
“With a bang.”
“I’d think that Totski followed you to Princeton Junior High School, going in a few seconds after you came out, asking the same questions you’d asked, getting the same answers. He called Abilgail Fleugelham before you got to her, the next night he took her out for a few drinks, receiving her usual proposition. He accepted and strangled her, thereby shutting off that spigot of information before it leaked again. He’d learned that the Karelinko family had moved out of the Princeton district, and after chatting with Abigail, he suspected the reason for the move.”
“All right, what was the reason?”
“Olga Karelinko was pregnant by Alexi Fedorovich!”
Lockington thought about it, nodding. “Yeah, back in those days, abortions weren’t a dime a dozen.”
Natasha said, “True, and an unmarried pregnant daughter was a catastrophic family disgrace. The Karelinkos moved to the North Side of Youngstown, representing Olga as a child bride whose husband had fallen down an elevator shaft. In such cases, any old story will do—nobody believes it, but it’s better than no story at all.”
“If Totski guessed that she was pregnant, then he knew that the child would have been born in late ’38 or early ’39.”
“Yes. He probably hit the Mahoning County microfilm banks, learning that a Candice Karelinko had been born in January of ’39, mother: Olga Karelinko, widow.”
“It was getting easier.”
“Certainly, just add another dash of arithmetic—Candice would have been eighteen years old in 1957. Totski made a tour of Youngstown’s high schools, probably by telephone, learning that a Candice Karelinko had graduated from Rayen High School on Youngstown’s North Side—June, ’57.”
Lockington said, “I’m looking more stupid by the minute.”
Natasha shook her head. “Not at all—you’d already found Candice—you knew where she was, but not who she was, Totski knew who she was, but not where she was.”
“He found her.”
“Yes, he worked rapidly and hard, and locating Candice was a relatively simple matter. There’d be dozens of fiftyish Youngstown North Siders who’d remember Candice Karelinko, that she married a boy named Richard Hoffman in 1958, that she gave birth to a daughter, Brenda, in 1959. The Youngstown telephone directory shows a Richard Hoffman at 24 North Brockway Avenue—Richard is dead, but Candice never got around to changing the listing.”
“And Totski closed in on her.”
“There’s no telling what ruse he used to get into the house—an inheritance settlement, perhaps; that usually opens a door in a hurry. At any rate, there he was, alone with Olga Karelinko’s daughter, a woman who knew Olga’s whereabouts—he was one short step away from Gen. Alexi Fedorovich!”
“And Candice clammed up.”
“Undoubtedly. Candice knew her mother’s situation, she’d been aiding in keeping the general and Olga undercover. Lacey, have you noticed that the most patient people have violent tempers? They don’t surface quickly, but when they do—”
Lockington said, “It’s ‘Good morning, John, I brought your saddle home’.”
“Exactly! Georgi Totski was a patient man, he had to be, but when he was thwarted mere inches short of General Fedorovich, it was more than he could handle. Something snapped, and he beat Candice Hoffman to death with his cane.”
Lockington was refilling their glasses. “Totski recognized you—he called you by name. You were classmates at the KGB Academy?”
“Not classmates—I was a cadet, Georgi Totski was an instructor.”
Lockington threw up his hands. “Wait a minute—don’t tell me, let me guess! He was one of your sex course teachers!”
Natasha smiled, not her Sunday smile, just a run-of-the-mill smile—it wasn’t even lopsided.
“No, Georgi was an expert on subversive activities—his specialty was packing tape recorders with Czech plastic explosive.”
69
Lockington said, “How did you manage to put all of this together?”
“I didn’t have to put it together—I had a long talk with Olga Karelinko this morning. What she couldn’t tell me was easily filled in.”
“What about Brenda Willoughby—how did Totski track her? There was brief mention of Candice Hoffman’s death, but beyond that, the media had nothing to say.”
“Totski didn’t track her, he did what you did—he waited for her at Sabatini’s Funeral Home. You knew where the wake was to be held, Totski didn’t, so he called a few undertakers, ascertaining that it’d be at Sabatini’s. He knew that there’d been a daughter, Brenda, and discreet inquiry from an ‘uncle’ or a ‘nephew’ revealed that she’d be in attendance, also that Candice’s ex-son-in-law was out of town on a trucking run, that he was unaware of the tragedy, but that he’d be notified at the Mohawk West trucking terminal in Chicago, and that it was hoped that he’d be on hand for the second night of the wake. This last bit of intelligence spelled the end of Cy Willoughby—Totski relayed it to Ivan Leonid in Chicago.”
“All of that information from a hired hand at a funeral home?”
“Oh, yes, that and more, and not from a hired hand. It came from Mario Sabatini himself. Mario is the most obligingly garrulous man I’ve ever talked to.”
