The Second Saladin - Страница 44

She reached and touched the rumpled fabric where he had sat. It was not at all warm. He must have been gone for a long time. Her fingers lingered against the material; she sat up, shook her head, and reached across the coffee table to where a rumpled issue of the Globe lay. Chardy’s feet had even touched it. She picked it up again — as she had a thousand times before — and opened to the metro page.

...

FIRE GUTS MIDEASTERN RESTAURANT

A three-column headline over a ten-inch story explained in the mundane voice of daily journalism how arson was suspected in a blaze on Shawmut Avenue in which a restaurant called The Baghdad had burned down.

Noon of the second day after the fire, you will pick him up across from the restaurant, they had told her. The technical term for this kind of arrangement was a blind link, and it was the most secure, the most sure method: no phone contact, no dead-letter boxes, nothing by mail, nothing at all. It’s for operating in an enemy country.

Tomorrow, noon tomorrow. She would pick up Ulu Beg. Here, in Boston, ten thousand miles from the mountains. And Joseph Danzig would be that same night only five blocks away, unguarded.

She’d gotten Chardy out of there now. She’d done half the incredible. If she could get Ulu Beg in, she’d have done the other half.

She was not as he remembered; she’d been a hard, youthful figure then, boyish and strong and active; a part of Jardi and very much not a part.

Now, in the automobile, she was nervous and plump and dry-lipped and pale.

“Your trip. Hazardous?” she asked.

“Somebody stole my money.”

“Yet you got here so much faster.”

“A fine lady drove me. A fine black woman.”

“There was trouble at the border.”

“What? Oh, yes.”

“They know you’re here. They’ve guessed what you’re here for.”

They drove in bright sunlight through sparkly Boston streets. Everything here was made of wood. There was so much wood, wood in abundance. Wood and automobiles: America.

“How?” he said finally.

“The bullets from your gun. They traced them to nineteen seventy-five.”

He nodded. Of course.

“You should have brought a different gun.”

Yes, he should have. But they had insisted, hadn’t they? It had to be this gun. They had given him this gun. This would be his gun.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re convinced you’re in Ohio still. That’s where they’re looking for you. We have an incredible chance. The best chance we’ll ever have. You would say it’s all written above.”

She told him about Danzig and the party that night, that very night. She told him how relaxed they’d be, since the party was a private thing, among old friends. She told him she had gotten the university faculty guide and found the address of the one member of Danzig’s old department that lived on Hawthorne. She could take him there late tonight and point him. She told him that the only man who could recognize him would not be there.

“Who?”

“Chardy.”

His face did not change. In many ways it was a remarkable face; the nose was oversize, like a prow, and the cheekbones high and sharp. The eyes were gaudy blue, small and intense. In the mountains he’d worn a moustache, huge and droopy, but now he was clean-shaven. He looked almost American. He did look American. She was astonished at how American he’d become, in blue jeans, with a pack, a tall, strong man who could have been a graduate student of athletic bent, an adventurer, an outdoorsman, any vigorous thirty-five-year-old American, and the streets were full of them, fit, lean joggers, backpackers, professional vacationers.

“You are his woman again?”

“It seems so.”

“He is with us, then?”

“No. He doesn’t know. He came back into my life because of all this. I realized at once that I had to become close to him again. I could learn things from him, and through him I could convince important people that I was harmless.”

“But you are his?”

“It’s not important.”

“But you are?”

“Yes. He’s a different man too. They were very hard on him. His own people. And the Russians tortured him horribly. They burned his back with a torch. He’s a very bitter man, a hurt man. He’s not the same Chardy at all.”

“He works for them again?”

“He does.”

“I will never understand Americans.”

“Neither will I.”

“You will betray him?”

“Yes. I have thought about it. I will betray him. The political is more important than the personal. But I ask a condition. It’s very important to me.”

“Say it.”

“There will be other people there. People from the university. They are innocent. You must swear not to hurt them. To kill Danzig is justice. To kill these others would be murder. I can’t commit murder. I saw too much of it committed myself.”

