The Margin of Evil! (14 page)

Back in the office he sat at his desk.
By now the street urchin would have delivered the note to Gerhardt. A reply would soon be on its way. At least that's what Georgii had hoped. The phone rang on his desk. It was not the front desk as he had hoped it might be, it was Trofimov and she wanted to see him right now.

'
Comrade take a seat.' She paused for a moment. 'Always where the trouble is.'  She paused looking him squarely in the face, 'Comrade Radetzky, I am not the only person to notice this. Let me give you a word of advice. You are beginning to draw attention to yourself. You know the old adage, 'Trouble attracts trouble.'  You start, how shall I say, your past; would be better off lying low for a while!'

'
Let's get one thing straight Comrade! I am not ashamed of my past. Yes you can give out veiled threats, now that the tables have been turned, but the truth of the fact remains, that you and your kind cannot survive without the likes of me. No matter what you feel ...'

'
There's no need to adopt that kind of attitude with me Georgii Radetzky.'

'
I think there's every reason. You need me more than I need you, so don't come the 'trouble attracts trouble', with me.'  With that Georgii got up and started to make for the door.

'
All I said was that you are beginning to draw attention to yourself. You might be advised to behave more discreetly, instead of careering through the streets of Moscow waving that ridiculous gun, with all the subtlety of, 'A Bull in a China Shop'!'

Georgii didn
't bother to answer. He shut the door behind him, got his coat and headed for home. En route he thought about what Trofimov had said to him. Her tone towards the end of the conversation was almost conciliatory. Maybe he had overreacted, maybe she was giving him good advice and maybe he ought to keep his head below the parapet for a while. After all these were strange times! A man with his past, was sooner or later going to become surplus to requirement. Georgii was sure; in fact he knew that his very presence irritated certain members of the 'Nouveau' Bolshevik class. The time would come when history could and would be rewritten and he was very sure that no credit would be given to the Georgii Radetzky's, and Auguste Gerhardt's of this world. It was only a matter of time.

Georgii walked up the steps, and could hear Rezhnikov
, snores even before he entered the lobby. The old fool was slumped as usual behind his desk. He was, as always, completely lost in his drunken stupor.  He walked up the stairs and entered his tiny, two-room apartment. Pavel and Anna were there to meet him and it looked like they had brought something decent back for tea. The boy was plucking the feathers out of a nice succulent chicken.

'
Better chuck the 'Choock' into that pot,' Georgii said.

'
Your wish is my command,' Pavel replied.

Looking at Pavel, another thought crossed Georgii
's mind. Where was Rezhnikov getting his vodka from? The old boy was only lamenting to him the other day that he could not lay his hands on any Eristoff. Then he looked at Pavel and then the 'Rouble dropped.'  The two kids were plying the 'Old Buffer' with vodka. 'Sons of Bitches', Georgii thought. Then a guilty thought crossed his mind, in these hard times they simply could not have a whole chicken to themselves. The decent thing to do would be to share it with some other person.

Georgii walk
ed up the next flight of stairs and knocked on the writer's door. The door opened an inch and a face peered round the corner.

'
Georgii it's you. What can I do for you?' the writer said.

'
Nothing!  It's what I can do for you! I was wondering, if you'd care to share some supper with me and my new friends.'

'
I didn't know if 'Good Comrades' still indulged themselves with such bourgeois pastimes. I'll be down in ten minutes,' the writer replied and the two of them simultaneously burst into laughter.

An hour later all four of them sat huddled by the grate.
Their bellies full, they warmed themselves by the fire. They chatted idly and enjoyed the Georgian wine that the writer had brought with him. The writer said that he had seen the two children around the building from time to time. And had, guessing rightly, that they might have something to do with Georgii. But, lowering the tone of his voice, added that in these times you saw everything and nothing, and carried on about your business oblivious to 'other things' going on around you.

When the party was over, Georgii reflected on what, for him, had been an excruciatingly long day.
The events at the prison had only taken place just over twelve hours previously. The short interview with Trofimov five hours before; that conversation irritated him. If he was right, it could be a portent of things to come or was it a well placed warning, the thing was he could never tell with her. Whatever the case, he was going to take a gamble. Georgii decided that he was going to keep his head down and find someone else to do his dirty work; 'a someone', that he could trust and Georgii Radetzky knew exactly who that person was. The only thing was; where on earth was he? Georgii knew that he was still in Moscow, the only question was where.

Come tomorrow, he was going to discreetly channel all of his efforts into finding the unreliable English émigré, known to all, as Royston O
'Reilly.  Fortunately fate was on his side.

Weeks had gone by, and there was no sign of Royston O
' Reilly. Georgii felt that, given the circumstances, that he had behaved as discretely as anyone could. But he also had that ever present feeling that he was being watched all the time. The British call it 'Coppers Instinct'; he remembered discussing this with a member of a pre war Scotland Yard delegation. The Englishman had said that nine tenths of the job was down to dogged police work, the other tenth was down to 'gut' instinct. As far as the Englishman was concerned all the best coppers had it. Georgii had agreed, but still he could not ferret out O' Reilly or find-out anything more about who was watching him. But he knew they were there! On the other hand, maybe he was getting a little bit paranoid in his old age; he had definitely not liked Trofimov's 'Drawing of Attention' that had really stuck in his craw.

Other things irritated him, Gerhardt
and his friend Trotsky had started making impossible demands. They had given him two weeks to solve the case and that had been three weeks ago. Communication was frosty to say the least. Georgii looked around, the overcrowded office was busy. Trofimov was in her 'cubicle' entertaining important visitors. He looked down at his copy of Pravda. News from 'The Fronts' was pretty dire. It seemed that it could go either way. Georgii leafed through it. Comrade Trotsky was definitely 'Flavour of the Month'. He sat at his desk and contemplated life.

