Tapestry of Spies (7 page)

Lenny stood to leave. The old man looked like one of those bums you find on Seventh Avenue after the Harlem niggers got done rolling him: all beat to shit, beat to craziness, not good for nothing. Naked, shivering, in the straw, his face punched to shit. It made Lenny sick. He was so big once, this old man, and now look at him.

The old man fought to get a word out. It came in a whisper, racked and hoarse.

“Whaaaa?” said Lenny.

“G-g-g-g-gelt,”
the old man finally spat out. Money.

Lenny bent. Maybe the old guy had a stash somewhere.

The old man’s feeble hand flew up to Lenny’s shoulder. It felt like a perched bird.

“Save me, nu? Save an old Jew?”

“How much? Talk a figure.”

“Lots. Would I lie?”

“Everybody lies.”

“Gelt!
Lots and lots, I’m telling you.”

“Where, up your asshole?”

“Gold, by the ton.”

“A ton of gold. In a mountain somewhere, no? Old putz, talking dreams.”

Lenny had an urge to kill him. Put the thumb to his throat, press it in; he’d be history in a second.

“In 1931, me, Lemontov, Levitsky, we worked in England as spies.”

“It’s old business.”

“Listen. Listen.”

“So fucking talk.”

“Levitsky found a student at a fancy university.”

“Who’s this Levitsky?”

“Teuful.”

“Devil?”

“Shayner Yid
. Devil Himself. The old revolutionary. The master spy. He was head of Comintern. A real important guy.”

Lenny was growing interested. But what was the money angle?

“Go on, you old fuck,” he said.

The old man told him swiftly, croaking the story out of his swollen lips in little bursts as he grabbed on to Lenny’s arm with his tight hand, about the boy in England, the gentile boy who would rise, and yet was bound in special ways to old Levitsky, the spy.

“The Devil Himself owns the boy’s soul,” the old Jew said.

“What’s this guy’s name?” Lenny wanted to know.

“I don’t know it. I only served Levitsky, the man is a genius. I never knew any of the real secrets. Lemontov
didn’t know. But I saw him once. The boychik, I saw him. When I was in a place I shouldn’t have been.”

“Where’s the dough you’re talking about?”

“He’s in Spain, five years older, this boy, now grown to a man. Working for the Russians, nu? I’ve seen him with my own two eyes. I can point him out. He’s in the cafés every night.”

“So what’s this talk of a ton of gold, old man. You pulling my putz?”

“Listen good. The Russians took gold off these Spaniards. To pay for guns, they said. It was shipped out, they said. And everybody thinks it’s gone. But at the last minute, they got scared when the Italian submarines started sinking ships. I know, I found out in the harbor. Those ships they loaded up with gold, they were empty. They hid the stuff. Somewhere in this city. They’re going to take it over land, through Europe. This Englishman, it’s his job, I tell you. He’s here to move the gold, because the Russians don’t trust their own people. This Englishman, he knows where the gold is. When he moves, the ton of gold moves too.”

Lenny looked at him, feeling something working in his head. A ton of gold. Moved secretly. An Englishman. Who would suspect an Englishman moving Spanish gold for the Russians?

Lenny thought it over. A ton of gold! Ripe for picking. With only an Englishman for a guard.

Lenny liked the idea of a lot of money; it meant you went to the clubs and everybody knew you and you had a swell dame and guys were always coming by and asking how you were, the way they did with Lepke.

“One thing. We got to protect Levitsky. He’s family, nu? He’s one of us. He’s one of us. He’s
shayner Yid
, and we don’t give him away.”

“Ah, he’s off in Russia somewhere drinking vodka with his pals.”

“No, I’m telling you. He’ll check in on his boychik, he will. He’s the smartest man in the world, a chess champion, a genius, not like us. Hah, he—”

He made a sudden strange, gurgling sound.

“I don’t feel so good,” the old man said. “When you hit me, the last time, in the side; my gut hurts.”

