A matter of time

1975

The government man resembled those always seen in the company of presidents. Not the politicos but the hired guns, the bodyguards. Hard. Late thirties to early forties. Conservative suit and haircut. A Teutonic solidity of build, like the man on the SS recruiting poster. A face that might shatter if forced to smile. He had a string of degrees, certainly, and as certainly was more intelligent than ninety percent of the population.

But there was a cold about him, a permafrost beneath a surface that thawed only to order.

How come they never pick wimps? Norm wondered. You can spot these guys a mile away. They have that hard, Germanic look even when they're as black as this clown.

The visitor's character, however, didn't match Cash's pre-judgments.

"Lieutenant Railsback?" he asked uncertainly.

"Here." Hank raised a hand.

"Hi. Name's Tom Malone. Central Intelligence Agency." He extended his hand.

Railsback said, "Huh?" as he shook.

Interestinger and interestinger, Cash thought, changing his attitude. Must be an upfront guy. Pretending a need for another cheeseburger, he moved out to Beth's desk.

"FBI says a man we're interested in, the one called Smiley, is on the move."

Hank didn't seem quite able to get a handle on what was happening.

"Maybe you could fill us in a little?" Cash suggested, glancing at the letter the man offered as identification. Did it mean anything? Agency people wouldn't carry membership cards.

But why on earth would anyone come here pretending to be one? "Like why you're interested?"

"There's been a tag on his file for twenty-five years. Suspicious alien. When you requested the records search, their computer whistled. The word drifted over to Langley that he was up to something. The timing was interesting, so my boss sent me out."

"We want him for arson and murder," Railsback said." "That's not spy business."

"Could be. I'm here to find out. If I can."

"How come you?" Cash asked. "I mean, with all the stink about you people sticking your noses into the public's business…"

Malone shrugged. "I don't make policy. I'm just a gofer. I go where they send me."

"Henry," Old Man Railsback observed, "this looks like the time to play one hand washes the other." To Malone, "We may be able to help each other.”

Cash agreed. "Tell us about Smiley."

Malone examined each of them closely. Checking for Russians? "We've got a fat file. Mostly speculation. It goes way back.

"See, he did some work for us in Austria right after the war. It didn't turn out. There's a chance he sold us out to the Russians. We do know he did some work for them too.

"Anyway, when somebody found out he was over here as Smiley, they started a file. It's grown. It's interesting, too. Especially if everything's true."

Cash looked expectant. Then Railsback stirred, anticipating.

"Mostly it's odds and ends skimmed off the edges of other investigations. For instance, something somebody may have come across while we were backgrounding people in our nets in Eastern Europe. I can't show you the file, but I'll hit the high points.

"We're pretty sure he was born Michael Hodzв, a miner's son, at Lidice, in Czechoslovakia, in the late eighteen eighties. We got that from a Viennese who roomed with him before World War One, and who worked for us during the occupation."

"That makes him awful old to play James Bond," Rails-back grumbled.

"We've got older Czechs, Hank," Cash reminded.

"He does seem to age well. Around nineteen ten he turned up in Vienna. The man who knew him said he lied his way into medical school. In nineteen twelve he got defrocked, or whatever they do to med students, for performing an abortion."

"Aha!" Hank exploded. "What'd I tell you, Norm?"

"For a while he bummed around with Hitler. No, really. And during World War One he seems to have deserted from both the German and Austrian armies, and may have been involved in the Czech nationalist movement. There is also a hint of a connection with the Czech Legion, which kicked up dust in Russia during their civil war. Then he turned up as a doctor in Prague. A good one, too. This Dr. Hodzв is pretty well documented. If he's the same man. Anyway, he was so respectable he was one of the team doctors with the Czech contingent to the Berlin Olympics.

"When Germany invaded, though, he reverted." Malone sketched a tale of a man playing both sides.

"And when the Russians came, he worked for them. And us.

"The reason we're interested is he might still be on the Reds' payroll. Even though the Czechs have him on their wanted list."

"How'd you get all that?" Cash wondered aloud. "I mean, I couldn't even find out where he came from. And I knew him personally for twenty years."

"We have our ways," Malone replied. "Easy. Just playing my role there. Some we got on our own, some from the British, some from German records, some from the Czechs back when they wanted us to hand him over. Sometimes we were lucky. Like finding the man who knew him and Hitler in the old days, and getting hold of the diary of the priest who taught him when he was a kid. We've had a lot of years, and some good computers, to work on it, too."