“You called him?”
“Immediately after you left for Candice Hoffman’s wake. I was a ‘cousin’ from Cleveland—‘Celeste Goldensnatch’.”
“‘Coppersnatch’ would have been closer to the truth.”
“That’s nobody’s business but yours. There’d been calls from other relatives,
he told me—Totski and Cayuse Bresnahan, of course. Totski drove to Sabatini’s but he couldn’t afford to be seen—you were there ahead of him. He was locking all doors behind him—he figured that you’d already acquired the pertinent information, so he killed her, assuming that all he’d have to do would be keep an eye on you, which he was doing, I assure you! I’ll venture to say that at least half a dozen private investigations agencies had operatives following you!”
“One of ’em in a black pickup truck with Pennsylvania plates.”
“Why not? We’re just sixty miles from Pittsburgh. Your every move was known to Totski.”
“Well, why all the convoluted bullshit? Why didn’t he just hire those agencies to find Olga, and leave me alone?”
“He was confident that you’d get to her in due time. There were numerous links between Totski and you, but only one between Totski and Olga—it’s easier to kill one man than to wipe out the personnel of several private investigations concerns. Totski didn’t intend to leave a discernible trail—that’s in keeping with KGB policy.”
“It was Totski who shot at us in Mill Creek Park—that goes without saying.”
“Of course—you had that one right, ‘an excellent shot pretending to be a lousy shot’—a ploy to divert suspicion from himself. Who’d pay a man five thousand dollars, then try to kill him before he’d done his job?”
“And then he murdered Cayuse Bresnahan.”
“Yes, Totski spotted Bresnahan before Bresnahan spotted Totski. ‘Cayuse Bresnahan’ was ‘Igor Shawtnik,’ really. He was one of two Mawlniyuh operatives assigned to this matter. He, too, had checked with Sabatini’s, and he’d attempted to arrange protection for Cy Willoughby in Chicago. He failed in that obviously, and Willoughby may have given Ivan Leonid Olga’s address, but he was assassinated before he could report to Totski. We had a standoff there.”
“‘We?’ ‘One of two Mawlniyuh operatives assigned to this matter?’ Who was the other?”
Natasha Gorky sipped vodka, making no reply.
Lockington spun on his barstool. “God damn it, Natasha, level with me just once, will you? You were on two payrolls—you were working for the CIA and Mawlniyuh, weren’t you?”
She hesitated. Then she said, “Back in June, that was my real deal with the KGB—return to Youngstown, find Alexi Fedorovich and try to protect him from Krahsny Lentuh—this in return for a clean bill of health. I accepted, Lacey—I accepted for my own happiness! Does that make me a whore?”
“The KGB knew that Fedorovich was going to head for Youngstown, that early in the game?”
“It was a foregone conclusion in Moscow and at Langley—the general would be coming home.”
“Mawlniyuh has that kind of authority—it can cook up a swap like that on its own?”
“Absolutely! Mawlniyuh is the KGB, it’s the backbone of the organization!”
“Okay, but why protect Fedorovich, a traitor by Moscow standards?”
“A traitor under Stalin and Khrushchev and Malenkov and Brezhnev and Andropov, yes, but the Gorbachev Kremlin doesn’t want to make waves. The assassination of Alexi Fedorovich on American soil would create negative impressions. General Fedorovich has seen his day, he’s an old man, useless now to the Soviet military, dangerous to no one. The scenario offered in The Wheels of Treachery is purely hypothetical, he’s done no irreparable damage, and considering the fact that détente’s at high tide, that Russia is shedding a dictatorial doctrine, about to become this planet’s largest democracy, the Kremlin is willing to leave well enough alone.”
“Russia—a democracy?”
“That’s the way the wind blows.”
After a snort of cognac, and another, Lockington said, “So now what?”
Natasha said nothing at all.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Natasha repeated her silence.
That was how Lockington learned that more was coming.
70
The basement silence was awesome—it could have been sliced for sandwiches. Then Natasha said, “Lacey, there’s one more thing.”
“What pure delights this life would bring, if there wasn’t always ‘one more thing’.”
Natasha squinted at him. “Where in the hell did you get that?”
“Socrates.”
“Socrates didn’t write washroom jingles.”
“Then it may have been Plato or Aristophanes.”
“Neither did they.”
“Tell me about the one more thing.”
“Yes, well, you see, Lacey, no KGB agents have ever worked under their own names. For instance, Gordon Kilbuck, alias Georgi Totski, was really Nikanov Chusawf, and Cayuse Bresnahan alias Igor Shawtnik, was really Joseph Dawzhy.” Her voice was small and shrinking.
Lockington said, “And your real name isn’t Gorky—it’s Dostoevsky.”
