“A one-eyed man, this is what I am now,” he said. “Maybe I was always half-blind.”
“You got me here, now what the hell do you really want from me, because I’m tired.”
“I want you to trust me.”
“Yeah? Why? What I can’t work out is the way you did it. I can imagine you killing a man, but the rest of it, the brutality, the cutting out of his tongue.”
“I didn’t do it.” He leaned back against the rough wall.
“If you want my trust, give me something back, man. If you want to get out of here alive, you pretty much have to kill me, which is no longer an option, or tell me what’s going on. You say you have to stop some assassination, save the world, which is crap.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You tell me you failed to do your job, then your people will show up sooner or later, isn’t that right? I assume that they do not like their agents to fail?”
He nodded.
“Your fat friend told me Bounine had gone off the rails.”
“Bounine was only the messenger.”
“For who?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s cold in here. I have a sweater in that green bag. Can I get it? You said you had time to listen.” He looked around the empty space.
I kept the gun on him. I got the sweater and tossed it over. I sat back down and lit another cigarette. Max jammed the green sweater over his head and pulled it down. “Thank you.”
“Sit down.”
He sat on the crate again. “What I had no idea of at first was that Bounine knew everything about my life, where I was living, where I liked to eat, who were my friends,” said Max. “It was so easy. I had made it easy for him, letting him into my life, but why not, I thought? We were comrades. Bounine is nothing. He is, what do you say, like stool pigeon? He will do anybody’s work for a little advancement. He will do as he’s told. But it took me a while to understand this. His father is high up in the government, but he’s spoiled and stupid. He had no idea about Rica Valdes, who was good person with a good heart.”
“You spent time with him here, in New York, when he was still alive?”
“Yes.”
“You went to kill him, you didn’t kill him, you ran away—what is this, one of those Russki puzzles, like those stupid painted dolls you pull out of each other? I’d say you’re plenty capable of murder. It’s your business, isn’t it?”
“Not in New York, no,” he said and began speaking Russian, half to himself.
“In English.”
“I was not sent to do this sort of thing, certainly no wet jobs.”
“But they changed their minds.”
“Things change. Perhaps it became a necessity. Maybe a plan I didn’t know of was activated.”
“Did they know Valdes was your friend?”
Max grimaced. “They usually know these things. Right now, everybody believes they know something about me. Your police think I murdered a man on your soil, because you told them I did.”
“Goddamn right.”
“The FBI already knows I am a KGB officer because they consider every Soviet an agent, or at least an informant, and in the last weeks I noticed there were different agents, my regular came and went and then returned—did I tell you that I called him Ed?”
“Very funny.”
“He returned with a second agent, so they must have been taking a more serious look at me. In my case they were right. Their suspicions were true.”
“Then someone will get you, one way or the other.”
“Do you hate me so much, Pat? My real crime was that I am a fool. I thought I could have this life in New York. A clown. To myself I pretended it would serve my work. I became indulgent. For a little while, at least,” he said. “I was very foolish. They were right, you see, my teachers at home would say Ostalsky asks too many questions. He reads the wrong books. He is always kidding around. But I wanted to serve, so I pretended I had changed, and I took this road.”
“You become a KGB agent to help your country? Give me a break.”
“Yes, I did, of course, as a young man here might join the CIA. Naturally I wanted to help protect my country. I missed the war. It was a time of such exciting change, Pat, after Stalin, I don’t know if you can understand, but we felt patriotic about our country, and the future.”
“Why’d they let you into the KGB if you were such a joker?”
“I think my uncle looked out for me for an opportunity.”
“He can do that?”
“He’s a powerful man, or he was, he was a great general. Perhaps he put in a good word so I was able to enter the course. Also, language skills are considered valuable.”
“That’s how you got here?”
“By chance the exchange fellowship comes up, and it is at NYU and to study American literature and this is considered a good fit for me, and I find myself in Greenwich Village, the most wonderful, lovely place I have ever been, among such good and decent and funny people. When I left Moscow, I assumed simply that my superiors felt it would help me with my English language skills, and in learning something of American culture, and I would eventually be assigned to teaching these things to young spies, and living at home with Nina, my wife.