"And money," Cash added softly.

"True," Malone replied.

"But why come looking for him now?" Cash asked.

"It's not the crime. We're not interested in that per se. It's the timing. There's something going on in Czechoslovakia. The Dubcek wing and the Chinese are up to something. We think it might involve us. So we're watching all our suspicious Czech immigrants."

"Who'd have thought it?" Cash mused. "Old Doc Smiley. Hard to believe."

"Not if you read his file. He was a bad dude. A lifetaker. Left a lot of bones behind him. The one thing we can't figure is why. But motivations of agents are always hard to pin down."

"Been a model citizen here. Till now. Then he suddenly torches his house, with the basement filled with bodies and a million bucks worth of fancy hardware nobody can figure out."

"Hardware?"

"Yeah. Looks like it was mostly medical stuff."

"Strange. Excuse me a minute." Malone rummaged through his briefcase, blocking Cash's view with his body. But Norm caught glimpses of piles of hastily typed papers. "Ah. I though so."

"What? "Hank asked.

"Just wanted to check one of the German reports. One of the houses in that town they destroyed had a basement full of hardware. They couldn't figure it out, so they just blew it up and bulldozed it with the rest."

"Smiley was up to the same thing then?"

"No. He lived in Prague before he ran to England. The house belonged to the local electrician."

"Let me guess," said Cash, smitten by inspiration. "It was a man named Fian Groloch."

"Ah, Norm…" Railsback started.

Malone looked bewildered. "How did you…?"

"How's that for a connection, Hank? The old witch has been hiding out from somebody."

"The guy was born twenty-some years after she left. You got to be shitting me. I don't buy it." But he spoke without conviction.

"Can somebody explain?" Malone pleaded.

Everyone chattered at him.

Once he had let it sink in, Malone mused, "My boss will really want to lay hands on the man now. But he'll probably give us the slip. He's good at changing identities. And he's had a long time to get ready."

"Pop," said Hank, "get over to the old lady's place. See if you can speed things up."

Cash said, "I know where he went."

"Where?"

"Same place as Miss Groloch. Her brother's place. He followed her. To get them both at the same time."

"Don't start that shit again!"

"Don't you start. I'm up to here…"

Beth gripped his arm. Cash forced himself to calm down. "Who's the resident Groloch expert? Maybe I haven't done so good, but you have to admit I know more than anybody else. And I was the only one who realized it was important back when you wanted to push it off on somebody else."

"He's got a point, Henry," Old Man Railsback said from the door.

"At the top of his head."

"Where do you think he went?" Malone asked. "I didn't catch your name, by the way. Nor yours,” he told Beth. He turned, but was too late to catch Old Man Railsback.

"Norman Cash. A sergeant in this chicken outfit. That's Beth Tavares. She's a detective too, only she mostly gets shafted into being a secretary."

"Norm's got the fastest mouth and gun west of the Mississippi," Hank snapped.

"You're the jerk who makes me lug a piece…"

The strain had begun to tell.

"Norm, please!" Beth gripped his arms again, wearing an expression so pained and pathetic that he could not help but desist.

He glanced at his watch. Still a half hour before he could collect Teri. He wasn't sure he could handle Railsback that long.

"Sorry, Norm," Hank told him. "You're right. It's as much my fault as yours. I should have listened when I talked, especially… just bear with me, okay? Going to be a job getting out of this one."

Cash was flabbergasted. A Railsback apology? They were as common as hen's teeth.

Beth poked him.

He gabbled something. Enough to satisfy Hank and Beth. He turned to Malone. "I think Smiley went after a woman I've been investigating-a Fiala Groloch. The daughter of the man who lived in that house in Czechoslovakia. She has a brother in upstate New York. She doesn't know we know that. That's where they'll both end up. In my opinion."

Railsback opened a Styrofoam cup of coffee that had cooled to lukewarm, began pacing. "What did you want from us, Mr. Malone?"

"I think I have most of it. At least an idea of why he's moving. I'd like copies of the pertinent reports, and a chance to talk to a few people. Also, a look at what's left of the man's house. And I'll want that New York address if you have it."

Cash felt a stubborn streak coming on. "That's my baby. I'm going up there personally." He expected smoke to roll from Hank's ears.

Railsback spent a few seconds staring out the window. Reasonably, he asked, "You think you'd be any safer going after her there?"

Norm hadn't considered the risks. "Tran's going with me," he blustered.

"That's good. I hear he can take care of himself. But maybe you need reminding. She took out four of Egan's thugs."

