Authors: Stephen Hunter
“Almost as long as the arm itself. From the time before there was time.”
“What business have you?”
“To place a call.”
“Go on, then. While it’s there. When at last we tear down the government we will also tear down the telephone lines, and then all men will be free.”
“And so they will,” said Levitsky. God: the Anarchists. They were still the same dreamers!
He went to the counter.
A girl came up.
“How much?” he asked her. “Rather, how much,
comrade?”
She smiled, so young and pretty.
“Ten pesetas.”
“The Anarchists have not yet outlawed money?”
“Perhaps tomorrow, comrade.”
He paid her.
“Number six.” She pointed to a wall where twenty-five or so numbered phones were mounted, most of them in use. He went to number six, picked up the earpiece—still warm—and hit the receiver several times. As in Moscow,
the connection was terrible, but after a time a voice came on the line.
“¿Número, por favor?”
“Policía,”
he said into the speaker.
“Gracias,”
came the reply; there were clicks and buzzes and then another voice arrived.
“¡Policía! ¡Viva la Revolución!”
Levitsky cursed him in Russian.
There was confusion and chatter from the other end, as the speaker demanded in Spanish to know what was going on. Levitsky cursed again and again, and after a time and some confusion, at last a Russian speaker came on.
“Hello. Who is this?”
“Never mind, who is this?”
“
I
ask the questions, comrade.”
“What is your name, comrade? To whom do I speak?”
“Speshnev,” the man said. He sounded very young.
“The Speshnev who works for Glasanov? Of NKVD?”
“Identify yourself.”
“Listen, Speshnev, and listen good. I’m only going to say it once. I wish to denounce a traitor. A secret Trotsky pig and a wrecker.”
“Most interesting.”
“He’s third assistant secretary in the Maritime Commission. One Igenko. But he’s a fat cocksucking rat. He’s sold us out to the Jews.”
“And you have proof of these charges?”
“Of course. This Igenko was a comrade of the traitor Levitsky. Do you know of this Levitsky, Speshnev of the NKVD? You should. Second only to Trotsky.”
“Keep talking.”
“Igenko’s trying to get papers together so he and his loverboy Levitsky can take off. They’ll fly the coop
tonight. They’re going to meet on the Ramblas across from the Plaza Real tonight, near the stall of the lady who sells chicken on a spit. Don’t ask me how I know. It’ll be at seven. Just show up and nail the two butt-fuckers yourself.”
“Who—”
Levitsky hung up. He felt as if he were going to vomit.
“There,” said the second undersecretary, wiping the sweat off his face. It was excruciatingly hot in the tailor’s shop, on the Ramblas, overlooking the entrance to the Plaza Real, and the steam from the presses in the back room hung heavy and moist in the air. “The fat one, with the sour look, in the mottled white suit, comrade commissar.”
“Yes,” said Glasanov. “Do you see, Bolodin?”
Lenny Mink, standing next to him, nodded. He could see the fat guy through the window and down across the street, standing in the crowded thoroughfare with a nervous tightness, an aching discomfort on his mug. He was obviously a nellie, too, with his mincing walk, and his big ass stuck out like a girl’s. His face was milky and unshaven.
“He was exceedingly distracted today, comrade commissar,” said the second undersecretary. “So much so that had not your phone call come when it did, I would myself have most certainly reported it. One can tell when a man is guilty, even if one—”
“Yes, that’s fine,” said Glasanov. “I’ll note it in your record. Your record will reflect your service to Security, you may rest assured. Now the driver will take you back. And I think you’d best tell your staff the workload is going to increase.”
“Of course, comrade commissar. We are only too happy to make any sacrifice for the good of—”
“No shooting, Bolodin,” said Glasanov. “Tell your people. I want Levitsky alive. Anybody who harms Levitsky is to be severely disciplined. Is that understood?”
The fifteen other men in the room nodded.
“Bolodin, do you think you can get down and into that stall? Stay back. We don’t want Levitsky to see you. But when he approaches, you can knock him to earth. You knock him down, do you understand, and pin him to the street. The others will be there in seconds. But he’s a clever old wolf; he will have found a weapon by this time, perhaps even a revolver. He will not hesitate to use it.”
Lenny nodded again. He’d like to see that old guy try something smart with him. He took off his leather overcoat. He wore the blue overalls of a POUMista, and he pulled out a black beret and put it on his head.
