The Folks at Fifty-Eight (39 page)

She smiled a rueful smile.

“We were never that close, Gerald, but then I’m sure you already knew that. Just as I am equally sure you knew that my late husband was corrupt and weak and debauched, what fashionable Washington people euphemistically describe as flawed. I suppose in many ways we were both that. Sadly, in poor Alan’s case, the flaws turned out to be fatal.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She smiled again. She said there was no need for him to keep apologizing. Her husband had been strong in so many ways, ambitious and single-minded, almost fearless. Yet in other ways he had been just about the most debauched and spineless man she had ever known. Living the Washington high-life and suffering an unhappy marriage, served to feed the debauchery and encourage the weakness in them both.

“And it was both of us, Gerald, as you saw from that wretched photograph.”

“I wish I’d never set eyes on it.”

“Just a lonely woman’s moment of foolishness and truth. . . The frailty of the flesh and an excess of wine can be a heady combination.”

She shrugged despondently and held that same pathetic smile.

“There’s a slut and a lesbian in every woman, Gerald. Most of us try to hide it. Strangely enough, it was your wife who told me that.” She saw his cheeks redden. “And now I’ve upset and embarrassed you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or open old wounds, but after so many years of keeping feelings and emotions bottled up. . .”

The look demanded reassurance. He offered the necessary words.

“I’m not upset or embarrassed. I guess we sometimes need to talk about problems with strangers, for the same reason we could never discuss them with family and friends, and I’ve always been a good listener.”

He had lied about his embarrassment. She added a further observation.

“Who’d have thought it, huh? Prim and proper me? That wife of yours would have a fit if she knew. Plain, prissy, boring-old Angela Carlisle, a middle-aged hedonist, in middle-class Connecticut. You must tell her when you see her.”

This time she was clearly fishing for a compliment.

“You’re not plain, or boring, and you’re hardly middle-aged.” He looked pointedly at the sprawling mansion and manicured grounds. “And this is hardly middle-class.” Compliment delivered, it was time to change the subject. “So, how did you come to be here?”

“We were at a party and stayed over. Alan went off with a couple of Puerto Rican girls. Theresa said they were Panamanian, but they looked Puerto Rican to me. Hispanic, anyway.”

“You’re saying he just left you, to. . . ?”

“Yes, Gerald: to have sex with them.”

Astonished as much by the unemotional relating as the tale itself, he spluttered more questions.

“But didn’t he. . . ? I mean, didn’t you. . . ?”

“Complain about it, Gerald? Try to stop him leaving for the sake of our marriage, play the wounded spouse?” She gave an artificial laugh, seeming to find dark humour in the apparent absurdity. “Of course not, that would have been sheer and utter hypocrisy. You see, Theresa was about to bed me at the time.” She looked wistfully at the sky. “Thank God. Oh, I’m sorry, does that shock you?”

“Perhaps a little, I suppose.”

“My husband left me there, for Theresa and Conrad, and presumably anybody else who wanted me. That was the sorry stage our marriage had reached. Not exactly a match made in heaven, you might say.”

She giggled, and for a moment the sorrow fell away.

“And now I can see that I have shocked you. Why is it that people who are happy to discuss graphic acts of hatred and violence baulk at discussing acts of love and tenderness and physical pleasure? I was just the same, not so long ago. It all seems such puritanical foolishness and hypocrisy now.”

Hammond shook his head.

“That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking that if your husband left you for someone else he was a fool.”

She stood up to leave.

“How gallant and sweet of you to say so, Gerald. Thank you for that. But now I need time to remember some of Alan’s finer qualities. There were some, you know. I also need time to think everything through.”

“Do the police have any idea what happened, or who did this?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t think so. Alan said he had meetings in Manhattan. I assumed he had a liaison planned. I told the police. I thought it might have involved those Hispanic girls, but they couldn’t find any trace of them. I decided to stay here. I think we both knew then that it was over. But now I really must go.”

Hammond put down his coffee and began to rise. She stopped him with a hand that reached out to pat his arm, and fingertips that lingered for an unnecessary moment.

