by John Gardner
At the distant end Naldo said, “We got three different kinds of company, Herb. None of it good, but I don’t think the lines are wired, and the leeches on me are pretty laid back. I can slip them tonight sometime. I’ll give you the signal when I’m coming in.”
Herbie grunted.
“Ask your friend if he has mob connections, right?”
“Right.”
The line went dead.
“Your friend?” Louis Passau’s eyes were unreadable.
Herbie nodded. “We got company in town, it seems. Three different kinds he says. He also told me to ask you a question.”
“So ask, then we can eat the fuckin’ salt beef sandwiches?”
“He’ll ask you again, knowing him. He’ll visit tonight. He wants to know if you have mob connections?”
“Oh,” Passau snorted. “I thought it was important, like the moment of my revelation.”
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Got mob connections?”
“Sure, but that comes much later in the story. It’s important I tell you about December 1912.”
“Second Thursday in December, I know.”
“Then fuck you, Kruger. Just get the fuckin’ sandwiches, okay.”
As he walked away, his feet making the floor spring and judder under his weight, Big Herbie Kruger muttered, “Sure, second Thursday in December, St. Louis Passau, King and Martyr. Okay, you’ll like the sandwiches, King Lou. Maybe they’ll make a martyr of your guts. Make you crap all day.”
(9)
THE FEDS HAD ARRIVED AT Naldo and Barbara’s house late on the previous evening. There were two of them, accompanied by an ineffectual-looking, somewhat limp young man from the British Embassy, just to show they were serious and doing things by the book.
“Donald Railton?” one of them asked politely after showing I.D. and when Naldo told him he had got it in one, they courteously asked if they could come in. Naldo ushered them into the large living room, furnished with much of the antique stuff they had brought from the U.K., and gestured to the easy chairs. They sat, and the senior of the two FBI men introduced himself as Bob Singer. The other was called Ross, though nobody seemed to have given him a first name.
The insipid young man from the British Embassy seemed to have no name at all, a fact—Naldo mused—which would probably please the young man’s parents, for he was the kind of yuppie marvel his old Office, the Secret Intelligence Service, seemed to be recruiting these days, and good luck to them.
“Okay, let’s not be coy,” Singer began. “Donald, can I call you Donald?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t.” Naldo was gritty, using his old Raj voice, which he and Barbara played with a great deal when in company they did not much care for. It usually ensured that they were not invited back.
“Oh. Okay, Mr. Railton, sir. You were formerly a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service? MI6?”
Naldo looked directly at the Embassy man, who coughed and said, “Julian, sir. Julian Wilson.”
“Right, Jules,” still gritty, but in a manner he hoped the young man from the Embassy would warm to. “Who are you, Jules?”
“Assistant Second Secretary, Mr. Railton, sir.”
“Assistant to the Resident?”
“Sort of liaison, actually.”
“Ah. Well, Jules, I’m a British citizen, living in the United States as a permanent resident alien, which makes me sound like some extraterrestrial blob.” He turned to Singer, “You see, old chap, I am not really at liberty to answer your question unless I get it in writing from certain folk. Any ideas, Jules?”
“Actually, sir. Yes.” Julian withdrew a long envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Naldo, who slit it open with his thumb and took out the single faxed sheet. There was no address, just a few lines of computer-generated type and a signature.
“Dear Pa,” it began—
This is confirmation from the Chief that you may disclose, to authorized persons (namely members of the FBI Counter Intelligence Department), your former attachment to the Office. The Chief would also like you to know he will be more than grateful if you give them all possible assistance over the current matter in hand. He does, however, caution you to bear in mind the delicate situation facing us. Further confirmation, should you require it, can be obtained by telephoning the usual number.
The letter was signed “Arthur,” which, in itself, was some kind of warning. Naldo’s son was, within the family, usually known as Art.
“Have to make a phone call.” Naldo nodded to all three men and left the room.
Barbara was waiting in the kitchen and she raised her eyebrows in silent query.
“We have G-men spooks in the drawing room, plus our man from the Embassy—Lord help us,” Naldo muttered. “Why don’t you go and offer them coffee while I call Art?” He picked up the kitchen extension and dialed the 011-44-71 code for London, followed by a number which would probably get Art Railton from the dinner table.
The number was a call-forwarding line, so Naldo, in fact, got Art’s desk at the Office. “What ho, Guv’nor,” Art said cheerily on hearing his father’s voice, indicating that they should be immensely careful about what they said. Most families have codes of one kind or another, and the Railtons had been using what they liked to call “one-liners”—mainly Shakespearean—for three or four generations.
“Got your letter, Art. Everything still okay?”
“No change, but do take care, Pa. At your age we don’t want to see you take a fall; that last stumble had us worried.”
“I’m walking on eggs, old son.”
They talked rubbish for five minutes, and Naldo signed off with, “Your letter was loaded with advice, Art. Why?”
“Oh, the isle is full of noises, Pa. But you know that.” First the query, to give Art a chance of warning, if there was one. Last, the admonition that Naldo should take care and assume he was under surveillance, both human, and certainly electronic, which meant the phone was tapped. Finally, Art added, “If you get to meet that girl, Robin, do everything you can to help her.”
