He sipped at his cider, then pointed to his left ear. "My hearing isn't what it used to be, and I'm not sure I got all of it clear. She said it had something to do with the death of that nice FBI fellow who came to visit me."
"Michael Burana. He was a friend of mine."
Harry Peal shook his head. "I didn't know about it until Mary told me. Drowned in the river, I think she said. That's a real tragedy. Like I said, I thought he was a real nice fellow. The FBI could use more nice fellows like him."
"Harry," I said carefully, watching his seamed face, "did Mary tell you that I think Michael was murdered?"
He had raised a cheese-topped hunk of bread halfway to his mouth; now he put the bread down on the plate, looked at me with pale blue eyes that reflected shock and what I was certain was fear. He had gone pale. "Murdered?"
"Yes. I'm certain somebody killed him."
"Oh, boy," he said, passing a hand that had begun to tremble across his forehead. He took the wooden flute from his pocket and began to absently roll it back and forth between his fingers. "Boy, oh boy."
I'd definitely struck a deep and responsive chord in Harry Peal, but I wasn't at all sure just what that chord was. To hear that a man he'd met and liked had been murdered had to be shocking, to a degree, but I read the man's reaction as considerably more than that. Still trembling, he abruptly rose, walked around the table, and stood at the screen, looking down at the river. He raised the flute to his lips, began to play. The tune was melancholy and haunting, and I recognized it from one of his many albums as a Russian folk song. The sense of fear radiating from the other man was even stronger now. Harry Peal was not a man easily frightened, and it suddenly struck me that he could be afraid for someone, or something, other than himself.
"Harry?"
The old man finished the tune, put the flute back into his shirt pocket, and turned to face me. He still looked deeply shaken. "I'm sorry, Mongo," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to be rude. What you said kind of shook me up; when I get shook up, I just naturally take a dose of music to calm me down."
"What is it, Harry? What's the matter?"
He shook his head. "Mongo, I. . You're sure this FBI fellow was murdered?"
"In my own mind, yes. I have no doubt."
"And you think this. . killing. . could have something to do with me?"
That was it, I thought. What Harry Peal feared was the possibility that he might be responsible for another man's death. "It might have something to do with something you said to him when he came to visit you, Harry. I'm not sure." I paused as he again took his flute from his pocket and began to play, then continued, raising my voice slightly so as to be heard above the soft, lilting, breathy notes issuing from the instrument. "Michael Burana was killed sometime in the evening of the day he came to visit you, Harry, which was a week ago today. Mary told me he seemed very distracted when he came back from seeing you. She said he'd used the word unbelievable in describing the conversation he'd had with you, but he never told her what that conversation was about. I know it's none of my business, but I'd like you to tell me just what it was you talked about. It may have nothing at all to do with Michael's murder, but I'd like to hear about it so that I can try to judge."
Harry Peal returned to the table, slumped in his chair, placed the flute on the table next to his plate, and absently rolled it back and forth beneath his palm. "That FBI fellow and I had ourselves quite a chat," he said after a time, in a soft voice. "Back in the sixties, he used to spend a lot of time following me around, listening to my phone conversations, and opening my mail."
"I know," I replied evenly. I felt a rising impatience, but knew that I had to let the folksinger and peace activist tell his story in his own way, in his own time.
"He told me he was sick and tired of that kind of work- spying on people just because they don't like government policy, and say so. He told me he thought the FBI was wasting a lot of time, money, and manpower doing that sort of thing and that he'd prefer they just chase after crooks, spies, terrorists, and neo-Nazis. He also didn't care much for the Bureau's personnel policies, and he even suggested that sometimes it almost seemed like some people at the Bureau were intentionally hiring racists, doing things to lower morale and spread their forces thin."
"Michael had grown a little bitter, Harry. Why on earth would anyone at the FBI do that? Did you ask him?"
The old man shrugged. "He couldn't think of a reason; he was just ted up. The last straw was when he was assigned to spy on Mary's people down there in Cairn. He said it was just another waste of time and that he was tired of throwing away the taxpayers' money. He felt humiliated, and he said he was quitting the FBI. He didn't sound like much of a pacifist to me, but he said he wanted to go to work for the Community of Conciliation. It was the damnedest thing, Mongo. I found myself in the position of saying some kind words about the FBI, arguing that just because they sometimes picked the wrong targets didn't mean that they weren't needed. It was pretty strange. By this time we'd both had a pretty good ration of that cider, and here was Harry Peal, not exactly the darling of federal agencies, defending the FBI, while this FBI agent was telling me in no uncertain terms that the Bureau was nothing but a fascist outfit. I reminded him that I had been a communist, and so I knew what I was talking about when I said that the Russians, at least at the time when I was a party member, fully expected to set up a world government that they would control, and they hadn't much cared what means they used to create it. I never wanted to blow anything up, but at that time I was meeting a lot of fellow party members who did. Anyway, I'd had something on my mind for a time, and. . I'm thinking now that I should have kept it to myself."
"Harry," I prompted gently, "what did you say to Michael that he might later have described as 'unbelievable'?"
The old man shook his head, picked up the bread and cheese he had set aside, and began nibbling at it as he stared off into space. I waited, and finally my patience was rewarded. He finished the food, took a long swallow of the cider, and then began speaking in a low voice.
"Back in the thirties, when I was still in the party, the Russians sent over a cadre officer, a woman, to help us reorganize our New York cell. Supposedly she was to help us to become more effective in recruiting, but she was really there to make sure we understood the Russian Communist party line and toed it. She was a propaganda and indoctrination specialist, and her job was to constantly remind us that we were communists first and foremost, and Americans second. Her name was Olga Koussevitsky." He paused, looked at me, and smiled tightly. "She may have been an ideologue, Mongo, and she was most certainly KGB, but she was a beautiful ideologue. Spoke perfect English, and she was one tough cookie. She and I ended up spending a lot of time together, probably because she felt I was in particular need of ideological guidance; I was always questioning the need for the Russians to be in charge of everything. I'd tell her I was an American communist, and then she'd take me for long walks so she could tell me how misguided and deviant I was. Anyway, damned if we didn't fall in love. We even moved into an apartment together. She got pregnant, and I asked her to marry me. She agreed, on the condition that the party give her permission. They didn't; her Russian bosses told her that she was too important to the movement to marry anyone and that they'd received reports that I was a suspect communist to boot. She was ordered to return to Russia, and she obeyed. She was eight months pregnant when she left. I never saw or heard from her again."
When he paused again and looked away, I reached out and touched his arm. "Harry, I'm sorry."