“You’re okay.”

“No, get me a doctor. You gotta get me a doctor.”

“There ain’t any doctors in this joint. What, a stomach ache? In the morning, you’ll be—”

But the old man had gone gray almost incredibly and he continued to choke and gurgle and tremble.

“Help me!” he said, his one eye opened wide. His hand flew to Lenny and grabbed his arm desperately. “Help me!”

“Fuck you,” said Lenny, but he was talking to a corpse.

And fuck me, too, Lenny Mink thought, with his dream of a ton of gold as dead as the body before him.

A few days later, Lenny received a bit of unusual news. He was told to proceed, in daylight, to Glasanov’s office in the Main Police Building on the Via Layetana, not far from the port. This was quite peculiar. Lenny had never been there before.

Some German drove him from the convent to the station. It was a big, square, white building in the middle of a busy city street, just a few blocks from the Ramblas. The revolutionary slogans and painted initials, the rippling banners, the huge posters of old men with goatees could not quite disguise the grandeur of the place, its link to a time when Spain had been ruled by about six guys who built everything to look like a wedding cake. It was
maybe nine stories tall, and each window had a little balcony under it, all the way up. You went in through a main gate under a banner that said
LET US GO FORWARD INTO THE MODERN AGE
which took you into a courtyard and then you went in a set of double doors which took you into a big corridor and then you went up four flights to find Glasanov’s office.

Glasanov, Lenny understood, was some kind of “adviser” to the Barcelona police department, which meant he ran it. He was helping them organize what they called the Servicio de Investigación Militar, the SIM; Lenny also understood that the SIM was a Spanish version of the NKVD; or, rather, that it
was
the NKVD. It was like gangs anywhere: one gang got control and they tried to take over everywhere. A tough gang stayed tough by squashing any gang that thought it was tougher.

Yet Glasanov’s office turned out to be a modest arrangement at the end of a hall. He walked in to find Glasanov standing. Glasanov looked a little like a German because he was so pale and blond. He was not smiling, but he never smiled, because he took his responsibilities so seriously. His cheeks had an almost artificial color to them, which the Russians called the “midnight look,” because it seemed to show up on the faces of officials who spent the nights in their offices.

“Comrade Bolodin. Our Amerikanski.”

Lenny had never liked the revolutionary pseudonym; he still had to think twice when one of the Russians called him by it.

“Comrade commissar,” Lenny responded. He hated the comrade shit, the talk of history, the endless lectures on scientific Marxism and the necessity for building a better world. But when you worked for a boss, you played it his way. Until you got yours.

“A drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Excellent. A man who controls his appetites. I like that.”

“Is this about the old guy? Look, it wasn’t my fault he croaked.”

“No, no. An accident. A terrible accident. He was in ill health. Moscow understands.”

Lenny waited. What
was
the story?

“Here. I have something for you. It’s time, I think, for you to take a more active role in the processes of enforcing Party discipline here in Barcelona. This is why I asked you to come by.”

He handed over a card.

Lenny realized it was an ID naming him a captain in the SIM—making him, in other words, an official secret policeman and giving him all the rights and responsibilities thereof, which included the right to make spot arrests and searches, to confiscate property and vehicles in the service of the state, to command units of the Asaltos, or assault police, to extract immediate cooperation, not to say obedience, from all civil authority.

“There’s much work ahead,” Glasanov went on. “There are traitors everywhere, do you understand? Even in Moscow in the heart of government, among the oldest and most trusted of the revolutionary fighters. Every day, they confess their crimes in the dock, or flee.”

“So I hear,” said Lenny Mink.

“The late Comrade Tchiterine,” said Glasanov, “for example, was under the control of a famous revolutionary fighter named Levitsky, who was the worst. Tchiterine, a man named Lemontov who has disappeared, and this Levitsky, they formed a terrorism center, working at
espionage to betray us. Levitsky was second only to Trotsky. Did Tchiterine, by chance, mention Levitsky?”