“No, please don’t get up. It’s a lovely day. Sit and drink your coffee. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of each other, Gerald Hammond, but until then it was lovely to meet you.”

She headed off to the lake, while he sat and watched her trip daintily down the steps and across the lawn. He was wondering about all she had said. He was also wondering just how much power the influential, altruistic, sexually degenerate and inordinately wealthy Conrad Zalesie held.

“What the hell’s all this about?”

“Mr Zalesie suggested we take the liberty. He decided that, under current circumstances, you’d be safer and more comfortable staying here for a few days.”

“He decided? What circumstances?”

“I’m sure Mr Zalesie will explain.”

“And what if I decide I don’t want Mr Zalesie’s protection?”

“That is your privilege, but given the nature of your business, and the uncertain climate. . . I’m sure, when Mr Zalesie explains, you’ll come to accept his offer of hospitality.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Cowdray seemed untroubled by Hammond’s anger. He walked to the french doors and stood quietly for a moment. Hammond followed the Englishman’s gaze, to where the forlorn figure of Angela Carlisle stood looking out across the water.

“I noticed you chatting to Mrs Carlisle.”

“Oh did you? Does that mean you’re watching me?”

Hammond turned to see Cowdray shake his head.

“Good Lord no, Mr Hammond. It’s just that Mrs Carlisle has suffered a great deal recently. We’re keeping a weather eye on her. I’m sure you understand?”

“Yes, uh, yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

He’d suddenly felt churlish at the blurting of his own paranoia. The secretary’s supercilious features continued to smile a reassurance as Cowdray relayed the invitation he’d been waiting for.

“Oh, and Mr Zalesie asked if you would care to join him in his study.”

Hammond followed the Englishman through the main body of the house and up a secondary staircase, to where Conrad Zalesie sat waiting.

“Mr Hammond. It’s good to meet you at last. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

Zalesie smiled as he came out from behind his desk. Hammond took the offered hand and warily studied his host.

“Mr Zalesie. I’ve heard about you, too.”

“Not all bad, I hope?”

“No. . . Well, not all.”

The smile on Zalesie’s face broadened.

“They did tell me you were forthright. I rather like that. Please, take a seat.”

Hammond sat down. Zalesie returned to his chair on the other side of the desk. Hammond gazed around the study and voiced his admiration.

“You have a beautiful home, Mr Zalesie. I understand you prefer to be called Mister?”

“Yes, the Russians gave the title and some land to one of my more disreputable ancestors: payment for betraying their fellow Lithuanians during the third partitioning. As you might imagine, it is not an ancestry that I or my family are especially proud of. Anyway, enough of that. So you’re our new man in the State Department?”

“I’m nobody’s man.”

A frown and note of rancour replaced Zalesie’s previous condescension.

“Everybody is somebody’s man, Mr Hammond, even you.”

Moments later a disarming smile replaced the frown as Zalesie defused the tension.

“Other than admiration for your work in Magdeburg, I have no preformed opinion of you, Mr Hammond, if that is what worries you. I hope you will extend me the same courtesy?”

Hammond was still feeling distinctly prickly.

“Of course, Mr Zalesie. So let me ask you. Did you have Alan Carlisle killed?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did Catherine Schmidt kill Alan Carlisle?”

“No, she did not.”

Hammond’s questions had been naïve to the point of absurdity and candid to the point of rudeness. Zalesie’s answers had been predictable to the point of banal.

“Then who did?”

The Lithuanian seemed unconcerned and somehow distant. He didn’t answer directly.

“I can recall sitting here with Alan Carlisle. He was sitting where you are now. I was talking about Max Schmeling. You can see his picture on the wall there. I told Alan about the first fight with Louis, and mentioned how Schmeling’s trainer spotted the flaw in Louis’ defence.”

“How he dropped his guard after an attack?”

Zalesie beamed his approval.

