by John Gardner
“Tell me what it was about.”
She went through the entire business. A case officer, in the field. East Berlin. A deep love affair followed by a recruitment. The love affair continued after the recruitment. The network was broken. Years later the case officer went back, under the guise of trying to find out who had blown the network. In reality he went back to see his lover and she turned him in.
Herbie damped down his anger. “What they call this network?”
She gave him a quick, troubled, look. “Just Group A, or something like that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, Herb.”
“And who was the stupid case officer? The control?”
“It’s a long time ago. I forget.”
“Who’d you think it was?”
She looked up at him. He thought those eyes could swallow a man. “Was it you, Herb?”
“’Course it was me, but they didn’t tell the truth. I went back, not to see my former lover. Well, maybe I did, but it was a side issue. I went back to get whoever had been turned.”
“And it was the lady?”
“Sure. Just thought you should know.” He told her that Naldo had called while she was returning from Washington. That Art Railton would be making contact. That the lady from the past was back. “They got her in Warminster. There’s a connection. Her and the Maestro …”
“And you, Herb.”
“Sure, and me.”
“And you’re out of bounds? That what you’re telling me?”
“Out of bounds is always there to be crossed. Rules can be broken.”
She stood up and came to him, kissing him deeply and feeling him respond. As with the professional side of his life, Big Herbie suddenly lost his clumsiness, becoming gentle and tender. He stripped her there and then, in the kitchen, and wondered about her provocative gossamer-thin underclothes.
When he took her, Ursula flashed into his mind and he had to open his eyes and look at Pucky’s face to banish the ghost. After that he knew it was Pucky, and nobody else but Pucky. She groaned and clung to him: a noisy, and incredibly intuitive lover. Herbie was in control. He said nothing and did not even sigh, though the pleasure was intense. He did not even feel guilty about Martha. The sex was better than he remembered ever, but the total experience added up to more than simply sex—the sacrament of love, the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible meaning. Ursula Zunder had been exorcised: something that had never happened with Martha, dear lady that she was.
Later, in bed, he spoke for the first time. “You are some amazing woman, Puck.” His eyes said more and she, always bad at timing, screwed up her courage and said she thought she loved him. Then, because there was no immediate response, repeated it, “Herbie, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
The pause was so long that Pucky felt she had probably ruined what could have been a nice friendship. Then he spoke—
“I love how you are. You smell like a cornfield. Maybe I feel the same. Don’ know how it can happen so quick.” He sounded as though he were questioning her conclusions.
“It does for some people. Across a crowded room, and that kind of thing.”
“Happened for me like that, once. Long, long time ago. The woman we talked about. The one who led me to the Russians. I never really got her out of my system, not even after I married. Still here, with Passau, I dreamed about her.” Another long pause. “I stopped dreaming an hour ago. What you want me to do, Pucky?”
“What d’you mean?”
“You want me to stop this. The lovemakings?”
“No.”
“Don’ really know how it’s going to be, Puck. Maybe I love you also. Who knows? Can’t tell yet. What we going to do?”
“Maybe we should see how things go.”
“Okay. I know you are my morning and evening star, my music.”
“Now who’s pinching lines? That evil old man said that about poor Rita.”
“Sure, and he stole that first. I remembered later. Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry. Good movie. I love you, Pucky. Let me count the ways.”
So they made love again and, afterwards, in the early hours, “What light from yonder window breaks? God, is disgusting. I could be your father, I’m so old.”
“Would that be adding incest to injury.”
“Ach! Shut up, woman, and be ready for me.”
He took her again, and thought how amazing she was. She seemed to float in his arms, a feather, yet the very essence of womanhood. Their coupling was different, for she urged him on and they laughed a great deal. Yet, in the midst of the laughter, as she twined her long legs around his large hard body, there was the unspoken wonder of each trying to become the other. This was something Big Herbie Kruger had, until then, experienced only once before.
THE NEXT MORNING, after Pucky left, fully disguised and using an identity she had not worked under before, to do the mammoth CD purchase, Herbie again settled down in front of Passau.
“You want to tell me about Maestro Androv?”
“It’s all on record. Short, a little fat, bald-headed, a brilliant conductor. Inclined to arrogance. What more you want, Herbie?”
“Everything. You said you started a trend.”
“A little joke, my friend. Lenny Bernstein’s genius came to him overnight because Bruno Walter went down with the flu and couldn’t conduct a Sunday afternoon performance to be broadcast by CBS. Something similar happened to other conductors of our time. But I was the first. Boris Androv was taken ill during the night before his concert in L.A. with the Manhattan Symphony. I took over. Simple as that.”
“Really? Come on, Lou, did he fall or was he pushed?”
“Good question. Hard to remember now.”
“Try. You have dinner with him the night before?”
“Of course I did. You know, Boris hated eating in public. Always used room service. I thought it would be a treat for him. I had him out to eat with me. In Rita’s house—well, mine, really, but I didn’t know that until after the concert.”
“And who cooked the dinner?”
“Consuella. She was distraught because of Rita’s death. Well, she had been the housekeeper since Rita first came to Hollywood. Naturally she was upset; she was Mexican. But she cooked for us.
