Ted Allbeury - The Twentieth Day of January

Dempsey called twenty minutes later from a public callbox.

“Why the code, Viktor?”

“Forget it.” His voice was sharp and tense.

“OK. What is it?”

“I need to see you urgently.”

“It’s going to be difficult. Can you come here?”

“That’s impossible.”

“I’ll come up and see Jenny. About eleven tomorrow night.”

“OK. How are things?”

“Fine. You sound worried. What’s the problem?”

“No problem. I’m just screwed out from travelling.”

“Good. See you.”

“OK.”

Kleppe walked to the girl’s apartment on 38th. Dempsey was already there and Kleppe handed him the envelope from Moscow. He saw Dempsey hesitate for a moment and then slip it in his pocket.

Jenny poured them drinks and went to her room.

“How are things with Powell?”

Dempsey shrugged. “He’s beginning to get the message. He knows the score and I’m not pressing him. There’s no need. He’ll cooperate. I laid it on the line. It’s made him uneasy with me but that’ll wear off. He loves the whole damn thing like a kid in a toy shop. Spent two hours this afternoon reading IRS and FBI reports on friends and enemies. He’s flying down to LA tomorrow in Air Force One.”

“What’s he doing down there?”

Dempsey smiled knowingly. “Putting in a pre-emptive word with the company chiefs who’ll lose defence contracts. Handsome compensation and prefabricated housing contracts instead.”

“Moscow will give contracts for modular housing as soon as you say the word.”

“All in good time, Viktor. Let the dust settle first.”

“Who’s he picking for the senior appointments?”

Dempsey went over the list and gave background details on all of them. Dempsey was not attempting to influence any appointments. In the short term they didn’t matter and in the long term a lot could happen.

Dempsey poured more drinks and took off his jacket. As he leaned back comfortably in his chair he laughed.

“You know, if Powell co-operates on all these points he’s going to have Moscow’s ear direct. They won’t need us.”

Kleppe shrugged. “So what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that we shall be the only people who know everything that’s gone on. Powell will know that, and Moscow knows it, too.”

Kleppe’s head came up slowly and he swirled his drink around before he looked at Dempsey.

“And?”

“And we shall not only be superfluous but an embarrassment.”

Kleppe had already worked out that equation months ago, and it disturbed him even more that Dempsey found it an obvious solution. Yuri Katin would enjoy solving that little problem. He reached forward and switched on the TV. The newsreader was covering a homicide on the Staten Island ferry and moved on to the Traffic Commissioner’s warning about dangerous road conditions on all roads out of the city. Kleppe was just reaching forward to switch off when the newsreader’s eyes went from the teleprinter to a note that had been slid along the desk. With his eyes down he read the item.

“We have just received reports of a double killing in Hartford, Connecticut, late last night. A retired union official and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Siwecki, and a secretary who was employed in the District Attorney’s office all died from gunshot wounds.” The announcer looked up to the camera. “We have no further details at this moment. The weather tomorrow is expected to be the same mixture of snow and…”

“For Christ’s sake, Viktor. What’s going on?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Siwecki was the union negotiator at the strike at the Haig plant way back.”

“Who’s the girl?”

“How in hell should I know?”

“Maybe it’s some union fight.”

“Don’t shit me, Viktor.”

“I’m not, Andy. I’ve no idea what it’s all about. Phone your contacts down there and check it out.”

“No way, my friend.” He looked intently at Kleppe’s face. “If this is you, Viktor, or your people, then they’re crazy.”

“Why should I do that? Give me a reason.”

Dempsey sighed. “I couldn’t, but some of those goons of yours at the UN don’t need reasons.”

After Kleppe had gone Dempsey took out the envelope and looked at it. It was ten minutes before he tore it open. He read it slowly.

There were two pages in that big, childish handwriting, with small circles instead of dots over the i’s. And as always she wrote in French, the only language they had in common.

Cher Andy,

Your lovely letter came last month and I’ve read it a thousand times. I am back from Leningrad. They gave me an exhibition there in the annexe to L’Hermitage. One reviewer said they reminded him of Van Gogh. Three have been bought by the Minister herself. One of them is to be a birthday present to the Chinese Ambassador.

Little Alexandra is with me and she is doing well at school. We have a refrigerator now in the Moscow apartment and we live very well. Always I am thinking of you and your sacrifice for us. The man who came with your letter said he had seen you in New York and you were well. Sometimes at night I think of us in the rue Mouffetard and how you loved the chocolate cake from the pâtisserie across the road.

Some day, perhaps, there will be no more problems for us.

Tears were running down his face when the girl walked back into the room.

“Andy, what is it, my love?”

He shook his head, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The girl saw the letter and the photograph.

She said softly and gently. “Is it from Halenka?”

He nodded.

“Are they both all right?”

“Yes.” He shuddered from crying, as children do. She put her hand on his knee. “Don’t be unhappy, love. She loves you. You can be sure of that.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that, Jen. I miss her so terribly. One morning we got up not knowing it was going to be the last. Eight hours later we were both in jail, and apart from that terrible journey to the airport that was it. Finished. Over.”

“When were you married?”

“A few weeks ago. Viktor arranged it. We were married by proxy.” He looked up at the girl, his face still wet with tears. “I’ve tried to be patient, Jenny… But it doesn’t work. I miss her so.”

“She’ll know how you feel, Andy. It’s the same for her.”

He picked up the photograph. Halenka was smiling at the camera, her thick, dark hair in plaits, her arm curved gently round the waist of the pretty, solemn-eyed girl who was his daughter. He turned it over, but there was nothing on the back. He turned it back to look again. There was no background, nothing to identify where it was taken. Halenka looked just the same. He wondered if she ever protested.

In bed he clung to Jenny like a child in the night, and then lay silent and inert until he fell into uneasy sleep. Jenny slid out of bed and stood by the window, looking out as the false dawn spread across the city. One of Nolan’s surveillance teams reported seeing an unidentifiable figure at the apartment window.

She turned silently to look at the figure on the bed. He was handsome in a rather juvenile fashion. Quick to smile and laugh, but few of his friends would see him as the constant lover. Physically he wasn’t constant. He slept with many girls, and with as much affection as lust, but he was never involved. Not even with her. He recognized that she really cared for him, and her reward was to sometimes share his distress about the girl in Moscow.

MacKay walked from the Central Station and crossed the bridge over the canal and turned into Hendrik Kade. The warehouses and shops served the ships’ crews from the Oosterdok, and number 147 was at the side of the chandlery.