Tapestry of Spies

“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 cafes 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 Investigacion 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.”