Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

As Gold walked on to the bridge, he began feeling his jacket pockets, trouser pockets, shirt. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He reached Fuchs. Fuchs fumbled through his own pockets, found a match and lit Gold's cigarette. He didn't wait for a thank you before leaving, a grim kewpie doll marching off the bridge and up the Alameda. Gold assumed the same stance Fuchs had had on the bridge, foot on the rail, gazing at the scooter on the dry rocks underneath the span. Up the Alameda, Fuchs got into his Buick. He hadn't come in the bus. He'd avoided the plaza completely. No more than two words could have been said on the bndge, Joe thought. Gold pondered the river, the branches overhead, and through the screen of poplars the faraway cupola on the state dome. He smiled at two girls on bikes. The tour bus rolled by, heads swivelling, leaving a trail of muffled facts and dates. Gold snapped a look over his shoulder in Joe's direction, but out of fleeting caution and not because he'd seen Joe move. Gold relaxed and finished his cigarette, stifled a gaping yawn that closed into a smile of relief, flipped the butt and left the bridge.

Gold walked down the Alameda, turned on Guadalupe and again on San Francisco, making a loop back towards the plaza. The Lensic Theatre had stucco walls and Moorish trim. Gold stopped to read a playbill for Here Come the Co-eds with Abbott and Costello. He saw his reflection and rubbed the blueness of his cheek. Passing a moment later, Joe saw his own reflection, a sergeant in a rumpled uniform, hair lank, face ominous. The plaza was busier now. Tourists spilled out of Woolworth's to stop Indians and ask them to pose. Like a man breasting waves, Cleto, the necklace vendor from Santa Domingo, stood in the middle of the pavement, arms of turquoise necklaces outstretched. Cleto's gray braid had come undone, the belly of his shirt was spotted with chilli, and still he maintained an expression of majestic contempt. Gold sidestepped the crowd around Cleto and then had to wait for Army trucks to pass. Across the street, at La Fonda's loading station, porters in mariachi vests shuffled suitcases. Joe slipped by Cleto. Once in the hotel, Gold would be out of reach. Something had happened on the bridge, though Joe didn't know what. Gold stepped up on the kerb, newspaper held tightly under his arm. It was the Albuquerque Journal . Gold had had the New Mexican when he went to the bridge. In his mind, Joe watched again as Gold, cigarette stuck to his lips, feeling his pockets for a match, walked to the centre of the bridge and joined Klaus Fuchs, who handed his folded newspaper to Gold the better to, without a word, find a match in his jacket, brusquely light a stranger's cigarette, take back his newspaper and leave Gold to a solitary view of the Santa Fe river. Not his newspaper, though. Gold's paper.

At the loading station, Joe grabbed Gold, who gave an involuntary hop of surprise. "I was hoping I'd see you again," Joe said. The blood rushed so quickly from Gold's face, Joe thought the man was going to swoon. "You were?"

More cars were parking, more suitcases were being unloaded. Joe encircled Gold with an arm and started to lead him out of the way.

"I was thinking how you lost your stetson. A friend of mine has a shop around the corner. Come on, we'll pick you a new hat."

"I don't want to trouble you."

"No trouble."

Gold struggled discreetly. Keeping a grip on him as porters pushed past was like squeezing a beachball. "I have a call to make."

"Right round the corner. Just take a second."

"Joe! Over here!"

It was Anna's voice. She stood on the far kerb, wearing the turquoise necklace he had given her. In her hair was the silver hairpin he'd seen on the portal and in her hands was the black pot that Augustino had been admiring. With her Hawaiian shirt, she achieved a Pueblo-Hebrew-Polynesian beauty. She also had a Maytag's bag. It was the weekend, why wouldn't Anna be in town shopping? She crossed the street behind a tour bus as it pulled in front of the hotel. The FBI agent behind her waited to cross; she wouldn't be hard to follow.

"Why should there be traffic signals?" Anna showed the contented smile people wear when they suddenly take possession of a new town, when they've decided they will stay a while and, against all odds, are comfortable. She paid no attention to Gold or to the porters or to the people hopping down from the bus. "How boring it would be with traffic signals."

"Go to the bar," Joe told her. "I'll be right there."

"See what else." She carefully put the bowl into the bag and took out a record. Billie Holiday. Lover Man . "What shall I do first, make a pot or sing the blues?"

Gold freed one hand and gave it to Anna.

"Harry Gold."

Joe was trying to steer Anna towards La Fonda when Oppy came out of the hotel and took in the trio on the curb with a strained grin. His eyes looked out from wells of exhaustion.

"Where the hell have you been, Joe? I've been waiting for half an hour."

"Harry Gold," Gold said and offered Oppy his hand.

"Am I interrupting your private business and affairs?" Oppy asked. He disregarded Anna and ignored Gold's hand. "Santa told me you were out here. You went for a walk, a drink, a little spree?"

"Can you wait a minute?" Joe asked.

Cleto inserted himself in front of Gold and presented an arm draped with necklaces.

"Two dollars."

Tourists from the bus gathered around Cleto and pushed Gold aside.

"I have to make an appointment with a sergeant?" Oppy asked. "With my own driver? And where were you last night? I went by your room and you weren't there."

"I went out for a second."

"I came by twice," Oppy said. "I looked all over and couldn't find you. In the Army isn't that called AWOL?"

"Ask me where he was," Anna said and Oppy flushed as if she'd slapped him across the face.

The tour bus pulled away. Cleto moved on.

"Please ask me," Anna insisted.

Oppy lowered his head like a man on a cross.

"No?" she said. "Well, if you do think of any questions, I' will be at the bar having a very early, not-so-perfect martini. I will be returning to the Hill later with Klaus. I know how you want to be sure where everyone is at all times."

Oppy didn't raise his head until she was gone, and then he blinked as if he were trying to will away a scene.

"Joe, where were you?"

Gold was already gone. Joe saw him trotting up the street past a camera shop and as the tour bus rolled by, Gold skipped off the kerb and jumped on to the running board, his newspaper clutched under his arm.

"I met a spy," Joe said.

Together, Joe and Oppy walked a block to the old Spanish courtyards on Palace Avenue. This was the Hill bus stop and Joe's jeep was parked outside, but Oppy opened a wrought-iron door to the smallest courtyard, a narrow passageway of carved beams and squash blossoms around a browning lawn. The screen door at the inner end of the courtyard was the Hill's anonymous parcel drop and reception centre in Santa Fe.

"You mean Gold," Oppy said in a low voice although there was no one else in the courtyard. "Augustino told me about him. Augustino is handling it. I don't see how you're involved."

"Gold was in Santiago this morning."

"Augustino is handling everything. What you can do is stay out of Captain Augustino's way. Let's hope you haven't scared Gold off. You know, Joe, we are fast approaching the climax of this enormous endeavour. I don't have the time or the patience to deal with you and your different adventures any more, not when the effort of thousands of people and the lives of many, many thousands of soldiers are in the balance. You are the smallest possible factor in Trinity. Please don't fuck it up. Stay out of my way, stay out of Captain Augustino's way and, if you want to do Anna Weiss a great favour, stay out of her way, too."