The Talbot Odyssey (41 page)

“True. So what did Kalin say?”

Tanner moved the Lincoln up within sight of the Russian gates. “Kalin said he’d check; then a day later he called back and said they would cooperate with us and not come out that weekend.”

Abrams asked, “Then why is there a question?”

Tanner did not reply, but glanced into the rearview mirror at Styler.

Styler spoke. “We have information that, despite their promise to stay away from the Glen Cove house, they intend to be here July Fourth weekend.”

Abrams turned in his seat. “What sort of information?”

Styler said, “Well, as you know, Pat O’Brien has . . . had . . . the ability to discover these things through the most mundane ways—diplomatic staffs or their wives and children, are often sources of security breaches. Casual remarks to other diplomats, tradespeople; children saying something to their American friends. That sort of thing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Russian staff isn’t misinformed themselves, but small signs seem to point to the fact that they believe they’ll all be in Glen Cove that weekend.”

Abrams thought that the Russians considered this case a necessary nuisance. Necessary because they had been backed into a corner and had no choice but to proceed with it after Van Dorn’s outrages. Not to proceed would look odd. And a nuisance, because they did not like these attorneys coming onto their property, or telling them to stay in Manhattan over the July Fourth weekend. This presented a dilemma. They had to cooperate on the one hand, but on the other hand they had other things on their mind; perhaps a much better way to settle their case against Van Dorn—and the rest of the country.

Styler said, “This case gives Mr. O’Brien a unique opportunity to see how the Russians react to certain stimuli. You understand what I’m saying.”

“Yes.”

Styler added, “Enough said.”

As they edged closer to the gates, Tanner put on his left-hand turn signal. A traffic policeman approached and Tanner lowered the window. The sounds of the demonstrators filled the car. The policeman stuck his head in the window. “Where you heading?”

Tanner pointed. “There.”

“What’s your business
there?”

Abrams could tell that Tanner was considering a lawyer’s version of “It’s none of your fucking business” but instead produced a letter written in English on Soviet UN stationery.

The policeman scanned the letter without comment.

Abrams looked out the windshield. There were over a hundred demonstrators around the gates, and the scene looked much like the one he’d viewed on the late news the night of May First, after his fateful interview with O’Brien on the roof of the RCA Building.

The policeman handed the letter back to Tanner and signaled to another officer up the road, who stopped oncoming traffic.

Tanner pulled into the opposing lane, then made his left-hand turn and headed into the gates, which had swung open.

Two burly Russian guards in brown uniforms with red trimming stood in the gravel drive. Their right arms were raised in a way that reminded Abrams of a Fascist salute. Tanner stopped.

A third man, dressed in civilian clothing, approached and spoke in good English. “What is your business, please?”

Tanner produced another letter on Soviet UN stationery, written in Russian. Abrams noticed a profusion of stamps, seals, and several signatures. There was, Abrams thought, something disturbing about a country that couldn’t make do with one seal and one signature.

The Russian took the letter and went to a nearby guardhouse. Abrams could see him pick up the telephone. The two guards remained in a blocking position on the drive. Tanner snorted. “Look at those fools. Do they think we’re going to try to sneak up the driveway? This is like some grade-B movie.”

Styler added, “It
is
rather inane. That man knew we were coming, and has a description of us right down to our license plate.”

Abrams interrupted. “I’d like to try to hear what he’s saying.”

The car was instantly silent. The civilian was standing at the open door of the guardhouse, speaking loudly into the telephone with all the blissful assurance of a man who believes he can’t be understood.

The man hung up and returned to the car, handing Tanner the letter.

Abrams could smell cheap cologne. The shirt was dirty, the tie stained, and the suit ill-fitting. The man was a Russian icon. This
was
like a grade-B movie.

The man gave Abrams a nasty sort of look, as though he were reading his mind, then said to Tanner, “Proceed up the drive, at ten kilometers. You will see a parking yard. Go beyond this and stop at the main entrance.”

Tanner mumbled a thank-you and began moving up the gravel drive. He said to Abrams, “Could you make out what he said on the phone?”