“But then I had to ask myself if it was just because of my good English that I got the place, or was there more? Was I set up for something else even before I got on the airplane?”
“Set up? You think they intended framing you for something. What?”
“I don’t know. Tell me, Pat, is it about Nancy, that you stopped being my friend? Because you imagined that I am fond of her?”
“Imagined?”
“I am fond of her. Truly, in the beginning, I believed her when she said you were simply her friend, like a brother. Of course I wanted to believe, even after I knew it wasn’t true. I am sorry.”
“Does Nancy know you’re a KGB agent?”
“No. But you knew. You read my notebooks.”
“When did you find out?”
“I went back to get my notebooks on Saturday morning. I had changed my mind about leaving them. Somebody had been there. I’m a, how would you say it, Pat, a fucking spy. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I could smell your Chesterfield cigarettes,” said Max, who burst into a stream of furious Russian, the first time I’d heard him speak his language this way. I knew he was using words so bad he didn’t know the English; or else he wouldn’t say it out loud. “I apologize, Pat.”
“For what?”
“My language.”
“I don’t understand your damn language.”
“Did you find what you wanted? Were you looking for something to, as you would say, to nail me with. You have quite a bit now.”
“Does Nancy work for you?”
“What?” It startled him.
“You heard me. Her father is a true believer, why not her?”
“They have no idea.”
“About you?”
“About many things. But they are such decent people.”
“You would think so. Christ.”
“Not because they are socialists, or even belong to the Communist Party, or did once. They are patriots who want to make their country better. Most of them simply believe in the Constitution, in the true meaning of democracy, and in equality. These people want to make a good world. They love the United States, and many have been willing to suffer for their ideals. There are also others not on the left, who care. Like you, Pat. How lucky I was to meet such people. Or unlucky, because I was so tempted.”
“To stay? Like all the romantic nonsense in the notebooks?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get back to this Valdes. If you didn’t kill him, what the hell were you doing over at the pier?”
“At first, I told myself I could carry out my orders. Deep down, I think I knew I was simply going to warn him off. There wasn’t time for him. They sent somebody else.”
“What for?”
“They didn’t trust me to do the
job, so they sent back-up. When I got to the pier, Rica was already dead. I knew it was over for me. They never trusted me at all. I’m so tired.” Max Ostalsky leaned back against the wall, and waited.
Somewhere in the huge hollow space, a faucet was dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Do you know this tale of Ray Bradbury? Of the young couple on the last night of the world, and there is a dripping tap. The wife gets up to turn it off, even though what does it matter? This is how my life is now, I think. Pat, you can shoot me if you want, it would be better,” said Max. “There’s nowhere left for me to go.”
CHAPTER TEN
October 24, ’62
“GET UP.”
Max hauled himself to his feet. I forced him to move to the opposite corner of the warehouse where I had a better view of the tracks outside. If somebody showed up, a second cop, a railway worker, if I got some help, I might be able to take Ostalsky—punch him out, tie him up—instead of killing him. I told myself I was happy to kill him, but he might have information. There was still a chance this assassination thing had some truth to it.
“How did you meet him?”
“I was asked to look after Rica when he came to Moscow. I knew some Spanish from high school.”
“Who asked you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Who?”
“My cousin Sasha. I guess he met Valdes somewhere and he asks me because I speak a little Spanish, so why not? But, then, nothing happens by chance with foreigners in my country.”
“When?”
“About two years ago.”
“Were you already an agent?”
“I was doing my training. It was snowing in Moscow,” said Ostalsky. “Can I sit down, please? Can I smoke?”
“On that box. There. Away from the window, and keep talking.”
