Without Honor (25 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Without Honor
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A low overcast sky hung over Manhattan, threatening a cold rain at any time; traffic was frantic even for a weekday. This was McGarvey's third trip back to New York since he'd returned from Switzerland, and this time he had even fewer illusions in his sparse kit after talking with Owens and then Trotter. He had taken a cab directly in from La Guardia Airport, crossing beneath the East River through the Midtown Tunnel and taking the FDR Drive down to Houston Street before heading across town. It was much quieter in the Village. Two young men wearing unlaced combat boots, dirty blue jeans, and leather jackets, their hair cut extremely short, walked arm-in-arm along Houston toward Broadway. He had spent a restless night at the Marriott Twin Bridges and then had taken the shuttle up. Before he left he had called Trotter at his office without giving his name. Trotter had not been happy, but he had understood what McGarvey wanted. “Mexico City,” he said, and McGarvey hung up, pleased with the fast work. Evidently he'd finally gotten to his old friend; Trotter finally was beginning to understand the real problem. Yarnell had been a Soviet agent in Mexico City in the old days. There was little doubt of
it. And he had probably murdered Roger Harris in Cuba. There wasn't much doubt about that either. But Trotter had begun to understand that Yarnell was most likely still active, and that besides his control officer, Baranov, who now apparently had returned to the helm of CESTA in Mexico City, Yarnell had someone else working with him in the States. Most likely in Washington. Merely killing him would do little more than ruffle a few feathers in Moscow; it certainly would not end the network.
Broome Street was quiet. McGarvey paid the cabbie when they got to West Broadway and Grand, and walked back. He'd brought his shoulder bag, which he had checked through on the flight so that he could take his pistol. On the way in the cab he had taken it out of his bag. It felt heavy, but comforting now. A greengrocer's truck was parked in front of St. Christopher's. A thick-chested man chewing a cigar and wearing a long dirty apron was loading boxes of lettuce and tomatoes for the club onto a hand truck. The front door was propped open. McGarvey hesitated a moment across the street. The club looked very quiet. No one was around except for the delivery man. Upstairs in Evita's salon, the curtains were open, but he could see nothing of the inside. He crossed the street and entered the club. The vestibule was open, but no one was around. From within, though, he thought he heard someone talking, a second later a piano started up. It took a moment before he recognized the tune,
Stardust.
Whoever was playing was very good and played with a lot of emotion and sadness. He went through the frosted-glass doors into the cabaret. Two women sat at the bar; they were eating something. A maintenance man was atop a very tall stepladder doing something to one of the big ceiling fans. He climbed down. Evita Perez, dressed in a pair of baggy shorts, an old
sweatshirt, no shoes on her feet, was on the tiny stage playing the piano. Owens had thought she had a lot of talent. Evidently he had meant it literally as well as figuratively.
No one paid any attention to him as he crossed the main floor, dropped his bag on one of the chairs, and perched on the edge of a table just below the stage. He lit a cigarette while she finished playing. She looked pretty good even in the daylight, he decided. Her hair was up, exposing her long, delicate neck. A few lines marked the sides of her cheeks and she had developed just a hint of a double chin, but her arms and legs were still very slim and her feet were surprisingly small and nicely formed. A glass of champagne was sitting on the piano, and the half-empty bottle was next to it.
“Hello, Evita,” he called softly to her when she was finished.
She turned to him. Her eyes were very large, but there was no surprise in them. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.
“I wanted to finish our talk while you had the time for it,” he said. “There were a lot of things I wanted to ask you. A lot of ground to cover. I wasn't sure about some of what you told me.”
“There is no time for you here. I can telephone the police, or I can call for Harry. He's a man you wouldn't want to know.”
“I need your help.”
She nodded. “So do the starving kids in Ethiopia. Nothing I can do for them, or for you.”
“Maybe if you'd listen to what I have to say, you'd change your mind.”
“I don't think so. Get the hell out of here, would you? Now.”
“An old man by the name of Owens was murdered two nights ago. He was Darby's old boss.”
Evita was holding onto the edge of the piano bench so tightly her knuckles were turning white.
“I talked to him. He told me about Mexico City and about you. And he told me about Darby's days afterward, in Washington and then in Moscow. He was afraid of your husband. I think Darby was sleeping with his wife.”
“Christ,” Evita swore in disgust. She jumped up. “Harry!” she shouted. “Harry!”
McGarvey glanced over his shoulder just as a huge black man, his shoulders bursting out of a white T-shirt, stepped around from behind the bar. The two women had turned and were looking over.
“Yo,” he called out in a deep baritone voice.
McGarvey tried his last card. He didn't want a fight with Harry, who looked as if he could tear down a large house with his bare hands. “Did you know that Baranov is back in Mexico City?” he asked Evita. “I have that for a fact.” He glanced again toward the bar. The big man was clenching his fists. He looked like a small Sherman tank painted chocolate brown.
Evita was suddenly trembling as if she had just stepped out of a very cold bath directly in front of an open window.
“A lot of innocent people have already been hurt,” McGarvey said.
She looked down at him, her lips pursed. She shook her head. “There are no innocent people, don't you know that?” She looked up. “Hold my calls, Harry,” she shouted. “I'm going to be in conference for the rest of the morning.”
“You got it,” her bouncer said. He went back behind the bar. The two women went back to their breakfast.
Evita came down from the stage. “Where did you hear this, about Baranov?”