“No, it’s Fedorovich.”
Lockington cleared his throat to say something and he’d have said it, if he could have thought of it.
Natasha’s pale blue eyes were brimming with tears. “Gen. Alexi Fedorovich is my father.” Her voice broke. “I’m his second child, his second daughter—I haven’t seen him since my mother’s funeral seven years ago—it was raining on that morning—”
Lockington shrugged a silent shrug, unable to reach her.
Natasha said, “He was trying to establish contact with me through our old wheels code—I knew that he’d been born here—he always spoke so affectionately of Youngstown—he said that he hoped to return some day. He assumed that I knew he would.”
“And that’s why we’re in Youngstown.”
“Well, Lacey, what would you have done?”
“I’d have come to Youngstown.”
Natasha’s eyes were bright. She said, “The house next door—it’s been vacant—the CIA will buy it tomorrow.”
“For your father.”
“Yes, it wants me to look after him.”
Lockington said, “All right, we’ll look after him.”
Natasha grabbed Lockington’s shoulders. “He won’t be a burden, Lacey, honest! He’s financially well-off, he’s the independent type—my father leans on no one!”
Lockington said, “He was born in Youngstown, he liked Youngstown, but he came back to ‘do right by Nell’.”
“Nell?”
“You know her as ‘Olga Karelinko’.”
“Yes—I see. They hadn’t forgotten each other—they’ve lost their daughter and their granddaughter, but they’re so happy together! Oh, Lacey, it’s beautiful!”
“Sure is—bring on the string section, swell to crescendo, fade to—”
Natasha was slipping from her barstool. “Would you like to go to bed?”
“Your ESP is functioning just dandy.”
“The court’s verdict?”
“Case dismissed—the judge pleads insanity.”
71
The late October night was crisp and star-strewn. Natasha had gone next door to give Olga a hand with whatever it was that women need a hand with. Lockington sat on the bench at the rear of the property, the forest at his back, smoking, watching the old man come down the slope, silhouetted against the white of the house. He slid over, making room on the bench, and General Fedorovich sat beside him. Lockington said, “Good evening, sir.”
Fedorovich’s gnarled hand descended upon Lockington’s left shoulder. “Beautiful night, Mr. Lockington.”
“Yes, a fine night, sir.”
Fedorovich accepted a cigarette and Lockington held a match for them. Fedorovich said, “You’ve been kind to my daughter, Mr. Lockington. I thank you for that.”
“Being kind to your daughter isn’t difficult, sir.”
“She’s a fine girl.”
“The very finest, sir.”
They didn’t speak for a minute or so. Then Fedorovich said, “Mr. Lockington, can you understand why a man would travel halfway around the world to reach Youngstown, Ohio?”
“Yes, sir,
I believe I can.”
Their second silence outlasted their first. Fedorovich’s head was tilted back. He was gazing at stars. After a while he said,
“When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown,
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down…”
Lockington said, “Creep home and take your place there…”
Fedorovich said, “The spent and maimed among…”
Lockington said, “God grant you find one face there…
Fedorovich said, “You loved when all was young.”
There was a third silence before Fedorovich said, “I’ve been fortunate, Mr. Lockington—I’ve managed to do that.”
“Yes, sir, I know that you have.”
The general was studying Lockington. “I’m surprised that you know Charles Kingsley’s poem.”
“Not all of it, sir—I just happened to hear a few lines recently.”
“I memorized it when I attended Princeton Junior High School. Then I learned that Charles Kingsley is well received in the Soviet Union. He was a radical Socialist, y’know.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard, sir. That may have been responsible for his Russian popularity.”
From the rear of the house next door, a woman’s voice floated on the still night air. “Al—Al, are you out there?”
Fedorovich called, “Yes, Olga.”
“Are you wearing a sweater, Al?”
“No, Olga.”
“Come into the house this very moment! It’s cold tonight!”
Fedorovich got up from the bench. He said, “Good night, Mr. Lockington.”
“Good night, sir.” Lockington watched the old man go. He smiled. Al. The Lion of Stalingrad.
Natasha was standing at the top of the slope, looking down at Lockington. She said, “You, too.”
More from Ross H. Spencer
Death Wore Gloves
When Sister Rosetta’s niece goes missing, the nun (whose favorite poison is anything bottle-bound and boozy) hires shifty P.I. Tut Willow to find dear Gladys. But as Tut pulls back the curtain on Gladys’ checkered past, he also finds that someone doesn’t want her found, and soon bodies begin to pile up. Is Sister Rosetta, lured by a twisted sense of family loyalty, behind the deaths of those out to harm her niece, or are Tut and Gladys just pawns in a much darker game?
The Fedorovich File: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book Three Page 21