Herbie took a stab into the dark. “You had fish, Lou?”
“How do you know that? That’s not in any of the books.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Stop pissing me about, Passau. The evil that men do stays with them. You got the whole thing in your head.”
“We had soup, I think that cold French stuff. …”
“Vichyssoise?”
“I think.”
“And then?”
Passau gave a great sigh. “Like last night. We had poached salmon.”
“With?”
“New potatoes. French beans, I think. A salad.”
“Sauce?”
“There was a sauce Consuella made with the salmon and two kinds of dressing for the salad.”
“You eat everything?”
“Sure.”
“Absolutely sure.” A long pause, then—“We had different salad dressings. I had the oil and vinegar. Maestro Androv preferred the blue cheese.”
“You knew this before he even came to the house?”
Passau nodded, not looking at Kruger.
“Say it aloud, Lou. You knew it before he came to the house?”
“Sure I knew. I made enquiries. Wanted to give him what he liked. He loved the soup, adored salmon, and liked blue cheese dressing on his salad. It was easy to find out; I just made one call.”
“So, you doctored the blue cheese dressing?”
“Sure I did. Herb, I had to make certain I’d be on the box—on the podium—the next night.”
“What you put in it, Lou?”
“I don’t know. How can I remember a thing like that from all those years ago? I put some powd
er in it to make him sick.”
“So, where did you get the powder?” It was like drawing teeth.
“From the doc who was supplying Rita with drugs.”
“You knew who was supplying her?”
“Sure, her doctor. He was the first one I went to after I set out to help her. He didn’t actually tell me he was the supplier, but he looked so damned shifty that I figured it out. Not difficult, Herb.”
“And you just asked him for something to make Androv sick?”
“I said it shouldn’t be lethal. He gave me the stuff.”
“In return for silence about providing illegal substances for your deceased wife?”
“Something like that. We didn’t use that kind of language then. Illegal substances, that sort of thing.”
Herbie threw his hands in the air. “You blackmailed him.”
“That’s an ugly word, Herbie. I just asked him what to use. I said it was a practical joke.”
“How sick did he get?”
“He was in the hospital for three days.”
“Some practical joke. Three days. What did the doctors say?”
“That he had some kind of stomach ailment. They called it acute gastric enteritis. I sent him flowers and grapes.”
“Big of you.”
“Boris was grateful. He gave me a job. His associate director.”
“And the concert?”
“You know about the concert.”
“Refresh my memory.”
The telephone had rung at six in the morning. The Manhattan Symphony Orchestra’s manager.
“Maestro Androv’s been taken very sick.” The man sounded out of his head with worry.
“Oh, my God.” Louis had been in a deep sleep, but he remembered everything, awake and fully in command as soon as the bell rang. “Not serious, pray God not serious?”
“He’s bad. The doctors won’t commit themselves.”
“Merciful God!”
“The concert, Mr. Passau. We can’t cancel. Can you take the Maestro’s place?”
Louis counted to fifteen before replying. “I will do my best. Can you have the orchestra together in a couple of hours? No, say nine o’clock?”
“Of course.”
“Herbie, he went on thanking me,” the Maestro said in the present. “So I got up. Took a shower, called the hospital—by then they said he was in no danger. I went to the rehearsal and we worked until three in the afternoon. That night I did the concert: we did the Leonora Overture, then Strauss’ Don Quixote; for the second half, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. A hard night, but the orchestra was wonderful. Couldn’t have had better, and I showed them who was in charge. They were unhappy about parts of my reading of the Strauss, but they did it my way.”
“So the next day you were hailed as a genius?”
“The reviews weren’t altogether unfavorable. In fact I got three good things the next day.” He ticked them off on his fingers, “One, I was recognized; two, the attorneys told me about Rita’s will; three, I visited Boris Androv in the hospital, and he asked if I would become his assistant director. I said no, but I would be his associate director. He agreed. It was a little pitiful to see him, the poor man had really been most unwell.”
“You went back to New York with them, and the rest is history, eh, Lou?”
“Some of the rest is history. Some will be new to you.” He did not answer any further questions that day. “I must prepare for this journey,” he said. “It is a long way to Florida, and I don’t know if I’m even going to like it there.”
“You’ll like it.” Herbie sounded threatening.
(7)
IT WOULD TAKE TWENTY HOURS of driving. By splitting it up, and stopping early each evening at random motels, they could get to Captiva Island, on the Florida Gulf Coast by Sunday afternoon. So Herbie took out his security system, cleaned up and tried to leave things as he had found them. He began at five thirty in the morning and they left the house just before noon, Pucky wearing her long black wig—“My Morticia Addams look”—and Louis Passau riding comfortably in the back with Herbie. Passau insisted they have the radio on, and it was tuned to a rock and roll, country and western, station which he demanded to hear. The music was strictly for ageing baby boomers, and the young shit-kicking set.
Passau and Pucky sang along with Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, joining in with the rocking, witty, “Queen of the Silver Dollar.”
Herbie was outraged. “What is this garbage, Lou? You, of all people, who can draw huge emotion from an orchestra, and you sing this rubbish.”