“You Americans,” Ulu Beg said. “You make war, but you don’t want there to be any bodies. Or if there are bodies, you don’t want to see them or know about them.”

“Please. Swear it. Swear it as a great Kurdish fighter would swear it.”

“I can only swear what I can. But what is written, is written.”

“Still. Swear it. Or I can’t help. You’ll be on your own. And we’ve both figured out long ago that on your own you have almost no chance.”

He looked at her. Was she insane? He saw it now: she was crazy; she had terrible things in her head. Who could keep promises with bullets flying?

“Swear it. Please.”

“On my eyes,” he said.

“All right.”

They pulled into a parking lot a few minutes later.

“Here.” She handed him a key. “It’s a motel. I’ve rented you a room at the far end. Go there; stay inside. Clean up. There’re some clothes in the room, American clothes. I hope they fit. I’ll pick you up at ten. He said he’d come to my place at eleven. We’ll wait outside until we see him leave. Then I’ll help. I’ll help you get inside. I’ll help with the other business too.”

She fumbled with her purse.

It was a small, cheap revolver.

“I bought it in the city.”

“I have a weapon. I don’t want you there with a gun.”

He turned to leave, but she reached for his arm.

“I’m glad you came. I’m glad it’s nearly finished.”

“Kurdistan ya naman,” he said.

31

Only Chardy and Uckley, the security man, remained. They stood discreetly in one corner of the living room in their lumpy suits. Lanahan was off somewhere playing Napoleon, and the private detectives engaged by the Agency had not accompanied Danzig from the television studio.

Dramatic people swirled about, bright and glittery, and in the center of it all sat Joe Danzig. In point of fact, at no time in their brief association had Chardy seen him quite like this: a sheen of perspiration stood out on his forehead and upper lip and he held a half-empty scotch glass almost like a scepter. He knew everybody here — or most of them — and he had taken his coat off and loosened his tie and collar, an absurd costume, since he still wore his vest. They came to him, the younger ones with some respect, the older ones out of camaraderie. Chardy was surprised to see so many kids. He thought kids hated Danzig, architect of bombing in Vietnam; but no, they did not, or these kids did not. Danzig listened earnestly and awarded the brightest with a smile or a nod which pleased them immensely. And the women: the women especially were drawn to his preposterous, rumpled figure. They crowded around him, touching and jostling. Even in these clever precincts? Chardy had no idea what being on television meant, what celebrity meant.

“They love him, don’t they?” he said to Uckley.

“They sure do, sir,” said Uckley.

The room had jammed up and become bright and hot with people. It was not so much furnished as equipped, largely with spacey-looking hi-fi components, a jungle of plants and books. Somebody loved books, for they were ceiling to floor on three of the walls and the other was bare brick. There were little steel spotlights mounted on racks on the ceiling, throwing vivid circles of light on Japanese prints and twisted modern paintings. It was like some kind of museum; somebody had spent a lot of money turning this living room into a museum. Chardy was catching a headache and all the noise and smoke pitched it higher. It looked like Danzig would be here for hours — until the dawn, among the horde of intellectuals.

Not all, but most, most had the same look: the high, pale foreheads, the glasses covering wasted eyes, the delicate wrists. They all had weak hands and looked sick. Funny, after the Marines, Chardy knew a uniform when he saw it, and here were uniforms: suede shoes, baggy chinos and plaid shirts, and an occasional little off-color tie. Everybody was drinking wine; everybody was talking, gesturing with unfiltered cigarettes. A woman drifted by in leotard and tights, smoking a cigar. She had a slightly crazed expression on her face and was made up like an Egyptian goddess.

Chardy checked his watch. It was 11:20.

“Have you seen Lanahan, Sarge?”

“No, sir,” said Uckley.

Chardy hunted through the mass of bodies and at last spotted Miles sitting by himself in a corner. He turned back to Uckley.

“Look, do you think you can handle this?”

“There’s nothing to handle, sir.”