“I have my sources. But it's true.”
She studied his eyes for a long time, then turned away as if she were resigning herself to some very bad news. “I knew he was going back down there. I saw him. Here, in New York, you know. Maybe nine or ten months ago.”
McGarvey suppressed his excitement. He had inadvertently stumbled onto another aspect of this business; her relationship with the Russian. Yarnell was at the center of this mess, of course, and he apparently had help at high levels in Washington, but Baranov was the key; at least he was as far as concerned Evita Perez. His was more than the name of a Russian spymaster to her. He could see her involvement written all over her face, in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders, in the way she held herself as if she were reliving the pain of a very old, very deep injury.
“We'd better go upstairs,” she said at length.
McGarvey picked up his overnight bag, followed her across the cabaret floor, and went up the stairs to her apartment-salon. At the top she closed and locked the door.
“Fix yourself a drink,” she said. “I'll take champagne.” She turned and disappeared into the back.
. McGarvey dropped his bag at the end of one of the couches, took off his overcoat, laying it aside, and went to the bar. He mixed himself a bourbon and water, and found a split of Mumms for her, which he uncorked and poured. When she came back she had changed into a thin yellow cotton dress, let her hair down, and put on a little makeup. The change was startling. She looked almost beautiful and certainly very seductive. He could clearly see the shape of her nipples through the material of the dress. She sat down on the couch in front of the fireplace, tucked her legs up beneath her, and accepted
the glass of champagne. There was some expectation in her eyes, but he could see that she had girded herself for a difficult time ahead. Difficult but necessary.
 
“You're out to get Hizzoner, Darby,” Evita said.
“I think your husband was and is a spy,” McGarvey said.
“Ex-husband, let's keep that part straight right from the beginning, shall we?”
“His Soviet control officer has been and still is Valentin Baranov.”
Evita laughed disparagingly. “You think you know so fucking much. You don't know a thing. Nothing.”
“I've come to you for help,” McGarvey said, quite calmly. “I'd hate like hell, you know, to see you deported back to Mexico. Baranov is there. He'd take over.”
“Who are you trying to kid?”
McGarvey measured his next words. He watched her carefully, especially her eyes and her hands as they gripped the champagne glass. He was looking for her vulnerable spot.
“You'd probably never see your daughter again if you were sent away,” he said. “I saw her in Washington a few days ago. She's living with her father. Quite a beautiful young woman. A lot like you.”
“You sonofabitch,” Evita swore. “You bastard.”
She wanted to speak Spanish. McGarvey could hear it in the way she chopped her words. English was far too slow for her, yet she must have figured Spanish would be lost on him.
“I came here trying to avoid all of this,” McGarvey said sitting forward. “Believe me. I think Darby has used every person he's ever come in
contact with. Including you. Including your daughter.”
It was a heavy thought for her. The weight of it seemed to press down upon her, causing her shoulders to sag, her back to bend a little; even the weight of the champagne glass became too much for her and she rested it on her lap.
“Is she a pretty girl, do you think? I haven't seen her in so long. She doesn't know me any longer. Whatever Darby tells her is true. She has stars in her eyes.” Evita shook her head, looking inward. “Who wouldn't? I don't know anyone who could resist him. His charm. He's so damned self-assured, no matter what he says you have to believe him. You know?”
“Is he still working for the Russians?” McGarvey asked gently. “For Baranov?”
Evita looked up. “Have you met my … have you met Darby? Have you come face-to-face with him? Have you spent a few minutes listening to him?”
“No.”
“I thought not. You don't talk as if you were one of his initiates.” She drank her champagne nervously. “I don't know what you're doing here.”
“When is the last time you saw him?”
“A long time ago. Not long enough …”
“You mentioned that Baranov had come here. You saw him? You met with him?”
“How can you think you know Darby without meeting him?” Evita asked. “I want to know that. I don't think you know a goddamned thing about him, see. I think you're guessing.”
“I'm guessing, you're right about that much. But I think he killed a very good friend of mine. Or at least I think he
had
my friend killed. I don't suspect there is a lot more that I want to know about him, except for his relationship with Baranov.”
“You really think Darby is a spy?”
“Yes.”
“You think he is a murderer? You think he was working for Valentin?”
“Yes. I think he's still working for him.”
She laughed again. “Listen to me. Darby doesn't have, nor has he ever had, enough dedication to anything or anyone other than himself to become a spy,” she explained. “You say he worked for Valentin? It's true, you know, in the old days. But it was also true that he turned in absolutely top-rate intelligence to his own people. To your people, you know. The agency. The Company. Our Father who art in Langley …”
“But he worked for Baranov.”
“He was in love with Valentin. We all were.”
“Still?”
“What do you want?”
“You told me downstairs that Baranov had come here nine or ten months ago. What did he want?”
“Old times …”
“What'd he want?” McGarvey insisted. “You were in love with him, too. Did he come here to …”
“Yes!” she asked defiantly, her head up.
“Did you and he make love? For old times' sake?”
“What kind of a fucked up question is that?” Evita jumped up, flinging her champagne glass toward the fireplace. “What did you come here for? What do you want? I don't care what you think, you know. Darby gave himself and then he gave me. But that's all there is to it. There's where you don't understand anything. He never gave a damn about anything or anyone. Not about me, not really about Baranov, not about his bosses in Langley. None of it. It was nothing more than a big game to him. He was
playing chess, only it was with real people. But he didn't care.” ..

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