by John Gardner
“And you shot back, Herb. Killed a couple of guys. Did well. Won a silver trophy and a framed certificate.”
“Who were they, Lou? Giarre’s men, like you said? Or was it someone else?”
“’Course it was Carlo. Been trying for years.”
“When did he try, before the New York business?”
Passau sighed, deeply, as though he had really heard enough questions and answers. “Once in Rome, mid-seventies. On the street. Ride-by shooting. Motorcycle, like the Arabs do it.”
“Did it make the papers?”
The old man shook his head.
“Where else, Lou?”
“Oh, London, early eighties. Car bomb. The cops thought it was the IRA. Terrorists. I didn’t disillusion them.”
“Any other time?”
“Sure, again in the eighties, can’t recall the time. Late summer. Few years ago. They broke into the Fifth Avenue apartment. Angela came home, realized something was wrong and didn’t go in. Called the cops.”
“You’ve been very lucky then, Lou.”
“Sure.”
“You certain it was Carlo?”
“’Course I’m fucking certain. What is it with the questions? Carlo wants revenge, preferably before he dies.”
“Just for the booze heist?”
“The booze heist and … Constanza.”
Now, Herbie shook his head. “Couldn’t have been Constanza, Lou. Puck and I, we did some checking. Pulled Sophie’s file. Used the magic computer. Hacked into the Federal mainframes. You did the booze heist in 1927, right?”
“I told you all about that.”
“1927, right?”
“Yes. Sure, twenty-seven.”
“And you first met Constanza Traccia when she auditioned for you. That was forty-eight?”
“I told you.”
“And she told you her age. Age twenty-two, right?”
Passau gave a one-note laugh: dry, scoffing. “I never believed that. Like me she was also a prodigy. My daughter. Twenty when I met her again. Twenty years old and sang with the assurance of a fully fledged diva. Incredible.”
“Would you believe nineteen, Lou?”
“Why?” Sullen, a hint of anger.
“Because that was her age. Infant prodigy, yes. Nineteen-year-old prodigy.”
“How? Sophie and I … can’t be. You’ve got your dates mixed up, Herb. Forget it.”
Herbie grunted. “Let me give you the facts, Lou. Sure, sure Sophie could’ve been pregnant when you did the booze heist and ran out on her. All quite possible. But she must’ve lost the baby. Maybe your going was a shock to her, and she lost the child.”
“Constanza was …”
“The record can’t be altered, Lou. Go with it. In January of nineteen twenty-nine, Sophie got herself married to Alberto Traccia. A fine and loving musician. There were no children before that, or in tow. They married January twenty-nine. I seen the documents. Already she was pregnant, and that couldn’t have been you. Constanza was born, August 1929. Unless Sophie had a two-year pregnancy.” He stopped, silent, eyebrow cocked, half smile on his face. “She belong to Sophie and Alberto Traccia, Lou.”
“Can’t be.” A half sob. “Impossible.”
“No, Lou. Sophie wanted to hurt you, I’ve no doubt. Sophie wanted to scald you with the past. Probably went on loving you all those years. I guess Constanza also had reasons for lying about her age. You wouldn’t take her seriously if she told you she was only nineteen. …”
“Of course I’d have taken her seriously. Who couldn’t have? She was rare, Herbie. Rare and wonderful.”
“And not your daughter, Lou. Puck and I got the proofs.”
The old man was silent for almost twenty minutes. Herbie looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Passau just sat there, allowing his body to sway with the motion of the car, pushing first against Art and then against Kruger. Tears flowed freely down the smooth cheeks. Finally he rummaged around and pulled out a handkerchief. Blew his nose, mopped up his face. “All that agony,” he whispered. “All the pain and anguish. And for a shiksa.”
Herbie felt a needle prick of warning, but it really meant nothing to him. “Thought shiksas were no problem for you, Lou. No faith. You were a Jew in name only, you said. So why should a shiksa worry you?”