“I’ll be here, of course. Watching it, you understand.”
“What if he bolts?” asked Speshnev, the young Russian. “These jobs can go all to hell if the rabbit bolts. Why, in Moscow—”
“If he bolts, I’ll catch him and snap his legs,” said Lenny Mink, and nobody disagreed with him.
“All right. Now go, go quickly. This may be our best chance, our only chance.”
They began to file out, and just as he left for the stairway, Lenny felt Glasanov’s hand on his shoulder and felt his breath warm and quick in his ear. He turned, to see the man’s eyes almost aflame with urgency.
“Comrade Bolodin, for God’s sake, don’t fail.”
Lenny grinned and proceeded to walk on his way.
He came out of the stairway onto the sidewalk, waited for a break in the traffic, then darted across to the broad
center strip of the Ramblas. Keeping his face low, he pushed his way through the throngs, past somebody selling birds and somebody selling flowers and somebody selling militia hats, sliding through soldiers and revolutionary women and young intellectuals, and approached the old lady’s chicken stall on the oblique, maintaining it between himself and Igenko.
He ducked into it.
“Eh, señor?” The old lady looked at him. “What is—?”
“Beat it,” Lenny Mink said. “Take a hike.”
“Ahhh. Who—”
“Here, take this, old one,” said Ugarte, Lenny’s best boy, who had discreetly slid in behind Lenny. He handed the woman a hundred-peseta note. He told her to have a nice cool drink at a café for a while.
“You take the counter,” said Lenny, and Ugarte moved past him, throwing on an apron lying on the table. Lenny drew back, into the shadows. He could see the fat man in the white suit real good. The distance was about thirty feet The fat man had a briefcase in his left hand.
Come on, old devil, he told himself, looking around nervously. Come
on
.
Just inside the main police station courtyard, Levitsky encountered two Asaltos with German machine pistols who demanded abruptly and impolitely to know who he was and where he thought he was going. They insisted on papers. Levitsky let them carry on for a few seconds in Spanish, full of their own toughness and importance, then halted them with a Russian curse.
“NKVD, comrade,” he said, fixing his eyes on the eyes of the bigger of the two, who immediately melted like a chocolate soldier in the sun.
“Comrade
Russki?”
“Da. Sí,”
said Levitsky.
“De Madrid, no?
Comrade Glasanov?”
“Russkis?”
“Sí, Russkis
. Glasanov, NKVD?”
“Ah,
sí, sí. Primo Russki.”
“Da,”
said Levitsky in a dead voice.
The man pointed up the building to the fourth floor. He showed four fingers.
“Gracias
, comrade,” said Levitsky. He turned, went into the building through a set of double doors under one of the porticos, found some stairs, and walked swiftly up them. He passed several policemen, but nobody challenged him.
At the fourth floor, he turned down the dank hall until at last he found a huge poster of Stalin and a desk. The air was thick, where men had been smoking, but now only a single woman sat at her desk, and near her a hulking Spanish youth lounged proudly with his machine pistol, an American Thompson.
He walked to the woman, whose eyes rose as he approached.
“Comrade,” he announced in a clear, commanding, humorless voice, “I’m Maximov. From Madrid. You have my wire. Where is Comrade Commissar Glasanov? Let’s get going. I’ve had a long and dusty drive. I have come to take possession of the criminal Levitsky.”
He watched a great range of emotions play across her face in what seemed to be a very short time. Finding at last her breath and her way out of her shock to some kind of coherence, she leaped up and shouted, “Comrade! It’s a pleasure to meet you and—”
“Comrade, I asked a question. I did not come by for meaningless chitchat of a social nature. Where the bloody devil is Glasanov? Didn’t he receive the wire?”
“No, comrade,” she stammered. “We received no wire. Comrade Commissar Glasanov is off to arrest—” And she halted, terrified.
“Arrest whom?”
The woman could not begin to tell Levitsky that Levitsky had escaped.
“No, it’s—”
“It doesn’t matter. Please arrange to have me taken to Levitsky at once. I have explicit orders.”
“I-I-I-”
“Can it be, comrade, that Levitsky is gone? Has Levitsky escaped from Glasanov? Comrade, tell me.”
The girl was almost white with terror.