Passau patted him on the arm. “You’re a musical snob, Herb. This is also music. Enjoy …”
“But what’s it all mean? Four electric guitars and a drum kit.”
“It’s the modern equivalent of chamber music.”
“Is the modern equivalent of chamber pots.”
“It’s people being happy.”
“It’s people throwing up bilge. Crap. Bad for the eardrums. Terrible for the nerves.”
“They said that about atonal music.” Passau wagged a finger. “It’s crap if you listen to this stuff alone and nothing else. It’s okay for taking in small doses. Makes you feel happy. Nothing wrong in feeling happy and enjoying yourself.” He leaned towards his interrogator. “I tell you something else for nothing, friend Kruger. You listen to some of this, then real music sounds more heavenly.”
Garth Brooks was at it now, telling tales about men who would leave everything to follow the rodeo.
“When we going to have a bit of Elton John?” Passau asked the air and, as though he had some direct line to the d.j., Elton came on singing “Tiny Dancer.”
Again Passau and Pucky sang along—
“Blue jean baby,
L.A. lady, seamstress for the band …
… Tiny Dancer in my hand.”
“I had a dresser once called Tiny,” Passau mused. “Dresser and bodyguard. Stood six-four in bare feet. Strong as an ox.”
“I bet you needed a bodyguard.” Herbie smiled at him wickedly. “All the things you got up to. The husbands probably came after you wanting to ram your baton where the sun never shines.”
“What do you know?”
“I know what I know, that’s all. You go to New York with Boris Androv. What then?” Herbie pressed record on the tape recorder in his bulging pocket. The tiny microphone was fixed behind the right lapel of his crumpled jacket, only a foot or so from Passau’s face. Pucky pointed the car onto Interstate 95, heading south.
“I worked.” As though that was all there was to it. “The work is very hard, Herbie. You could never know.”
“For a year you were Androv’s associate director. So how did you work?”
“I told you, Herbie, it is technical. Technical you don’t want to hear.”
“Try me.”
There was a long pause. “Okay, switch off the radio, Pucky, and listen to me, Mr. Kruger. You say I have a particular magic, that I can weave music from the air, interpret what any particular composer wanted other people’s ears to hear so they would sing, laugh, cry, fall in love, or see God’s face. True, I can do all these things. How it is done is another matter. I can give you the techniques—though you won’t understand them—but it is impossible for me to explain the magic, okay?”
“If you say so, Merlin—ah, Maestro.”
“Okay, pick a piece of music—not Mahler, that would take too long. Just pick something popular from the repertoire.” As Herbie hesitated, so Passau prodded, “Go on. You’re the expert listener.”
Kruger nodded. “Right. Something from Beethoven okay?”
“Oh, we have to? Beethoven is not my first choice. You know people have strange ideas about Beethoven.”
“Different strokes for different folks, Maestro.”
Passau grunted. “Go on then, pick something nice and popular.”
“Okay, Ravel. Bolero. A few of years ago you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the bloody Bolero. Some i
ce skaters used it, and it became number one hit to everyone. Later it was Pavarotti singing ‘Nessun dorma’! Top of the pops. Suddenly everyone was an opera-lover, though most only heard ‘Nessun dorma.’”
“I told you, Herb. You’re a snob. Okay, Ravel. Bolero. You got to imagine I have a whole orchestra in front of me here. You can imagine, yes?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” So Passau began, addressing the invisible symphony orchestra. “There isn’t much you can do with the piece. It’s ingrained into people’s minds, but we’ll try one or two things that’ll make it sizzle, right?”
First, he was purely technical, as he had promised. He broke the throbbing rhythms down, took the music by the scruff of the neck and analyzed it. After that, he worked with the mythical brass, the fictitious strings and the imaginary percussion, going through each part separately before bringing them together. He was off in a world of his own. Singing pieces of the score for the brass, divorced from the rest of the orchestra, then doing the same with the woodwinds, followed by the strings, after that the percussion. Herbie could almost hear this fictional orchestra, conjured in the Maestro’s imagination.
Passau broke the simple, strident rhythms apart, then put them back together again. He rehearsed the entire orchestra, stopping them to give some detailed note about how he wanted the theme built, or the pauses held a shade longer, or where he wanted the sound to build—“This is heartbeats,” he said at one moment. “This is lifeblood being pumped through the arteries. You have to be at one with the entire life force that is in the music. No, I want it more obstreperous, more pagan. I want it as God might hear it as He breathed life into all mankind. It is like constructing with bricks of sound. …” And so, and so, until, “… The climax is huge, a massive sound, it is orgasmic. Think of it as sex: the outpouring, the organs melding, a huge, world-engulfing orgasm … and very, very fortissimo, by which I mean it’s got to remove the earwax.”
Herbie’s mind whirled to the dazzling one-man show. He could have sworn that he heard every note of the piece; that an entire symphony orchestra had been with them in the car. “Never have I had such an experience,” he declared later to Pucky. “I’ve always thought Bolero was a surface piece, automatic, no depth. This old man made the thing live. It was like the conjuring of some primal spirit. Primal is right, Pucky, yes?”