"Two at a time. And they weren't ready for her."

"Dammit, Norm, I don't want to lose you too."

Beth interrupted with an explanation for Malone's benefit.

Cash checked his watch. Still a little early… no. Downtown traffic would hold him up. "I've got to leave. Got to break the news to a couple of ladies."

Beth overtook him at the car. "I almost left my purse."

He hadn't invited her. Didn't really want her along. And Teri wouldn't like it. But he couldn't find the nerve to say no.

"She won't like you being there."

"She'll change her mind."

Lord, the girl's getting assertive, he thought.

The surprises were piling up.

Teri certainly wasn't pleased.

"Who's she?" she demanded, as Beth got out and moved to the back seat. "You said-"

"Beth Tavares. She's a cop too. And don't worry. She'll keep her mouth shut. Not that it really matters anymore."

Teri glanced at Beth, who smiled reassuringly, then at Norm. Then she slid in, slammed the door. "I hope you're still a right guy."

"Sure. You're looking good. Like a little white-haired bunny."

"What?… Oh." Teri studied him. Then blushed. "Okay. You can keep your mouth shut. Daddy-Waddy. God! Don't that sound dumb now?" More embarrassed, "That isn't what you want to talk about is it?"

"Oh, no." Now Cash was embarrassed. "Though sometimes I'm sorry… I don't know how to tell you. I guess just straight out." He concentrated on his driving for fifteen seconds. He hated rush hours. "Teri, we think John's been killed."

She stiffened, turned to Beth, saw it wasn't some cruel joke. Her features hardened. She stared straight ahead. "What happened?" Her voice had become very soft, very flat.

When he finished, she reached over and took his hand. "I'm sorry."

"Huh? For what?"

"First Michael. Now John."

For a moment he couldn't see through the tears, couldn't breathe through the tightness in his throat.

Teri cried while Beth made soothing sounds and provided Kleenex.

"Norm," Teri said a few blocks later, still in that voice from which the brass had vanished, "can I come to your house for a while? Just for an hour or two, while I get ahold of myself? I won't be any bother."

A covey of panicky excuses fluttered across his mind. But he understood. And compassion was more important than appearances right now.

"Sure. Annie will understand. What about your kids?"

"They're at my aunt's. She's used to me showing up late. And I won't stay long. I promise…"

"Don't worry. You've always been welcome."

He hoped she would be now. Annie had been getting blue-nosed the past few years.

There was a Rexall drugstore coming up across the street. He and the pharmacist had known one another for years. "Just remembered something I was supposed to pick up." He parked, ran over, borrowed the phone.

Annie was less difficult than he had anticipated.

She was a good woman, his wife.

Forewarned, she would make Teri feel at home, would soften her grief. Teri had cried on her shoulder before.

He bought some Listerine as his excuse for going in. Probably won't fool the girls, he thought.

Once they were on their way to Harald's house, Beth asked, "Why did she want to go to your place?"

"Once upon a time, so long ago that it seems like it was during somebody else's life, she was one of our extra kids. Like John. I don't know what it is. We always attract the strays.

Cats and people. We've got kittens under the back porch right now, and refugees upstairs… Anyway, Teri and John and Michael's first affair. They almost stopped being friends… It's funny when I look back at it."

"I didn't realize you'd known her before."

"Her father hit the road when she was eleven. After raping her. And her mother never gave a damn. She got to be a pretty tough kid. I guess she liked us because we were about the only people who treated her decent."

"Sad. She's such a pretty woman."

"You should have seen her then. When she cleaned herself up. Before she looked so hard."

"What was that bunny stuff?"

"The white-haired bunny?" Cash blushed.

"My God. I can't remember you being embarrassed." She giggled. "Daddy-Waddy."

Cash laughed, but strictly from nervousness. "I don't guess it matters now. Long as you keep it to yourself. She used to bleach her hair. White."

"And it looked like hell. I tried that once too. It didn't make me a different person."

"Anyway, we were talking one day, about her plans, and I asked her what she thought about modeling. Or being a Playboy Bunny, after she graduated…" Another little hiccough laugh ripped itself free.

"She had the looks… She was pretty loose then. We were at the house alone. Annie had taken Michael, Matthew, and John to their Saturday afternoon hockey practice…"

"And she tried to seduce you?"

"Liked to drive me crazy, being my 'white-haired bunny.' You'd have to be a man to understand. There's something about a girl that age… innocence? Maybe it's just instinct. Get them started breeding."

