Sleeper Spy (70 page)

“I brung you the bound galley of
The Return of Iron Feliks
.” He stuffed his book in her bag, which made it fairly heavy, and she handed the whole rucksack to him to carry. “What you need, kiddo, is a Schlepper.”

She didn’t get the Yiddish word. “Did you say I need a sleeper?”

“No. No-no-no. A sleeper penetrates, but a schlepper never makes it. He’s just somebody who follows you around schlepping, carrying things, handy to have around, but at the end of the day—just a schlep. How’s our pooch?”

“Spook’s protecting the house. I rented a place off campus with a backyard and a pool and his own room to sleep in. That dog of ours is costing this scholarship student a fortune.”

He took “ours” as a good sign. They sat on a bench facing the law center. It twisted him inside just to look at her again after a year apart, so he lightened up. “I could understand you becoming a massage therapist, that’s an honorable profession. But a lawyer?”

“Don’t start with the lawyer jokes or I’ll give you a slap upside the head. I’m good at this, getting high marks at the best law school in the country. Should have done this ten years ago, but it wasn’t too late. At last I’ll have credentials.”

Because she was sincere rather than bantering, he took a serious tack. “Must give you a lot of satisfaction. When you pass the bar, you gonna do pro bono stuff, civil rights, help the homeless, like that?”

“Not me.”

“Criminal law, then,” he guessed. Viveca Farr for the defense; she’d be terrific in front of a jury. “Public defender, maybe?”

“Forget it. Corporate law for me. Underwritings, mergers and acquisitions. What made you think I was a bleeding heart? You never really knew me, did you?”

“You never let me. You fell for the wrong guy.” When her expression
turned bleak, he recovered with “You’ll need your corporate legal-eagle training. Keep your eye out for talent here. You may have to hire the whole graduating class.”

“I don’t need any help. I can make it on my own.”

“You sound like a teenager without a cause. Actually, you look like a teenager. Matter of fact, you look like a goddam dream. You had a face-lift, or what?”

“Clean living, no more booze. I think you meant that as a compliment, so thanks, they come so hard to you. Now what is it you came out here to tell me?”

“First, I miss you.”

“You miss the combat.”

“No, I miss you.”

“I hope so.” Noncommittal, but not a rejection.

“Next, I wanted to be the one to give you the good news.”

“If it’s a television offer, Irving, save your breath. I’ll never get in front of a camera again.”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. That sumbitch Berensky must have felt guilty about what he did to you, so he tried to make it up.” Ace had briefed him about the will on the airplane telephone because Irving was a newsman and this was news he wanted to be the one to break.

“He left me some money? Good, I can use it. The mortgage on the house in Pound Ridge is a drain, not to mention the extra room here and the pool for the dog.”

“What the sleeper really left you is clout. Power that nobody can ever take away. You know Karl von Schwebel’s Unimedia? The stations, the network, the software, the on-line publisher, the music company, the movie studio, the works?” Irving paused for dramatic effect. “He’s left you and Sirkka the dough to buy control of the holding company and kick the old Kraut out.”

It took Viveca a moment to digest that. “Sirkka Numminen is one smart lady. But buying control—that would take a bundle of money.”

“Nah, between your five hundred million and her five hundred million, and what you already know about corporate law, you could swing it easy.”

She swallowed. “Irving Fein, this isn’t just you teasing?”

“Check it out with Shu of the FBI. He’ll be along tomorrow with the details. A good kid at heart—his firm could help you two with the
bean-counting.” He had squeezed his nutcracker as hard as he could to extract from Mike the delicious kernel about the wedge between the FBI and CIA that had inspired his guess about the findings, and had led to his discovery of Davidov as the countersleeper. Fein would go easy on the accountant once Ace made the deal.

She stood up. “Walk me to the co-op. I need a book for a class tomorrow.”

He slung her sack of heavy books over his shoulder, the way he had seen Liana airily do it once, but they banged into his spine and made him wince.

“You know, Irv, nothing’s going to stop me from getting a law degree.”

He shrugged. “Be an idealist. Get your credentials. I hear you.”

She moistened her lips. “But when I take over that holding company, and become a big player in the industry, there’s a bunch of guys whose asses I want to see fired and never hired again anywhere.”

He liked her evil glint. “That’s unworthy of a distinguished attorney.”

“Yeah.”

“The possibilities kinda get you in the old vortex, don’t they?” He stopped to shift the book burden. “Now. You’re wondering why I really came out. I got a tip about a Pacific-rim prostitution ring, Tokyo-based, corruption right up to the top in at least two nations. Makes Lucky Luciano look like a piker.” She wasn’t old enough to remember Lucky, and he had no more from Dorothy Barclay as yet to flesh the story out, so he hurried on. “As you know, I’m a Unimedia author.”

“Sorry, I can’t be your partner in the story.”

“Who needs a partner? I need a publisher with deep pockets. When Ace calls you, and pitches my project, you’ll deliver?”

She stopped walking. “Oh, Irveleh, you can have anything you want.”

That sweeping commitment hung in the air. The reporter felt he had reason to hope “anything” meant more than any assignment he wanted.

“You’re not one of those phony fireflies,” she added, “that prey on the real lightning bugs, are you?”

He took that to be freighted with every meaning in the book. “I’ll need an office setup in San Francisco,” he noted briskly, “in that building
comes to a point on the top. And an expense account up the gazoo. And a place to live near the pooch, where I can take her for long walks and work out the theory of the story.”

Slouching toward the co-op, the sharp corner of the book bag digging into his back with every long stride, Irving reflected that some detractor could claim that both the world’s greatest reporter and the American sleeper agent once thought to be the rising star of the KGB wound up as a couple of glorified gigolos. But in the episodic adventure that was his life, he had taught himself that on rare occasion, in dependence was independence.

“You can move right into the room with Spook,” Viveca suggested. “Save you on expenses. And I could use a schlepper.”

FICTION
Freedom
Full Disclosure

LANGUAGE
In Love with Norma Loquendi
Quoth the Maven
Coming to Terms
Fumblerules
Language Maven Strikes Again
You Could Look It Up
Take My Word for It
I Stand Corrected
What’s the Good Word?
On Language
Safire’s New Political Dictionary

POLITICS
The First Dissident
Safire’s Washington
Before the Fall
Plunging into Politics
The Relations Explosion

ANTHOLOGIES
Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

(
WITH LEONARD SAFIR
)
Good Advice on Writing
Leadership
Words of Wisdom
Good Advice

W
ILLIAM
S
AFIRE
is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
New York Times
political columnist and the author of two best selling novels,
Freedom
and
Full Disclosure
. As the
Timer’s
Sunday
word maven and author of
Safire’s New Political Dictionary,
he is also the most widely read writer
on the English language. He lives in Maryland.