Slowly Georgii
's attention shifted over to a nearby conversation between a Militsya official and a Red Army guard.  The guard said that during the night a routine patrol had been working its way through an area near the western city approaches. They were, as usual, acting on information received. Agent provocateurs had been operating in the vicinity, but it soon turned out that the info had not added up to anything concrete. But the patrol had encountered a motley bunch, in a derelict building, that had their own vodka still. The still had been destroyed, but one of the number, was a man with a purple nose, who spoke Russian in a peculiar way. The guards had not arrested the men, as they themselves had been outnumbered five to one, by the ensuing crowd drawn to the building by the noise the Red Guards were making, dismantling the only source of pleasure in their otherwise wretched lives.

'
Excuse me Comrades! I could not help but overhear your conversation. Do you have a description of this man? It's very important,' Georgii said. 

'
About six feet, grizzled face, with grey fuzzy hair. He was wearing an old navy blue sailor's jumper, and a bobble hat,' the guard said. Then the two men moved away out of earshot.

Georgii resisted the urge to fly out of
the office. He sat at his desk and chewed on his pencil. He must find an excuse to get over there. But on a different note, everybody else was moving over to the area outside 'The Granite Faced Slag's' office. Trofimov was already holding court. Georgii grabbed his notebook and pen and then went over to hear who was being assigned whom and what.

The day had been spent trudging around Moscow
's districts, conducting 'spot searches on 'Comrades.'  The next day was the same and so was the day after that. But Georgii was working to a plan. He was gradually edging his way over to the 'Western Approaches' area of town. On the fifth day, and with Trofimov's blessing; Georgii's detachment, a raggle-taggle bunch of Red Guards and Cheka men, were systematically combing through the slum areas for 'White' insurgents and other capitalist vermin. But only Georgii knew the 'real' agenda but still it turned up nothing. It was mid evening on the sixth day.

He was walking home after another day of fruitless searching.
Georgii was not really concentrating at this point, his mind, as usual, was elsewhere. He walked past an open fronted doorway. Sleet was beginning to fall, so he turned up his collar and then took shelter inside; he just started to light up a cigarette when a voice said.

'
Comrade Radetzky! Couldn't spare us a smoke?'

Turning round more in s
hock than amazement; Georgii's eyes strained into the portico. Out of its shadows emerged the burly 'Scouser'. So there is a God, after-all, Georgii thought. All of his prayers had just been answered.

Chapter Eight

At any one time in his life Royston O'Reilly had been: a stevedore, a shop steward, a merchant seaman; as unlikely as it sounds, an assistant to a missionary', a railway porter', and a soldier of fortune in the Imperial Russian army'. He was also a self-confessed liar and anarchist when it suited him. He was committed to World Revolution, with more than a passing admiration for the 19
th
century Russian Revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin
[13]
. O'Reilly didn't really know that much about him, but he idolised the Russian Anarchist as a man after his own heart, but that was about as far as it had ever got. The problem was, like the Russian, that he was cursed in two ways; he couldn't get on with people and booze for long extended periods. If you took this into account Royston O'Reiily was a great all round guy; if you didn't notice the signs, he was nothing more than a nasty, spiteful piece of work.

The story that Georgii Radetzky had been told, was that O
'Reilly had had to leave Liverpool in rather a hurry. Married and with a young family to support, he had been caught with his trousers down; his wife had chased him across town. Dockyard legend to this day has it, that she was going from pub to pub wielding a cleaver. The boat he left upon was a small Baltic trader and she was sailing on the evening tide. Six months on, the boat had driven him, the crew, almost around the bend. Things soon came to a head in St Petersburg, when O'Reilly, off on leave, had returned to find the vessel gone and his kit bag on the dock.

It was the end of July, and the year was nineteen fourteen.
Royston O'Reilly now found himself marooned in Russia on the wrong side of a 'War Mongering' nation of, 'Blood Thirsty', Prussians.

As the lights were going off
all over Europe, Royston O'Reilly soon found himself caught up in the hysteria of that August. Homeless and hungry, he decided that it would be a smart move to join the Russian army. It is here that he met Georgii Radetzky and their paths, from time to time, had continued to cross. They both stood in silence and stared across the street; they watched the occasional comings and goings of the passersby.

'
How did you know I was looking for you? Georgii said.

'
News travels fast! I saw you and your goons walking the streets. I had a hunch you were looking for me,' O'Reilly said. They were both talking in English.

'
Yer reckon!'

'
Yeah I do and I'll tell you why. Every time you're in the shit you come looking for me!!'

'
O.k.  You once said to me you would do anything to get back to England. If you do this for me; I promise I'll get you back,' Georgii said.

'
And what's it this time?'  The 'Scouser' sarcastically asked.

Georgii told him the story.
He told it, 'Warts and All.'  By the end of it a deal had been struck and they agreed to meet up again. O'Reilly did go on to say.  'A right, tall story, but it does tie in with one or two things that I've heard too!' The 'Scouser' remarked. He then went on to say that if Georgii was desperate to find him, he could be found in the stables at this address. They shook hands and then went their separate ways.

As arranged they rendezvoused at the Northern Railway yard.
It was mid afternoon and there was no one around. Georgii took his overcoat off and threw it over the top of the wall. O'Reilly made no effort to help; he just stood there and watched. Reluctantly he helped Georgii up onto the wall. Once on top, Georgii helped his accomplice up and then lowered himself down. The pair had to move quickly, as the light was beginning to fade. They moved in silence, towards the disused building that was to be their 'hide', and then they concealed themselves in its rafters. There they would lie up until it was dark. From here they could observe 'The Kevshor' market. They both agreed to take two-hour watches.