“I had told Sasha to say to this man to meet me in Red Square, and I would show him around the city. The snow is piled up high, and here comes this young man in line for the tomb of Lenin, and he is wearing a thin red nylon jacket and white shoes that appeared to be made from cardboard. But he waits patiently. I greet him and we make conversation, he speaks terrible Russian, and I say we can speak in Spanish. He says, ‘This is so beautiful. I never saw snow.’ He is in Moscow to study Russian, to be of service to his country. I help to find him a coat and boots. I bring him to my family for dinner, because people are so curious about Cuba, and we admire so much these people, we, how should I say, imagine them as brave revolutionaries but also from an exotic and beautiful place. We play their music. We examine all pictures of the tropical island. Rica teaches my mother the Rumba, and says this is the dance of the working people. Rica tells us how he was raised in an orphanage where every child was named Valdes for the founder of the institution. He would tell tales of how he was noticed for his languages, and sent to the Jesuit Fathers in Tampa, Florida, for English. He said he was known as El Papagayo, the Little Parrot, for his skill. You don’t want to hear all of this, do you, Pat?”
I told him to keep talking; you never knew when a detail would give you some clue, and I needed clues bad.
“I remember clearly that Rica was a bus-boy at the Hotel Nacional. He tells us he barely got crumbs from American gangsters. Once he serves cake, and one says, ‘this boy did not give me a good slice’ and Rica is fired from his job. So the Revolution makes of Valdes a patriot, and he is sent to Russia for his education in the language, and he learns well. He works as a translator for Cuban officials. He left Moscow last summer to return to Cuba.” Ostalsky shifted his weight on the box. “Can I walk a little?” he said. “My legs have, what do you call them, pins and needles.”
“When did Valdes contact you?”
“You know already. You read my notebook. Last Monday night at the Village Gate.”
“Valdes knew how to find you,” I said. “A woman called Irina Rishkova at the United Nations probably gave Valdes my address, and family photographs from my parents.”
“Who is Irina Rishkova, or whatever she’s called.”
“She’s what we call a letter carrier.”
“What? I thought she worked at the United Nations.”
“She brought mail from my family. For other people, too, letters other things.”
“Orders for agents?”
“I think so. Encoded usually. This is why we call them letter carrier, or mailmen. These sound small, but they are big jobs, important jobs. Pat, please, can we talk about the assassination? I feel there isn’t much time.”
“Then who is it? Who’s the target. Do you have some idea? You said an American.”
“Yes.”
“Then you better damn well convince me you’re not just a murderous Commie, who’s been killing people, and suckering everybody you come across. Persuade me.”
“Yes, of course. We have been good friends, Pat, don’t you agree?”
“You’re very sentimental, aren’t you, for some old Commie con?”
Max smiled sadly. “I am quite sentimental, yes. But not so old.”
“What kind of mail did this woman send you?”
“Valdes had some photographs from my family. He says my mother asks him to bring these photographs to me from Moscow. As soon as I saw the pictures, I knew something was wrong. The photographs had been taken quite recently when it was already autumn. There was snow on the ground. My father was wearing his heavy jacket, and a scarf. Nina was in a sweater that I gave her. Anyway, my mother always put the date on these snapshots. She had previously written to me of Valdes’ departure from Moscow months before the pictures could have been taken, and there’s no letter. My mother would always include a letter. It was an obvious ploy. Somebody, and I think it must have been Rishkova—she had said she had not been back to Moscow when I saw her, but she could easily have lied—because she’s the only one who would have pictures of my family. She probably told Valdes to look for me at NYU, even what time my classes finished. He got there too late, and someone said I liked music clubs.”
“They knew your class schedule?”
“They knew plenty of things.”
“Who you know, who you talk to?”
“No doubt.”
“Including me?”
“Perhaps. Yes. Almost certainly. Are you thinking it is possible that these people also somehow know your bosses?” Max asked.
“Don’t be an imbecile,” I said, but I had thought about it before, and now it threw me off-balance, this idea that there were cops—cops like Logan—so corrupt they were doing business with the Reds. My stomach turned.