Beth snorted derisively.

"What do you do? The girl says she's willing. She throws herself into your lap. She starts playing kissy-face huggy-bear with you. Blows in your ear. Puts your hand…"

He felt eggs could be fried on his cheeks.

"But you didn't give in." Merriment flickered round the edges of her words. "You're so noble, Sir Norman."

"No. I didn't. And I was always sorry. That was an archetypal middle-age fantasy come true. And I chickened out. God, I wanted her…

"We were closer afterward. Like she could respect and trust me because I told her no. Probably the only guy who ever did. She never pulled that again, but she made it clear I could collect any time."

"I should meet a guy like that."

Cash ignored that wistful remark. "Then Michael and John went away to school. After a while they stopped coming home weekends. And Teri got pregnant. She married the guy and we didn't see her anymore."

"John did."

"Yeah. I don't know much about it. It hasn't been going on long."

"Didn't he brag? I thought men always kissed and told."

"Some do, I guess. But I don't know any. Guys I know don't talk about a woman till a relationship is over. Well, that's high school stuff anyway."

John's place seemed strange. There was an air of gloom about it, as if the structure knew, as if its heart had been ripped out. Nancy's decrepit Datsun stood behind Carrie's Satellite.

"This could get to be pure soap. Michael's wife is here."

Carrie had red, hollow eyes and wore an air of total despair when she answered the bell.

She stepped aside without speaking, apparently able to respond with nothing but a stare.

"Who is it?" Nancy called from the rear of the house. "News?" Her voice betrayed false optimism.

"It's Norm. And…" Carrie struggled for the name.

"Beth Tavares," Beth told her.

Nancy came from the kitchen. She was pale, tense, had a tall drink in hand. Cash glanced around. There had been a lot of drinking and very little housekeeping here since John's disappearance. "Dad?…"

"It's news all right." Carrie sniffled. "Bad news."

Where are the kids? Cash wondered. Farmed out to a grandmother? "You'd both better sit down."

"I told you!"

Beth moved nearer Carrie. The woman was on the verge of hysteria.

"Shit!" Cash swore. The grief was creeping up on him too.

Nancy made Carrie gulp half her drink, forcing her head back till she choked. "Calm down, Carrie. We expected bad news, didn't we? Dad, get it over with. Did he really go this time?"

"Go? This time?"

"He's threatened to before. He even started out one time."

"Not this time. I wish that's all it was."

Nancy sat down on Carrie's feet. In an instant she had become as haggard as her cousin.

"We think he's been killed." Christ, wasn't there a gentler way?

"Oh my God!" Carrie moaned. And visibly pulled herself together, becoming more sober, more alert, more intense.

"How, Dad? What happened?"

"We're not sure…"

Beth interrupted. "Norm, let me. You've torn yourself up enough. Make yourself a drink."

"There's Coke in the fridge," Carrie told him. "I think there's still some Bacardi Dark in the liquor cabinet." She had changed radically. Already she was straightening everything within reach.

How long before she breaks? Cash asked himself. As soon as she runs out of laundry, dirty dishes and dusting?

It wasn't a response that could be maintained indefinitely. He knew. He had tried it.

He mixed a weak, water glass full and downed it. Belching, he mixed another, stronger drink. The wall phone began ringing. It went on and on. Should he answer it just to get it to stop?

It did so as he sipped and stared through the kitchen window into the backyard. The swing John had bought his kids last spring creaked in the breeze, abandoned. Grass grew where little feet should have dragged the earth bare. The children just hadn't been interested. To the swing's left stood the brick barbecue pit he had helped John build two years ago. He smiled weakly, remembering how often they had screwed up.

Yes. John might as well have been his son.

"Norm!"

Beth sounded hysterical.

He ran, expecting to find Carrie dying of self-inflicted wounds.

Beth shoved a phone at him. She stared at the thing as if it had turned into a snake.

"Cash. What is it?"

He listened for fifteen seconds, then slammed the receiver down, grabbed his coat. Beth barely kept up as he ran to the car.

It was the first time he had had occasion to use the siren. He flipped the switch, expecting nothing. But the banshee voice began moaning its death song.

They had begun digging for the bodies by the time he reached the Groloch house. Marylin Railsback had gotten there somehow, and was seated on a rubble-strewn lawn one door east, holding her husband. Hank was crying. Marylin couldn't get him to stop.

