Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy

“How do they leave?”

“With a little respect for this office and what we’re doing. They find it’s better to be a friend of the Bureau.” The eyes so hard that Nick had to look away.

“Would you tell me something?” he said.

“For your research?” Almost spitting it.

“No, for me. Just one thing. It can’t possibly matter to you anymore.”

Hoover looked up, intrigued.

“Who told you about Rosemary Cochrane? You told Welles, but someone told you.”

“What makes you think I told Welles?”

“Because he told me you did. He didn’t intend to, but he told me.”

Hoover twitched, annoyed. “Well, that’s not what I would call a reliable source. Ken doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Never did. Did a lousy job with your father, too.”

“Despite all the help.”

Hoover said nothing.

“You knew about her. How? It can’t matter anymore.”

“It always matters. That’s Bureau business. We never divulge sources-wouldn’t have them, otherwise.” He paused. “But in this case, since it matters to you.” He glanced up. “It was an anonymous tip. A good one, for a change. We never knew who.”

“Yes, you did,” Nick said.

“You’re sure about that,” Hoover said, toying with him.

“Yes.”

Hoover glanced away. “I don’t remember.”

Nick stood, waiting.

“I don’t think you understand how things work here,” Hoover said, looking back at Nick. “Information, that’s like currency to us. We don’t spend it. We don’t trade for it.”

“Yes, you do.”

For the first time there was a trace of a smile. “But you see, you’re not a friend of the Bureau’s.”

Nick stared at him, stymied.

“Now I’ll ask you something,” Hoover said. “Why you? All those years, and you’re the one he sends for, says he wants to come home. Why not just go to our people in the embassy?”

“Would you trust them? Every embassy has informers. If the Russians had found out-”

“Well, they did, didn’t they?” A shot in the dark.

“If they did, Mr Hoover, then they got it from you. Only the Bureau knew. Is that what you think happened, a leak in the Bureau?”

“No, I do not,” he said, steel again. “We don’t have leaks.”

“You must have had one once. My father had his file.”

Hoover frowned. “Lapierre said you’d seen that,” he said, diverted now to the office mystery. Another witch-hunt, irresistible.

“But he might have got it a while ago. Actually, I never thought the Russians did know. But if they did, that means-”

“I know what it means. And that never occurred to you.”

“No. I thought he committed suicide.”

“With you there? He makes you go to Czechoslovakia so he can kill himself while you’re around.”

“People who commit suicide don’t always make a lot of sense.”

Hoover looked at him, then turned to the window, pretending to be disappointed. “I don’t think you do either,” he said, looking down at Pennsylvania Avenue. “Don’t have too much fun at our expense-it’s not worth it. I’ve been here a long, long time. And I knew your father. I studied your father. You want me to think it was just a pipe dream. Our man didn’t think so. Some pipe dream. Your father knew how things worked. If he wanted to come back, he knew he’d have to buy his way back. But what was he going to buy it with? You’d need a lot of currency to do that.” He turned back and stared at Nick. “And somebody to make the deal. Close, like family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said, holding his gaze.

“I hate to see good information go to waste, get in the wrong hands. Hate it.” He paused. “Most people find that it makes sense to be a friend to the Bureau.”

“I can’t afford it. It’s too expensive.”

Hoover nodded and moved toward the table behind the desk. “There’s all kinds of information,” he said, and pressed a button on a tape recorder. Nick heard a scratch, then his voice, Molly’s.

“Here’s an idea. Let’s smoke a joint and make love. All night. No microphones.”

“I liked the microphones. Where’d you get the stuff?”

“Well, I did see Richie.”

Hoover clicked it off and looked at him for a reaction.

Not the Alcron, looking up at ceilings. The Plaza, where they were safe.

“Where was the bug?” Nick said, stalling.

“The phone.”

“You can’t use it.”

“No? For two cents I’d set you up, you and your hippie girlfriend. I can do it. For two cents.”

Nick stared at him, the bantam chest and dyed hair, his eyes shining, about to win. The way it worked. “But you won’t,” he said finally. “You can’t afford it either. Larry Warren’s a friend to the Bureau.”

Nick saw the tic, the flesh of Hoover’s cheek quivering as if he’d been slapped.

“Two cents,” Hoover said, machine gun speed again, trying to recover. But the air had gone out of it, his skin now slack with age.

Nick turned away. “Keep it with the lighter, just in case. Can I go now?”

“Think about what I said. Hard. Maybe something will come back to you.”

Nick walked toward the door.

“Don’t push your luck,” Hoover said, wanting the last word. “Not with me. I hear you had a rough time over there. You might learn something from that. How things are.”

Nick turned from the knob and looked at Hoover. “I did learn something. You know, when I walked in here I was afraid of you. The Boss. You want some history? That was Stalin’s nickname too. Just like you. But you’re not that scary. You’re just a guy who likes to go through people’s wastebaskets.” Hoover’s face went blank, amazed. “You know what I learned? Nothing is forever. You think you are. You’re going to be disappointed.”

For a moment Hoover just stood there, seeming paralyzed by the impertinence, then his eyes narrowed. “You’ll change your mind. They always do. It’s better to be a friend.” He walked back toward his desk, pulling himself together. “So I’ll give you something free. As a friend. The Bureau isn’t following you. Maybe we should be, but we’re not. And maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are. Just a little paranoid.”

“Maybe.”

“You see how it works. Now you give me one. I know he talked to you. How else would you know about the lighter?”

Nick smiled and opened the door. “An anonymous tip.”

He walked over to the Mall and sat on a bench watching them build the scaffolding for the rally. Kids in T-shirts and Jesus hair with hammers. Portable toilets. In a few days the buses would pour in. Speeches and peace balloons. All of it happening somewhere else, in the present, while he waited to find someone in the past. Hoover hadn’t dyed his hair then. He’d been a real monster, not a creaky vaudeville turn, hanging on. He’d made Welles, McCarthy, Nixon, all of them. Passing out his currency. Now some were dead and one was in the White House and everyone had moved on to the next thing. Except Nick.

He noticed some men in suits loitering by the construction site. The Bureau, getting ready? He should get up and go home. Which was where? A hotel with a piano player in the lobby. A room in London he couldn’t even remember. He looked up toward Capitol Hill. That wasn’t home either. But he was still living there, on 2nd Street, trying to find his way out. The trouble with history, his father had said, is that you have to live through it. A crime story where everyone did it, without even thinking, as careless as an anonymous tip. And then went on. But what if it stopped, a freeze frame? What if you were the one caught in the picture? Stuck-unless you found the one with his finger on the shutter. Who had told Hoover?