The Last Supper (32 page)

Rosalind’s violet eyes glittered with mistrust. “You know he is. Aren’t you part of his team?”

“Hardly. I’ve been abroad.”

“But now you’re back. One would suppose that you’d join up with your old chief again.”

“Would one?” Christopher said.

Christopher called for the check. When it came, Rosalind paid it with a new fifty-dollar bill.

They went outside and got into Rosalind’s car, an inconspicuous gray Chevrolet. The paint gleamed with wax and the upholstery had been vigorously brushed: it could only be a vehicle from
the motor pool of the British Embassy. Rosalind was giving Christopher every possible signal—the blurted questions about his reasons for being in Washington, the crisp new fifty out of the
petty cash drawer, the car—that she was on duty and he was her target.

Now, as she drove him through the darkened streets of Georgetown, she began to talk again in the same rude tone she had used in the restaurant. It occurred to Christopher that, in two hours of
conversation, Rosalind had made only one joke, the story about the Muscatel.

“Robin has suggested that I should resume my friendship with you; he thinks I can get you to whisper secrets in bed,” she said. “That should tell you that he’s not quite
the man you knew in Vienna.”

“You mean he wouldn’t have suggested such a thing in Vienna?”

Rosalind gave a little grunt, as if the car had hit a hole in the pavement.

“No,” she said. “That was true lust. Besides, Robin wasn’t quite so desperate in those days. His current case of nerves must have something to do with that business with
Ilse. One wouldn’t think that a bit of warmed-over sex could mean all that much, but Americans do brood so about such things. It must be because you never seem to
know
the people you
marry, they’re strangers you meet at the office. And of course Ilse was a bloody romantic German, which adds to the lunacy. Remember how Wolkowicz looked, pounding Robin’s face to a
bloody pulp in the snow in the Vienna Woods. Quite mad.”

Rosalind, when she spoke of Americans to Christopher, implied that they were foreigners to him, too. In a way, they were. She stopped the car in front of Christopher’s hotel.
“I’m quite desperate myself,” she said. “I’ve asked to be posted away from here. They’re going to let me join my brother in Baghdad.”

“Do you get along well with your brother?”

“Madly. It was Robin who suggested it, before he knew you were coming back to assist Wolkowicz.”

“Why do you have this fixation about my assisting Wolkowicz, Rosalind? In what way am I going to assist him, do you think?”

“In this vendetta Robin believes is going on against him.”

“Robin is having alcoholic delusions.”

Rosalind sat with both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead. However her manner had changed, she looked the same. It was raining and her white face, framed by its dark hair, was reflected
in the windshield. She turned her luminous eyes on Christopher.

“Delusions, are they?” she said. “Robin will be happy to know that. I’ll tell him. It will give me something to report. It ought to comfort him.”

She took Christopher’s face between her hands and kissed him on the lips. It was a sisterly kiss, dry and cool.

“On the other hand, Robin always said of you that you never told unnecessary lies,” she said. “When he remembers that, he may not be so comforted.”

Both she and Christopher knew that they had been lying to each other all evening. It was part of the work. In Vienna it had been a joke, their professional secrets had been no more important to
them as they lay in bed than secrets about old lovers were to an ordinary couple who decided to have an affair.

Rosalind drove away, weaving a bit as she maneuvered the clumsy American car. She had gone to a lot of trouble to warn Christopher that this business with Darby was no joke. He wondered what her
reasons could be.

— 2 —

Next day, Wolkowicz and Christopher met by the elephant cage in the zoo. Wolkowicz had made elaborate meeting arrangements, as if they were running an operation in a city behind
the Iron Curtain. Christopher had been instructed to approach on foot, through the park, in order to be able to spot surveillance. There were other signs of excessive tradecraft, not typical of
Wolkowicz: a figure eight had been drawn in chalk on the sidewalk at a designated place to signify that the meeting was on, and there were to be elaborate signals between Wolkowicz and Christopher
before they approached each other. Christopher had been warned not to discuss the meeting with anyone, not even Patchen.

When Wolkowicz saw Christopher, he took a sack of peanuts out of his pocket and began to feed the elephants; Christopher slapped the folded newspaper he was carrying against his thigh. These
were the all-clear signals.

