“I’m not leaving the city or my job, so you can forget about it,” I said.
“This is another Cold War we’re in, Artie. Things are moving fast. The FSB-what they’re calling the KGB now- run the whole show. They run Russia.”
“I know what the FSB is.”
“Everyone thinks they just got some kind of Russian-style capitalism, maybe a little light authoritarian stuff till they get the economy fixed, but that somehow they’re okay, and they’re our pals. Bush says he looked in Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. What’s he think, it’s some kind of prayer meeting? And John McCain he looks at him and sees KGB on his forehead, and he says so, and he thinks this is the way you deal with them?” This was a blaspheming kind of thing for somebody like Pettus who had always been a good Catholic, not pious, but devout, and also a staunch Republican who thought Ronald Reagan was a dead god, and who would walk over broken glass for a guy like McCain. Pettus had been in the Marines in Vietnam.
“I work homicides, it’s all I do, okay? I’m speaking loud enough?” I said. “So I speak Russian, so what? What the hell do you want with me being a, whatever it is, some kind of spy bullshit? I mean they have all that lingo, they talk about trade-craft and curtain-twitchers, and moles and shit. I guess I could study up, read the books.” I kept my tone light. “Why didn’t you just call me for fuck’s sake, Roy?” “I’m sorry. It was stupid. I don’t know. I get used to doing things a certain way. If it will help, I apologize. I’ll apologize again.”
“Right.”
“This Russian thing’s serious. We get calls for help from the Brits, especially, who are in bad shape. They didn’t see it coming, they were obsessed with the Islamic stuff. Ever since Litvinenko, that Russian that died from polonium in London, everyone’s going nuts. Artie, the Russians poisoned one of their own, he got out of line, they killed him on British soil.”
“I heard nobody was exactly sure what happened.”
“I’m telling you the truth. The Brits, they’re paying big time for their government that opened the door, they got greedy, they let rich Russians into London, tax free, and the money came and the crime followed. It’s coming here.”
I’d had no plans to leave New York before last night, and after, after Val stayed with me, I was never going away. We didn’t say anything. We hardly spoke. After I left Pettus, I’d call her. I wouldn’t push her. I’d buy her breakfast was all. Or lunch.
“I have to go,” I said, and we walked to the Manhattan side, and off the bridge. “You think I live in some bizarro alternative spook universe? Honest to god, Roy, how in the fuck would I ever know anything about being a spy in a foreign place? What do I know about London?”
“You worked a case there once.”
I smiled. “You’ve been in my files.”
“I’m just talking, right? You can relax,” said Pettus, tossing his cigarette on the sidewalk and putting it out with the worn toe of his brown cowboy boot. “I’m just here to shoot the breeze with you, just passing through. Get your view of things is all. I always got an interesting angle off of you, Artie. Always valued it. Like running things through a different prism.”
I accepted what Pettus said but deep down I felt it was bullshit. He had a job in mind for me, and I wasn’t going anywhere, I wasn’t leaving New York.
“Right,” I said. “You’re pretty interested in helping the Brits.”
“We owe them. My dad was Canadian. He was in the Air Force. He went over in l940 and flew in the Battle of Britain. The Brits did it for us then and they’re doing it for us now.”
“It’s a long time ago.” I put out my hand. “Roy, keep in touch.”
“You know these people, Artie. You come from there. You speak the language. You understand the territory. You got it in the blood.”
“What the hell is that? I was sixteen when we left Moscow.”
“You got a feel for it, though.”
“Who says?”
“I’m not going to talk patriotism to you. Like I said, I just wanted to chat, honest to God.”
“There’s a load of Russians, very patriotic, very devoted to the USA and right here in New York. You probably got a few in Wyoming.”
“What about your friend, Sverdloff? He devoted? I heard he doesn’t love America.”
“What about him?”
“He spends time over in London. Got himself a club here, a club there, another one in Moscow, he has houses everywhere, hangs out with the real money. Isn’t that the truth, Artie? You’re pals with him, with his kid, too?”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Why? It’s a secret?”
“Is that what this is about, about Sverdloff? You want me to spy on my friend? Go fuck yourself.”
“Come on, Artie, man, you know Sverdloff is one of theirs.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean Russian.”
“Sverdloff isn’t a spy.”
“Don’t be a horse’s ass, Artie. Sverdloff will do whatever he has to do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We’re in trouble, Artie. The whole damn free world.”
“I haven’t heard that line for a long time.”
Pettus got out his smokes again, lit one and offered me the pack.
“Can we talk again?”
“It won’t make any difference.”
The phone rang while we were talking. I looked at the number. It was Valentina. I didn’t want Petttus watching me when I talked to her.
Have breakfast with me, she had said earlier before she left my place. Let’s have breakfast.
“You’re in a hurry?” said Pettus.
“I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have to go,” I added, left him in front of City Hall and called Val back.
“I’m looking at the ocean,” she said. “It’s such a gorgeous day.”
For a moment I thought she had gone away. I felt panicky.
“Where are you?” I said. “Val?”
PART TWO
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Doing ninety, I was in my car heading for Brooklyn to see Valentina. I had left Roy Pettus, broke away from him and his terrorist fables about the Russians. I wasn’t leaving New York for London. I wasn’t going into the spook business.
Alongside the Belt Parkway was the water, the harbor, the sunlight on the Statue of Liberty making it glisten. I had driven this road a thousand times, past Red Hook and the ancient warehouses, past the new cruise-ship port, the parks and garbage dumps. I knew every landmark, but I hardly saw them now, just drove as fast as I could and listened to Louis Armstrong’s
Hearing Val’s voice, I felt happy. And anxious. I wasn’t sure how to behave. For her it hadn’t been-I didn’t know what it had been for her. For me, something else, something like hearing Armstrong for the first time. I was forty- nine years old and I felt like a kid.