“I have my sources,” said Levitsky coldly, staring furiously at her. “I can tell you, comrade, that Madrid—and Moscow—don’t appreciate being made to look silly by an old man. It sounds like wrecking, deviation, and oppositionism.”
“I can assure you, Comrade Maximov—”
“What is your name, comrade?”
“I am Comrade Levin, comrade.”
“Comrade Levin, it is most urgent that I speak with Comrade Commissar Glasanov on this matter of Levitsky. This is not a playful request, I assure you, comrade. I have a report to file. I am under extreme pressure from Moscow myself. I would hate to have to tell the committee secretary that in Barcelona our representatives are sluggish and inefficient, given to Spanish ways. It almost makes me think—”
“Comrade, accept my apologies, please. You must understand how hard we work here, how difficult the problems are.”
“And let me tell you, comrade, that in other areas of Spain our policies are pursued with much greater Party
discipline and control. Our detention houses are everywhere. There are no Trotskyite columns, no open denunciations of the general secretary, no Anarchist oganizations patrolling the streets, no opposition newspapers. Moscow has noticed the comic opera here in Barcelona. We have our sources. We are not surprised.”
“But comrade, the problems are so different here. Only here, in the early days—”
“The problems are no different, but perhaps the quality of the personnel is different.”
“Comrade, I can assure you the arrest is imminent. Even now, the commissar is—”
“This would seem his only arrest.”
“Oh, no. No, comrade, begging your pardon. No, we have been very diligent. Our commissar works like the very devil himself. Night after night. Look, Comrade Maximov, I’ll show you. Come, please.”
She took a key from her desk and led him back into Glasanov’s inner office.
“I’ll prove it to you,” she said. “I’ll show you the records.”
Lenny Mink watched the fat man shift the briefcase back and forth. He kept asking people for the time. He was a mess. Lenny could almost smell the fear. It was five past.
Come on,
Teuful
. You’re dead in Spain without papers. Without papers, the Asaltos shoot you. Come on, old devil, come to me. This is your only hope. Now, when it’s crowded, when the soldiers move down the street, when you think it’s safest.
There was a sudden pop in the air.
Lenny, startled, looked about. Pop, pop, pop. His eyes shot back to the fat Igenko, who stood on the verge of
panic amid the suddenly frozen crowd, peculiarly reddish, as if—
Flares. The twilight sky had filled with red flares, like small pink suns that hung, floating, against the dusk. Music rose tumultuously in the weird spectacle; it was the Internationale.
“Boss—” It was Ugarte.
“Shut up,” Lenny said, shooting his eyes back to the frightened Igenko, afraid he’d fled. No, he was still there.
Soldiers. One of the militias must have been heading out to the front. Igenko stood in the pink night as the soldiers swept along the Ramblas, on either side of him, and the crowd surged toward them to line the way, and Igenko, against his will, was caught in the human tide.
“Fuck it,” said Lenny, just as Igenko was hurled out of sight in the masses. Trust the devil Levitsky to pull something like this.
He vaulted the counter smoothly and his long, powerful strides took him through the running people. He bowled a man over, shoved others aside, knocked a woman down.
Someone grabbed him.
“Hey, comrade—”
“SIM,” he barked. The grabber fell back instantly. Lenny pulled the automatic from his mono and pushed on. He hated the idea of failure. Rage filled him. Where was the fat man?
There, yes. He’d had a glimpse, through the troops and beyond the crowd on the sidewalk on the other side. He was right at the Arco de Teatro, about to disappear through the arch and vanish in the winding, messy old streets of the Barrio Chino, which the Anarchists controlled.
Lenny dashed across the way, pushing through the mob of soldiers.
He could hear them yelling sporting things at him.
“Hey, come to war with us, comrade, if you’re so eager.”
“Come and kill the Fascists with us, brother.”
“He can’t wait. Come on, the POUM needs fighters like you.”
But Lenny pushed through their ranks and on to the other side, ducked through the Arco himself, and ran down the narrow street. The buildings loomed over him: the road seemed to split and split again into a maze, but a maze jammed with human riffraff. He halted, breathing hard. There was no illumination, though up ahead, here and there, red lights shone on the sides of the buildings.
But then he saw him. Just a glimpse of heft and mince, darting ahead in utter fright. Lenny didn’t stop to consider the fragility of the connection: he had looked down the right street at the right moment.