“Just normal security chatter. He said, ‘Styler, Tanner, and the Jew have arrived.’”

There was a silence in the car as it rolled up the long, S-shaped drive. The lighted house was visible now, a long, gabled structure of gray stone, multileveled to conform with the contours of the hilltop. The drive was overhung with trees, darkening it, but the borders were lit by short, squat Japanese lanterns.

Abrams reminded himself that although he was technically on Soviet soil, he was a long way from the Gulag. On the other hand, Evans’ cheery remark about the lime pit in the basement had to be considered more than flippancy. More to the point, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were short one member.

The car moved up the gradual incline, swinging past the north side of the house and through the parking yard. Tanner pulled into a large forecourt, brightly illuminated by modern security lighting. Abrams studied the east-facing facade. There was a half story exposed above ground level that had once been servants’ quarters and that Evans had said served a similar function, though the Russians who lived there now were not called servants.

Three rising bays protruded from the stone facade, each holding long casement windows. The right-hand bay indicated the location of the dining room and above that a large bedroom. The left bay was the original study now used as the security office. Above that was another bedroom. The large middle bay was the entrance. The third floor was a gabled garret entirely devoted, according to a Soviet defector, to electronic spying.

Tanner stopped the car directly in front of the entrance and shut off the engine. Outside in the warm night the sound of insects penetrated into the plush interior, and the car’s engine ticked as it cooled.

Abrams took his revolver and shoulder holster from his briefcase and stuffed them into the glove compartment.

Tanner watched him and said, “You shouldn’t have brought that. Their security people will find it there.”

“So what?” Abrams opened his door and stepped out into the warm, still air.

Tanner shut off the lights and he and Styler followed. Abrams walked up to the arched wooden door and pressed a buzzer. Inside the house a dog barked, followed by answering barks from around the mansion. Abrams commented, “Jonathan Harker was greeted by Dracula himself with the explanation that all the servants had retired for the evening.”

Tanner laughed, somewhat nervously. Styler smiled tightly.

The door suddenly swung open, and a squat man greeted them cheerily. “Welcome, gentlemen. Welcome to our
dacha.”
He laughed.

Abrams recognized the man from his Red Squad days. Viktor Androv, a.k.a. Count Dracula.

Abrams looked around the dimly lit stone foyer, larger than most living rooms. From the far side of the foyer rose a wide marble staircase.

Androv said pleasantly, “Mr. Styler, it is good to see you again—and Mr. Tanner.”

Abrams thought there was something incongruous about this fat little man, dressed in baggy slacks, an open-neck flowered shirt, and sandals with socks, holding court in a great house. But he supposed since the workers’ revolution it was the plight of Russians to look incongruous in elegant surroundings.

Androv turned to Abrams. “And you must be Mr. Abrams.”

Abrams wanted to say, “I must be or I wouldn’t have gotten past the gate.” He shook hands with Androv.

Androv motioned them toward the staircase and they began climbing the half level toward an upper foyer. Androv said, by way of explaining the stillness of the house, “Most of our people have returned to Manhattan. The small permanent staff we keep here has the evening off after this long weekend. But,” he added in an exasperated tone, “I doubt if any of us will get much sleep tonight when that lunatic next door begins his . . . his . . .”

“Harassment,” prompted Styler.

“Yes. But another word . . .
capers . . .
yes, when he begins cutting capers. I’m surprised he hasn’t begun yet. You should have been here on May Day!”

“We were available,” said Styler pointedly.

“Yes, yes. But it was not convenient.”

They stepped up into a square foyer, the walls and floors of which were made of a warm buff marble. The ceiling was plaster in bas-relief and badly cracked. Three arched openings gave off the foyer. The one directly ahead, Abrams saw, led into a long, low-ceilinged gallery, paneled in oak. The openings on either side led to long hallways. Androv motioned them to the left. He said as they walked, “You are late. But I am sure I know why.”

Styler smiled. “Yes, we should have allowed for the traffic.”

Androv nodded quickly. “I’m glad you saw what we must put up with.”

Abrams had the impression of a man who was playacting without a script. He knew the Russian soul and Russian mannerisms well enough to spot bullshit.