“I see you’re an aficionado?” Hammond shrugged. Zalesie continued. “Beria has the same flaw. He doesn’t drop his guard after an attack, but he will sometimes drop his agents. It depends on their continuing worth, or the risk they may be compromised. You see, Beria is like Stalin; he’s paranoid. If he is at all concerned that he can no longer trust them, and more importantly their information, he’ll drop them like a stone.”

“You’re talking about Beria’s agent in the State Department?”

“Precisely.”

“So who killed Alan Carlisle?”

“I couldn’t tell you who performed the deed, Mr Hammond. However, given the condition of the body, I would assume the instruction came from someone familiar with our mutual young friend and some of her, shall we say, more alarming idiosyncrasies.”

“And what does all that mean?”

“It means the order undoubtedly originated from inside the Lubyanka, Mr Hammond. Is that plain enough for you?”

“But Carlisle was already working for Beria. Why would Beria want him killed?”

Hammond’s unthinking strategy had been to provoke an indiscretion through candour and confrontation. Zalesie seemed little more than mildly irritated.

“Partly because of you.” Hammond looked puzzled. Zalesie explained. “By showing that photograph to Daniel, you took away one of Beria’s levers. Then, of course, by rescuing young Mathew Carlisle from the Austrian MGB, we took away the other. Beria had no other way of shutting Carlisle up.” Hammond still looked puzzled. Zalesie elaborated. “That was why Beria sent Paslov to blackmail Carlisle, to shut him up.”

“Not to get to Martin Kube?”

Hammond was still hoping to pry an indiscretion. The reaction was less than he’d hoped.

“Why would they need Carlisle to do that for them? They have you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Following the trail with all the tenacity of a bloodhound, and effectively doing the work of Beria and Paslov as you snuffle your way along.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, Mr Hammond, you don’t, do you?”

“Are you going to explain?”

“No. I’ve given you more than enough answers to digest. The rest will have to wait.”

Casual dismissal didn’t sit well with Hammond.

“Why am I getting the impression that you have something to hide, Mr Zalesie?”

Far from provoking annoyance or indiscretion, the question seemed to amuse the Lithuanian.

“I have never met a man who didn’t have something to hide, Mr Hammond. Should the day ever dawn, I doubt I will find myself able to trust him. But now I must suspend our little chat for a few hours. I have an appointment in Baltimore. You really should have telephoned. Anyway, I’m sure your questions will keep until I return.”

Hammond remembered the nightmare and tried a bluff.

“It’s all about Manhattan, isn’t it?”

Hammond saw the look of surprise and felt elated. He counted it as his only success so far, but any joy faded when Zalesie posed a question of his own.

“How remarkably perceptive of you. And what precisely is it about Manhattan?”

“I don’t know.”

Conrad Zalesie chuckled good-naturedly.

“Remind me never to play pin the tail on the donkey with you.”

“Pin the what?”

“It is a children’s game. Blindfolded children take turns pinning a paper tail onto the outline of a donkey. Whichever child pins their tail closest to the hindquarters wins the game. Children love it. I must admit I am rather fond of it myself.”

“I’m not a child.”

Hammond had bristled. Zalesie smiled benevolently.

“We are all of us children, Mr Hammond. The games merely become more complex as we grow.”

Zalesie was clearly enjoying the banter. Disconcerted, Hammond posed another question, more in hope than expectation.

“But I succeeded just now, didn’t I, Mr Zalesie? The tail is on the donkey?”

“You will only know that when you remove the blindfold. But I have an aircraft waiting. Perhaps we can continue this conversation over dinner.”

“Which reminds me: my suitcase, from the hotel?”

“Merely a precaution. Losing two State Department officials could be seen as negligence.”

“You think I’m in danger?”

Zalesie looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook his head.

“Not as long as you keep that blindfold in place. You are going to have to take it off at some point, though, and then you could be.”

“One last question. Why are you bothering with me? I’m not with the police or FBI. You’re a busy and important man. You don’t have to answer my questions. All you have to do is call Marcus Allum and complain about my pestering you. I’d be on my way back to Washington within the hour. Why haven’t you done that?”

This time the smile was warm as Zalesie came out from behind the desk to shake hands.