Margaret Maron - The Right Jack

It would come, of course, thought Mr. Froelick. Zachary had made no secret of his will. This was all his now. Zachary's apartment, his housekeeper, his chauffeur, his limousine, his villa in Florence, his chalet in Switzerland, his money. Zachary had been more than generous, but accepting his generosity had sometimes chafed.

No more of that. No more worrying and watching the dwindling buying power of his own tiny trusts.

No more long walks with the man who'd been a brother to him, though. No one to share childhood memories or match wits with over a cribbage board either.

He sighed and buried his head in the lavender-scented pillow and as he fell asleep, he told himself philosophically that every silver cloud had a dark lining.

On the Upper West Side, in an apartment she shared with two other young women, Molly Baldwin hung up the telephone and finished toweling her short brown hair. She'd gotten soaked in the downpour, but that was the least of her worries. She had learned nothing from the call and would probably never learn anything if she didn't go over and identify herself.

But if she did that-

What would Ted Flythe say? He might not make an issue out of it, but Madame Ronay would. If La Reine found out, she would probably fire her and then it would all have been for nothing and how could she stay in New York?

On the other hand, how could she explain? Much less justify?

Almost whimpering with indecision, Molly Baldwin did what she'd been doing for most of her twenty-three years when faced with a dilemma: she crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

The parade of cribbage-playing witnesses continued through the afternoon in the Bontemps Room. Two more besides Jill Gill had noticed Commander Dixon's wandering attention during Flythe's lecture on cribbage rules. The room steward, Raymond George, was questioned at length, but denied knowing her. Vassily Ivanovich, however, was quite another matter. Not only did he admit knowing Commander Dixon when they spoke to him during a break in the competition, he insisted upon it. "Since T. J. Dixon is a little girl I am knowing her."

"Would you like an interpreter or someone from your legation here?" they asked.

The big Russian was scornful. Did they doubt his linguistic abilities? "Me, I speak very good the English," he informed them proudly.

Ivanovich was the embodiment of the Russian Bear: big, burly, and expansive. He had small bright blue eyes, short gray hair, and a flat, florid face. He wore American style clothes-a dark tweed sports jacket, a green wool shirt buttonedt o the neck, no tie, and brown corduroy pants-but something about their fit gave them a vaguely Slavic cast.

"Her papa and I are good friends from the war. We are all Navy together," he said, including Alan Knight in his statement. "You are working with her, Lieutenant Knight?"

"Not exactly with her," Knight hedged.

"ONI?" Ivanovich guessed shrewdly, revealing an unexpected familiarity with the Office of Naval Intelligence.

For a moment, various possibilities seemed to give him pause, then he shrugged broadly. "What the hell? My people know and your people know we are friends. They know we do not talk secrets. Me, I have no secrets."

In heavily accented English, Vassily Ivanovich described how he had met Commander Dixon's father during World War II.

"He is on minesweeper in the North Atlantic; I am on little ship blown up by German U-boat. They stop for us."

Chief Dixon had shared his quarters, his tobacco, and his cribbage deck with the young Russian sailor; andb y the time the minesweeper reached Murmansk, they were warm friends. A chance meeting a few months later in Reykjavik, followed by a riotous shore leave of mythic proportions in New York, sealed the friendship in blood.

Not to mention scotch and vodka, gin and slivovitz, and a few margaritas that got mixed in by mistake.

They had somehow managed to keep in touch through the war years, but the various thaws and freezes of postwar Soviet-American relations eventually made their friendship impractical, if not dangerous. After 1948, they ceased to correspond. I

Ivanovich pulled out a plump plastic folder of photographs and showed them the son who was an agricultural minister near Minsk and the son who was a rising member in the Party. That was the one who had pulled a string or two to get his father attached to a Soviet trade delegation so that the long-retired Ivanovich could enjoy one last American fling.

There were pictures of his deceased wife, the sons' wives, himself surroundedb y four baby-bear grandchildren, and, stuck between several family pictures, one of his old friend Dixon with his pretty little daughter on his lap-Commander T. J. Dixon at the tender age of two.

Sigrid was inexpressibly touched by the child's beauty, knowing that the small right arm which lay so confidently on her father's might soon be lost.

"So," Vassily Ivanovich was saying, "last winter, before I come to America, I write to my old comrade and after many weeks, little T. J. writes back he is dead twenty-six years in boiler explosion, but she is commander now and also in New York. We meet, we talk about what hell-raisers are her papa and me when we young. She is like daughter to me here and she is also very good cribbage player. One day each week we take lunch together and we play. Just like in old days with her papa."

"Whose idea was it to enter this tournament?" asked Sigrid.

"Little T. J. Someone shows her in Daily News and she says, 'We are both so good, Vassily. Let us go and win lots of capitalistic dollars.'"

He looked at them doubtfully. "This is joke. She calls me big socialist bear; I say she is little capitalistic pig."

His broad face clouded. "I love her very much. Officers. They do not let me see her at hospital so I am staying here and I am playing cards but also I am watching. Yet here are so many! Tell me what to watch for," he entreated. "Let me help you catch who hurts my comrade's little girl."

They thanked him for his offer but admitted they weren't sure what to watch for themselves.

"We aren't even certain whom the bomb was meant for," said Sigrid. "Did she ever speak of any enemies? Any problems with her work or in her personal life?"

"Work we do not talk about," Ivanovich stated flatly. "It is not proper. Sometimes she does say how busy day it is, like I say how is weather, but no more. She very much likes her Navy job and wishes she can go to sea or have ship, but never will they let her."

"Is she bitter about that?" asked Lieutenant Knight.

"Sometimes, you bet! More times, she accepts. You ask of personal life, Lieutenant Harald. She is knowing I am old-fashioned about women."

"So she didn't go into detail about the men in her life?"

Ivanovich nodded. Delicately, the big Russian explained that he knew T. J. Dixon was a normal woman with the usual appetites. But her career meant more than marriage, and she discreetly embraced the old sailors' tradition of someone in every port. Currently in New York 's busy harbor were a Dave, a Judd, and an Eli.

"We know about those," Lieutenant Knight told Sigrid. "Incidentally, there's a Bob, too. She must be some lady."

"She iss lady!" growled Ivanovich, ready to defend the injured T. J.'s honor. "And she is gentleman, too, when comes the end. Someone start to love her too much, someone marriage speaks-" His large callused hand made a swift chopping motion. "She cut it off clean! Always I say to her, sure you good officer, but you are woman, too. You need someday a home, a husband, babies. And she laugh ands ay she have little Molly, but now she and Molly fight and-"

"Molly?" exclaimed Sigrid and Knight in one breath.

"Daughter of her dead cousin," said Vassily Ivanovich. "In Florida she is living?"