The formalities over, Wolkowicz seized Christopher by both biceps and gave him a shake. His rubicund face with its button nose and its fat cheeks glowed with pleasure.

“You seem happy,” Christopher said.

“I must be glad to see you. I didn’t think Patchen would be smart enough to let me have you.”

“He knows about this?”

“Sure he knows. That’s the whole idea.”

Wolkowicz fed more peanuts to the elephants, who thrust their trunks through the bars of their enclosure; it was obvious that the animals knew Wolkowicz; he must come here often. Christopher
grinned. Wolkowicz frowned.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“The elephants like you.”

“I like elephants,” Wolkowicz said. “Do you know what I’m doing?”

“No.”

“I’m running a counterintelligence op.”

“Who are you running this op for, Barney?”

“I report to a guy in the White House named Foley. It’s the goddamndest setup. I’m not supposed to tell the Outfit a fucking thing, and so far I haven’t. Patchen is
having a fit. That’s why I asked for you. I figured Patchen would try to penetrate this operation. I
wanted
it to be penetrated. The Outfit has to know what’s going on. I’m
under orders from above not to tell the Outfit what I’m doing. How do we handle a situation like that? We use you, the one man who will not screw either me or the Outfit.”

“You
want
me to report to Patchen?”

“Somebody has to.”

Wolkowicz placed his last peanut in the pink nostril of the nearest elephant and crumpled the empty bag.

“What about your orders from the White House?” Christopher asked.

“Fuck the White House,” Wolkowicz said. “Let me give you the scenario.”

Wolkowicz told Christopher who their target was, and why. When he was finished, he looked into Christopher’s cold, guarded face.

“You don’t believe it, do you?” Wolkowicz said.

“It’s a surprise.”

Wolkowicz’s perfect false teeth appeared, briefly. Over the years, he had grown steadily more corpulent. His flesh had taken on a kind of gloss, like a sausage casing. Now, sprawled on the
bench with his legs spread and his hands thrust into his pants pockets, he stared belligerently into Christopher’s eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You think I’m out for revenge.”

“That’s what Rosalind Wilmot thinks.”

“Is that so? Did you enjoy your dinner with her last night?”

“Not especially.”

“I heard you made an early night of it. Darby knows we’re on him, right?”

“According to Rosalind, he knows you have him under surveillance. I don’t think he knows what you suspect him of.”

“He knows, all right,” Wolkowicz said. “I wouldn’t go to all this trouble over what’s-her-name, my ex-wife.” His dentures gleamed again, white in his pink
face. “Not that I mind a little bonus.”

— 3 —

Later, walking the Doberman, Patchen philosophized. It was early in September and the night was mild, but Patchen wore his scarf and his cap.

“I sometimes think there is some sort of psychic link between Wolkowicz and me,” Patchen said. “I can’t stand the man and he can’t stand me, but we seem to be
overcome by the same suspicions at the same time.”

“You suspect Darby, too?”

“Oh, yes. I would have gone after him myself if the White House hadn’t preempted the investigation.”

“You must be glad they did. It saves the Outfit the necessity of embarrassing the British service.”

“That, or it saves the British service from being as embarrassed as it ought to be. Us, too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Patchen hurried along, dragging his leg. It had rained that day and in the washed air his breath smelled faintly of the Bordeaux he had drunk with dinner.

“The first thing I did when I got this new job, which theoretically gives me access to everything,” Patchen said, “was to look into the history of operations against the
Soviets.”

A month or two earlier, Patchen had been made chief of operations; he ran the entire espionage service.

“It’s a strange history. In nearly twenty years of trying, the Outfit, on its own, has never initiated a single successful operation within Russia or against a Russian target outside
of the Soviet Union. Does that surprise you?”

“What about the Sewer?”

“What about it, indeed? Perhaps this merry little jape you and Wolkowicz are putting on will answer that question. But there are so many other questions. You can’t imagine how
many.”

“You think Darby can answer these questions?”

Patchen cleared his throat. “I think,” he said, “that nearly everyone will be satisfied with his answers. ‘My God,’ they’ll say when Wolkowicz is done,
‘now we know the worst!’”