They came to a green curtain that was drawn across the hallway. Androv pulled on a cord and the curtain parted revealing a walk-through metal detector of the type used in airports.

An attractive woman dressed in designer jeans, polo shirt, and docksiders smiled tightly. Androv said, “Gentlemen, I must ask you to step through this.” He shrugged. “It is policy,” he added, as though he had nothing to do with it. He turned away and lit a cigarette.

The woman held out what looked to Abrams like a cheap plastic relish tray. “Metal objects, please.”

The three men put the required objects in separate compartments of the tray. Abrams tossed the penknife casually among the keys, pens, cigarette lighters, and coins.

Styler placed his briefcase on the conveyor belt and the woman pushed the start button. The briefcase rolled through the fluoroscope and the woman stared at the screen. Styler stepped through the metal-detector arch. Tanner, then Abrams, did the same.

The woman moved to the end of the stopped conveyor belt and casually opened Tanner’s briefcase, rummaging through the papers. Abrams, Styler, and Tanner glanced at one another.

That one act, thought Abrams, by its total indifference to manners and custom, said more about these people and their society than anything he’d ever read or heard.
The safety of the state is the
highest law.

The woman retrieved a gold pen from Tanner’s briefcase and dropped it on the tray with his other metal objects. She looked at the three men. “These items will be returned to you shortly. You may take your briefcases.”

Abrams could see that Tanner was fuming, but if the woman noticed, she could not have the slightest idea what he was upset about. Outrage was a luxury item available only in the West. Abrams remembered Evans’ advice.
Get mad.

The three men retrieved their briefcases, Tanner doing so with more vigor than the act required.

Abrams glanced down at the metal detector’s electric cord where it plugged into the wall receptacle, and spotted his first ground-fault interrupter.

Abrams looked back at the woman. She was carrying the tray away and disappeared through a doorway that Abrams knew led to the former study, now the security office. Each metal object would be electrically scanned and physically examined. Fingerprints would be lifted, and Tanner’s car keys would be used to move the Lincoln to a vehicle inspection shop on the south side of the house. He wondered if he’d see his penknife again. Nobody trusted anyone anymore. And with good reason.

Androv approached them. “We will need a north-facing room so you can see and hear what Mr. Van Dorn visits upon us. The gallery will do. Follow me.”

He led them back down the hallway to the upper foyer, then motioned them through into the gallery. It would have been a shorter walk, Abrams realized, to cut through the music room, whose door was close by the metal detector. But the music room, now a sort of commons room for the staff, was obviously off limits.

Abrams looked around the gallery, which had once been Charles Pratt’s hunting-trophy room. Its ceiling beams and oak paneling still gave it the flavor of a hunting lodge, but the mounted animal heads and horns were gone, replaced by oversize canvases of proletarian art: smiling, well-muscled men and women working in fields and factories. The early capitalists, reflected Abrams, mounted animals they probably never shot, the ruling Communists displayed pictures of happy workers they probably never saw. The noble and idealized creatures of the earth were destined to wind up as wall decorations for the elite. In a just and orderly world, perhaps, capitalists would shoot, stuff, and mount Communists, and vice versa, leaving the wildlife and working people in peace.

Androv walked to a north-facing casement window. “Here you can see the lights of the madman’s house.” Androv looked at his watch. “Why hasn’t he begun his capers yet?”

Because, Abrams thought, he is holding off on his capers to allow me at least an hour in here. Abrams went to another window and looked out from the elevated room, across the treed hollow, to the next hill, upon which sat a gleaming white house of wood. Every window was lit, as was the custom in great houses when parties were held, and soft garden lighting of various hues gave the landscape a chimerical appearance.

He could make out a few people on the lawn and terrace, and he thought of Katherine down there. He wondered what she would think if she knew where he was.

It struck him too that though he never romanticized danger, there must be some sort of potentially fatal defect in his survival instinct or he would never have taken so many jobs where people shot at you. Neither would he be here now. However, from the moment he’d walked out of Katherine’s bedroom, he noticed a subtle change in his attitude and perceptions toward longevity.