“Naturally.” Naldo wondered who in blazes was this girl called Robin?
When he returned to the drawing room, Barbara had served coffee. They passed at the door and Barbara made a face, indicating that she was none too impressed with the company.
“Well?” Singer looked unsmilingly at Naldo. “You gonna talk with us now?”
“Depends.” Naldo was uncompromising. “I have no idea what this is about but, yes, I am a retired member of the British SIS.”
“You keep up contacts?”
“Some. Mostly letters. Occasionally one of my old colleagues looks me up from Washington.”
“An old colleague by the name of Kruger?”
“Herbie?”
“Eberhardt Lukas Kruger. German origin, naturalized British subject 1948. Worked, almost from the cradle, for your old firm.”
“Haven’t seen Herb in yonks.”
“You’re aware we’re looking for him?”
“No.”
“You’re aware we’re looking for Louis Passau, the orchestra conductor?”
“Yes. Read the Post and the New York Times. You couldn’t miss the story, even though it seems cloaked in the usual secrecy.”
“Well, then, you’ll recognize the description of Passau’s companion?”
“Good grief. Herbie?”
“Give the man a prize.” Singer did not have those most necessary attributes, tact and subtlety. He had been brought up in the old school of tough, no messing, straightforward one-on-one interrogation techniques. Truth to tell, his masters had sent him down to visit Naldo Railton simply because they knew he would probably put the Brit’s back up, thereby possibly unleashing anger during which Railton might say something he would have cause to regret.
“This big guy, Kruger? He been in touch?”
“I told you. Haven’t seen him, or heard fro
m him in—what’s the expression I’ve heard around here?—in a coon’s time?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s definitely with Passau?” Naldo had been known in his old trade to be blessed with the deviousness of a Tudor courtier. His face was blank, vaguely interested with a small hint of alarm in his eyes.
“Oh, definitely.” Singer tried to do a very bad imitation of a plummy British accent, which failed to the extent of absurdity. “We want to know if he’s been in touch: called, written, anything?”
“No.” Solidly honest in his duplicity. There was a silent count of around ten, then—“You think he’s likely to?”
“Get in touch with you? Yeah. Yeah, you’re the obvious choice. He’s got very few people to turn to. You’re top of the list.”
“Is he headed this way?”
At long last, Ross—the one who seemed to be a man with no first name—broke his silence. “We have nothing, Mr. Railton. Passau and Kruger just disappeared. As though they left the planet. No leads. Nothing.”
“You’re sure they’re still alive? Could they have been abducted?”
“Unlikely. We think Kruger has Passau holed up someplace and is interrogating the bejasus out of him. But they’ve vanished.” He paused, not for effect but to raise one hand in an attempt to stop Singer from playing the hard man again, an endeavor in which, Naldo was relieved to note, he seemed to be partially successful.
“Sounds like Kruger.” Naldo smiled for the first time. “He used to be very good at that. Vanishing, I mean.”
“If he does make contact …” Ross allowed the sentence to remain incomplete. Thin smoke on a breeze.
Naldo sighed. “Give me a number. I’ll call.”
Singer, looking as aggressive as a roused cobra, passed over a card. “Ask to be patched through to me, or Mr. Ross.”
“I’d like to add something.” Naldo knew they would take anything he said with a whole drum of table salt, but he liked dragging false trails. “I know Kruger very well. As they used to say in my former business, I know his handwriting. …”
“Sure.” Singer indicated that he would as soon believe a doper just caught with several keys of crack hung about his person.
“He operates very well without outside assistance.” Naldo overrode Singer. “Simply because I’m the most likely contact he has in the United States, signifies to me that, if he really is being shifty, I’m the last person to whom he’d come.”
“You think we’d believe that?” Singer really was a pain of significant proportions.
“I think you’d be very stupid not to believe it.”
“Okay.” He was not placated. “But should he make contact, there’re two things your old pal Kruger should know. First, in the long run it’ll be better if he brings Passau straight to us; second, it seems we’re not the only people looking for him.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, sir,” from Ross. “And the other people’ll give him a much worse time than us. In fact, they’d most certainly kill him, and Passau.”
Naldo’s mind was suddenly clouded in ice. He felt the old fear come back, shrouding him, as it had so often done during the Cold War. “Perhaps these people, whoever they are, have already done what you say they …”
“No.” Ross was firm. “They’re looking for Passau and Kruger. In fact, they’re following us. The local cops, here, spotted them before we did.”
“And these people are?”
“Mob guys. Buttons. Wiseguys. Goodfellas, call them what you like. Two of them. Very good, which is surprising for those kind of people. But they’re obviously specialists.”
“Why?”
“Why is what we’d like to know, Mr. Railton. Our sole interest is a very old orchestra conductor, who is facing certain allegations. …”
“Accused of being a Nazi spy? Ninety years old, and you’re putting him through an interrogation?” Naldo gave Ross a thin, tight-lipped smile. “I was in the game too long to be taken in by that. I’d put money on you boys having something else on Maestro Passau, but that’s none of my business. …”
“You’re right there, Mr. Railton, so let’s just leave it alone, huh?”
