emerge to cross the frontier. However, once in France, Lenny had still another identity into which to slip ? he would become one Albert Nelson, citizen also of Great Britain ? and it would be as Nelson, four full identities removed from the scrawny, furious, half-mute East Side Jewboy whose bones and furies he had carried for so many thankless years, that he would close upon and take his quarry and begin his prosperous new life.
He raced for the courtyard car park with extraordinary eagerness for what lay just ahead. He could feel his heart beat and his blood begin to sing. The moment he had glimpsed months back in Tchiterine’s dying confession had finally arrived.
But he did not even get to his car and driver before a shout came from behind to halt. He was more surprised than angered: who dared address the mighty Bolodin in such a haughty and commanding tone? He turned to discover his mentor Glasanov closing on him with a look of terrible desperation, at the same time gesturing to two of the other Russian thugs from the new mob who had arrived in the aftermath of the coup.
Glasanov appeared almost mad with fury. Lenny had never seen him so distraught.
“Bolodin!”
Mink fixed him with the dead eyes, waiting.
“Bolodin,” said Glasanov, “damn you. We found the old man, Levitsky, in the convent. He’s been torn to pieces; his mind is gone. What are you up to? What game are you playing?”
Lenny could think of nothing to say. It occurred to him to remove his Tokarev and put a bullet through Glasanov’s forehead, but the others were closing too quickly in the courtyard and he could feel his driver, reacting to the intensity of the moment, beginning to separate himself from the car and its connection to himself.
Glasanov pointed.
“Arrest the traitor Bolodin,” he howled. “He’s a state criminal.”
39
DETECTIVES
Nobody had been interested in them and now they sat in a kind of numbed silence in the first-class coach, alone and silent. The train smelled of tobacco and use. Now and then, people moved down the corridor outside the open compartment, occasionally an Asalto. Once, one of them peeped in.
“Passport,
“Ah.
“It was so
“The Asaltos don’t matter,” said Florry. “In Red Spain, only the NKVD matters.”
He sat back. He felt exhausted. Could it all be done, all of it, Spain, the whole bloody thing? He looked out the window of the carriage and could only see steam, the tops of heads passing by under the level of the window, and, across the via, another train. He looked at his watch.
“We’re late,” he said after a time.
“Does it matter?” she said. “We
“I suppose you’re right. Yet I’ll feel a good deal better once the bloody thing gets going. It was supposed to leave five minutes ago.”
“Robert, the Spanish haven’t done anything on time for several centuries.”
Florry agreed and closed his eyes, trying to quell his uneasiness.
But he could not get it out of his head. Why are we not moving?
By now they had almost completely encircled him, guns drawn. Lenny stood in the courtyard, not ten feet from his car, feeling his automatic heavy in the shoulder holster. He had no real image of the doom closing in on him, but he knew he was in big trouble. They’d found the old man. They’d search his case, find the passports and the money. He was a dead man. The impulse came to go out in smoke and flame, the way Dutch Schultz went out: he could feel the hunger for the pistol build in his fingers. He wanted to grab it and start shooting. You always know, when you go into the rackets, you always know something like this may happen: a bigger gang catches you in the open, unexpected, and it’s over. He’d put the lights out on enough guys himself.
“You American scum,” said Glasanov, “I’ve been watching you for some time. I’ve seen your ambition, your deals, the hungry way you look. You profess to be a Communist and are nothing but gangster scum. Now there’s proof you’re pulling something. We’ll get the truth. Take him.”
The men closed to Lenny and Glasanov, led by the two big new Russians.
“Commissar Glasanov?”
“Take the American trash!” screamed Glasanov, close enough to spray up into Lenny’s face. Lenny could see the hairs in the man’s nostrils and the moles on his chin.
“Comrade Glasanov,” said one of the new Russians, “it’s you who are under arrest.”
They surrounded Glasanov.
“You are charged with wrecking and oppositionism. You are in league with the Jew traitor Levitsky whom you let escape and the puppet master Trotsky. You will be returned to Moscow immediately.”
“But I?”
“Take him away!” shouted Lenny. “I can’t stand to look at the traitorous pig.”
The officers lead Glasanov off.
“Comrade Bolodin?” the arresting officer said. It was some new kid Lenny knew was named Romanov. He was a real hotshot, this Romanov. Straight from the big boss himself.
“Yes, comrade.”
“I just wanted you to know Moscow knows you’ve been attending your duties. They are very pleased in Moscow with the big Amerikanski.”
“I’m pleased to serve the Party and can only wait to spread the struggle to my own land.”
“Good work, Bolodin,” said Comrade Romanov.
Lenny turned and walked swiftly to his car.
“The station,” he commanded.
His driver sped along, siren screaming. He ran through the crowd, racing past Ugarte without a word of recognition. They were locking the gate at Via 7, but he got by them and could see it ahead in the bellowing steam as it moved away. He didn’t think he would make it, but from somewhere there came a burst of energy and he leaped and felt his hands close about the metal grip hung in the last door, and he pulled himself aboard.
“Thank God,” said Florry. “Well, I hope that’s the last delay.”
“I’m sure it will be,” said Sylvia.
The train pushed its slow way up the coast toward Port Bou, flanked on one side by the Mediterranean and on the other by the hulking Pyrenees, and after a time, Florry and Sylvia went to dine. They sat in the first-class dining car over a bad paella of dry rice with leathery little chunks that had once been sea creatures and drank bitter young wine and attempted in their game of disguise to make clever Noel Coward repartee for anyone in earshot.
Sylvia seemed quiet, typically distant; some color had returned to her face. Hard to believe two days ago they’d been standing next to their own graves in front of the firing squad. She appeared to have forgotten about it, or to have dispensed with it. It was something about her he liked a great deal: this gift for living only in the absolute present, this wonderful gift for practicality.
Florry looked away, out the window. He tried not to think of the dead he’d left in Red Spain. He tried to think of the bright, beautiful future, he and Sylvia perhaps together at last. He knew if he tried hard enough he could earn his way back. He knew there wouldn’t be the problem over Julian anymore; he felt he could control his jealousy and