“Doesn’t worry me, Herb. Jewish men have ties to their faith, whatever they believe in their hearts. Us Jews are special. So she was a shiksa. Couldn’t be helped.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes I think all life can’t be helped. All life means nothing. You work, love, sweat and die. A waste of time, and only half a wink of time in the eye of God—should He exist.”
A little later Herbie asked again about the other times when Don Carlo Giarre had tried to have him assassinated. “Why were you so lucky, Lou? The kind of people Carlo had on his payroll wouldn’t have gone on making mistakes.”
“I had plenty of warning. Always there was good warning.”
“From your friends at Langley? They would have ties into the FBI. FBI Mafia intelligence … the four boys at Langley tipped you off?”
“Something like that.” Passau folded his arms, laid his head back, and pretended to sleep.
“You get any warnings about the attempt in New York, Lou? Lincoln Center? Then on the way to the airport?”
“Someone must’ve slipped up. Didn’t tip me off.”
“Or were those attempts the work of other people, Lou? Not Carlo?”
“What others?”
“You were being taken to Quantico. We all had lots of questions to ask you. Your friends, the fearless four, would have been nervous. Could they have tried to get you taken out?”
“No way. What’re we talking about this for?”
“Because you’re going to dial their emergency number. Matthew promised to get you out if you dialed the number. I need to know if he’s coming to wipe you out. rather than get you out.”
Passau shrugged. “Who knows?”
Ten minutes from the Charlton house, Herbie said, “I know Matthew quite well, Lou. Worked with him a long time ago.”
“So? You said you knew Therese as well.”
“I know Therese. She’s back where we came from. Living in one of those little suites you seemed to like so much. She’s talking a lot. I suppose we need it for the history books.”
“I wish Pucky was here, Herb. I miss Pucky.”
“You think I don’t?”
Now, as he paced around the house, Herbie worried away at what might happen when they came in answer to Passau’s call. How long would they have to wait? How violent would Marty be if he knew his life was blown to hell? How cunning?
Young Worboys came down with the technician. They talked for ten minutes, then he went out to the trail car, got in and drove away. They had all told Worboys he should not be there when the trap went down.
“Benny’s staying,” Worboys told him. “He’s a good all-rounder. He’ll be added firepower if it comes to that.”
“Who knows what it’ll come to.” Big Herbie shook his hand. “I really don’t see Marty walking in on us cold. He’s too streetwise; too experienced. A very careful man, Marty.”
“Even careful men take risks when the chips are down, Herb. And his chips are well and truly down.”
“Sure, he’s got to be like the song. Got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Louis is the negative, right?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. Hope it isn’t too messy, Herb.”
“Give my love to Pucky, Tony. Tell her I’ll be back.”
“Sure you’ll be back, Herb. You’re going to be in the Warminster sweat box for a few months. It has to be that way. Full debrief, right?”
“Right. I know it. Hours of boredom. Telling the story for damage control.”
He watched Worboys drive away, then went slowly upstairs. From the bedroom where they had put Passau, the sad, elegiac strains of Barber’s Adagio for Strings made the house seem even more desolate. Herbie thoug
ht he must get a recording of that, but he also wanted to hear the other piece Louis Passau had mentioned: Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
Carefully, he quizzed Passau about the emergency number. “You got an identifier, like ‘Kingfisher’?”
“An identifier, sure. I say, ‘This is Absalom.’”
“As in, ‘Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee. O Absalom, my son, my son’?”
“You got it, Herbie: Thought you didn’t know the Bible. Thought Shakespeare was your big thing.”
“I know bits and pieces, Lou. Sometimes I think my entire life is merely bits and pieces.”
“Join the club.”
“So you call the number, do the Absalom bit, then what?”
“Give them a fix on my exact location. Also the situation. If there’s danger. Whatever.”
“And they come running?”
“That’s what they told me. Call and we’ll come for you. Get you out. Anywhere in the world.”
“And you believe that?”
“Totally. I call. They come. No doubts.”
“They give you a time scale?”
“Twenty-four hours at the outside. Within twenty-four hours of the call.”