The explosion had shattered windows for blocks around. The facing walls of the nearest flats bore pocks and scars. One door west, firemen and neighborhood volunteers were shoring a wall that threatened to fall.

The Groloch house had been powdered.

Cash looked for someone calm enough to explain.

"What happened, Smitty?"

"Huh? Oh. Hi. I wasn't here. Ran over from the other place. From what I can make out, they broke through a false wall in the basement and found some kind of electronic rig. Nobody could figure it out. Old Man Railsback decided to fire it up to see what it did."

"Booby-trapped?"

"Looks like. Smell the dynamite?"

"Yeah. Poor Hank. He's taking it hard."

"Poor lots of people. There were eight men down there."

Tucholski and Malone had their heads together a short way away. The agent kept his briefcase clamped between his ankles while he studied a half-dozen sheets of green paper. Tucholski had a handful of photographs.

Cash went over. "What's happening?"

Tucholski expelled a blue cloud. "One of the evidence technicians took these. Polaroid."

Cash studied photos of something from Tom Swift. Bloody fingerprints smeared most.

"He was lucky. Got out with a broken back." Murder burned in Tucholski's eyes.

"What is it?"

Tucholski shrugged. "Maybe the time machine you were looking for."

Cash turned to Malone.

"Don't look at me. I don't know either. But it's something like the thing the Germans found at Lidice."

"Just a bunch of wires and old-time tubes. Look at the size of some of those babies. But she booby-trapped it. With enough dynamite to do this." Cash's sentences were as much puzzled questions as statements.

Tucholski muttered something about the basement being walled off for ages, and what would have happened if the explosive hadn't been old?

"I've got a whole different case from last March," Norm continued. "And I just get more confused. There's got to be some sense in it somewhere. Mr. Malone?"

"Don't look at me. I'm no conjure man."

"Resource-wise you are."

"Maybe. I called my boss. He's going to research everybody connected with this."

Tucholski growled, "Bet you five he don't come up with nothing." "No bet."

Cash considered the ruin. "We won't get a thing out of that now. Whoever these people are, they sure do make a habit of burning their bridges before anyone else can cross them."

Streetlights flickered to life.

"Getting dark already," Cash observed.

"The days are getting shorter."

"I just meant that it's been a long day."

He was emotionally and physically exhausted. Nevertheless, he helped a uniformed officer hustle the overaggressive Channel Four news crew back to their own side of the barricades. He couldn't muster a smile when the reporter tried questioning him.

The pop of flashbulbs irritated his eyes and wakened his temper. Why the hell wouldn't they go home?

He spied Annie, Teri, and Tran's wife and sons, waved. Annie and Teri appeared to be getting along.

Back to the Groloch house. The workers had opened a passage into the basement.

They brought Old Man Railsback up first. His clothing had been shredded. His hair was gone. He had lost a hand. His skin was one solid bruise beneath a crust of blood.

The buzzing of the flies stopped only after they zipped the old man into the plastic bag.

Cash giggled half-hysterically at an image of the rescue workers setting him in the alley for the next trash pickup.

That's all we are anyway, he thought. Animated garbage…

Hank and Marylin followed the body into the ambulance.

This is the longest they have been together, without fighting, since they got married, Cash thought. It's a pity that it takes something like this to make them lay down their arms.

He soon wished that Hank hadn't gone. The lieutenant's departure left him responsible, at least for Homicide's interests.

Christ! All he wanted was to go home and crash.

Subsequent hours formed a surreal parade. They left just one memorable impression, near the end. That was the lift he got when somebody below shouted, "Stand by! This one is still breathing." The medical people moved in with their bottles of blood and glucose.

Tran had returned from work by then, and was on hand to walk him home. Neither man spoke. For Cash it was enough to have somebody beside him during that weary march.

He found he had company, Beth was asleep on the couch. Carrie and Nancy were asleep on the parlor carpet, surrounded by their children. Annie snored in a chair. His son Matthew and Le Quyen were talking quietly in the kitchen.

"Matthew! Where'd you come from?"

"Stork brought me, Pop. No. Mom called. I thought I'd better come down."

"Thank you, Le Quyen." Cash accepted a mug of spiced tea. After serving her husband, Le Quyen began fussing over the stove, warming some leftover macaroni and cheese. Norm dropped into the chair she had vacated. "God, what a day."

"You all right?" Matthew asked. "You don't look too good."

"Nothing a week's sleep wouldn't cure. I'm just burned out. Totaled. Don't expect me to make any sense till tomorrow."

XXVI. On the Z Axis;