It was time to turn back. Patchen called his dog.

“But will they know the worst?” he said. “I wonder.”

— 4 —

Christopher had not imagined that he would see Rosalind again, but within a week he was invited to a British party, and she was among the guests. It was a buffet dinner.
Christopher arrived late and after he had filled his plate the hostess led him to the last empty place, a chair that formed part of a circle in front of the fireplace.

“Do you know all these dreadful foreigners?” she asked. “My niece Charlotte Grestain and Robin Darby, Rosalind Wilmot and—”

“My dear Paul,” Darby said in a slurred voice, “what a magnificent surprise.” He gave Christopher an elaborate wink. The hostess gave Darby a worried look.

“You do know one another,” the hostess said. “Marvelous. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Tell me the rest of your name, Paul,” Charlotte Grestain said, patting the chair beside her. She was a lean girl, no more than eighteen, with the face of a huntress and a fresh
English complexion. She sipped what seemed to be a glass of milk.

“Christopher.”

“Really? I think it’s very matey the way you Americans have Christian names for surnames. Do you like milk?”

“Not especially.”

“I drink nothing else when in America. It’s your national drink. I wonder if I can have another?”

She gestured to a waiter. He took her glass. “Milk and whisky, Lady Charlotte?”

“Yes, please. The whisky improves it enormously.”

Robin Darby plucked a drink off the waiter’s tray as he passed. He ran his eyes over the long legs of Charlotte Grestain.

“Whisky and milk is my idea of bridging the Atlantic,” Charlotte said, “mixing the best of the Old World with the best of the New.”

Darby drained his glass. “You’re a silly little brat, Charlotte,” he said.

“Famous for it,” Charlotte replied.

Darby kneaded his empty whisky glass and looked around in naked desperation for another drink, gesticulating to waiters. They passed by, their trays out of reach.

“They’ve been told not to come near me, that much is plain,” Darby said.

He uttered a sepulchral laugh. If Wolkowicz had grown meatier in the years since the fight in the snow over Ilse, Darby, who had always been thin, had become emaciated. His elongated body
appeared to have been dropped into its chair like a doll, limbs askew, eyes glassy.

Darby breathed noisily through his nose. His beard was wet with dribbled whisky. When the waiter returned with Charlotte’s whisky and milk, Darby helped himself to another drink.

Darby took no part in the small talk that ran around the circle of chairs except to laugh loudly, in a humorless voice, at the witticisms. He employed a different laugh for every member of the
party, greeting Charlotte’s sallies with a snort, Rosalind’s with a phlegmy giggle. Only Christopher was spared this treatment; instead of laughing at his remarks, Darby fixed him with
a demented wild-eyed stare, hand clapped over his mouth.

They were joined by two other latecomers, a U.S. senator called Oliver Brooks and his wife. Senator Brooks was in his sixties, but he looked much younger; he had the smooth face of a man of
thirty and a magnificent head of coal-black hair. It was suspected that he had undergone hair transplants. His wife was an extremely pretty girl of twenty-two who had been a beauty queen, a final
runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. contest, before she married the senator.

Mrs. Brooks sat down, her shapely knees primly together, and gave everyone in the circle a bright smile. Darby straightened his sprawled body and smiled back just as brilliantly. So long as
Darby smiled, Mrs. Brooks continued to smile. She was a responsive girl, eager to be polite. For long moments the beauty queen and the Englishman faced each other, teeth bared. When she gave signs
of relaxing her smile, Darby intensified his; she would then smile more brightly. At last she realized that Darby was mocking her. Her smile faded.

“God,” Darby said, “that was lovely. Put up a card in Soho Square and you could get ten pounds for it—Miss Sourire, Charm School, one flight up. What do you think,
chaps?”

Senator Brooks, who had been talking to Charlotte Grestain, saw nothing amiss. He glanced at his young wife, to see if she perceived the humor in this obscure English joke, but she was poking
listlessly at the food on her plate and he couldn’t catch her eye.

The senator began to tell political anecdotes. Darby, eyes goggling with exaggerated attention, greeted the end of each story with a basso buffo explosion of guffaws that caused heads to turn
all the way across the room.