“A person picks up, yes?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s a tape.” Pause for effect—that is what Herbie felt. A studied pause, before, “I don’t think you should listen in, Herb. They could have some kind of detection stuff at the other end. Give them the telephone number I’m calling from, and possibly identify how many sets are on the line. Also no tapes, right? Safer to have no tapes.”
“Whatever you say, Louis. Now, let me tell you exactly where you are, and what you must say.”
Herbie gave him the location of the house in some detail; told him the best way in—“You should say the French windows will be open, tell them you’ll see to it, that there are no guards, only a couple of women looking after you. If you want to make it good, you should also say you’ve been hiding out with me. That I got you here, that nobody’s put you to the question yet.”
They went through it five or six times, to be certain that Passau was word perfect. He lay, propped up with pillows, the little CD player at hand; a pile of CDs within reach. Herbie brought the telephone over to the bed, and Passau took it, turning, shielding the touch pad with his shoulder so that Herbie could not see the number he was dialing. Kruger moved away and tried to keep the pattern of tones in his head—the beep-beep-boop-bip-boop. At least from that he knew Passau was dialing an overseas number.
Louis listened, then spoke. Calmly and with precision. The lesson learned and spoken word for word.
“It was a tape,” he said when it was over.
“Lou, you’re a star. You’re a legend.”
“’Course I’m a legend. You think I don’t know that I’m a legend? Wait till you see all my clippings. Angela brought them up to date. Big leather-bound books. Make good reading in the September of my years, Herb.”
“Where are you now?”
Passau make a small cackling noise. “About late August. Going to live forever. Well, got to make my hundred. When can I call Angela, Herb? She’s a good girl. Tends to my needs. My every whim.”
“When this is over you can call her. Maybe we’ll bring her in to keep you company.”
“You mean I’m not going home yet?”
“Lot of questions still to be asked, Lou. We’ll make you comfortable, with Angela. She already knows you’re safe. We had someone go and tell her. In person. No calls. Better that way.”
“Okay, Herb. You been a good friend.”
“Sure.” Then his own therapeutic waiting pause. The psychiatrist’s trick, before—“How long do you reckon, Lou? How long before someone comes?”
“Twenty-four hours minimum. Don’t see how they could do it quicker.”
“Listen to something happy. Merry.” He looked at the CDs, making a gesture.
Passau cocked his head on one side, “Jaunty-jolly?”
“You got it.”
As he went downstairs, Herbie heard Rossini. Overtures, bright and sparkling, full of life, fun and happiness.
IN LONDON, the young man who had followed Herbie, Passau and Pucky on the flight from Nassau picked up the telephone on the second ring.
“He’s called in,” the voice at the not-so-distant end said quietly. “I’ve been monitoring the answering machine every hour. He called at five thirty this afternoon.” It was the voice he had heard speaking from Vienna, and again close by.
The young man knew about the answering machine, had helped set it up. You could dial in from anywhere in the world, tap out a code and the messages would be relayed to you. Three thousand miles would not be a problem. By tapping codes you could run the message tape backwards and forwards. The young man thought they lived in an incredible world in which machines now gave instant progress reports. “Where is he?” he asked.
“Not far. Would you like to drive me down? It’s time I took care of everything.”
“I’ll be at the usual place in an hour.”
“I’ll be ready. Getting near the end of the road. I shan’t be sorry.”
Somehow, the young man thought he detected a twinge of emotion in his superior’s voice.
BENNY, THE TECHNICIAN, had gone outside, patrolling the grounds. They had told him to stay away from the line of trees where the alarms had been turned off, and to be certain he could not be seen from that area of the lawn over which they expected Marty to come.
Inside, Herbie had made one of his excellent omelettes. Spanish this time, heavy with diced vegetables. Passau got through his as though he had not eaten for a week. He washed it down with a Chablis, asking for another glass. Herbie poured for him, then took the tray down to the kitchen. From above he now heard more music. The Verdi Requiem. “Pray God, no,” he said to himself, then set about doing the omelettes for Art and himself.
