Joseph Kanon - Defectors

“From here, yes. I can set you up. Not much traffic today. I assume you want to send it yourself.”

“Please,” Simon said. “Pirie’s orders. Not my idea.”

“No, that’s right. If you learn anything at this station, it’s ‘be careful.’ Even in the building.” He looked round at the bunker-like room. “Except here. This way. I’ll just put in the routing codes for you, then leave you to it.”

“Thanks,” Simon said, following him into a small room with what looked like a jerry-built Teletype machine, its keyboard connected by wires to a big console behind. “By the way, have somebody check this line tomorrow. At the Vienna end. You might think about routing an alternative line through Stockholm.”

Novikov looked at him, suddenly conspiratorial. “This information good?”

Was it? He imagined Frank having puckish fun snarling the Agency’s communications, pulling connector plugs out of an old switchboard. What if none of it was true, another feint to confuse the enemy? Except they weren’t the enemy anymore, or wouldn’t be.

“Check it and see,” Simon said, in the part now. “Tomorrow. We’re all right today.”

“That’s pretty precise,” Novikov said, fishing.

“Or the next day. Keep checking.”

Novikov dipped his head, backing off, a kind of salute. “I’ll just set you up.”

And in minutes it was done, everything Frank had asked him to do, Kelleher’s name typed into the machine like a judge’s sentence. And why not? If Frank had the name, he was one of theirs, burrowing in. But Simon’s fingers stopped for a second anyway. Not just judge, executioner. One click. Now the bank account name, the evidence. A few more clicks. And Kelleher was gone, a game piece wiped off the board. Wondering if he’d given himself away or—

“All done?”

“That’ll do it. Thanks. I’d better run. I’m just supposed to be checking in with the visa section.”

“You have an exit date yet?” Agencyspeak.

“Not yet.”

“You don’t want to overstay the visa. That’s always trouble,” Novikov said, walking him to the elevator.

“Even when the KGB’s sponsoring you?”

“Officially you’re a guest of the Writers’ Union. KGB have a funny way of disappearing when you need them. Who me? So I’d keep the visa date. Be on the safe side. Here we are,” he said, opening the elevator door. “Thank you, by the way. For the information. Appreciate it.”

“One for our side,” Simon said, nodding a good-bye, then heading past the Marine guard to the broad street, where Boris waited, on the other side.

THE ARAGVI WAS IN THE HOTEL DRESDEN, just a few blocks up from the National, but Boris had sent a car anyway, part of the Service cocoon.

“Dolgoruky,” the driver said, pointing to the equestrian statue in the square fronting the hotel.

Simon just bobbed his head, something everybody knew, and stepped out into the soft spring air, the sky still light. After the hulking apartment buildings on Gorky Street, the Dresden seemed as sensuous and baroque as its namesake city, topped with an elaborate cornice of carved fruits. Frank and Jo were already at the table, pouring vodka.

“Who’s Dolgoruky? Outside, on the horse,” Simon said.

“Founder of Moscow,” Frank said.

“That’s who it is? I always wondered,” Jo said. “I must have passed it a thousand times. Don’t I get a hello?”

Simon bent down. “Still the prettiest girl in the room,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“This room,” she said.

She had dressed for an evening out, lipstick and earrings, a brooch, cheeks pink with blush.

“We’ve already started,” Frank said, “so better catch up.”

He poured out a glass for Simon, then took a drink from his own, his eyes shiny, and Simon realized, something he hadn’t seen last night, that they drank together. He had somehow imagined Jo off by herself, melancholy, not clinking glasses as she was now, both of them loose, the way it must have started.

“Catch up and overtake,” Frank said. “That used to be the slogan, remember? Catch up and overtake. The West. In industry. Production.”

“Oh, don’t start,” Jo said, but pleasantly. “Another five-year plan. How about five years of gossip? Tell,” she said to Simon. “Don’t be discreet. Nobody here gives a damn anyway. So busy catching up.”

“But not yet overtaking,” Simon said and smiled. “Who do you want to know about?”

“You. Tell me about you. All the gossip.”

He shook his head. “No gossip. That I know of. I’m boring. Editorial meetings on Mondays. Lunch at the Century. Book parties. Canapés passed twice. No shrimp. California wine. The author usually makes a pass at somebody. I make a toast. Then we all go somewhere like this,” he said, looking around. “Except French.”

“I think it sounds wonderful,” Jo said.

“You wouldn’t if you had one every week.”

“So why do it?” Frank said.

“To get something in the columns. Sullivan. Lyons. One of them. Put the book out there somehow.”

“My Secret Life?”

“Well, probably not. No party without the author. And you have to feed them if you want a mention.”

“Winchell will mention you,” Jo said. “Winchell hates Frank,” she said to Simon. “Hates him.”

“I know.”

“Course you do. I forgot. You were there. ” She looked down at her glass, then brightened, determined to enjoy the evening. “Anyway it doesn’t sound boring to me. It sounds—distinguished.” She reached up and touched his glasses. “Who would have thought? A man of letters. Do you meet people? You know, Hemingway, people like that?”

“Yes, but not the way you think. Business. Not table hopping at the Stork.”

“So how do you do it?” Frank said. “Put the book out there?”

“In your case? You’re a news story. Everybody will want to take a swing at it. Reviews. Off-the-book-page pieces. Editorials. We don’t have to worry about coverage with you.”

“Just what they’ll say,” Jo said.

“They’ve already said it,” Frank said, touching her hand. “We’re used to all that.”

She moved her hand, not making a point, but moving it. “You are.”

“Anyway, we won’t see any of it. Not unless Jimbo sends the clippings. Will you do that? I’d be curious, what people say now. Whether anything’s changed.”

Simon looked at him. But he’d be there.

“Sure. If you’d like,” he said, feeling back at lunch with Boris, playing a part. What it must have been like for Frank all those years. Every meal a performance. Saying one thing, knowing another. Something no one else knew. The meetings with the Brits, the only one at the table who knew. Enjoying himself, the sheer technical skill of it, the way a juggler takes pleasure just keeping things in the air.

“I don’t want to see them,” Jo said. “Go through all that again. How terrible you are. And what does that make me? Ah, finally,” she said, seeing the waiter. “If I keep filling up with cheese bread, I won’t have room for anything else.”

“Cheese bread?”

“A Georgian specialty. Very good here,” Frank said, taking a menu from the waiter.

Simon looked at his. Cyrillic. Across the room, waiters in Georgian clothes were carrying kebabs and platters of rice, trays of vodka glasses for the long, full tables. Who were they all? Intourist groups? Party officials? Who went to restaurants in Moscow? He’d imagined them all like workers’ canteens, with surly resentful waiters. But here at the Aragvi, men in white shirts and tunics slipped like dancers between the tables, popping corks and sliding meat off skewers. He looked at the Cyrillic again. Like an eye chart he couldn’t make out.