'A wonderful piece of foresightedness, Gerry.'
'I know it's all part of your technique,' said Hart. 'I know you are trying to irritate me but I'm not going to be irritated.'
'I'm delighted to hear that,' I said.
'But there is a time factor,' he said. 'And if you don't give me a tentative 'yes', shortly followed by a suitable piece of paper, I'm getting to my feet and walking out of here.'
'Yes, well, don't forget to pay for the sandwiches,' I said.
'There's nothing in this for me personally,' said Gerry Hart. 'I'm trying to prevent a foul-up between two separate investigations.'
'Why don't you make an official report?'
'You've got to be joking,' said Hart. 'It will take weeks to go through and at the end…' he shrugged.
'And at the end they might decide that Major Mann is right.'
'There's nothing in this for me,' said Hart again.
'You're too modest, Gerry. I'd say there was a lot in this for you. You tell me that Greenwood doesn't know you are up to the neck in a C.I.A. investigation of the 1924 Society. You're too smart to hazard the main chance in search of a little career-garnish. I'd guess you keep your boss fully informed. And I'd say that you plan to come out the other side of this one having demonstrated what a powerful man you are, and what important connections you have with the C.I.A. and how you can mangle its policies if you feel inclined. If Greenwood was impressed with that — and we both know that he might be — you could wind up in Congress, or' maybe in the White House. Now don't tell me you didn't think of that possibility.'
'Don't you ever get depressed?' he asked. 'You always talk like everyone is on the make. Don't you ever get depressed?'
'I do, Gerry. Each time when I turn out to be right, which is practically always.'
'Do you hate me so much? Would you prevent Mrs Bekuv joining her husband just in case I get some political mileage out of it?'
'You're not talking to a junior cipher-clerk, Gerry. I've been there; and I know how the wheels go round, when jerks like you press the buttons…'
'Now, I've heard…'
'I've listened to you through a Bloody Mary, a club sandwich and a cup of coffee, Gerry. Now you listen to me. I'm not preventing Mrs Bekuv making a journey anywhere because I'll put my pension on an old underwear button that Mrs Bekuv has already made her journey. She's in Manhattan, right, Gerry?'
'We've got a leak, have we?'
'No leak, Gerry,' I said. 'Agents in the Soviet Union — the ones that survive there — don't send messages to guys like Gerry Hart explaining what kind of travel arrangements they might be able to get for the Mrs Bekuvs of this world — they see an opportunity open up, they make a snap decision, they act on it, and disappear again.'
'I suppose so,' said Hart.
'And I picture Mrs Bekuv as a hard-nosed Party-worker, as smart as Stalin but only half as pretty. I see her pushing her absent-minded husband into his high-paid, top-secret job, in spite of his theories about flying saucers. I don't picture her as the sort of woman who hands over her wedding rings to some strange creep who might be a K.G.B. man who likes a little hard evidence. No. But she might loan them out… for an hour or two.'
Gerry Hart didn't answer. He poured cream into the last little drop of his coffee and drank it slowly.
'We'll take her off your hands, Gerry,' I said. 'But no pieces of paper, and I can only
'Do what you can,' he said. For a moment the bottom had dropped out of his world but, even as I watched him, I saw him coming up at me again as only soft rubber balls and politicians know how to bounce. 'But you're wrong about Mrs Bekuv,' he said. 'Wait until you see her.'
'Which of you asked for the check,' the waitress said.
'My friend asked for it,' I said.
Chapter Seven
Gerry Hart and I were both right. He delivered Mrs Bekuv to us within five days and had to be content with Major Mann's worthless assurance that any investigation of the 1924 Society would be conducted by men wearing velvet gloves. But I was wrong about Mrs Bekuv. She was in her middle thirties, a cheerful strawberry blonde with a curvacious figure that no one would ever persuade me to classify as plump. It required a superhuman faith in departmental files to believe that she'd been an earnest fourteen-year-old Young Communist, and had spent eight years touring the Soviet Union lecturing on fruit-crop infections. Gerry Hart was right — Mrs Bekuv was quite a surprise.
Elena Katerina, like her husband Andrei, had prepared her shopping-list long before her arrival in New York. She was complete with a easeful of Elizabeth Arden creams and lotions, and a complete range of Gucci matching luggage containing a wardrobe that would cope with any climate and a long time between laundries.
Sitting up front in Mann's Plymouth station-wagon, in suede pants-suit and white silk roll-neck, her blonde hair gleaming in the lights of the oncoming traffic, she looked more American than Bessie Mann or Red Bancroft sitting at the back each side of me.
Mrs Bekuv was wide awake but her- husband's head had tilted until it was resting on her shoulder. Mann had left it too late to avoid the Christmas Eve traffic build-up and now it seemed likely that we would arrive late.
'Should we call them, honey.. tell them to save some dinner?' said Bessie.
'They know we're coming,' said Mann. He pulled out and took advantage of a sudden movement in the fast lane. Bekuv had found a radio station in Baltimore that was playing Latin American music, but Mann reached over and turned the volume low.
'They say Virginia is like England,' said Red Bancroft trying to see into the darkness.
'I'll let you know, when it gets light,' I said.
'Anyone wants to drive,' offered Mann, irritably, 'and they've only got to say so.'
'And see where it gets them,' said Bessie Mann. She leaned forward and patted her husband on the head, 'We all have great faith in you, darling,' she cooed.
'Don't do that when I'm driving.'
'When shall I do it, then? It's the only tune you turn your back.'
Red Bancroft said, 'Whenever my father asked my mother what she wanted for Christmas, she'd say she wanted to go away to a hotel until it was all over. But we never did spend Christmas in a hotel.' Red lit up one of the mentholated cigarettes she liked to smoke and blew smoke at me. I pulled a face.
'Because of all the work,' said Mann over his shoulder. 'She wanted to get away from all the cooking and the dishes.'
'Men see through us every time,' said Bessie Mann, feigning admiration.
'That's what she meant,' insisted Mann.
'Of course it is, darling,' she leaned forward to touch his cheek, and he took her fingers so that he could kiss the back of her hand.
'You two hide a torrid affair behind these harsh exchanges,' I said.
'Hold it, Bessie,' said Mann urgently. 'We've got two romantic kids in the back.'
'Why is it called Virginia?' said Mrs Bekuv suddenly. Her English was excellent, but she spoke it in a curiously prim voice and with poor pronunciation, like someone who had learned from a text-book.
'Named after England's virgin queen,' said Mann.
'Oh,' said Mrs Bekuv, not sure if she was being mocked.
Mann chortled, and changed down for the steep hill ahead.
It was certainly a remarkable hide-out: an old house set in four hundred acres of Virginia countryside. As we came up the potholed road our headlights startled rabbits and deer, and then through the trees we saw the hotel, its windows ablaze with yellow light and the facade strung with coloured bulbs like a child's Christmas tree.
Parked in the metalled space alongside the barn, there was a bus. It was a shiny metal monster, left over