“You’d make someone a great wife,” Art told him as they sat opposite each other, across the table in the dining room. “How d’you want to do it, Herb? Take turns? Three hours on and three off?”
“Make it four. Benny can do the threes. It won’t be tonight.”
“But we’re taking no chances?”
“When did I take chances, Art?”
“Practically ever since I’ve known you. I’ll do the first shift. Who knows how long it’ll take? If I were Marty I wouldn’t come within a hundred miles of this place.”
“But you’re not Marty, Arthur. Marty can be reckless. Comes from that deprived childhood. Look what he’s done. Leaked from the Agency for thirty years and nobody ever suspected. Langley thought Jim Angleton was paranoid, not sleeping nights because he thought the Agency was shot through with moles. He was right, but nobody looked in the proper places. They’re going to be well pissed when we tell them the truth.”
They both stayed up until eleven o’clock, then Herbie took himself off to bed, peeking in on Passau, who was huddled in a fetal position, sound asleep, his breathing regular.
He came down again at three in the morning, and Art yawned. “All quiet on the Western Front,” he said as he left the room.
Big Herbie sat on the stand chair just vacated by Art. Sat straight, alert, the pistol on his lap, eyes gradually adjusting to the pitch darkness so that, within ten minutes, he could pick out the furniture, the French windows with their curtains pulled halfway across. His ears picked up the night sounds. The sudden twitter and screech of an owl. He thought, bad luck, death. It was an old English country superstition, hear an owl screech in a built-up area and it signaled death. He could not count this as a built-up area. Or could he?
He thought about times past and times present. In his mind saw Marty Foreman: the pugnacious face, shaved cannonball head, thick arms covered by a mat of hair, hard hands clutching at a pistol, aiming, firing, so many years ago, when they had cornered a long-hunted war criminal. Marty laughing, drinking, smiling as a good, tough friend. Marty wit
h his arm slung up, grasping around Herbie’s shoulders, standing on tiptoe to make it. Comrades in arms.
He hardly heard the tiny scrape of the foot, close to the house, outside the window. Heard it but did not register until the sound came again, then he was totally in the present: body ramrod straight in the chair, hardly breathing, the safety off the pistol, a quick glance at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten minutes to four on a chill morning and all is not well. The scrape again, then the movement at the curtain. The pistol up and the words spoken quietly.
“Come in, Marty, but come in with your hands on your head. Blow you to eternity if you try anything. We have watchers behind you.” Lying, his heart in his mouth, finger too tight on the trigger as the curtains parted and he saw the figure—too tall—with hands raised, palms flat on the head.
He snapped the light on, and it was not Marty.
“It’s not Marty,” the man sad. “My name is Mark.” He was tall, dark, slim. Handsome, carrying himself like a professional, walking with ease. “My name is Mark. You must be Mr. Kruger, I’m honored. Is the old man safe?”
(6)
BENNY HAD NOT BEEN doing the three on and three off. He came through the windows behind the tall stranger, putting a pistol close to the man’s head. “Just very quiet, sir. Very still.”
“I’m not here to cause problems.” The man who called himself Mark was dressed in gray slacks, a double-breasted blazer, white shirt, regimental tie—though Herbie could not identify the regiment. On his feet were soft leather shoes. Probably Gucci. His face showed that he was a man of the sun, the tan smooth, darkening the already olive complexion, and his clear black eyes had that look of one who has spent years gazing over rocks and sand. Looking into the distance, towards mountains—if only in his mind. A man of the Promised Land, Herbie thought.
Benny was quietly patting him down, removing a small automatic pistol, papers, a wallet, an Israeli passport.
“Mark Ephron, Mr. Kruger, sir,” Benny almost whispered with a kind of reverence. They were all taught that the Israeli Service was the best in the world. The best, and the most ruthless.
“It’s an alias anyway.” Ephron smiled, his eyes lighting up. Calm, unruffled, as though he had come in answer to a cocktail invitation.