“He didn’t mention anybody. He just died.”

“Umm. I had thought they might have been in contact. They seem to have been in some sort of plot together.”

Lenny grunted, thinking
What plot, you fuck?

“First Lemontov disappears—that should have been the tipoff. At least we were fast enough to nab Tchiterine.”

“What about this guy Levitsky?”

“Ah. A wily old fox. They call him the Devil Himself, for certain colorful exploits. He’s gone. He disappeared from Moscow even as the security people were coming to arrest him.”

Lenny nodded.
The old fucker was out!

“I tell you this to encourage your vigilance. We are preparing to move against our enemies here. The days of café sitting will soon be coming to an end.”

“You can count on me,” said Lenny.

“Of course. You are an extraordinarily valuable man.”

Glasanov handed him a piece of paper. On it was written a name.

“An oppositionist. He leads the propaganda battle against us in his newspaper. His organization is powerful, and he is one of its leaders.”

It was just like at Midnight Rose’s. The word came, and you took somebody for a ride.

“You want him killed.”

“Ah—”

“Believe me, he’s gone.”

“There will be others. Some to be arrested and interrogated, some to be liquidated. You must cut off the head of a beast before you dispose of its body. A period of great struggle is coming, and I am personally charged with commanding our forces.”

But Lenny wasn’t really listening, nor was he thinking about the man he would pop that night.

He was thinking of what old Tchiterine had told him.

He’ll
check in on his boychik
.

Lenny smirked in triumph. He knew what none of them knew. He was ahead of this smart Russian, he was ahead of everybody in the world. He knew where this Levitsky, this
teuful
, would head. The Devil Himself, eh?

Well, the old guy was coming straight to Barcelona, to check up on his boychik. And he’d lead Lenny to him. He’d lead him to the
gelt
.

“Comrade,” said Glasanov. “To the future.” He handed him a small glass of vodka. “You must not refuse me.”

“Let us go forward into the modern age,” said Lenny, throwing the vodka down his throat.

He hated vodka.

F
LORRY MET HOLLY-BROWNING THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY
on a bench in Hyde Park. The older officer had a bag of peanuts for the pigeons and a briefcase. Mr. Vane sat quietly three benches down the walk, looking blankly off through the trees.

The major sighed, his eyes settling on some obscure object in the far distance. He shelled a peanut, launched it to the walk, and a doddering, scabby old pigeon contemptuously gobbled it off the concrete.

“I wonder if this is quite necessary,” said Florry impatiently.

“Oh, there’s not much to say, Mr. Florry. The technical business is quite easily taken care of. We try to keep things simple. You’ll find this is useful.” He handed over a package, which Florry opened quickly. It was a thick, densely printed book.

“Tristram Shandy?
I loathe it. I loathe Laurence Sterne. I never was able to finish it.”

“I haven’t met anybody who has. And that’s the point. But it will do for an introduction to a chap in Barcelona called Sampson. David Harold Allen Sampson—”

“The
Times
writer?”

“Yes, indeed. You’ve seen his dispatches?”

“He’s awfully dull, I think. Julian’s stuff is much better.”

“Sampson represents our interests there, and through him you’ll keep us informed. He’s got an office on the Ramblas, Number 114 Rambla San Jose. He can reach us quickly via the consulate wireless. Can you remember that?”

“Of course.”

“Show him the book. It’s a way of saying hullo, we’re in the same firm. He’ll guide you to Raines.”

“I’m sure I’ll have no trouble finding Julian.”

“And there’s this.” From the briefcase he withdrew another bulky package, something heavy wrapped in oilskins. Florry took it in his lap and began to pull apart the rags.

“Not here. Good Christ, man, somebody might see—”

But Florry plunged ahead: he got enough of the material apart to penetrate to the center of the treasure. Wrapped in an elaborate leather rig there was a vaguely familiar object, and as his fingers flew across it, he recognized it immediately. He put his hand on the grip and pulled it out.