“I didn’t bring it up. However, you’re now telling me that Mafia contract artists are following you to get on Passau’s tail. I’ve read a lot about Passau in the last months: he’s been a good filler for most newspapers but this is the first I’ve heard about Mafia connections.”
“It’s the first we’ve heard, as well. It’s weird, and I can’t say we understand it.”
Singer stood, as a signal that it was time to leave. He looked at Naldo with undisguised dislike: not unexpected, for Bob Singer did not like most people. “If you’re worried that they’ve followed us here, leaving Kruger an open target for you, forget it.” He motioned to Ross. “The local cops have been running interference for us. They didn’t follow us tonight.”
Naldo Railton was not so certain about that. As soon as the three men left the house, he unlocked a drawer in his desk, took out his strictly illegal Smith & Wesson 9mm automatic, slammed a magazine into the butt, drew back the slide, putting a round up the spout, as they say. He then activated the safety and stuck the weapon inside his waistband, hard against the right side of his back. He was taking absolutely no chances.
“NEITHER OF THEM are creatures of habit,” Art Railton had told Pucky. “My father was a field man for too long. There’s never routine. However, they both haul themselves off to the nearest Giant supermarket once a week, either on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. They do their grocery shopping there, but the times vary, like the days. You just can’t tell, so you’ll have to stake out the place.”
Pucky Curtiss, a.k.a. Pauline Una Cummings, reflected on Art’s advice now, as she sat in broiling heat which made the interior of the rented Dodge Colt unbearable. After dinner on the previous night, the jet-lagged Pucky had been given a half-hour map tour of the area by a friendly girl at reception. She had returned to her room, laden with maps and the little guidebook provided by Art Railton in London.
It seemed that Charlottesville, once a thriving, picturesque town with a claim to great fame as the home of Thomas Jefferson’s university, the University of Virginia, had, like so many American townships, altered over the years. The old part of Charlottesville had been reduced to one “historic” pedestrian area; then there was Court Square, with its obligatory statue of an unknown Confederate soldier; and the university campus, almost ruined by a new and splendid UVa teaching hospital which had been built with no eye to blending the present with the past historical glories.
Now, the old part of town was struggling for life, while the rest of Charlottesville sprawled outwards, north along Route 29, the road on which Pucky had been brought from the airport. Within the city limits, R29 was replete with fast-food joints, car dealerships and several shopping malls, one of which was located in Seminole Square and sported the Giant supermarket where Naldo and Barbara did their weekly grocery shopping. As promised, the rental car had been delivered to The Boar’s Head Inn at seven thirty on that Sunday morning and, by nine, Pucky had Seminole Square staked out as well as possible under the circumstances. The Giant was the largest store in the square, the bulk of which was given over to a parking area. After half an hour, Pucky realized the job was all but impossible. Too many cars moved in and out; there was no central area where she could quietly sit and watch for Naldo’s white Lincoln with the registration plates ONE 391.
Though she had never met, nor even seen Naldo and Barbara, Pucky was confident that she would recognize them. During the bulk of the flight from Heathrow to Washington she had studied photographs ranging from head and shoulders, through profiles—left and right—and a pile of surveillance pix which were the usual grainy shots taken at long range. She had also listened, on her personal stereo, to both their voices.
After going through every possible permutation in Seminole Square, she went into the supermarket, marveling at its range an
d choice of foods which made her own local Sainsbury’s look like an old-fashioned corner shop. She bought bottled water and sandwiches, wandered from aisle to aisle, and then along the checkout lines, her eyes raking the people browsing, shopping or standing in line.
She moved the Colt around, taking it from area to area, watching for the Lincoln, looking at registration plates, making sure she did not get dehydrated by the heat. To her dismay she discovered that the Giant was a twenty-four-hour market which gave her no stop time, though she doubted that the Railtons, because of their age, would drive into town after eight.
She went back into the market again, and stayed there for half an hour, buying items she would probably never use, passing the time and never letting a minute go by without scanning the shoppers.
It was eleven thirty when, as these things so often turn out, she spotted a white Lincoln turning into the area next to where she was sitting. She caught the registration only briefly, so was not one hundred percent sure until she saw, with a lifting of her heart, the tall elderly figure from the photographs uncurl from the driver’s seat and head towards the market with his wife in tow. She was in through the main entrance only a couple of minutes behind them.
Naldo and Barbara had their weekly grocery shop down to a fine, organized art. She would initially head for the fruit and vegetables, while he went to the dairy products and then the canned goods.
Naldo was selecting canned soups and only vaguely conscious of the tall blonde girl reaching past him for a can of minestrone. As she apologized, she muttered Puck’s last couplet from The Dream—
“Give me your hands, if we be friends:
And Robin shall restore amends.”
“If you get to meet that girl, Robin, do everything you can to help her.” That was what Art had said and Naldo reacted with caution.
“I beg your pardon, did you say something?” He did not even look at her.
“I’m a friend of Art’s. He said he would get to you and mention a girl called Robin.”
