didn't look especially thin, either. I don't know about the hair. I couldn't see him when he was inside and only got a quick shot when he came banging out of there. But…'
Lucas nodded. 'Spivak is bullshitting us. About a guy who tried to hang him.'
'It's a goddamn good thing I didn't go chasing this asshole, if he really had a silencer on the gun. Don't want to go running after any pro fuckin' executioners with nothing in your hand but your dick.'
'You had your dick in your hand?'
The waitress came with the cheeseburgers; she had a small smile on her face, and Lucas thought she must have overheard the last question. When she was gone, Andreno said, 'So. I'm headed home?' He sounded unhappy.
'No. I've got another thing for you.'
'Excellent,' Andreno said. He rubbed his hands together and looked around. 'I like this town. This is like a town in the old country. Maybe they could use an Italian restaurant.'
'They'd have to find somebody who could cook Italian food,' Lucas said.
'Little wine, little checkered tablecloths, fat guy with an accordion…'
Lucas drifted away for a moment, then shook his head: 'That fuckin' Nadya. She's fuckin' with me, Micky.'
'I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd beat the shit out of her if I were you,' Andreno said. 'Pass the ketchup.'
Though it was late when Lucas got back in his truck, he decided to call Andy Harmon, the FBI counterintelligence contact. Once clear of Virginia, on the highway, he found Harmon's cell-phone number in his address book. Harmon answered on the first ring, in a quiet, wideawake voice: 'Harmon.'
'This is Davenport. You awake?'
'Yes.'
'Are you always awake?'
'No.'
'Good. I'd hate to think you went around sleepy all the time.'
'Is this about something, or did you just call to chat?'
Lucas told him-the hanging of Spivak and the call from the unknown woman. He didn't mention Andreno. When he was done, Harmon whistled: 'This is turning into something.'
'The big question is, do I confront Nadya? She must've sicced this hangman on Spivak. Unless it was Reasons, but I don't see Reasons being involved in any of this.'
'He has a Russian wife.'
'That crossed my mind, but I'll tell you: I don't believe it. From what Reasons has said, she was one of those people who got out of Russia when the getting was good. She worked for an optician in Russia, and she works for an optician here.'
'So it's just a coincidence…' Harmon said it with a brooding tone, doubt right on the surface.
'Hey, it's your call. I'm not going to spend any time with it, but if you want to check Reasons out, be my guest. My main thing is Nadya. I feel it in my bones, she set this thing up with Spivak.'
'Let me make some calls. I'll talk to you in the morning. Don't do anything before then.'
'What time in the morning?'
'I'll call you before nine.'
'All right. But listen, Andy: people are being killed. I don't much give a shit about spies or anything you guys deal with, but I get a little pissed when people are being murdered and I can't stop it. So… come up with something. Or I will.'
'Take it easy, okay? Take it easy. I'll call before nine o'clock.'
Chapter 10
Svoboda's Bakery in downtown Hibbing had a U-shaped glassed-in counter with the cash register at the bottom of the U. If a customer wanted bread, which was kept in the case to the left of the cash register, he had to walk between fifteen running feet of glazed, frosted, powdered, and jelly doughnuts, cherry, apple, and blueberry popovers, poppy-seed kolaches, six kinds of Danish including prune, apple, and apricot, and a variety of strudels, cakes, jelly rolls, and cookies.
Two small bathroom-style exhaust fans, mounted in the corners of the wall behind the cash register, blew odors from the ovens into the sales space, a mixture of yeast, dough, spice, and just a touch of sea salt. Few customers made it back to the street without a load of extra calories.
Leon Witold and his wife, Wanda, arrived two minutes after the bakery opened at six in the morning. Karen Svoboda, the stay-at-home daughter, was standing at the cash register and tipped her head toward the back. The Witolds nodded at her and went on past the cash register, through the preparation and oven rooms, down a short corridor past the single rest room to a small employees' lounge. The lounge was a cube with yellowed walls and a flaking ceiling, furnished with three tippy plastic-topped tables, a dozen folding chairs from Wal-Mart, and an E-Z clean vinyl floor. The room smelled of cigarette smoke, disinfectant, and warm cookies.
Rick Svoboda, a round-faced man with steel gray hair, was pushing chairs around. When the Witolds walked in, he said, his eyes downcast, worried, 'Hi, guys.'
'You know what it's about?' Leon Witold asked. Leon was an accountant, a tall, thin-lipped, thin-faced man with overgrown eyebrows.
'Something serious,' Svoboda said. 'Marsha Spivak called last night and said Anton was in the hospital. Somebody tried to hang him-and she thinks it's the Russians.'
'Oh my God,' Wanda said. The blood had drained from her narrow face, and she pushed a knuckle against her teeth. 'Hanged him?' she breathed.
'He's not dead, but the cops are all over the place,' said Svoboda. There were footsteps in the hallway outside, and Grandpa Walther was in the doorway, ancient, shaking a little, his eyes blue as the sky. Then Grandma appeared, in a wheelchair pushed by their grandson, Carl.
Svoboda looked at Carl and then Grandpa, who said, 'He's been in for five years. I've been teaching him for more than twelve.'
'Aw, boy. Does Jan know?' Svoboda kept his eyes on Carl, who looked back with the flat stare of a garter snake.
'No. She turns her back on us, so we tell her nothing,' Grandpa said.
'Carl's her kid,' Svoboda said.
'I'm in,' Carl said. 'I don't care what Mom thinks.'
'I'm not sure what the others will say,' Leon Witold said.
'It doesn't matter what they say,' Grandpa said. His voice had an edge of the Stalin steel. 'He is in. He knows our story. He knows enough to send every one of us to prison. Some of us were younger than he is, when we got in. He's our future, and he's in.'
Svoboda rubbed his face. 'Oh, brother. I thought it would stop with us.'
'Never stop,' Grandpa said. 'We have a duty.'
More people: Marsha Spivak, Anton's wife, a heavyset woman with a hound-dog face, a babushka over her hair, the woman who raised the alarm.
'Good to see you, good to see you,' she said. 'My Anton is terrible hurt, terrible hurt…' She'd been born in the United States, but somehow managed a middle-European accent. She'd been to church already, not to Mass, just inside the door to dab her forehead with holy water and to say a prayer for Anton. She was a Communist, all right, but of the practical sort, the just-in-case kind, who had no personal problem with Jesus.
Janet Svoboda, as round faced as her husband, blond, with a long nose that looked a little like one of her bagel sticks, came in with a pot of coffee and a tray of doughnuts. 'Karen will stay at the counter,' she said. 'What else can I get for everybody?'
Marsha Spivak sat heavily in a folding chair, dabbed at her face, took a jelly doughnut and said, 'Maybe a little