“What happened between the time he arrived and the time you got the message to kill him?”
Max looked at me, a man already lost to his own life; he had trusted me, would trust me, because he had no option now, or maybe because he was bitter about the system he had signed up for. As if he understood, he said, quietly, “You must believe that I love my country. Pat, please permit me to stand for a few minutes. I have no sensation in my legs.”
I waved the gun. “Get up. Over here.” I let Ostalsky walk the few feet to where I sat, and I got up and grabbed his arm. “Walk,” I said.
Our steps rang out, hollow on the old concrete floor. “You can keep talking,” I added. “So you signed up for socialism, but not for murdering a friend.”
“I was given no more choice than an officer in a war. That’s what I signed up for, Pat. And I failed.”
“When did Bounine tell you to kill him?”
“I saw Valdes Monday night, I took him to Harlem. Bounine calls me at the Millers, and says to meet him, Bounine, I mean to say. This will make you laugh, he invites me for a pastrami sandwich. Afterwards, we stroll along 57th Street, and Bounine says, ‘Max, you must help your country. Valdes is a loose canon. He has a big mouth. He goes everywhere speaking crazy things against Cuba, and nobody knows what he is now, with us, against us, double, triple. This is no good.’ I knew Bounine was right. I had seen the tattoo on Rica’s arm when he c
hanged his shirt at the hotel. The worm. The words: Cuba Libre. He had gone over to the other side.
“‘Who ordered this?’” I said to Bounine.
“‘It’s not your business. Valdes is a danger now. It would be very good if Valdes were gone by perhaps next Tuesday night,’ he says. I understood what he meant. I was to do a job, and it would also be a test.”
“Show you were a viable agent.”
“The joke was if I didn’t kill him, they would send me home. Or worse. I would have failed. If I killed him, or the cops thought I did, they can arrest me, lock me up, electrocute me, or hand me over to our people.”
“So they wanted him dead because he might have changed sides?”
“Or because he knew about an assassination. Either way, he was trouble.”
“After you left him dead on the pier, if that’s what happened, where did you go?”
“I found a sailor’s hotel, what you call a flop house, near the river. For two nights, it’s all the money I have. On Saturday, I have no idea where to go, so I walk, I walk to Hudson Street, I am thinking of ringing your doorbell, asking for help, but I know it’s the crazy idea of a desperate man.
“Bounine must have guessed my thinking, he had been looking for me, and he just shows up in the Village to tell me I failed at my job. I have no idea what Moscow knows.”
He stopped, and looked around suddenly, as if he had heard something, and I said, “What is it?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“There’s nothing. Go on.”
“I never quite believed Bounine was my friend, but even so I had probably said too much about my feelings.” Max laughed bitterly. “Must I tell you the whole story?”
“Yes.” I didn’t believe his story would reveal much that mattered but it would give me time to figure out my next move. The brass already had it in for me. Where could we go, where could I take him in a city that was reeling from terror and wondering if there would be a nuclear war? JFK had announced the quarantine for Wednesday. It was Wednesday morning now. Ostalsky kept talking.
“That morning, Saturday, Bounine insists on going to Caffe Reggio, he is a connoisseur, he pretends, and this is the best coffee in New York City, and he is not quite himself without the right coffee, so we must walk to MacDougal Street, and I look for ways to escape him, but where would I go? Bounine is, you would say, Pat, a jerk. A horse’s ass. Me? I am a dope. My slang is improving, don’t you think? We arrive at the café, he seats himself in the window and I know, as I have known all the time we are walking—this is why I can’t escape—he is not by himself. Somebody in a car is close by. A black car, and I see it quite quickly. For a moment, I wonder if I can run over to the Rifle Club you pointed out to me, where they practice shooting in the basement and there are many so-called Mafia men. Perhaps they would help me. You understand, Pat, that by now I am feeling a little crazy, because I am so out in the cold, I’m shivering, running from everyone, from my people, from your people, yes, perhaps the Mafia would be better.
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