Dan Fesperman - The Double Game

“Oh, my,” she said.

“It’s all in Russian. Do you have a translator?”

“Yes. But without knowing what it says…”

“Right. Not a good idea.”

“There’s a Russian cultural center near here.”

“Not the one run by the embassy?”

“God, no. This one’s private. I’ve been to their gallery. It’s just around the corner from Vladimir, in fact. Artsy-craftsy types, very anti-Putin.”

“Or so they say.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Let’s go.”

She checked her watch.

“I’d better call first. I’ve got one of their cards.”

She dug into her purse, but something brought her up short. Frowning, she pulled out an ivory-colored envelope, sealed, with nothing written on the outside.

“Did you put this here?” she asked, inspecting it carefully.

“No. But I recognize the stationery.”

She turned it over and held it to the light. Her training in authenticating old manuscripts paid off right away.

“Gohrsmuhle, if I had to guess, but from quite a few years ago. I’m not sure they make this anymore.”

“I have a box of it at home. It’s mine.”

“Like the first one, you mean? You didn’t tell me the paper was Gohrsmuhle.” She rubbed her fingers on the envelope the way a bank teller rubs a twenty to see if it’s real. It brought a smile to her face. “Wasn’t this the stationery you used for your letters from Berlin?”

“Very good.”

“How can you possibly have any left?”

“I only use it for important correspondence.”

“How do you think it got in my purse?”

“When’s the last time you opened it?”

“Not at Burger King, we didn’t buy anything. The Braunerhof, probably, before we went to Vladimir’s.”

“Could Vladimir have done it?”

She shook her head.

“If he’d even come close to me I’d have kicked out his kneecaps.” Then her eyes lit up. “Those kids outside the Burger King, the ones on skateboards. One bumped me as they passed. His friends laughed.”

“Really?” I was skeptical. “If my handler has started hiring off the street, then he’s taking things up a notch, or just getting reckless.”

“Maybe we should read the message.”

She slit the top edge with a fingernail and withdrew a page of my stationery, folded neatly. He’d been using my Royal again. A page from a book was pasted on the paper, with a short message typed above it:

Deliver V’ss proofs ASAP

The page was another one from Knee Knockers, probably Dad’s copy. I winced, feeling like someone who kept receiving severed fingers and toes from a kidnapper. We read the passage.

Boris arrived late to the Burggarten, but that was his style. So was sloppiness in general. With each step, the vodka bottle clanked against the key ring in his overcoat pocket. Eventually he grew annoyed enough by the sound to stop and move his keys to the opposite pocket, an occasion which of course called for another shot of vodka. He wiped his mouth on a sleeve and continued. Only when he came within a block of the dead drop did he actually begin taking proper precautions, an oversight which would be logged into Hartley’s report as the Russian’s “fatal error.” The mailbox, at least, looked secure enough. It was a stone just to the right of a statue of Emperor Franz Josef I at the south end of the park, marked with a small slash of yellow chalk. Glancing around carelessly for onlookers, Boris slipped a small plastic bag from his trousers, lifted the stone, placed the bag underneath, then dropped the stone back into place. He took out a stub of chalk from his pocket and made a cross through the slash.

“So you’re supposed to deliver these negatives?” Litzi asked.

“To a dead drop in the Burggarten. Where presumably someone will pick them up.”

“Good thing we made prints. Sounds like he wants them right away. So what happened to Boris?”

“What?”

“In the book. It mentioned his ‘fatal error.’”

“Oh.” I swallowed. “Someone followed him. They waited until he was back at his apartment, then shot him in the face.”

“Is everyone in these books shot in the face?”

“It was a common KGB tactic.”

“Does you handler know you’d be aware of that?”

“Probably.”

“I don’t enjoy his sense of humor.”

“Maybe he isn’t joking. Where’s that card for the cultural center?”

She searched her purse again and dug it out from the bottom.

“The New Moscow Cultural Center,” she read. “Founded 1994. Art. Literature. Translations. Here’s their number.”

“Call them, then. Before I lose my nerve.”

“Before we both do.”

Now she looked as worried as I was. She punched in the number anyway.

The New Moscow Cultural Center looked like a shoestring operation. Its ground-floor offices were tucked behind a pharmacy and a kitschy souvenir shop with a window full of chocolate Mozart statuettes.

They’d been preparing to lock up when Litzi phoned, but the young man who answered grudgingly agreed to wait after she explained it was urgent. We decided to use fake names and pay in cash.

A buzzer opened the door. A few paintings, none to my liking, were propped on easels in the foyer. A man in his early twenties waited impatiently at a cluttered reception desk.

“You must be Feliks,” Litzi said. “I am Mrs. Brunner. This is my friend from America, Mr. Norris. Thank you for waiting.”

Feliks nodded gloomily.

“You have payment?”

“Certainly. How much?”

“Twenty euros per page.”

Steep. Feliks had probably built in a gratuity for himself. I handed him the prints, but he refused to even glance at them until Litzi put four tens on the desk. He slipped the bills into his trousers and picked up the prints.

His eyes widened immediately, and he dropped the photos.

“Is this joke?”

“No,” I answered. “No joke.”

“Then you are crazy. Or maybe you are police.”

“Neither.”

He retrieved the bills from his pocket and handed them to Litzi along with the prints. She tried to give everything back, but he let the bills fall on the desk and shoved away the photos. As they oscillated to the floor he stood abruptly and disappeared down a hallway.

We looked at each other, wondering what to do next, and we were on the verge of giving up when a benevolent old face crowned with a snowy shock of hair poked from the end of the hall. The little man who emerged looked like a forest gnome who had just crawled out from under a toadstool. As he drew closer he even smelled a little woodsy, like wet leaves on a trail.

“Please,” he said, gesturing down the hallway. “Why don’t we step into my office where there is greater privacy. Bring the documents with you.”

He turned before we could answer, so we followed. His office was small but pleasant, with flowers in terra-cotta pots. A window overlooked an alley through the iron steps of a fire escape.

“I am Director Gelev. You seem to have upset young Feliks. May I get you some tea? I am afraid the coffeepot has already been cleaned for the day.”

“No, thank you.” Litzi said.

“None for me, either.”

“May I see those papers, if you would be so kind?”

I handed them over.

“Mm-hmm.” He flipped to the second one. “Yes, I see.”

He had the bearing of a doctor confirming a dire diagnosis.

“If it is not too much trouble, may I also see your identity papers?”

Litzi and I exchanged glances, then she reached for her ID card. I did the same with my passport. So much for fake names. He looked them over, then handed them back with a slight smile.

“You must excuse my precautions. Even with photographs of very old papers like these, the name of the KGB still carries a great deal of power, as you saw with young Feliks.”