The Language Of Cannibals

some people at the Bureau were intentionally hiring racists, doing things to lower morale and spread their forces thin.'

'Michael had grown a little bitter, Harry. Why on earth would anyone at the FBI do that? Did you ask him?'

The old man shrugged. 'He couldn't think of a reason; he was just ted up. The last straw was when he was assigned to spy on Mary's people down there in Cairn. He said it was just another waste of time and that he was tired of throwing away the taxpayers' money. He felt humiliated, and he said he was quitting the FBI. He didn't sound like much of a pacifist to me, but he said he wanted to go to work for the Community of Conciliation. It was the damnedest thing, Mongo. I found myself in the position of saying some kind words about the FBI, arguing that just because they sometimes picked the wrong targets didn't mean that they weren't needed. It was pretty strange. By this time we'd both had a pretty good ration of that cider, and here was Harry Peal, not exactly the darling of federal agencies, defending the FBI, while this FBI agent was telling me in no uncertain terms that the Bureau was nothing but a fascist outfit. I reminded him that I had been a communist, and so I knew what I was talking about when I said that the Russians, at least at the time when I was a party member, fully expected to set up a world government that they would control, and they hadn't much cared what means they used to create it. I never wanted to blow anything up, but at that time I was meeting a lot of fellow party members who did. Anyway, I'd had something on my mind for a time, and. . I'm thinking now that I should have kept it to myself.'

'Harry,' I prompted gently, 'what did you say to Michael that he might later have described as 'unbelievable'?'

The old man shook his head, picked up the bread and cheese he had set aside, and began nibbling at it as he stared off into space. I waited, and finally my patience was rewarded. He finished the food, took a long swallow of the cider, and then began speaking in a low voice.

'Back in the thirties, when I was still in the party, the Russians sent over a cadre officer, a woman, to help us reorganize our New York cell. Supposedly she was to help us to become more effective in recruiting, but she was really there to make sure we understood the Russian Communist party line and toed it. She was a propaganda and indoctrination specialist, and her job was to constantly remind us that we were communists first and foremost, and Americans second. Her name was Olga Koussevitsky.' He paused, looked at me, and smiled tightly. 'She may have been an ideologue, Mongo, and she was most certainly KGB, but she was a beautiful ideologue. Spoke perfect English, and she was one tough cookie. She and I ended up spending a lot of time together, probably because she felt I was in particular need of ideological guidance; I was always questioning the need for the Russians to be in charge of everything. I'd tell her I was an American communist, and then she'd take me for long walks so she could tell me how misguided and deviant I was. Anyway, damned if we didn't fall in love. We even moved into an apartment together. She got pregnant, and I asked her to marry me. She agreed, on the condition that the party give her permission. They didn't; her Russian bosses told her that she was too important to the movement to marry anyone and that they'd received reports that I was a suspect communist to boot. She was ordered to return to Russia, and she obeyed. She was eight months pregnant when she left. I never saw or heard from her again.'

When he paused again and looked away, I reached out and touched his arm. 'Harry, I'm sorry.'

He nodded, turned back to me. 'A couple of months ago-in May, maybe early June-I was sitting out here on the porch, noodling on my guitar and trying to come up with some new tunes, when I see this big yacht steam on by below. I found out later that the yacht belongs to that guy who sounds like a Nazi on radio and television, a nasty fellow with a funny first name.'

'Elysius Culhane?'

'That's the one. Anyway, it was a pretty warm day, and one of the men on the yacht had his shirt off; he was lying on his stomach near the bow, sunning himself. I looked, and couldn't believe what I thought I saw, so I went and got my binoculars for a better look. Sure enough, this man had a big blue birthmark spreading across his left shoulder and down over his shoulder blade. I told the FBI fellow about what I saw-probably because I'd had too much cider to drink. Now I'm thinking maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, like I'd intended; now I'm thinking I may be responsible for that nice fellow's death.'

'I'm sorry, Harry. I don't understand.'

Harry Peal's response was to unbutton his flannel shirt, pull it down to his waist, and then turn his back to me. I stared, transfixed, at the discoloration of his skin; splashing across his left shoulder, bleeding down over the shoulder blade, was a huge, raised birthmark, almost as blue as the sky. Although the rest of his skin was dry, the puffy blue flesh of the birthmark was exuding droplets of perspiration.

'That mark's called a blue rubber bleb nevus,' he said over his shoulder in a low voice. 'It's a genetic trait that runs strong in the Peal family. Just about every Peal has one. Of course, it's not just the Peals, but a blue rubber bleb nevus is very rare. It can appear anywhere on the torso or even cover the whole torso. This man had his the same place as mine, and it was the same size.'

Suddenly my mouth was very dry. I swallowed hard, said, 'Boy, oh boy.'

He pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it up, then turned around to face me. 'I was pretty upset when I saw that guy with the birthmark, Mongo. I didn't know what to do, and I sure as hell didn't think the government needed or wanted Harry Peal to tell them their business. I kept telling myself that I didn't know what it meant and that I had no business spreading information when I didn't know the whole story; when you've had as many people informing on you as I have, it's kind of hard to turn informer yourself. So I just kept it to myself-but it bothered me. I was still debating whether or not to say anything to anybody when this FBI friend of yours came to see me. I ended up telling him, because I finally decided that the FBI should know.'

My mouth and throat were still dry. I cleared my throat, and when that didn't help took a long swallow of the hard cider. 'Harry, do you know the name of the man with the birthmark that you saw on Elysius Culhane's boat?'

'Jay Acton. I found that out when I found out who the yacht belonged to. But that can't be his real name, because he was certainly born in Russia.'

I felt slightly light-headed, and I knew it had nothing to do with the cider. Now when I looked at Harry Peal, I could see the resemblance. Jay Acton would have gotten his dark eyes from his mother, but he shared with his father smallish ears, high cheekbones, a strong mouth and chin. I rose from the chair, extended my hand. 'I have to go, Harry. I think I have some idea of what you felt when you saw that birthmark on Acton, and I think I have some idea of how it tore your guts to tell Michael and me. I thank you.'

He took my hand in both of his, gripped it hard. 'Mongo, do you think my son killed the FBI fellow? Do you think my boy is a murderer?'

'I'm sorry, Harry, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. Things are certainly starting to point in that direction. I intend to find out for sure.'

'Don't go getting yourself killed, Mongo.'

'I don't plan to, Harry.'

CHAPTER SIX

I was back home by 2:30. The official offices of Frederickson and Frederickson occupy the first two floors of our brownstone, and I went directly to my office on the first floor. I sat down in front of my computer terminal, plugged in my modem, and went to work. We paid out close to three hundred dollars a month for subscriptions to various computer newsletters and services-most of them perfectly legitimate, with only a couple of questionable legality. We'd taken courses, and even had our own hack-on-call, a very young computer whiz who'd barely missed getting a ten-year prison sentence for breaking into a Defense Department network and leaving a series of 'Have a nice day' messages in both English and Russian. It was an age of electronic snooping, and Frederickson and Frederickson had taken pains not to get caught with its PCs down. But there was nothing particularly arcane about what I was up to at the moment. As a licensed private investigator, I was legally entitled to use the DMV network. I entered the appropriate code, then punched up the name of Jay Acton. I was in luck; he had a driver's license, and he owned a car. Within a minute I had his Social Security number.